A specially chartered Austrian Airlines aircraft touched down at Exeter Airport just after 1pm today (22/09/10) with 183 passengers from Vienna. The passengers are spending a week in the South West visiting the sites and landmarks made famous by the books of Rosamund Pilcher.
The flight was the first of three, in the second season of Raiffeisen Reisen trips organised by AC tours for Austrian tourists wishing to see the parts of Devon and Cornwall which have been featured in the adapted romances shown regularly on television. Four coaches collected the visitors from the airport and took them to their base at Jury’s Inn in Plymouth, from where a series of trips has been arranged.
Jamie Christon, managing director at Exeter Airport said: “We are very pleased to be able to play our part in this inbound tourism initiative. Rosamund Pilcher, who was born in the South West, has sold 60 million books and the television shows in Austria and Germany draw an average 6 million viewers every week, so there is a great deal of interest in this part of the world.”
