Last year just over half a million visitors came to London then had come in the previous year. Spending by those tourists rose to 10.5 billion pounds. Masked by those figures, however, is the fact that overseas visitor numbers are down but visits by us to London are up by a million to 11.3 million.Now [...]

The outbreak of a flu virus in Mexico has prompted some of the strangest media coverage. On the one hand, there have been the stories of returning holidaymakers suffering from flu like symptoms and the spread of the virus to other countries and on the other, plaintive stories of people who have had their holiday [...]

There was a fascinating piece of news from Google last week which was announced at a conference hosted by Travolution, a specialist travel trade publisher.Research by Google shows that if you book online, on average it takes you 29 days to make up your mind. Before finally booking, you visit 22 sites and make 12 [...]

As part of the big Scottish Homecoming initiative, this Friday, May 1st, sees the start of Whisky Month. There are 30 events during may scattered right throughout Scotland kicking off on May 1st with the 10 day Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival. This year, the Speyside is celebrating it’s 10th birthday so they have [...]

Last Wednesday was, of course, the budget. I have desisted a quick response because there is usually something lurking that takes a while to ferret out but so far those with more financial nous than me haven’t spotted more to affect tourists than those below. To listen to the industry you would have thought it [...]

For the last six months or so, tourists going or considering going to Thailand have probably wondered whether it was a good idea. At the end of last year, the main airport in Bangkok was effectively closed by anti government protests. A little while ago a summit in Pattaya had to be postponed because [...]

Not only is it St George’s day but Shakespeare’s birthday as well. No further on are we in the discussion of whether we should have a public holiday to celebrate England’s saint’s day. (Although for this year, I think there is an argument for having a day off after yesterday’s budget. Maybe we should have [...]

It seems a simple question on the face of it. Where has this idea come from? Philip Riddle, the Chief Executive of Visit Scotland is suggesting to both the Scottish and the UK governments that such a bank be created to put cash into the tourism sector.But isn’t the UK domestic tourism business doing rather [...]

Open spaces like the green belt,the national parks and everyones little local park are highly prized oases of calm away from everyday bustle. Often the smaller ones are taken for granted until sometimes they disappear. So when money is ploughed into improve them it gets little publicity apart from in the places concerned.£14 million pounds [...]

Thomas Cook runs a Holiday Cost of Living Survey and the results have just been published. It claims that places like Majorca, Cyprus and mainland Spain are still cheaper than the UK. But all these places are in the eurozone and we have been told that the eurozone has become expensive because of the fall [...]

Ryanair is the largest airline in Europe. Whether you like it or loathe it what it does can have a big impact of how we travel and how tourism happens. If it decides to get involved with an airport that airport had better play along to Ryanair’s rules or it just pulls out. Examples at [...]

United Airlines has announced that obese people will have to buy 2 seats unless there are spare seats on a flight.As you might imagine, this has caused a little ripple of comment. Ripple did I say? In Chicago where United is based, the Chicago Tribune has had 265 comments on their website. The online news [...]

You know the holiday season has begun properley when the strikes start.For the last few days French fisherman have blockaded ferry ports in Northern France in protest against cod and sole quotas. They could blockade their own ministry in Paris or the EU in Brussels but lining ships across harbour entrances seems more in their [...]

What to do in a shortbreak/citybreak in Gdansk in Poland in the Spring

As I wandered across the cracked tarmac towards the grey airport terminal in the crisp ex-communist breeze I began to wonder if this budget Ryanair short break was as good an idea as had seemed on paper (and to my wallet!).

Tourists mean money. Tourists mean economic growth so in the straightened times we find ourselves in, some countries are doing their utmost to get us to visit them.In the Middle East, neighbours are trying to clone Dubai’s success. Oman aims to quadruple the number of tourists visiting there to 12 million by 2020 and has [...]

Last week, the New York Times said that the familiar walk through metal scanners that are seen at airports anywhere in the world will be replaced in the US. What will succeed it will be body imaging devices which amount to a virtual strip search. This has been tested for some time and it is [...]

If you’ve been abroad this Easter, you will have had to get some local currency. The signs at the Bureaux de Changes (we don’t seem to have a suitable English phrase) will have said things like “best rates”, “won’t be beaten” and maybe, “commission free.” Whatever they say, at lot of us moan at much [...]

We’re used to the idea of no-frills or budget airlines. These are airlines who provide a cheap price for a basic service, a service which involves little more than getting you from A to B. For anything else you pay but at least you have the right to decide what you pay for. Money [...]

According to the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), 2 million people are heading overseas for the Easter break. There are two important facts beneath this headline. The first is that there has been a large last minute booking rush by people so those people who have been saying that, more than ever this year, [...]

What a difference a couple of days make.Earlier this week I was congratulating BA on the calm, understated pleasant flight I had.Yesterday The Times reported that BA was considering selling the Concorde it has at Heathrow to a group of investors in Dubai where it will be grouped with the QE2 and marketed as [...]

For quite a few people the lure of going somewhere out-of-the-way is quite strong. Undeveloped areas that show how a country or an area really is as opposed to what tour operators have created means that certain places are not prepared for tourism. Others are so fragile from an economic or environmental standpoint that many [...]

TripAdvisor has reported the results of a survey claiming that 79% of us believe that there should be child free areas on planes. Interestingly they asked whether people had children in the first place and of those who had them, a pretty substantial 71% also thought that there should be areas set aside for [...]

60 years after the first national parks were set up, the ninth national park covering the South Downs has been agreed to by the government. It ends a long process since the area was listed for national park status back in 1949 when the original act setting up national parks was introduced.So what does it [...]

Last week I flew on BA for the first time in about six months. In that time BA has faced all the problems that airlines have had; increasing fuel prices and then hedging fuel at high prices or at high insurance rates, lower demand from its premium paying passengers and the difficulties of merging with [...]

In the past, I have mentioned the effect that films and TV shows can have on local tourism long after those have been made. But of course there is an immediate effect as well and, given the recession, two countries that could do quite nicely from it are India and Greece.The success of Slumdog Millionaire [...]

I’ve had some e-mails lately from friends abroad asking me whether it is as bad in Britain as their local media tells them. My answer is to say that it’s not great and there is nervousness but it is nowhere as bad as in some places.Take Las Vegas for example. It relies heavily in tourists [...]

It’s that day again.
I did think that maybe I should create a blog that would make you immediately believe a fanciful story such as the BBC’s Spaghetti Harvest or the Guardian’s San Serife but there is a problem in travel. There are so many stories which you would think were an April Fool’s joke if [...]