Travel Weekly Blog

Beijing Olympics big screen map: where to watch the 2008 Games in the UK

August 8, 2008

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games began barely an hour ago, and there are a number of big screens showing the events around the UK.

There are 16 BBC screens in towns cities, plus three in Central London locations. Scroll past the map for a list.

View Larger Map

• Bradford - Centenary Square
• Bristol - Millennium Square
• Cardiff - The Hayes
• Derby - The Market Place
• Hull - Queen Victoria Square
• Leeds - Millennium Square
• Liverpool - Clayton Square
• Manchester - Exchange Square
• Middlesbrough - Centre Square
• Norwich - Chapelfield Plain
• Plymouth - Armada Way
• Portsmouth - Guildhall Square
• Rotherham - All Saints Square
• Swansea - Castle Square
• Swindon - Wharf Green
• Walthamstow - Town Square
• London - Leicester Square
• London - Trafalgar Square
• London - Canary Wharf

More on the Beijing Olympics

Check out Travel Rants' Beijing Olympics carnival for some good blog posts on the 2008 Games.

Jaunted has a series of posts on the venues for the Beijing Olympics.

Sample ad from BA's 'Terminal 5 is working' campaign. Your thoughts?

August 7, 2008

Here's one of the ads from British Airways' new 'Heathrow Terminal 5 is working' campaign (click to enlarge).

As Travolution has pointed out, it must be a nightmare to produce

The copy freely admits its 'daily' punctuality figure is based on 6am to 2pm - leave it any later and the ad wouldn't be out for the next day.

I'll keep this simple, though: what do you think? Reassured, or not?

Here's the official line from the BA press office.

Update: I found a post about the ads on design mag Creative Review's blog - so head over there for some other perspectives on how well the campaign works.

How did the world book its last holiday? Let's Ask500People [poll]

Ask500People offers these nifty polls with a global answer map attached - so I'm trying one with a classic Travel Weekly question: how did you book your last holiday?

Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Watch this space. I've also got one on there about travel to the Beijing Olympics, so pop along and answer that if you're interested.

Update: ask500peeps seems to have gone down, so if you can't see the widget that's why.

Coming attractions: New York turns Broadway into... a cafe-lined boulevard?

August 6, 2008

Spotted on Gothamist: a New York resident has snapped work underway on the new widened sidewalk - I mean pavement - on Broadway:

Says Gothamist:

Between 42nd Street and Herald Square, four lanes of Broadway will go down to two lanes--and a bicycle lane and pedestrian walkway, complete with seating, tables, umbrellas and flower-filled planters, will emerge by August 15

Sounds pretty good. New Yorkers will have adopted a relaxed, continental attitude to life before you can say 'bof'...

Pic by flickr user carolitajohnson

Kids' failures at geography play into hands of travel agents

August 5, 2008

Having read this latest piece of research from Travelodge on the geographical skills of the UK's youngsters I was remided of a discussion I had recently with some travel agents.

We were talking about the USP for travel agents in the future and one of them half joked that a sound knowledge of geography would be more essential than ever as today's children have a poor understanding of countries, destinations etc.

Cue this research from Travelodge, which demonstrates how ignorant UK yoof is of UK destinations.

Martin Couzins, managing editor

Overweight air travellers: AirAsiaX breaks the 'don't mention scales' taboo

According to Jaunted, weighing air passengers is no longer beyond the realm of possibility.

Air Asia subsidiary AirAsiaX has apparently considered calculating the overall passenger weight so it can maximise the amount of cargo it packs in, thus increasing revenue per flight.

Let's be clear that this isn't the 'overweight passengers should pay more' scenario beloved of pub agitators and stand-up comedians.

Strangely, though, the original report on news.com.au says,

Although admitting the move would be difficult to implement, [AAX general manager] David Wright said charging larger passengers 'could help Aussies lose weight'

Which suggests some kind of disincentive for larger passengers, does it not?

Travel brands and blogs: ABTA's not-quite-a-comment on Travel Rants

August 4, 2008

Imagine you're a big travel brand (ABTA, for instance) and you encounter criticism on a popular consumer blog (let's say, er, Travel Rants).

You read the post, decide that it merits a response, and that you're comfortable with the response being public.

So you write the response in an email and send it to the blogger, who publishes it as a comment... on the interactive discussion you were just reading.

Hmm.

What you've done is functionally identical to leaving a comment. But you're still not comfortable with actually leaving a comment.

Still, it's good to see a travel brand's press office pay attention to a consumer blog. Next time click 'post', ABTA - the people you're talking to will like you better for it.

This is a staple subject among travel and travel industry bloggers - see for example:

• A report on the PhoCusWright bloggers' summit by Tracking Tourism
• The same from Canadian Tourism
• A Travel Rants post about the industry fearing bloggers

Oops: Yahoo puts Beijing Olympic mascots under Tiananmen Square headline

Spotted on Shanghaiist: this screengrab of a howler by Yahoo. Mascots for the Beijing Olympic Games pose on Tiananmen Square, beneath a headline about commemoration of the 1989 massacre.

Apparently an 'automated gallery feature' pulled in the picture based on the keyword 'Tiananmen'.

It turns out that keywords can't perform value judgments. Who knew?

More on it in the Guardian.

Name that comment and win a West Coast beer guide

August 1, 2008

This was recently posted to a piece of Travel Weekly content. Guess what it's about, and where it was posted...

First to get it - I hinted at it on TW Blog's twitter recently, actually - can have a copy of CAMRA's rather decent Good Beer Guide to the West Coast USA.

A bad week for travel? Keep it in perspective [links]

It's been a bit of a rocky week for travel - several bombs, an earthquake, a forest fire, one tragic murder and a hole in an aircraft.

Naturally Travel Weekly has written responses, so I just want to flag up a few things elsewhere on the site.

• Simon Calder on why the Qantas incident shows flying is safe
• Editor-in-chief Penny Wilson on Antigua's low crime rate
• Chloe 'Hotel Girl' Berman on the same
• Edward Robertson on ABTA's response to safety fears
• A poll for agents on whether their clients are cancelling (TW homepage, ends August 8)

...and finally

• Travolution on an unfortunate clash of Serbia headlines