There’s one thing you can guarantee in the wake of the attempted plane bombing above Detroit in December: we’re all going to spend a lot longer at airports. CD Traveller profiles the capital’s four main airports to see how they measure up

One of the reasons that we visit some places is because of the shops. Shops, shopping centres, town centres and out of town outlet stores are tourist draws in their own right. The success of Merry Hill in Dudley, Bluewater and Lakeside in the south east and Meadowhall in Sheffield and just some examples of successful retail outlets which pull people- and coach parties- from miles around.
So too does Hamleys.
It is one of the few stores that has an international appeal. You are just as likely to find people from the US, the Netherlands and France in there as you are to find Londoners or Merseysiders.

You might remember that I mentioned some while ago (CD-Traveller, 14 December 2008) that there would be an international competition, the first of its kind, for tourism cartoons. Just under 600 works were submitted from 50 countries. 269 cartoonists took part in the Turkish organised competition.
The winner was Cemalettin Guzeloglu from Turkey with his cartoon of a cruiseship moored in some big city. Exiting the boat is a ramp with rows of unloaded supermarket trolleys on the quayside. The assumption is that all cruiseship passengers do is to shop.
Six of the cartoons can be found at www.tabrizcartoons.com.

For those of you living in the London you are about to be deluged by Taiwanese advertising as they try and persuade more of us to visit their country. Only about 45,000 of us currently visit Taiwan each year and they want more of us to go there. So, for the next 6 weeks or so, you’ll not only see posters at tube stations you’ll also see 75 taxis carrying the same message, visit Taiwan.
They are using the slogan, “Where else but Taiwan,” as they try to get across the fact that they are not very well known.

Last November there was a further increase in the Air Passenger Duty (APD) we UK based flyers pay. Next November it will go up yet again. In Ireland a similar tax is blamed by Ryanair for a substantial fall in the number of people visiting there and its decision to maintain quite so many planes at Dublin. It has concerned some countries that their tourism is being affected so the Netherlands has abolished the tax.
The UK is one of the most heavily taxed, if not the most heavily one for airline flights. But it doesn’t only hit people in the UK. Because of the high cost, overseas countries that rely on tourism for substantial national income are worried we won’t travel there.

For the second year in a row, readers polled by Wanderlust magazine have named the West Highland Railway the world’s best railway journey which runs from Glasgow to Mallaig. This is how the BBC ran the results of the Wanderlust annual survey into what its readers preferred. They omitted to mention the other awards. It was, unfortunately, the only category in which a UK destination or attraction won a top award. (I don’t include best UK Airport which, obviously, had to be won by a UK entrant! Incidentally, the winner was London City)
The readers of Wanderlust are an adventurous bunch so don’t expect your average destination to featur

Aidan Lawes gives us the low-down on Hanoi, Halong Bay and Sa Pa – the final part of his journey around Vietnam

Up until recently, if you had milk in a hotel room or on a plane they gave you a little bucket of it. The foil top had a pull-off part and either this came off as you tried to open it or you managed to get the milk sprayed over you. Or you put your finger in through the foil and splashed the milk over yourself, the tray or your neighbour.
Obviously, someone decided to come up with a new container to hold milk and the tube was born. You’ve probably seen them. They’re like the containers that hold coffee in hotel rooms. At one end is a tear off edge in order to make it easier for you get at the milk. Except that when you tear it, the pressure in the tube often results in a jet of milk going over your tray, your clothing or your foot depending on the power of the jet. It’s called a Dairystix of all things

Aidan Lawes shares his experience of Hué and Hoi An in central Vietnam with CD Traveller

I automatically think of 4 places in our countries when I think of Vikings; the Isle of Man, Orkney, Dublin and York. Were they a rampaging bunch of blonde warriors bent on raping and pillaging as the Horrible Histories tell us or is there more than that?
Yes that isn’t the total story. As usual it is more complicated but mixing the truth with what people think is a great way of attracting people to your event and none is better than the Jorvik Viking Centre in linking the two.

Aidan Lawes shares his experience of the Mekong Delta with CD Traveller

With Waitangi Day (New Zealand’s National Day) just around the corner, CD Traveller lets you in on 10 things we love about The Land of the Long White Cloud

Last week Air New Zealand announced that they were introducing 22 almost flat beds for economy class passengers. BMI said that they were doing away with first and business class flights on some routes and Qantas says it is scrapping about 20% of its first class seats. Are we beginning to see the end or the decline of first class seats on flights?
Certainly over the last twelve months or so, when I’ve walked through first class cabins there have been few people in them. In business class, numbers have been light

Aidan Lawes ventured to Vietnam and quickly fell under the country’s spell. Read about his oriental odyssey all this week exclusively on the CD Traveller website

This year sees a lot of anniversaries being celebrated in Wiltshire. Ask people what they know about the county and they might come up with Salisbury, Salisbury Plain, Longleat and Stonehenge. It suffers from being a county that the M4 goes through and many times that is as much as a tourist sees. Yet the motorway only cuts through the northern fringes so the farmland that they see from the road says little about the county.
But this year you’ll hear a lot more about it.

As I mentioned yesterday, apart from the consumer travel shows, there isn’t much going on to attract those of us who are dreaming of breaks from this cold winter. (more snow overnight here on ungritted roads!) It’s just as well then that one of the consumer shows is the best, the Destinations Show which takes place this weekend at Earls Court in London and then in a month’s time, reappears in Birmingham at the NEC. A general travel show, it covers all sorts of destinations and types of holidays and links it in with background on culture and food.

At this time of year a lot of destinations don’t bother to try and attract tourists. They think that people are only interested in skiing or winter sun breaks. We have the consumer travel shows like Destinations and the Holiday Shows but not a lot more than that.
But that doesn’t apply if you are New York.
They have another way to entice you to visit their city during January and February. We are one week into what is called the NYC Restaurant Week

Once a destination for the ‘newlyweds and nearly deads’, Bermuda is back on the map. Britain’s oldest colony celebrated its 400th anniversary last year and the party hasn’t stopped. CD Traveller got the low-down on the paradise island – that contrary to public opinion isn’t in the Caribbean – from local resident Victoria Clipper

Chris Thompson, chief operating officer at Visit Florida, speaks to CD Traveller about the sunshine state, skiing and safaris

[ February 13, 2010 to February 21, 2010. February 13, 2010 to February 21, 2010. ] This year it is the 25th Anniversary of the Jorvik Festival in York.
www.jorvik-viking-centre.com.

[ February 20, 2010; 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. ] Saturday, 20th February 2010, Littlehampton, West Sussex, 11am-1pm

[ February 19, 2010 9:00 am to February 21, 2010 6:00 pm. February 19, 2010 9:00 am to February 21, 2010 6:00 pm. ] Celebrating the world’s finest travel writing and travel photography

[ February 25, 2010; 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. ] 25 February

Five Lakes Resort, Maldon,Essex

 www.tourismandleisureshow.co.uk  

Admission: Free

[ February 23, 2010 9:00 am to February 28, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 23-28 February

NEC, Birmingham

www.boatandcaravan.co.uk,

[ February 12, 2010 9:00 am to February 14, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 12-14 February

SECC, Glasgow

www.holidayshows.com/glasgow.htm

[ February 4, 2010 9:00 am to February 7, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 4-7 February

SECC, Glasgow

www.caravanshowscotland.com

[ February 4, 2010 9:00 am to February 7, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 4-7 February

Earls Court, London

www.destinationsshow.com