Slovenia boosts air connectivity for tourists

Slovenia's clean, green blend of scenery, activity and gourmet offerings has seen it emerge as one of the hottest European destinations for the 2026 summer.

Easily reached by road from Venice, Zagreb or Innsbruck, Slovenia is a small nation with a big offering.

During the summer season, which will run until the end of October, Ljubljana Airport is upgrading its flight offering and expanding capacity.

There will be additional frequencies on many existing routes, a wide selection of charter flights to popular holiday destinations, and two new connections.

As of now, a new regular service from low-cost carrier easyJet will be launched at Ljubljana Airport. In addition to flights to London Gatwick and Manchester, the airline will also offer flights to Edinburgh.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which operates daily flights between Ljubljana and Amsterdam, and Swiss International Air Lines, with its route to Zurich, are introducing morning departures and evening return flights.

Spanish airline Iberia will strengthen its seasonal connection between Madrid and Ljubljana, with flights starting in early June and operating twice weekly until the end of September. Low-cost carrier Vueling Airlines will continue its flights to Barcelona during the summer schedule.

airBaltic is adding an extra weekly frequency on the route to Riga, while Aegean Airlines (Athens), Turkish Airlines (Istanbul), British Airways (London Heathrow), and Wizz Air (Skopje) are also increasing frequencies.

Lufthansa will increase aircraft capacity on its routes to Frankfurt and Munich, while Finnair (Helsinki) and Transavia (Paris Orly) are returning to Ljubljana after the winter break.

Bad news is thatt flydubai has temporarily suspended flights on the Dubai–Ljubljana route, with services expected to resume after April 29.

After closing 2025 with nearly 1.6 million passengers, representing a 10.6% increase compared to the previous year, Fraport Slovenia expects Ljubljana Airport to continue its stable growth in passenger traffic.

Photo: FB Ljubljana Airport

 

Cold, dark and thrilling: Tasmania celebrates Off Season

Look let's be honest. Tasmania's winter is long, dark and cold.

Australians are hard-wired to chase the sun during the cooler months, but during the Off Season, Tourism Tasmania aims to lure visitors into the bleak darkness.

Tourism Tasmania's new Off Season campaign is now live and will ask visitors to become winter people celebrating cool, starry nights, warm log fires. whisky straight from the barrel and truffles fresh from the earth.

Throw in fluffy wildlife. And even fluffier doonas. And festivals like Dark Mofo that stir the soul.

Tasmania is about as far away from global chaos as you can get. 

Throw in arts, culture, Tasmanian food and drink and swimming in the nude (above). What more could you want? 

"Tasmania is well positioned as a safe, trusted and highly regarded destination, which is important in uncertain times," says Tourism Tamania CEO Sarah Kingston Clark.

Many events at Dark Mofo have sold out, and artistic director Chris Twite says: ‘We’re staggered by the support we've seen for this year's Dark Mofo so far.

"Seeing people so eager to lock in tickets and embrace the cold here in Tasmania is tremendous. Tickets are still available to some amazing shows, but you better be quick.’

Offers and events are now bookable for the Off Season period: May1-August 31. 

Visit https://www.discovertasmania.com.au/off-season/ or see at darkmofo.net.au

Australians have a continuing love affair with Burgundy

Australian wine lovers can’t get enough of fine Burgundies with with sales volumes up 13.3% and value up 26.1% in 2025, bringing the market close to record levels.

The Bourgogne Wine Board will continue its three-year communications campaign in Australia with the second chapter of the ‘Take a Closer Look’ campaign: inviting trade, media, and consumers to deepen their exploration of Bourgogne wines.

Building on a first series of events in Sydney in year one, Melbourne is in the spotlight for 2026 as the campaign encourages Australians to venture further off the beaten path, experience Bourgogne wines differently, and uncover the diversity that exists within and beyond the region’s most familiar names. 

Take a Closer Look is billed as an invitation to reconnect with “the shared foundations of the Bourgogne wine range: emotion, experience, terroir, know-how and authenticity”.

Through tastings, trade activations, consumer events and more, the second year of the campaign creates opportunities to engage with a new generation of committed winegrowers and their iconic wines. 

The focus is on producers that are "reshaping perceptions of Bourgogne while remaining deeply anchored in their places of origin".

Australia is Bourgogne’s 14th largest export market by volume (17th by value). 

Renewed growth is driven primarily by Crémant de Bourgogne (up more than 7% in volume and up 11% in value), alongside strong performance from white wines overall (up nearly 16% in volume and 4.3% in value). 

Chablis continues to stand out, reaching double-record levels with growth of 23.6% in volume and 22.4% in value.

At the same time, Village appellations from the Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais have doubled their export volumes (Villages from the Mâconnais was up by 110% in volume compared to 2024, and white wines from the Côte Chalonnaise up by 168%), while Mâcon wines are up 43% in volume.

“With the second year of Take a Closer Look, our ambition is to go deeper - to highlight the diversity of Bourgogne wines and show how accessible, expressive and relevant they are today," says Anne Moreau, president of the Bourgogne Wine Board's Communication Commission. 

The Take a Closer Look campaign will offer a trade tasting and  masterclass in Melbourne on June 2, a trade-only webinar training session in late July and the second edition of Chablis Week: a promotion of Chablis wines across select Merivale venues (date TBC). 

Anyone for a glass of Philippines wine?

Anyone for a glass of wine from the Philippines?

Like Indonesia, China and other unlikely Asian nations, the Philippines has a nascent industry, Minda News reports.

What began as a hobby in 2016 has grown into a promising start-up venture with a home-grown winemaker set to start selling wines made from locally grown grapes at a family-owned vineyard in Barangay Tacunan, Davao.

Jennifer Taglucop, one of the owners of the Taglucop Estate Vineyard & Winery, said the family plans to sell red and white wines to local and foreign tourists visiting their four-hectare vineyard.

She said the family aimed at world-class quality beverages that the Philippines could take pride in. Which might prove easier said than done. 

As owners of a travel agency, she and her husband, lawyer Ferdinand, often travel abroad. During their trips, they made it a point to visit vineyards in the United States, Europe, Australia, and even Thailand.

Seeing several Filipinos visiting the vineyards abroad inspired the couple to establish their own in Davao, so that Filipino travellers would no longer have to travel overseas “just to see grapes.”

The family began growing grapes in 2016 and has since experimented with different varieties to determine which ones would thrive best in Davao’s climate.

Taglucop said her family currently cultivates shiraz, moldova, cabernet sauvignon, and moscato.

Her husband learned winemaking in the US, while her eldest son studied viticulture and oenology at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

She said the wines they have produced are currently aging in barrels stored in their cellar in Tacunan, where a wine museum is being built to educate visitors on winemaking.

Indigenous winemaking traditions in the Philippines dates back to before the colonisation of the islands by the Spanish in the 16th century.

They include wines fermented from palm sap, rice, sugar cane and honey, as well as fruit wines.

Cool event to showcase cool-climate wines

Lovers of cool-climate wines might want to put Piers & Pinots into their calendar. 

 
Twelve producers from the Mornington Peninsula will be showcased at the immersive afternoon event on May 2. 

The venue will be Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron and offers the chance to meet some of the talented winemakers behind some famous labels, offering insights into how the region’s maritime influences from Western Port, Port Phillip Bay and Bass Strait define the local wines. 

There will be over 40 wines to taste, along with a charcuterie and cheese station. 

Detailed tasting notes will be provided and there will also be a live acoustic singer-songwriter performance (somewhat distracting I would have thought). 

The event will run from 2pm-5pm and tickets are $120 per person (includes GST, plus booking fee)

Participating wineries are Baillieu, Dexter, Elgee Park Wines, Foxey’s Hangout, Handpicked Wines, Kyberd Hills, Ocean Eight, Portsea Estate, Pt Leo Estate, Rahona Valley, Stonier and Yal Yal Estate.

See www.mpwine.com.au

Why tourism is booming in Spain

Spain is enjoying a tourism boom despite global uncertainty. 

Tourism officials and analysts expect an uptick in demand despite issues in the Middle East, travel industry news hub Travel Mole reports.

 
Some travellers, particularly from Europe, are reconsidering long-haul trips to the Middle East, and, by extension, to Asia. 

And as oil prices rise amid Gulf tensions, airfares - especially for long-haul routes - are expected to increase. This dynamic tends to favour short- and medium-haul destinations in Europe. 

Spain and cities like Madrid (above) and Barcelona, is set to benefit directly from this shift, particularly in key source markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. 

The country, seen as a safe, stable, and easily accessible destination, is well placed to capture redirected demand. 

Spain finished 2025 with 97 million foreign arrivals, official government data shows: up 3.5% from 2024. That made it was the second most-visited country in the world behind France.

It is targeting over 10 million visitors in 2026.