The 5 Top Holiday Spots in Australia.

A newsletter I get called Hotel & Resort Insider has issue its list of top 5 holiday spots in Australia. I can quite believe that it is a hard job because, let’s face it, Australia has a heck of a lot going for it. Even if it does take 24 hours plus to get there.
But their top pick, and the list isn’t in alphabetical order so I assume its number 1, is Canberra. Now I forget who said that the best way to see Canberra is from the back of a departing train but I agree with the sentiments. It has changed a lot over the last forty years since I saw it for the first time but there are a lot better places to visit. Maybe it might make my top 100 but number 1. At 5pm when the government offices close, the place becomes a ghost town in parts. Its’s full of politicians and civil servants and who wants to mix with them in the evening. Compare that to parts of Sydney or Melbourne. The Blue Mountains, the tropical rainforests don’t get a mention. Nor does the Great Barrier Reef.
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the wonders of the world and they have completely overlooked it. This seventh wonder of the world (according to CNN) draws over 2 million tourists a year and generates about $A6 billion for the local economy.
So maybe the Australian Tourism Commission won’t read this piece in HRI. And thankfully, tourists won’t. They’ll still head for the best place in Oz, Sydney Harbour.

Pre-Book Sun Lounges

Given the weather that we are having this week (and last come to think of it) you may not be thinking of lounging in the sun but Thomas Cook is.
Their German company has decided, as you may have seen, to allow German bookers to prebook for €3 a day, sun lounges if they do it when they book their holiday. So far the offer is only available for 9 hotels in Turkey, Egypt and the Canaries so don’t necessarily feel that you may lose out when you head for the beach. But it will be rolled out to other destinations.
Over the years, there have been more jokes about the Germans nicking the sun lounges by placing their towels on them at the crack of dawn than I have had hot dinners. What will this do for their image? And it’s not only us Brits that moan about it. Scandinavians, Irish, French, Swiss have all had vented their ire in pubs and bars that I have been in over the years. Why, if Thomas Cook operates in just about every other European country, do they not make it available outside Germany as well. Yet they announced laeter that there are no places to make this available to British tourists. This sort of idea isn’t going to anything to do away with that stereotypic view we have of Germans at the beach.
Is this a gaffe or merely a case of Thomas Cook Germany not telling all their associated companies what they were doing?

Enjoy the National Parks

This is National Parks Week. Not only that but it is 60 years since the first one was opened. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been kind to them this week. I was going to write about this yesterday but it was raining so I thought, wait a day, things might improve. It hasn’t. It’s raining again this morning. And to be fair, even though the scenery is wonderful, it does help if you’re not squelching through puddles.
In 1951, the first national park came about, the Peak District, some two years after the legislation was passed. Now visited by 22 million people per year, its tourism appeal is bigger than lots of countries..
But the idea of a national park to be enjoyed by everyone is quite new. Although we all know the schoolboy stories of William II being shot by an arrow in the New Forest in 1100, then the forest was the king’s own hunting reserve. And it was only 4 years ago that it became our 14th national park. The Lake District had a guide book written about it 200 years ago but it only became a national park in 1951.
The park authorities don’t necessarily own the land within a park. A lot is privately owned but the management of what is done within each authority is controlled by that authority. And if there is a conflict between development and conservation, conservation takes priority. But that was only decided on in 1995.
So it has taken a long time in our history to enable you to enjoy some of our most stunning scenery. And largely, it costs nothing so make the most of it. Even in this weather.

Ryanair and Customer Service

No this isn’t another moan about the quality or even quantity of customer service that Ryanair offers. Well not really. No this is a comment on what Ryanair thinks it does.
You might have seen in yesterday’s media stories about how Ryanair has made €136.5 million profit (about £119 million) in the first 3 months of its trading for this year. As the largest airline in Europe, one that has grown very quickly from nothing to this status so quickly, that its management would be pretty adept. And there is nothing wrong with making a profit. There aren’t many that are making money including the American airline Southwest Airlines upon which Ryanair based its business model.
Tucked away in the very last paragraph of its press release was this statement which I quote verbatim. “The winners in a deep recession will always be those companies like Aldi, Lidl, McDonalds, and Ryanair who offer the lowest prices and the best service to consumers.”
After I picked myself off the floor from laughing at this “best service” I did wonder who Ryanair is trying to kid. There are lots of reasons to be thankful to Ryanair but best customer service definitely isn’t one of them. And there is a very strong link between customer service and customer satisfaction. And that Ryanair certainly doesn't provide in large doses.
Many years ago, long before the recession hit, a team lead by Professor Claes Fornell at the University of Michigan showed that there was a link between customer service and company value. I don’t know whether it still holds in a recession but there is no way you are going to convince me that Ryanair offers best customer service. Sainsbury’s and Waitrose might in supermarkets, Southwest Airlines in aviation, Marks & Spencer in general retailing but not Ryanair. Not judging by the thousands of complaints we have had in our customer care survey over the years.
Maybe Ryanair has been seeing the leprechauns too!

How Transparent Are Airline Charges?

Supposedly, we now have transparency in the way airlines price their flights.
In a pig’s eye we do.
Legislation, codes of conduct, agreements, advertising standards watchdogs and a host of either consumer or regulatory watchdogs have made airline fares easier to understand. Well if that’s true, I am a Martian. What we have had is some clean up and then the airlines have promptly responded by finding ways around it.
Not all airlines but some.
Just like financial services companies have enough small print at the bottom of their adverts to make you need a week to read it, you now need to wade through umpteen pages of booking in order to find out what you really pay.
How can any airline offer a return flight for under a tenner when credit card/ debit card charges and luggage charges will exceed that?
May be the time has come when airline advertising should quote a price based on the assumption of taking one bag in the hold and the credit card charge. That at least would give a fairer price. And I am not just having another go at Ryanair although charging to book in when it is mandatory to do so does take the biscuit. No, I am talking about charter airlines and some mainstream legacy airlines who price credit card charges differently from each other when credit card companies have virtually similar rates, who suddenly have dropped the size in hand baggage that you can take aboard and who change the rules about what cabin baggage means. Is it one bag, and a handbag and a laptop, one bag alone. Who knows anymore?
I am not moaning about the charges because airlines do have costs to pay out. I merely want customers to be told in easily seen advertising what they may be expected to pay
A friend travelling to Croatia in August saw his price jump by £180 for a family of four after the additions were added. Two people going to Poland saw £80 added in the same way.
Which? Holiday highlighted some of this last week noting that Ryanair charges had jumped, for credit card bookings, by 150% in the last 18 months.
We are not getting a fair deal.
It will be very interesting to see what you tell us next month when we launch our 5th annual customer care and service survey.

Fewer People Travel...At Least to these Places

In the last few days a number of countries have issued numbers on how tourism is performing. All four, Greece, Indonesia, Thailand and the United States have all shown a decline
In Greece tourism spending has dropped by nearly 18% for the first five months of the year compared to last year but in May alone it fell by nearly a quarter. Despite an increase on the tourism promotion budget of 50% over last year and the new museum at the Acropolis, there seems no upturn in sight.
Indonesia has not been hit quite so badly. Tourism is only down there 8% which seems pretty satisfactory compared to Greece. A large chunk of tourism is based on Bali, a growing destination for Britons as well as being very popular with Australians. Even a drop of 8% has prompted the Indonesian government to find another 9.4 million to spend on attracting visitors.
Thailand has been one of the worst hit in Asia. Tourism there is down 22% and they are expecting 3 million tourists less this year and they think that the swine flue scare might reduce numbers further. However Thailand has been hit by demonstrations against the government which will have caused some tourists to think twice about visiting and also the scamming at Bangkok which the government has now announced will result in extra vetting at the airport this week.
And finally the US has announced sharp drops as well. And its not just Brits who have decided to stay away. Even Canadians are in reduced numbers as are those from south of the border as well.
It is surprising then, that numbers of visitors coming to Britain is holding up.
And for those of us going abroad, there will be lots of temptations during both summer and winter to get us to visit at least these four countries. I have even seen airline prices to the US about £200 less than I expected to see for this summer.

Where's That Tiger?

About a million years ago Esso used to run advertising using a tiger and a musical background asking where the tiger was. I thought of it when the BBC ran a story saying that Panna National Park in Madhya Ptadesh in the middle of India which it called one of India's main tiger parks, now had none.
There was an alomost underlying thought that this was a quirky story. A bit like Picadilly Circus not having any circuses.
Underlying this however is a deeper thought. A century ago there were at least 40,000tigers roaming India. Now maybe there might be 1500. The central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh contains about a quarter of known tigers and, many years ago, wet up a number reserves to try and protect what numbers remain. Poaching is the biggest threat with some people willing to may handsomely for claws and other parts. Panna is not the only reserve to lose its tigers; Sariska in Rajasthan probably has none as well. But the state government is trying to reimport tigers back into Panna. And of course tigers roam. So it could be that they have wandered into other areas. I don't say that with any confidence however. Poaching is the more likely answer to their disappearance.
In Panna, Sariska and areas like these there are still lots of wildlife still to see so just because the BBC says there are no tigers suggesting there is now nothing there to aee at all, that is not the case.
If you are planning on visiting India, these reserves still offer so much to see.

So Where Are We Going This Summer?

All the schools have broken up now. My local rail carpark is only about half full and the 7.30am traffic jam no longer exists. That means that some of you have already started your holidays.
So are you holidaying in this country, having a staycation or are you going abroad after all? We are going to have to wait a little while to see where you have actually gone as opposed to where you said you would go.
But there is one guide to what is happening and that comes from the bureaux de change. Knowing which currency has been bought gives a pretty good indication of where you are going and the Post Office has come up with some information.
It looks as though more of you than we thought are going abroad after all. According to them, Kenya, Thailand, Egypt and Indonesia (well Bali really) are doing well in comparison to previous years and now that the pound is performing better against the euro, we are increasingly looking at the traditional places like Greece, Spain and Italy again. Turkey was always going to do well and so it has proved top be since £1 buys over 8% more than it did a year ago.
But Kenya is the big surprise. Currency sales have nearly trebled. After the disputed election and the problems there over a year ago, some people thought it might take a while for tourism to recover. It has bounced back faster than thought although Tanzania and Botswana are seeing increases as well.
Thailand also performed well but that might be a blip given the recent news about scamming at Bangkok Airport. (see our feature page)
More importantly the strength of sterling has come at the right time. It is up 15% since the lows of January. Just right for the holiday season.

Auctioning Hotel Rooms

Hotel rooms are cheaper in some places this year than they have been for a while. It’s due to the recession of course. (Nothing to do with some hotel prices being over the top anyway). So this year prices in London have been quite a bit lower whilst in Edinburgh they have stayed about the same. Prices in Spain have dropped a bit but gossip says they will fall more before they rise again.
In Dubai where the recession has bitten harder than in a number of places and where housing prices have halved in some cases, hotels face a similar pricing issue. One five star hotel, the Monarch, was a bit reluctant to keep on dropping prices as its competitors did so it has turned the issue on its head. This month they will start auctioning rooms off. There will be base price (just as there is on e-bay) and people can bid up the price of the room they want for that particular day, week or whatever. So you can bid for the Monarch Suite (stayed in by Paris Hilton if that appeals to you) and you will probably pay well below the 49,000 dirhams it normally costs per night. (about £8,200 per night).
Hotels there are only 60-65% full per night, so if you fancy Dubai, try haggling for a better room rate or try the auction system at the Monarch.

Discounts off Tourist Attractions

In North America they seem to have got couponing down to a fine art. Over here, it almost seems in its infancy in comparison. Nonetheless, you can find discount offers to attractions on various giveaway maps and brochures from tourist offices, in tourism magazines and, sometimes, from airlines, train companies’ magazines, newspapers and general magazines.
You can understand why it is done; to attract the waverers who might be considering it and think no, it’s too expensive until they see a coupon giving 10% off or free entry for children under 12 or something.
But do you get annoyed when you see two separate adverts offer different amounts?
Staying in Edinburgh recently the hotel map gave me 10% off the price of tickets to the royal yacht Britannia in Leith. An advert in National Express magazine, “Livewire” gave me 20% off. This is just an example of one I have spotted in the last couple of weeks but there are others. Should attractions offer the same discount if they are going to give some sort of discount? Why give a greater discount to one publication than another? Once you are in a destination, does the map (which I guess is only available in that destination) mean that you are already interested in seeing something so half of the work of the attraction is done whereas on the train I could be going anywhere so the sell is harder?
Does it even matter?
Only to possible visitors who might feel they could get it cheaper.
It means as well that visitors should look at everything they see as the travel to the destination. There might be a better deal in something else you can pick up.
And by the way, Britannia was well worth seeing.

Making Money out of Ryanair

Someone spotted that Ryanair charged the same price in euros as it did in pounds. This idea comes courtesy of 360travelguide.com which was picked up by the online trade magazine, Travolution.
Because Ryanair say that a euro equals a pound, they were making an extra 16% clear profit over and above their usual profit if you pay in pounds. The suggestion is that whatever you buy, you pay with a large denomination note in euros and request the change in pounds. The example is that if you pay for a €3 coffee and pay with €50 It is based on the fact that, at present, Ryanair charges the same in euros as it does in pounds so note, the change will be £47. This equates to €54 so you will have your coffee for nothing and be €4 to the better.

360travelguide.com spotted this and Conrad, their representative, tried this out on a flight and it worked. Unfortunately for the rest of us it looks as though Ryanair spotted it as well and new brochures were printed which showed a difference. It was €3 for a coffee but only £2.70. But that is still only 11% difference.. If they will give you change back in euros it will still mean you should be about €5 better off.
See if it works if you're travelling in the next few days and let us know.
It would be nice to get some cash back from them for a change instead of donating as much as we do.

Betty's is 90

Apologies to all those of you who e-mailed reminding me that I had missed the anniversary of the Yorkshire institution, Betty’s.
For the person or two who isn’t aware, Betty’s is a teashop. Not just any old teashop. The main branch in St Peter’s Square in York gets over a million visitors a year which makes it a rather large tourist attraction. This branch is not the original site; that was around the corner but this one has a story. In 1936 Frederick Belmont was on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary. Liking the décor, he used the same designers to come up with the shop design and the interior which, if you look closely, can be seen to resemble the architecture you see on a ship.
The shop was started in 1919 by Frederick Belmont and today it is still run by the Belmont family. With six shops in Harrogate, Ilkley, Northallerton and York itself, the family refuses to open shops outside Yorkshire despite the temptations and offers it has had.
Prepare to join queues to get in though at least at St Peter’s. As one of the impatient sort, my wife insisted we go there and, at two thirty on a June day we had to wait half an hour to get a table. But once inside you aren’t hurried. There’s no feeling of get in/get fed/get out which some places have.
So apart from Harrods, Hamleys and a few others, there can’t be many shops that are tourist attractions in their own right. And with a million visitors that puts them ahead of places such as Stonehenge, the Houses of Parliament, Canterbury Cathedral and York’s National Railway Museum.

Kids and Parents are the Same

Why do you go on holiday?
To relax, see new places, unwind, do something you've not done before, shop, ski, cross the Amazon by frog as Michael Palin did in Ripping Yarns twenty years ago.
Well according to research from the holiday side of Jet2, a third of over 45's bond with their adult children! Does this mean their kids are still sponging off them? Or is this a fancy way of saying that they are just having an old fashioned family holiday? Jet 2 says that more over 18's are holidaying with their parents. Now that could be due to the recession because usually that is the last thing eighteen year olds want to.
And if youth is supposed to do things differently from their parents; to go to to different places, do different things and enjoy types of holiday their parents wouldn't there is a shock for both sides; the top three popular destinations, Spain, Greece and the Canaries are the choice of both the parents and the youth. Not only that but the survey shows they like the same top things;- exploring and, chilling out (my parents never did that, but they also wouldn't know what that meant),
So it seems the children and the parents are pretty similar after all.

Working on Holiday

Following on from the research yesterday about those over 49, there is another bit of research that has got my goat. (Poor beast; really suffering this week).
Hotels.com has questioned 2167 travellers and found they are difficulty in switching off from work when they are on holiday. All due to the economic crisis. I can believe that some people who are pretty wrapt up in their jobs will check on things whilst they are away. A third of them will regularly log in to their offices to find out what's going on.
Now doesn't that tell you something about the research? Who have they interviewed? Just senior executives who take their laptops with them wherever they go? The average holidaymaker does not take his/her laptop with them or hang around internet cafes. the average holidaymaker does not book his/her accommodation separately from the rest of their holiday.
So what we have here is research on upmarket independently planned holiday takers who are internet users. That explains why they take their laptops with them. And it probably suggests that they feel insecure; after all they must believe that without them, their company will collapse. Otherwise how can they justify not taking a break?
The rest of us enjoy our holidays, relaxing so that when we return we are refreshed and ready for work, not exhausted by burning the candle at both ends working and playing.

Silver Travellers?

We have some new German research that says in another 10 years time, haif of all tourists from Germny will be over 50. And, you're not going to believe this bit either, but this same research says that people over 50 spend more money on holidays than those under 50.
Of course we do, we have managed to get the kids off our hands, the house is nearly paid for and we haven't moved for a while and there may even have beeen the odd relative who has popped off and left us a legacy.
This is research?.
Why do you think Saga Holidays has been growing for years? I'm just surprised there hasn't been a increase in the number of specialist holiday companies. Apart from cruiselines that is.
The thing thast also gets my goat is the fancy names “they”(whoever they are) call us. Silver Travellers, Best Agers, Graceful Tourists (sounds like a cemetry lawn), Young at Heart, Aging Youth. Youth 2. Can't we just be people? Fairly normal ones who just happen to be over 49. With money and who have grown tired of being treated like trainee geriatric coffin chasers.
And I'm not silver haired but bald

Let's Count Moles

For years we have been warned of the dangers of going out in the sun. All those ultra violent rays will play their harsh tricks on us and we will suffer for it. Well now things might not be as bad as they had appeared. The scientific sounding, Nature Genetics, as reported in the Sunday Times says that the number of moles you have is the most important contributing factor as to whether you will get melanoma.
The key figure seems to be 100 moles.
Will anyone heed this new information? Who is going to count them? How do see those on your back? How do you know you've counted them all? Is there a difference between 99 and 100 apart from one number? Can the scientists be trusted? Are these the same scientists who said going out in the sun would be asking for trouble?
It seems now that getting a melanoma could be due to the genes you have.
Like everything else at the moment.
I'm confused
One day there is one study and the next a study says something different. But because they are scientists, they must be learned people and should be trusted.
Fall back on common sense. Sunshine makes you feel happier. But too much of anything even raspberries (a personal favourite) could be bad for you.
Just like too many scientific findings

Newport: Cruise Capital of ??

Into Newport on South Wales on Monday came the Prinsendam, an 800 passenger cruiseship, the first one ever to dock there. It stopped as part of its tour around the UK and many locals are wondering why. The ship was only in Newport for a day but it seems as though none stayed in Newport. They joined coaches to be taken elsewhere and that has caused lots of humour.
The local newspaper is the South Wales Argus and over 43 comments were added to its story. Not many extolled the tourism virtues of Newport and, indeed, if you click on the Newport tourism website, www.newportgwent.co.uk/tourist.htm you see a long list under tourist information. Click on tourist attractions and the link doesn’t work. Or maybe there are no tourist attractions and that was why the passengers were bussed elsewhere.
But back to the comments which are much more fun. One said that it was the biggest laugh of the year, they came, they docked and immediately were bussed elsewhere. One person claiming to work in the South Dock claims the passengers were told that it was really Cardiff East. Another said it’s hard to be positive about a pile of rubble, a load of graffitti, streets full of drunks and empty shops.
Is this fair to Newport? Is it just full of moaners as someone suggested? And if they are all moaners what does this say to potential visitors?
It has Carleon just outside it and inside, the transporter bridge and the Newport ship, that unique fifteenth century wonder that will one day will be properly exhibited.
All right maybe it doesn’t have a lot going for it but does it make the most of what it has?

Things Tourists Should Do in London!!

Rollonfriday is a law gossip website passing titbits on about what is happening in law practices around Britain. So I was not expecting to find them running a column on tips for tourists visiting our countries and, in particular, London.
About 30 years ago, the “New Statesman” had a competition about the same thing and some seem to have been revamped such as the customary practice on entering a tube train to shake the hand of every passenger in your carriage.
The contributors to rollonfriday have added such gems as taking your ghetto-blaster (are these still around?) to the British Library reading room and London taxi drivers are happy to be paid in euros or dollars as well as pounds (try a Scottish tenner and see what happens with some of them. I’m not sure about tourists travelling free on the tube and all you need to do is leapfrog the turnstiles and there are others that I’ll not mention here.
It suggests swimming in the Thames on one of the south bank beaches is a great treat and the best position to see a cricket match is standing in front of the white boards you find there.
For all of them see www.rollonfriday.co.uk

New UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal in North Wales has become a UNESCO world heritage site in the latest list to be produced by the organisation. It is the only one in the UK to be designated in this, the latest addition to the world’s most exclusive list of sites that make it almost become a tourism “must-see”.
Completed in the early years of the 19th century by Thomas Telford is described as a masterpiece of creative genius, and recognised as a structure that inspired many projects all over the world.
It isn’t the only new designated site that is near to us. Spreading over the Netherlands and Germany, the Wadden Sea coastal wetland area that is the winter home to up to 12 millions birds per annum is included.
So to are the Dolomites that large mountain range in the northern Italian Alps, so beloved of British skiers and The Tower of Hercules in Spain which has served as a lighthouse and landmark at the entrance of La Coruña harbour in north-western Spain since the late 1st century A.D.
In Belgium, a Brussels house has been added, Stoclet House which is only just over 100 years old but which was built without worry of money. The owner just gave carte blanche to the architects and the creation is well worth a visit next time you’re there as is the watchmaking area of Switzerland, La Chaux-de-Fonds, some of which hasn’t changed since the seventeenth century.
To see the full list visit the UNESCO website at http://unesco.org.

Michael MacIntyre and Trip Advisor

Last night on BBC’s Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, the man himself was in Brighton, a seaside resort of course, and part of his introductory act consisted of talking about holidays.
His thoughts on TripAdvisor (but it could have been any travel comparison website) were funny (as you’d expect from the author of Britain’s highest selling stand-up DVD and someone who had hosted the Travel Weekly Globe Awards) but thoughtful.
What sort of person is it, he asked, who comes straight back from holiday and gets on the computer to tell everyone. What sort of life does this person have? Do other people before they book read all the reviews about the 50 hotels in the place they’re going to? How much time does that take? A person might write that the hotel was all right but the croissants were a bit tough and the bathroom door hinges need oiling? Does that stop someone considering it? Every hotel in the world, McIntyre said, must have at least one bad review. But equally every hotel seems to have a good one. How can you tell the hotel inspired ones from the genuine ones? How many hotels had had people write positive reviews? How many hotels have created or cause to be created reviews that are complaints against their rivals?
We know all of this happens. What we don’t know is the extent. As written here before the greater the number of reviews, the greater chance of independent views.
Now just as Ryanair has become staple comedian fodder so has the travel comparison website.

Big Ben is 150 Today

Walk across Westminster Bridge in London and at some stage you will be barred by a tourist taking a picture of the tall building that houses Big Ben, the bell that everyone hears at some stage in their lives. .Be it on HP sauce bottles, the opening credits of the old London Films, BBC news or a host of other services, the use of the building immediately tells the world it is related to London. To use that much overused word, it is iconic. As one tourist that was interviewed said, it is to London as the Eiffel tower is to Paris, the Opera house is to Sydney and the Statue of Liberty is to New York.
So you’ll have seen the publicity proclaiming that the bell, Big Ben itself, is 150 years old today.
Is it really or is this a convenient day?
A bell was cast in August 1856, tested until October 1857 when a crack appeared in the bell that was over 3 foot long. A new bell was cast in April 1858 and took 30 hours to hoist it from the ground up to its resting position in October 1858. It first rang from its present position on 11 July 1859 but cracked in September and didn’t ring again till 1863. Some say it is that crack that gives it the distinctive sound. One of the four bells that ring the quarter hours was used instead.
So whether it is 150 or 151 doesn’t matter. If it weren’t around there would be one very substantial fewer tourist draw. And whilst the building features in all the drawings, paintings and photographs it is this one bell inside it that attracts the visitors.

The Burger, the Fruit and the Veg

I travelled on Le Shuttle at the weekend to collect my daughter, her newly acquired belongings from France and to have a weekend break.. As usual it was trouble free, fast, efficient and pretty mundane. Apart from one thing. An advertising poster.
This one was in English inviting me to buy a burger and chips (or French fries if you must). Right at the bottom in black and written only in French was a note saying that we should eat five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. It wasn’t translated into English just as the message about buying a burger wasn’t in French.
Now this is blatant discrimination.
It was obvious that the writer felt the French would eat responsibly caring for their health and eat the “correct” amount of fruit and veg as recommended by some health God somewhere. And it was just as obvious that they felt the British would only eat fast food and hang any healthy options.
How stereotypic I thought and how untrue as I tucked into my healthy breakfast of a pecan Danish and chocolate muffin washed down by some fruit flavoured water.

The Lady Gondolier(s)

I might have mentioned once or twice before that I am rather fond of Venice. Lounging (it is possible outside the main tourist season) in a number 1 vaporetto as it meanders down the Grand canal and the over to the Lido and then catching the 52 back up the Guidecca therefore completing a circuit will cost me only a small amount to see a lot of the sites.
One thing I have never done is taken a gondolier. It is quite expensive and down some of the smaller canals it gets pretty busy in the early evening. It costs about €90 for three quarters of an hour but outside the busy times you can bargain a little bit. For €90 I can get a good hotel room overlooking the Grand Canal in the off season.
But the appeal to hire one might have just increased as, after 900 years, a lady gondolier has appeared. Giorgia Boscolo has undergone the 6 month course to learn how to row the 35 foot long flat bottomed boats (and presumably to sing in a tenor’s voice as well as this seems obligatory as the evening wears on)and has become the first women to pass it.
But is she the first?
Alexandra Hai has campaigned for a long time to be allowed to be a gondolier but has not passed the test. Still she works for a hotel so the courts (yes it went as far as that) have allowed her to continue ferrying hotel guests around the canals. So I suppose she was the first (until someone says differently)
There are 425 gondoliers and some evenings it seems they are all somewhere between the Rialto and St Mark’s. How they never manage to collide with the vaporettos that criss-cross the canals or the hotel motor boats or the other boats moving goods around I will never know. Now they are joined by a women gondolier but it would be ungallant to talk of women drivers!

Oxford: The New International Airport

This coming Saturday, Oxford Airport has its first commercial service for 20 years. This coming Saturday an Air Southwest will make the first of two months’ weekly flights to Jersey from the airport. The flight is full as are most of the flights during July.
Why?
Given the outcry over the expansion of many airports, how has Oxford become, almost without being noticed by the rest of the countries, a commercial airport? And why does it look as though it will be successful? After all Birmingham is just up the M40 and its only an hour down it to Heathrow so why another commercial passenger airport? Can it be down just to a clever strategy by the airport?
For countries our size we have a lot of airports. But being islands we can only really fly or sail to leave them (I excuse the Channel tunnel since this is viable if you live with a reasonable distance but pricey if you are outside the south east.) But bigger airports are time consuming to get through. Getting there can be a chore. Smaller airports, local airports appeal because you don’t spend a chunk of your holiday getting there and getting through them.
Maybe that’s why Oxford might work. We are only talking about one 70 seater aircraft in each direction on a Saturday. But people like a local touch so the number of flights might grow quite quickly if it is seen to be convenient and provides a quick, generally uncluttered way to get through it. Until these same locals decide it is has got too big and too intrusive.
Getting the mix will not be easy for Oxford Airport.

Have a Smelly Holiday

You remember the Virgin Holidays survey I mentioned a day or so ago? Apart from discussing these depressives it provided another odd result. Three quarters of those that responded (Virgin asked 4500 people and we don’t know how many responded) said they found it easy to recall holidays by seeking out smells.
And surprise, surprise, Virgin Holidays will flog you a bottle of the smell to help you recapture those memories. They are only available on their website for a short time. Sounds like a bit of a PR stunt to me.
Now as some of you might recall, my last break was a few days in Scotland, one of which was spent in a hotel that, according to one guest, had a problem with the drains.
Do I really want Eau de Drain to remind me of a hotel that was perfectly adequate in every other respect? (and I didn’t smell it anyway) Do I want to be reminded of the beach by Eau de Low Tide or Eau de Suntan Lotion? Or of Eau de Hot Dog?
Apparently, Virgin will flog you Cologne de Casbah to remind you of those happy North African holidays.
The one I definitely don’t want is Eau de Aeroplane Food and Essence de Sweaty Passenger!

Are People Holidaying at Home?

The common thought is that this summer people are staying at home and, if last week’s weather was anything to go by, with reason. But another week, different weather and you bet some tabloid journalist is already dreaming up a story that says summer is over.
So from Travel Navigator, the new monthly survey from Arkenford*, we learn that out of top 20 destinations people booked in the last month, 13 were in the UK. Staycations seem to be that popular. Whether they be seaside B&B stays, citybreaks, caravanning or camping, we seem to be lapping them up this year. Half were booked through travel agents so the choice between direct booking and using an agent is roughly the same. Could this be because many travel agents don’t book UK holidays? Do we feel more comfortable arranging it ourselves because the destination is in our own country?
The other interesting feature of this survey is that nearly three quarters of us are planning to cut down on the amount that we will spend. What makes this so interesting is that the result is so up-to-date. Being only up to a month old it does tend to confirm what many people think. People are being more cautious even though there may be green shoots about. It comes down to confidence and people don’t have that positive feeling yet. Maybe next month’s will reveal that confidence is returning so each month we will look at their survey findings.

* Arkenford. In fairness I should state that we work with Arkenford to understand why people choose they holidays/travel they do.

Holidays Depress Some of Us

Yes that seems to be the case according to some research commissioned by Virgin Holidays. They say that 18% of us , almost one in five, start getting depressed even before we take the return flight home. There you are, on the last day of your holiday; the last day you can enjoy yourself by doing something you enjoyed again or doing that final shop and instead a load of us are getting too ratty and upset to enjoy it.
The last day can be bad enough as it is. With long check-in times, trying to pack all that holiday tat that seemed a good idea at the time but now just seems a waste of money and checking out leaving your luggage at the mercy of a locked room for most of the day.
And to top it all off we then sit down to enjoy ourselves by getting depressed! Still on the plus side, 82% don’t get depressed and are, presumably, enjoying the last day to the hilt.
Maybe those 18% are just those who are natural moaners, you know the sort who with glorious sunshine and not a cloud in the sky will turn around to you and say, “ah yes, but it’ll rain this afternoon.”
When I go on holiday, I am going to make sure that there are never more than three people near me and that way I’ll never meet the moaner who will put me off my last day!

Locking Up Bankers

Staying with the annual meeting of the Tourism Society, there was another theme that appealed to me. This time it was from Iain Herbert of the Scottish Tourism Forum. The Forum is a government body that brings together different parties connected with tourism.
He said that attractions, self- catering and hotels were doing well in Scotland at the moment but that growth was restricted because of a mindset. The press and the bankers were talking doom and gloom because that was the flavour of the moment. This current mindset dominates. Anything that suggested good news was placed on page 23 or whatever. His suggestion?
Lock up the bankers and the press.
Now, that’s rather a good idea.
There some others I could mention; museum attendants who, seem as a race, to always look as though they have just attended a funeral; cabin crew more intent on relating company gossip that paying attention to you and train guards who start from the premis that you are in the wrong regardless of the explanation.
To return to Mr Herbert. He thinks business is improving, at least north of the border. The thing that isn’t changing is comment. Until we feel confident about things, growth will be restricted and you are in this spiral. So here I break out. I will contribute to the tourism rebound by going away and not looking at or listening to any news programmes. At least until Mr Herbert wins and gets them locked up.

God Bless the People of England

Last week the Tourism Society held its annual conference in a typical tourist venue, York.
There was feeling that tourism was not hit as widely as some industries had been but the quote of the day went to Sir Thomas Ingilby whose family have lived at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire for over 700 years.
“God bless the people of England,” he said “because they can do without a lot but they can’t do without a nice cup of tea.”
He was referring to the fact that sales in the gift shops in many places might be down but after a tour of a historic house, a garden or some other attraction, people were still prepared to buy a cup of tea. This attitude was helping a number of attractions do well. In fact some stately homes were reporting that visits were up by 30-35%. His thought was that compared to a visit to a theme park, a visit to a stately home for a family of four was cheaper and of better value so we are visiting them rather than pricier days out.
He did say one other thing that did dismay me though. Cheap items were not selling now; people were buying quality or practical items. Where am I going to get my badly-made, tatty, dreadful fridge magnets in the future?

Eating Breakfast in Hotels

While I am on a bit of a hotel theme (having stayed in 5 in the last three weeks), I have a moan about breakfast in hotels. Not about the food although that varies of course.
No, my moan is about the tables. If you go into breakfast on your own or with a partner you are invariably given a table that will only suit two. That’s understandable but, and here’s the moan, why is that that the tables are so small? By the time they have brought you a toast rack, a teapot and maybe a hot water jug to refill it, a glass of orange juice and your cereal bowl there’s no place to put anything. You end up juggling and balancing items on top of each other. The slim vase with the fake flower (and occasionally real one) in it goes on a side plate. The salt and pepper gets put on the edge of the table already to be knocked off when the waiter gets too close. Of course at dinner you’d don’t get all these things at once. They come in courses with the tea and coffee and all the associated bits last of all.
So why not bigger tables?
I can’t imagine hoteliers the length of the countries are going to dart out this morning and completely replace their tables with adequately sized ones but maybe they can make a start by letting you sit, where possible, at tables that can seat four.
At least you’d have some elbow room

Trusting Travel Review Sites

Travel review sites like TripAdvisor have mushroomed in the last few years with each claiming to offer something slightly different,- a greater volume of reviews, a wider coverage of reviews and so on. There has always been a suspicion that some might have been written by the hotels or guesthouses themselves.
Now a hotel owner in Spain claims a rival wrote a less than praiseworthy review and an English hotel said that they wrote their own reviews.
True or not, should you believe what you read?
Aren’t those reviews attacking the accommodation only written by disgruntled guests anyway. People generally complain rather than praise. I have written two myself and had them posted where I thought the quality of service and the state of cleanliness was unacceptable. I haven’t posted any saying how great they are. We also know that bloggers have been hired by some to promote their own companies. Have hotel chains done this as well? I suspect, probably yes. So what to do.
Take them with a pinch of salt. Treat them like you would treat any other piece of gossip. The fewer the number of reviews could mean people are happy and don’t post their comments. After all do you want a favourite hotel filling up so you might not be able to stay there next time? Thousands of reviews would probably be difficult for a rival or even the hotel itself to make up so it is probably a fairer view of things.
But my concern is that because these review sites are unprompted; nobody goes up to a guest and asks them to add a good comment to a review site, there seem to be an awful lot of reviews that are around.