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Contains information on changes that might affect both short and long term travel plans, plus all the latest travel news and views
Bournemouth
Beaches around Bournemouth and Poole, for example, have won four of the flags which might encourage people to visit next week when half-term is on. And surprisingly there are some days at the end of next week when the forecasted temperature will be over 20, – attractive beach weather then. Sandbanks probably deserves an award of its own as it celebrates 26 consecutive years of winning a Blue Flag. And how long has the Blue Flag award been in existence? 26 years.
It was Kent’s Thanet area that scooped most awards – eight in all. Botany Bay, Joss Bay, Westbrook, Minnis Bay, St Mildred’s Bay, West Bay in Westgate, Margate Main Sands and Stone Bay were the successful beaches. But another nine beaches in Kent have won the Seaside Awards so what is the difference between Blue Flag and Seaside Awards?
The short answer is that Blue Flag are at a higher status but Seaside Awards still mean that the beaches are free of litter and dog fouling and are rated clean. Blue Flag status means that there are more criteria that are used for judging before an award is given. The new Blue Flag criteria for this year also includes higher standards for water quality, which the EU is bringing in from 2015. Blue Flag adopted this same standard earlier than the EU and that is why some beaches missed out on what they might have been normally expected to achieve. Just to confuse matters, beaches can win both awards!
Cromer
A drop in numbers was also seen when the Welsh Blue Flag awards were handed out last week when Pembrokeshire beaches gained eleven awards and Anglesey ones, seven.
Some have criticised the awards saying they are overly critical but the strongest criticism I would make is that they reflect what the beach was like a season ago. It could be that there have been substantial improvements since which would not be reflected until next year. But that also means that the quality could have declined since the tests were carried out.
Use your own judgement to decide.
Think of Iceland and what is your first thought? Possibly the eruption a couple of years ago of Eyjafjallajökull? Whatever it was our interest was whetted and now we provide the largest number of overseas visitors to Iceland.
Two stories concerning Wales and those of us that visit the country cropped up this week. Together, they may offer a future that will boost visitor numbers. But then both plans are so far away.
Yesterday, ScotRail launched its new Club 55 promotion. Regular readers will know what this means but for new readers here is a summary of the offer.
Yet more evidence has come – this time from Tesco Travel Money – that holidays are important to us and we intend to have them. And Tesco says the average spend on holidays this year that we, who took a holiday last year, is over £1,500 per person.
Apparently it is twenty years since the formation of the world wide web. The changes in our lives have been astonishing and none more so in travel.
Yesterday I was down in Portsmouth. Co-incidentally HMS Ark Royal was being positioned by tugs at a wharf before it is taken from Portsmouth for the very last time and cut up for scrap.
One of the great TV successes of the last year has been the Great British Bake-Off and it was a cookery book that was the best seller last year. Does the same appeal extend to us visiting food festivals and food shows? Do these events attract us for days-out? Take the largest which will be held this weekend in Knutsford, Cheshire at Tatton Park.
Does some masochist calculate train fares spending days in locked-up windowless, tea-deprived cells trying to calculate these unfathomable things? Many moons ago, did I dream that some government minister or another potential human say that the huge array of fares would be simplified or was that wishful thinking?
The kings of extracting money in additional charges have to be the airlines. EU rules have altered some of the ways such as banning add-on prices behind very low fares but more needs to be done. Some add-ons can be avoided and others can’t
One of the attractions of going on a cruise has been the fact that it often looks like a cheap holiday. This needn’t be true because cruise companies have developed their own ways or rifling your pockets for that odd £100 or so.
Over the years, CD-Traveller has considered the problem of review sites. I had no idea that a company could set up 40,000 different addresses to use. And where one company exists there must be others. All working with companies to deceive us.
Never slow in grabbing headlines or sending out press releases, NYC and Company – the tourism marketing arm for New York City – is now specifically targeting us to visit the Big Apple this summer.
Next Thursday is the seventieth anniversary of the Dambusters raid on three dams in the Ruhr district of Germany. There are celebratory events taking place throughout England during the next ten days or so.
Yesterday’s headline story in Metro and other publications about the unfortunate lady who travelled to Madagascar as a part of a charity exercise and then came down with a tape worm in the brain with life-threatening implications produced an eye-catching story.
The announcement by the Heritage Lottery Fund of £68 million in support of just six projects today gives an indication of how important these are. Usually many more than six are allotted funds and few are allotted as much as has been given today.
The title of this story sounds like a film doesn’t it? And this is a story where tourism meets the appeal of the cinema.
The Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth gives a panoramic view of the landscape below. That bland statement does no justice at all to the views you get from the viewing area, the café or the crow’s nest situated some 110 metres above the ground.
Patricia Cleveland-Peck gazes in wonder at Isola Bella, a baroque garden shaped like a ship floating on the lake, is entranced by Isola Madre, a romantic garden full of flowers and enjoys a lunch of lake fish on Fisherman’s Island
Today’s the day that the museum devoted to the Swedish group opens on an island called Djurgaarden in Stockholm.
In the last few weeks you will have seen television adverts for Tunisia. Wherever they go, at some stage visitors will hear of excursions to El Jem home to one of the largest Roman amphitheatres in the world.
You’ve probably heard of Cancun, Mexico’s number one tourism destination. But don’t miss out on a visit to the gloriously beautiful and fascinating Riviera Maya
It’s a brave person that wakes me up before 6am. Yet I’ve found myself wide awake well before my alarm clock this last week or so, thanks to a couple of perky songbirds perched right outside my window and singing their hearts out
It is bank holiday time and millions of us will take to the roads to visit attractions throughout our countries. The main reason must be due to the good weather, weather that a week or so ago we thought we wouldn’t see soon.
Reims CathedralIn our countries there is a time of the year when museums stay open at night and visitors see places in a completely new light. But in France there is the opportunity to see museums, churches and other heritage sites thoughout the summer bathed in lights or just open to view.
Two years ago, Frederic [...]
Don’t miss out on a visit to the gloriously beautiful and fascinating Riviera Maya, stretching south of there along the Caribbean, says Irene Middleman Thomas
Readers living outside London and the south east of England can turn away now for the debate on whether there is enough airport capacity in the south east has taken another turn.
In the last two years, a third of all new jobs created in our countries have been in tourism. 2.6 million of us work in tourism. Which is one reason why when Visit Britain launches its strategy document for attracting more visitors, it pays for us to listen.
From the website:
The Mission of the Department of Foreign Affairs is to advance Ireland’s political and economic interests in the European Union and in the wider world, to promote Ireland’s contribution to international peace, security and development both through the European Union and through active participation in international organisations, in particular the United Nations, to protect our citizens abroad, and to pursue reconciliation and partnership on the island of Ireland.
That’s the claim made by Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island that is part of the USA but not a state. And now it has decided that it wants more of us to visit it.
Sad to relate, but in boring company with the rest of life at the moment, we can expect to pay higher prices for travel insurance soon. You can bet your bottom dollar that by the time the busy summer booking season begins in January, insurance companies will have raised their prices quite a bit. It isn’t helped by the fact that VAT will rise from 17.5% to 20% in January so that will automatically cause an increase.
AXA has forecast increases in excess of 10% but hasn’t said how much. Brokers are talking of sharp rises, whatever that means.
Why should increases be so “sharp?”
UPDATE 17 December: the courts have ruled the strike illegal because the balloting of union members had not been correctly carried out. This means that the 12 day strike cannot now take place.
The carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, takes on a new meaning this year since it coincides with the number of days of strike action at British Airways. And I won’t be the last to wonder whether the number was particularly chosen by the strikers in order to ram home the iniquity of goodwill to all men excepting for British Airways passengers.
I’m not concerned in taking sides in this argument. For one thing I don’t know enough since all I see and hear is the propaganda from either side. My interest is in the passengers. Over 12 days, some 7000 flights might be axed. That could easily involve over a million passengers
Ashley Gibbons, chief executive at The International Travel Writers Alliance, talks travel
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