Chinese website lists Cork in top 10 cities to visit

FIRST it was the Lonely Planet. Now Yahoo China has boosted Cork’s tourism stock even further.

Leeside has just been listed by the influential search engine, which reaches more than 1.5 billion people, as one of the world’s top 10 tourist cities to visit this year, alongside Istanbul, Kyoto, Vancouver and Singapore.

The citation was spotted by James Cuffe, a UCC PhD student working at the Irish Institute of Chinese studies in Shanghai.

He contacted officials here who, through UCC’s Confucius Institute, translated the citation.

It comments on Cork’s “youthful buzz, sophistication and mouth-watering eateries” and its arts and crafts stores, galleries, traditional coffee shops and pubs.

“Cork is famous not only for its traditional Irish culture but also for its 21st century modernity,” it reads.

This latest accolade comes hot on the heels of the Lonely Planet listing earlier this year which ranked Cork third in their league of world cities to visit in 2010.

Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Dara Murphy welcomed the latest news.

“This positioning of Cork in the Chinese market is very significant and particularly useful in light of the work undertaken to secure a Cork programme of activities in the Irish Pavilion at World EXPO 2010 in Shanghai,” he said.

The EXPO, which will open on May 1 and run for six months, will feature pavilions from about 200 countries. It expects to attract some 100 million visitors.

A Cork Shanghai project group has been working for some months on a programme that will present the business, local government, education, tourism and cultural offer in Cork, in the Irish Pavilion.

Cork’s participation in Expo 2010 is being co-ordinated by the Cork Marketing Partnership, with partners Cork Chamber, Cork City Council, University College Cork, Cork Institute of Technology and Fáilte Ireland South West.

“Cork’s inclusion in the Yahoo China listing is another significant building block in raising the profile of Ireland in China,” said Marketing Partnership chairman Michael Geary.

“It will certainly help to drive visitor numbers to the Irish Pavilion in Shanghai.”