TWENTY-five tourism officials from Syria arrived in York today to see how successful tourism has done.

The visitors, all Syrian big-hitters in tourism, are on a fact-finding mission to see what made York both the Best UK City this year and 2008 European Tourist City of the Year.

Among them is the director of tourism for Damascus, Faisal Najati; director of antiquities and museums for the Syrian Ministry of Culture, Ghazwan Yaghi; and the mayor of Palmyra, Adnan Khalas.

The trip is being organised by Michael Jay, a European Union consultant for tourism and heritage development for Syrian, together with Visit York. The party will be staying at the newly-revamped Park Inn Hotel until Sunday and will meet Ian Tempest, the external relations manager for Visit York, who will explain how the city has been so successfully marketed.

Also on the agenda is a visit to the Mansion House, where the group will be presenting a gift to the Lord Mayor, Coun Brian Watson.

All the city’s main visitor attractions will be available to them via special VIP passes, including the National Railway Museum, Jorvik, the Castle Museum and York Minster.

Kay Hyde, PR manager for Visit York, said: “York is famed for its heritage and culture and we are delighted that this important group of tourism officials has chosen to learn from us.

“This is great international recognition for our standards of excellence in tourism, given that out of all the cities in the world that they could have visited they have chosen us.”