YORK'S tourism industry will be given another boost next week when the city is featured on prime-time television.

Mary Nightingale hosts the half-hour show BBC1 Holidays Out which will be broadcast on Tuesday at 7pm.

This weekend she will be filming from many locations around York, including the Minster, Lendal Bridge, the Museum Gardens, the Treasurer's House, Shambles and Stonegate.

First Stop York public relations manager Paul Thornber is delighted with the prospect of more country-wide exposure for York."It's fantastic news for us," he said.

"York is the natural choice for a programme like this. It will be on prime-time television and will show York at its best."

He was keen to point out, however, that the show would present "only a sample of many things" available to see and do in the city.Despite the interest in York, a summer washout has left British tourism struggling but travel agents laughing, as sales of foreign holidays disappear rapidly through the roof.

Tour operators are putting up prices in response to the continuing bad weather which is forcing people abroad in a desperate search for some sun, and this is leading to a shortage of holidays. Unless things dramatically improve, people will be forced to accept the newly-inflated prices in the scramble for the remaining foreign bookings.

If you are going on holiday, whether in this country or abroad, the Red Cross recommends the following simple steps for a safe vacation: spare two hours to attend a British Red Cross 'save a life' course to learn life-saving skills such as resuscitation, invaluable in case of accidents around water.

Take the basic first-aid kit on holiday with you, seek advice from your chemist and remember to include plasters, headache and diarrhoea pills, and sunblock. Be wise around water: don't sail without the right safety gear such as lifejacket and flares. Always obey local safety instructions. Inform others where you intend going and what time you may be expected to return.

Meanwhile, the charity ActionAid is calling on children from North Yorkshire aged five to 12 years old to take part in a national reading competition to encourage reading books set in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The ActionAid Summer Holiday Challenge wants children to write a short review of a book set in a developing country and send it to the charity before the deadline of Friday September 4. The best reviews will be published on ActionAid's web site and the top five will each win a £10 book token.

Children should send their reviews to ActionAid Education, Chataway House, Leach Road, Chard, Somerset, TA20 1FR. A guide to books set in Africa, Asia and Latin America called Hadithi Nzuri is available from ActionAid education priced £6. Tel. 01460 62972.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.