Today is the last day of National Family Week. Did you know?This completely passed me by. There seems to be nothing about in it our local press and the first I heard of it was on Thursday when my copy of a trade magazine arrived, “Marketing Week.” Instead there was a large insert promoting the [...]

We are in full swing for outdoor events now. We have had the Chelsea Flower Show, the Bath & West and even the slight one day event pretentiously called the Surrey Show. Now it is the turn of the big one in Scotland, Gardening Scotland 2009.Th three day event which started yesterday celebrates its tenth [...]

You might remember last Monday. Bank Holiday Monday.It was dry in the south east where I was. Well until early evening when the heavens began to open.The weather forecast for the day in England was for rain spreading from the south west.Now in Bournemouth it stayed fine all day. If fact it was pretty warm [...]

Newly released figures from ICCA, (International Congress & Convention Association) show that London was only 19th in the list of destinations chosen for international meetings last year. And before you say that there aren’t many international meetings being held, the total list included 7,475 events! The market actually grew by 800 events yet London’s share [...]

To those of you who e-mailed me yesterday pointing out that there was more than one big festival in Wales this week, my thanks for pointing it out. It makes me think that I have more Welsh people reading this website than any other nationality!The other big festival is an eisteddfod, not the international one [...]

It’s that time of the year when a small town of about 1800 attracts the book readers of the world to itself. As Saturday’s “Western Mail” put it “It is now almost inconceivable that a leading world writer would not have heard of the book festival which annually transforms this Welsh town”Attendance is already up [...]

It’s no wonder that Sir Paul McCartney hailed Kerala as being ‘truly God’s own country.’

Treasured temples, palm fringed, pristine beaches, verdant vegetation, brightly coloured saris, happy herds of elephants… It could be a cliché, if it wasn’t all true, but it’s all here in India’s most southern state. Kerala has a purpose beyond petrol, extravagant cars and air conditioned shopping malls. It’s no wonder then, that Sir Paul McCartney hailed Kerala as being ‘truly God’s own country.’

It seems to me that, this year, there are more adverts on the tube in London than ever before for holidays. Not only on the tube trains themselves but on the posters on the stations and by the escalators.I was up in London to go and see the musical, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. (well [...]

Rare, it seems, for a Bank Holiday Monday to be warm so when it happens at the end of May many people think of the beach. It could be the first opportunity to enjoy the sun whilst lounging, ice-cream in hand, watching the kids. So unless you’re in Scotland tomorrow where the weather is forecast [...]

This weekend is time for the York Roman Festival.Although the festival is only about 6 years old, the Romans had a strong link to York or Eboricum as they called it, deftly turning the local name for the area into a Roman one. Constantine the Great was at York and, over the years, archaeologists and [...]

More of us are booking accommodation online. No surprise there for anyone, I’m sure. No surprise either that most people expect online booking to increase. But how satisfied are you with online booking?A company called iPerceptions has started a new quarterly study that will measure how satisfied we are with such booking sites and [...]

BAA has decided that it isn’t going to give up any of it’s airports without a fight. It seems that they have decided to waste more of their money pursuing this idea despite the fact that, to just about everyone else, it seems like a good idea to stimulate a bit of competition. Could it [...]

A couple of years ago there was a justified outcry about the way certain airlines advertised their products. Free seats turned out not to be free because taxes and surcharges were added. The EU stepped in with legislation and it became more transparent but it took a while for it to happen.Now the EU [...]

Yes we all know that more people are staying and holidaying at home this year but what sort of holiday are they taking? Many “experts” went no further than that. But it appears that this year camping is making a big comeback. Always popular with backpackers and students, it appears that the market has grown [...]

June 1st is the closing date for the public to make their views known to the government about what they think of their local airport; its standards and its services. You can do that by a couple of ways. You can either e-mail or write to the Department of transport or you can complete the [...]

There is a column in the Financial Times written by Tyler Brule, the editor of a magazine called Monacle which I must confess to knowing nothing about. But I was flying to an American trade convention called PoW Wow (yes I know that it sounds strange and has nothing to do with American [...]

This week saw financial figures released from both TUI (owners of Thomson and First Choice) as well as Thomas Cook (who also own Airtours). As these four brands are the dominant players in the overseas package holiday market, their comments give a better idea than anyone else’s about what we, the holidaymaker, are going through. [...]

I have never watched an episode of “The Apprentice” before but last night’s much heralded programme about a makeover for Margate made me decide to watch it.Never again.If the quality of the campaign from either team is anything to go by then tomorrow’s entrepreneurs are going to do a lot for UK plc. Thankfully they [...]

I write this as I travel on the National Express early morning service to Leeds. It’s not very busy in my coach despite the fact that all but 8 seats have little cards indicating they are reserved for parts or all of the journey.National Express have announced that, as from this weekend, they are going [...]

Last week I was talking about the seaside resort and how some people are turning to it as a comfort in the same way that chocolate is.So off to Camber Sands to see how busy it was on a warm late spring weekend. For those of you who don’t know it, Camber Sands is in [...]

We have had a love affair with Spain for decades. It is our most popular overseas destination so much so that for years, the holiday in Spain has been parodied by the Carry On team, a soap was set there and at least two comedy series. So for nearly 40 years, Spain [...]

It is said that during this economic crisis sales of chocolate and lipstick have gone up.Why?Because people are finding comfort in them. They are inexpensive, they are moreish and they make you feel happy after using them. Where the Mars bar used to be held up as a guide to economic activity, sales of these [...]

Each month a company called OAG compiles a list of all those flights that fly from British airports and publishes the results in its OAG Facts. This compares the number of flights and passenger seats available to buy based on the type of aircraft flying each route.The figures for April show that there was a [...]

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has joined with lots of other parts of the travel industry calling on the government to stop the increase in air passenger duty (APD).Greg Duffell, the President and CEO has called for a review as a matter of urgency. Adopting words that might have come from the mouth of [...]

There are lots of suggestions that have been made as to how to get upgrades. Wear a tie, carry only hand baggage, say you’re on your honeymoon ( helps here if there are two of you), going to your mother’s/father’s funeral are some suggestions that have been made.The Sky Steward is an actual member of [...]

There is a little railway line that runs from Reading to Gatwick Airport via Guildford and Dorking. Going through countryside for most of the journey, passengers can stare out of the windows and watch the meadows, traffic as it veers by roads and sheep with advertising on their sides.Yes you read correctly and no it [...]

Today will probably be the first big getaway of the year. People will stream out of work this afternoon and head for cars, trains and airports to enjoy the most of the bank holiday weekend. And oddly enough for a bank holiday it looks as though it will be fine and warm for most of [...]