PIA promotes new Barcelona-Chicago route

Airline participates in the World Tourism Trade Fair for the first time in Madrid.

MADRID: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) joined for the first time, the World Tourism Trade Fair in Madrid, which is being attended by 166 nations. The national airline is keen on getting some action from an expected 200,000 trade and general public visitors at the five-day fair that ends on Sunday.

“We are here to promote our new route from Barcelona to Chicago,” two cities with large Pakistani communities, said the airline’s Spain director, Saleem Ullah Shahani.

“We also wanted to show that Pakistan still exists for tourism, even if the situation is complicated right now,” he added, conceding there are some “security problems”.

“Before 2009 we used to take many tourists to Pakistan to go to the mountains, which are more beautiful than in Switzerland. Now there are still tourists but very few,” Shahani said, adding that Pakistan is keen to foster the tourism business.

Next month, PIA will take executives from a leading Spanish department store chain named El Corte Ingles, according to Shahani. Also, renowned Spanish clothing chain Zara has already taken a tour, as it was majorly interested in the cheap production of shoes and clothes.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2011.