This coming week is the week we should celebrate tourism. Throughout England & Wales (Scotland had theirs this week) it is British Tourism Week. The National Trust throws opens its properties for free entry next weekend and events are staged across the two countries. Events like the illumination of Hadrian’s Wall and any of over hundreds of others are what should be attracting our attention. (www.britishtourismweek.com) But all the media seem to be concentrating on is BA with the tabloids having great fun with their headlines. Little mention will be made of tourism being worth £114 billion to the UK or that it is our fifth largest industry

Actually it doesn’t.
After all the hype from Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, about high speed rail, the long awaited announcement has come that we are going to accelerate to become a nation linked by the fastest trains we have ever had. And to save 20 minutes to an hour or whatever it will be it will take 7 years before construction can begin and the first phase will be completed in 16 years.
This isn’t so much high-speed rail as tortoise speed government.

Like a lot of countries, the US hasn’t weathered the recession that well. Like most countries it has decided it needs to raise more money. Like some countries it has decided that tourism is a way of generating additional money. But to get additional tourists it has to advertise and promote itself. How does it do this? By slapping a S10 tax on everyone who wants to visit the country. The money this raises will be matched by up to $100 million of private sector contributions and the whole lot will be spent on promoting tourism.
Sorry it’s not a tax, it is a fee that will be charged every two years when you apply for the ESTA form which allows you to enter the US in the first place. The only people who won’t have to pay will be Americans and those who have had to pay $131 for a visa
The good news is that although signed into law, no date for its introduction has been announced yet.
Will it make a difference? Will it stop people going there?

It always surprises other people just what gets lost or left in places. I, myself, once left a bag with a brand new pair of shoes inside on a train luggage rack and only realised what I had done when I got home so I am a great one to talk. Nonetheless, it is still fascinating to see odd (odd in the sense of how would you ever forget anything quite so personal) things that have been left.
Airport Parking and Hotels (APH see www.aph.com) have been looking through their lost property that they have collected and found the usual array of clothing and mobile phones.

The figures for what we visited last year have been released by ALVA, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. Between their 42 members, they are responsible for nearly 1,600 different attractions. But not every attraction is a member and not every member provides figures so there could be more popular places around.
Last year more of us visited their attractions than ever before. The figures were up by nearly 11% over 2009 which may not be that surprising given that 2009 was a year when more of us holidayed at home.
Rather obviously, those that didn’t make an entry charge filled the top 5 positions with the British Museum being the leading attraction in the country with over 5.5 million visits.

In Greece, there have been cries of outrage at the suggestion by some German parliamentarians that they sell off some of the Greek islands. The money raised from the sale, goes the suggestion, would reduce the large economic deficit that the country has. As there are about 6,000 Greek islands and only about 80 are inhabited, there remain a huge number which make no contribution to the Greek economy.
Is this such a bad idea?
There are islands in the Caribbean that have been sold and then developed for tourism. In the Maldives, islands are co-developed for tourism with the locals and the state receiving taxation. And there seems to be a ready market for people to buy islands so here is a slight alteration to the idea. The attraction of the Greek islands for tourists has existed for centuries.

Does anybody like Heathrow? Not the people who live around it. Not many of the people who fly from it. But after half a century it is still there. Surrounded by houses and sprawling industrial estates wrapped, around by motorways and dual carriageways, Heathrow seems always to be straining to get out if its little straightjacket of land.
I confess I don’t like it. As a regular user, it can be still confusing to me. You take endless walkways to get anywhere whether it to be to get out or to get to your plane’s gate. It seems overcrowded in the older terminals and in the sky. I won’t even begin to contemplate how long I have spent being stacked in the air because there are trying to cram so many landings and take-offs into what seems a pint pot when they need a quart or even a gallon.

Now that no-frills airlines like Ryanair and easyJet charge you for placing luggage in the hold, people are looking for ways to save money on all the extra things that make a cheap fare, expensive. Many experts felt that customers would just put up with it but now comes evidence from a US company that suggests this may not be the case (no pun intended!). Suitcase.com is an American retail company which sells any variety of different types of bags and cases. It asked 21,000 people about their luggage purchasing habits and it has thrown up some interesting results.
Now Americans have had to put up with all these extra charges for longer than we have and even have to pay for luggage on the main carriers as well.

Last summer we mentioned some research that showed up to 10% of people went on holiday leaving their children behind. Was this the beginning of a trend? What were parents doing with the children while they were on holiday? At that time we wondered whether the survey results were an oddity. It seems not.
In India, the trend has also been spotted and The Times of India highlighted the fact that children were left with grandparents whilst the parents went away they had almost if not more than a break than their parents did. Some people planned two holidays a year, one with the kids and one without saying that the holidays without the kids were needed so that they get sufficiently relaxed.

Whilst in the US earlier this week, I was being taken to the airport in one of those hotel shuttle buses. One of the people in the bus was a pilot from Southwest Airlines who, being in uniform, was being asked all sorts of questions by another passenger.
If this had occurred in the UK and he flew for Ryanair or British Airways to name but two, he might have been subjected to complaints but not here.
As many of you will know, Southwest Airlines is the no-frills airline that Ryanair, easyJet and just about every other no-frills airline in the world copies since they have been profitable and very popular for much of their life. One of the reasons for that popularity has been their customer service, satisfaction and staff loyalty. And didn’t it show on this occasion.