MUMBAI: After the Australian tourism board promoting its business through Balaji Telefilms' soaps likeKyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kasutii Zindagi Kay, it is BBC World's turn to focus on sponsorship in the travel and tourism sector.

According to an official release, the 24-hour news channel is planning to concentrate more on its travel and tourism segments, and already has a list of sponsors lined up. Amongst the list is Emirates, which will be promoting their global tour packages from January to March on BBC World. The channel will be airing a specially produced series of 50-second films, Keep Discovering with Emirates.

The tailored campaign is targeted to rope in the channel's international audience. It will profile a range of unusual tourist attractions within 15 popular holiday destinations including London, Sydney, Dubai, Johannesburg, Singapore and Osaka. In addition to sponsoring these short features, the airlines will also sponsor the Voyager Season every weekend on BBC World.

UBS, a global financial firm based in Switzerland, will also organise a spot campaign on BBC World to be aired during the first quarter of the year. The channel will air a sailing theme commercial to promote UBS' sponsored Team Alinghi, the Swiss syndicate challenging for the 2003 Americas Cup.

Meanwhile, the sponsors on the home front will be promoting the Kerala Tourism on the channel. The tourism board from 'God's own country' are the 2003 official sponsors of BBC World's Holiday Programme in India. The campaign is a high frequency spot currently telecast in Europe and Asia Pacific. It will soon be screened on United Airlines' news stream from BBC World, says an official release.

The Indian tourist board's Incredible India, the first globally launched advertising campaign is currently telecast on the channel in Europe, Asia and Australia throughout the first quarter of 2003.

The BBC World sponsor list also comprises KLM, which sponsors the hourly weather forecasts in Europe for the January and February.