Disregarding the little event in Paris last night, Welshman will be out to enjoy themselves tomorrow as a variety of events and processions occur. Or will they?St David’s Day has never been a public holiday and has never had the appeal that the Irish allot to St Patrick who may well have been a Welshman. [...]

Yesterday I spent part of the day in the Brentwood Centre.Why?Because each year on one day, there is held the Tourism & Leisure Show (www.TourismandLeisureShow.co.uk) which is organised by Essex Tourism Association even to the extent that they lay on a free bus to collect you from Shenfield station and ferry you on a Clintona [...]

A week or so ago, AOL ran a little feature listing the 10 worst destinations for tourists in the UK. Apart from 1 in Wales (Holyhead) and 1 in Scotland (Cumbernauld) all were in England. (Well done Northern Ireland for not making the list.)Some of them seem a little unfair. Wolverhampton has a lot going [...]

There can’t be many people who have been able to link a tsunami, the Queen Mother and a fictional detective all together in one sentence. The link is that this week, all three have had, what people hope will become tourist attractions, opened about them.Which makes you wonder what is a tourist attraction. The [...]

Yesterday the National Museum in Baghdad re-opened after six years of closure. After the invasion in 2003, there were exaggerated reports of the museum being ransacked whilst US troops were nearby. It appears 15,000 artifacts out of hundreds of thousands were removed, some, it is thought, as a result of organised crime. Items turned [...]

Last December the state government of NSW in Australia decided to launch Family Funday Sunday. The idea was to bring more people onto ferries and into the city. To do this it cut the price a family ticket to just $2.50 (about £1.20). The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Sunday was already the most crowded [...]

Over the years I’ve made of of comments about the food served on planes. But in The Times on Saturday, the comedian, Alexei Sayle, is quoted as saying that he is “fond” of airline meals.In the Food & Drink section of the paper, in a column called My Comfort Food, he calls airline food [...]

Well what better way to depart from the shivering cold of a mid-winter English morning than to take a flight to Australia aboard one of Qantas Airway’s brand new Airbus A380-800 super-jumbo jets.

This particular aircraft only came in to service all but a few days ago so. The cabin crew are still removing the wrapping paper and discovering gadgets and spaces that they never knew existed. Without doubt this behemoth of an aircraft is something to wonder at.

Well I suppose it had to come.After saying it would happen in 2006 and frequently in 2008, Ryanair introduced to passengers the chance to use their mobile phones on some flights yesterday. So if you feel like paying between £2 and £3 a call you can indulge yourself by saying unecessary things like “I’ll be [...]

Unless you have been holidaying on the moon, you have probably noticed that there has been a bit of a general downturn in the economy. Doom mongers have almost been prophesising the end of life as we know it. (Although, to cheer you up slightly, houses are beginning to sell again in our village and [...]

Portsmouth City Council has given planning permission for a museum to be built to house the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s flagship which sank in 1545. There is a design already, one created by the architects, Wilkinson Eyre, (who designed the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea). It is to be in shape of a jewellery box [...]

There are plans for a new runway at Heathrow. Some people think there will be another one at Gatwick when the planning rules expire in about eight years time. In the meantime the crunch is hitting airports now. The extent was brought closer to everyday life with the decision of Prestwick airport to shed about [...]

This year is the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University. One college, Emmanuel, is 525 years old this year. Founded in 1584 in the time of Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare and with a history longer than some countries, it has seen the Spanish Armada, the Civil War, the union with Scotland, the invitation to the [...]

Just in time for the Olympics, (so its still 3 years away then) organisers have announced that Mark Wallinger, a former Turner prize winner, has been selected to build a giant statue of a white horse in north Kent. Given the success in attracting tourists to the Angel of the North near Gateshead, this is [...]

In this blog and in many newspapers, ways that airlines make money have been listed. Charges for leg room, drinks, snacks, getting on the plane first, sitting next to a window or the aisle, baggage and the overall weight of your luggage have all been used as ways to empty your wallet.Now US Airways, [...]

In today’s copy of The Sunday Times, there is a story that shows, like the USA, our government is keeping a pretty close idea on where we travel. They already know where we go to becuase our passports are electronically swiped as we fly, even on domestic flights.Now the paper reveals that there is an [...]

TripAdvisor claims to be the largest travel community as is quoted quite widely on travel websites and carrys credence because of the sheer volume of people, millions, who provide those reviews across the range of travel services.Recently, they have announced the results of their travellers’ choice awards (the seventh year of this award) and, as [...]

This morning it has been announced that Pontins will be hiring about 2000 staff for their six sites in the UK as they refurbish/rebuild them due to increased sales.Most of the domestic tour operators such as Hoseasons, Center Parcs, Butlins & John Fowler have been saying that this year should be a good year for [...]