BBC World, BBC's commercially funded 24-hour international news and information channel, has launched a series of eight 60-second vignettes called Asia Pacific Guides, which features key destinations in Asia.

The vignettes, sponsored by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata), will be shown in between programmes on the channel, for the next eight weeks.

Each vignette will give viewers a brief insight into what to see and do at a certain destination. The campaign will air exclusively on the channel's Asia Pacific and Europe feeds, reaching 119 million households, a company release states.

Pata is a recoginsed authority on Asia Pacific travel and tourism, which provides leadership to the collective efforts of nearly 100 government, state and city tourism bodies, over 55 airlines and cruise lines and various travel industry companies.

BBC World has used footage sourced from the National Tourism Organisations of Australia, India, Canada, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan to create this series.

Pata will sponsor the series as a part of its Project Phoenix, a global consumer communications campaign to reinvigorate travel and tourism in the region. The industry has seen a downfall following the Sars epidemics, the terrorist attacks in Bali and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Recently, the international labour organisation had stated that about 6.5 million jobs were lost in the global travel industry in 2001-'02 and at least five million retrenchments are anticipated in the next one year, unless the consumer confidence in the industry is restored.

The release quotes Pata president and chief executive officer Peter de Jong, as saying,"The highly motivational BBC World vignettes will play an important role in rebuilding consumer and business confidence in travel to and within the region."

He said Pata's new website, www.TravelWithPATA.com gives details about travel to Asia.

BBC World's account director (North Asia) Simone Page says, "This is very exciting for us, proving yet again the power of pan-regional TV as a platform for communicating messages globally. We are happy to be a part of Pata's communication drive."