Travel Weekly Blog

January 30: The Advertising Standards Authority tells Ryanair to withdraw a typically subtle piece of creative featuring a model in school uniform and the headline 'HOTTEST' (underneath: "...back to school fares").

"Censorship!" cries Ryanair, apparently outraged by the idea that a regulator should censor inappropriate material, rather than just crying "ooh, I say!" and moving on.

Januray 31: French president Nicolas Sarkozy and implausible girlfriend Carla Bruni sue Ryanair for using an unauthorised picture of them in a newspaper advert.

Sarkozy goes after a 'symbolic' single euro, but Bruni wants the slightly more literal figure of half a million.

Two in a row - and there's still time for Ryanair to complete the hat trick.

Internet-age consumer power is supposed to have overturned PT Barnum's 'there's no such thing as bad publicity' adage; if so, nobody told Michael O'Leary.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

National Statistics has produced a report - Family Spending - which shows how family spending in the UK has changed over the last 50 years.

The stats compare 1957 with 2006 and although there is no like for like comparison on travel expenditure, what is interesting is that if you combined the money spent abroad and amount spent on buying the holiday, travel would be the second biggest expenditure behind mortgage payments. Travel has become a top spending priority.

The second biggest weekly expenditure in 1957 was . . . cigarettes.
Martin Couzins, online editor

German travel agency OssiUrlaub.de is trialling nudist flights. The first one, planned for 5 July, will fly from German town of Erfurt to Baltic Sea resort of Usedom and will cost £370.

According to Reuters, the flight will take 55 passengers who will have to remain clothed until they board and dress before disembarking. The crew will remain clothed throughout the flight for safety reasons.

Pity the cabin crew who have to check the seatbelts.

Martin Couzins, online editor

A press release appears from charity The British Schools Exploring Society (BSES Expeditions). They've got a problem - albeit one that sounds like the premise of a lost Carry On film.

An Amazon Rainforest expedition to Peru, South America, has proved so popular with girls that BSES Expeditions is actively calling for boys to balance team dymanics.

Charlie Masding, Marketing Manager for BSES Expeditions said, “Usually we get an equal number of male and female applicants, but so far the vast majority of applicants are girls."

Now sit back and watch the applications fly in...

Nathan Midgley, web producer

It makes you cringe at the best of times, but some of the latest office jargon could make even David Brent’s toes curl:

• Blamestorming: debating who is responsible for something going wrong
• Boss-spasming: suddenly becoming busy when your boss appears

Recruitment consultants Office Angels, who put together the research, also asked Facebook users to disclose some of the worst jargon they have heard:

• “I’ve been spinning my wheels for some time, what I really need is some traction”
• “I think someone needs a bite of the reality sandwich”
• “The juice ain’t worth the squeeze”

So, over to you – surely the bosses in the travel industry can do better than this?

Emily Ashwell, business and community editor

That's what I asked the panel (pictured) at last night's Travolution Question Time, held at the lovely Charlotte Street Hotel. Thanks to Travolution for letting Travel Weekly get a question - the last one of the night in fact.

The answers to the questions were interesting in the fact that all of the panel apart from one would so something different to what they are currently doing. This is what they would like to do:

Alan Josephs, Ebookers: set up a vertical search company.

Kristie Goshow, Jumeirah Hotels: a widget to enable users to move their profiles from one online community to another.

Steven Freudmann, ITT: set up an online travel agency.

Chris Roe, Virgin Holidays: set up a destination marketing company.

Kevin Edwards, Affiliate Window: set up an affiliate network.

Pic Credit: Andy Huntley

Martin Couzins, online editor

Thomas Cook is presenting its results for year ended 31 october 2007 at 9.30 this morning. Pre-tax profits are up 30% to €284.3m.

The company says it is on track to deliver savings of at least €200m by 2008/09 due to the merger with MyTravel - that's €60m up on its original prediction.

This is how the company sees its development:

Mainstream (excluding financial services) will decline as a proportion of the total from 80% in 2005/06 to 72% in 2009/10.

Independent travel to increase as a proportion of the total from 18% in 2005/06 to 25% in 2009/10.

Revenue from financial services is expected to increase as a proportion of the total from 2% in 2005/06 to 3% in 2009/10.

Updates to come on Travel Weekly.
Martin Couzins, online editor

Here are the details of a request for a quote a customer sent to a travel agent yesterday.

The customer wanted five nights in Dubai and was not prepared to pay more than £30 per room per night – making that a maximum booking of £150. The booking was for one adult and one child.

The customer had sent the e-mail to 33 travel agents. As the agent who sent this on to us said

Just see how ridiculous it is getting out there, e-mailing so many agents over a booking which earns the agent £15. We advised the client that we would be unable to assist."

As an agent (I know not all our readers are, so if you're not, just pretend...) is this a booking that you would pursue? Or is a client who has approached so many people in search of the cheapest booking a lost cause?

Emily Ashwell, business and community editor

UPDATE 11.18am: latest story now on Travel Weekly. Interestingly, the news of 100 shop closures was not reported in the interim management statement.

The Times is reporting that TUI Travel plans to shut 100 shops as it plans to save £150m a year.

This is a part of the TUI Travel investor day and interim management statement announced today. Travel Weekly's Ian Taylor is currently talking to TUI Travel and they have confirmed 100 shops will close.

We will update the story on Travel Weekly.
Martin Couzins, online editor

Travel Weekly and its TW Group cohorts (Travolution, Gazetteers and TWacademy) just visited Disneyland Paris, and there was general astonishment at the size of the Newport Bay Club hotel.

Here's one of its corridors stretching into the distance. The white glow at the end is probably the south pole. Or Narnia.

There were tired legs among the TW Group, but pity the hotel staff: according to one, the distance from the end of the west wing to the end of the east is a full kilometre.

(Note to PRs attempting to get buy-in from bloggers: the key is pointless trivia.)

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Travel Weekly has got its hands on the latest set of Annie Leibovitz images commissioned by Disney as a part of its Year of a Million Dreams celebration. See the likes of Jennifer Lopez as you have never seen her before.
Martin Couzins, online editor

Virgin Galactic has appointed Accredited Space Agents to sell its space flights. Congratulations to Elegant Resorts, who will be selling to the UK market.

I notice Elegant Resorts has yet to add 'Space' to destinations listed on the home page :-)

Check out this tour of Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two.

Martin Couzins, online editor

Thanks to Flight Global for this little tale of rebranding.

The picture says it all. The lesson? When adopting the word 'ank' watch where you put the W's...

Martin Couzins, online editor

Okay, I disagree with Jaunted over in-flight mobile use. But I take my hat off to it for posting this teaser for "Air Hostess War", a Thai soap opera that - to the horror of union reps - is exactly what it sounds like.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Jaunted had a moan the other day at news that Norwegian Air plans to 'ruin your flight' by introducing both wireless internet access and mobile phone use by Q4 of 2008.

There is tremendous resistance to in-flight mobile phone use. Jaunted clearly isn't happy about it, and the Telegraph is also conducting a campaign against it.

Enough of the naysayers hogging the limelight. I'm coming out in favour of mobile phones, laptops, Wi-Fi... any technology airlines can get working safely, basically.

Here are six reasons why...

• In-flight calls/SMS will make arranging airport pick-ups 92% easier.
• And make business travellers more productive.
• And stave off boredom. (Admit it: economy-class IFE is mostly crap.)
• If you don't want to use your phone, you can turn it off.
• People already chatter inanely on aircraft. What's the difference?
• Rail operators have introduced 'quiet zones'. So can airlines.

Who's with me? Add your arguments in the comments and I'll pop them in the main post. Naysayers, I expect I'll hear from you too ;-)

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Nice spot from Select World Travel owner (and blogger) Lee Harrison: searching Jetset for flights from Heathrow to Dubai, he found that one Etihad service apparently lands at the bus station.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

The makers of Monopoly - Hasbro - have launched an online vote for the latest world edition of the family favourite board game. Yes folks, you now have an opportunity to vote (seemingly on a daily basis) for your favourite cities of the world.

You have until February 29 to vote on Hasbro's pre-selected shortlist of 68 cities, the 20 most popular of which will make it to the board.

But voters can also nominate 'wildcard' cities of their choosing. Nominations will be put to the vote from March 1 to March 9, and the two most popular will be added to the game to make the full 22 squares.

Got that? Good.

UK cities that feature on Hasbro's shortlist are London, Edinburgh and Cardiff. I wonder what kind of tactics tourist authorities will employ to bump up votes...

Martin Couzins, online editor

A new Thai soap opera - Air hostess war - has upset the union representing Thai Airways International flight attendants. Why? Because the show features, and I quote from the Shanghai Daily:

A story about a dashing married pilot having an affair with one of his slim flight attendants. There are love triangles that lead to fighting in the aisles and steamy sex scenes at stopover cities.

Good to see the programme makers have decided to show flight attendants in such a positive light. No wonder the union is unhappy.

Martin Couzins, online editor

This list of the top 10 not-to-be-missed cruise ports has just come in from Cruisecritic. The list is in alphabetical order.

Amsterdam
Dubrovnik
Hong Kong
Martinique
Maui
Muscat
Naples
St. Petersburg
Sydney
Vancouver

The FTSE 100 took a battering today, meaning that TUI Travel and Thomas Cook Group, both of whom recently broke into the index of leading shares, did too. Here are the figures from Yahoo! Finance.

TUI Travel was an uncomfortable 8.33% down at 4.35pm, having fallen to 206.25p from 224p...

...but Thomas Cook Group, which had fallen from 230p to a low of 212.25p around midday, had climbed back to 220p - putting it 'just' 5% down.

This won't do much to quell fears of a tough 2008...

• Quick addition - last week Ian Taylor did a nice bit of analysis on travel in an economic downturn. If you're interested in the prospects for 2008, take a look.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

We did Premier Inn's right/wrong side of the bed story last week, and I commented then how hard budget chains push the good-night's-sleep thing.

Right on cue, here comes more of it, courtesy of Travelodge.

This time we discover that 60% of workers have their worst night's sleep on a Sunday, with more than a quarter of that number having pulled a sickie on a Monday as a result.

The reasons? Mainly worry about work, mixed with botched sleep patterns after late nights and lie-ins at the weekend.

Unlike Premier Inn's story, which was based on Feng Shui and some true but largely irrelevant stuff about the hemispheres of the brain, this flirts with plausibility.

It was also released on a Monday, which means it will have chimed with poorly-rested folks across the country. Sorry Premier Inn: yours was fun, but Travelodge edges this round...

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Fashions in travel come and go, but maybe there is one booming area of travel that will never go out of fashion - and that is faith tourism. According to the World Religious Travel Expo web site, £9bn is spent on faith tourism each year.

If faith tourism is your bag you might like Sacred Destinations, which lists holy places in 55 countries. And in the US there is the Religious Travel Association. And as for blogs, well you could start with the association's president Kevin J. Wright.
Martin Couzins, online editor

BAA has issued the following statement regarding flight cancellations on Friday January 18, following the incident yesterday in which a British Airways aircraft landed short of the south runway:

The number of flight cancellations at Heathrow so far today is 53, mainly affecting short haul services.

BAA is doing everything possible to minimise disruption to our passengers and additional staff are on hand at the terminals to assist passengers.

At this stage, we are working hard to restore near normal operations. However, it is extremely important that passengers due to fly from Heathrow today contact their airline regarding the status of their flight.

David Learmount, safety editor of our stablemate Flight International, posted some early analysis of yesterday's incident at Heathrow.

Early indications are that the aircraft had either a total power loss or a severe power loss, and that this occurred very late in the final approach, because the pilot didn't have time to tell air traffic control or the passengers.

That would explain something which was bugging me about passenger interviews on the BBC - most passengers reporters spoke to said they thought it was a normal landing.

Normally, as all air travellers know, you would be given warning of an emergency landing and told to adopt the brace position before impact.

David also observes everyone on board is very lucky that the failure occurred as late as it did, and not when the aircraft was mid-flight.

This is shaping up to be a double-edged sword for BA in terms of PR - such a catastrophic failure will be embarrassing for the airline (not to mention Boeing), but staff on board BA038 appear to have shown immense skill and professionalism in handling the situation.

There are more links and information available on Flight's blog and the TW Blog post from yesterday.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

This is a plug as Travel Weekly and Travolution are media partners for this year's Travel and Technology Show, being held at Earl's Court 2 on 5/6 Feb. Kev over at Travolution has set up a blog dedicated to the show, so if you want to find out all the news, why you should attend, who is saying what etc, you know where to go.

There is a strong seminar programme plus more than 120 exhibitors - so lots to see and do. Hopefully see you there.
Martin Couzins, online editor

Last week I asked Travolution readers whether small travel agents can win over tough customers like recent Travel Weekly interviewee Chris Beddoe, who told us that she self-books online "because the only time I have to think about holidays is after 10pm".

I offered a (slightly spurious) choice: should agents invest in technology, or should they play to their traditional strengths?

Here's how the purple 'un's tech-savvy readers responded:

I think those agents that provide 24-hour, booking online are going to be the winners in the long term. It's great that smaller travel agencies are getting involved in the internet, but having a site which doesn't allow booking is pretty useless to me.
Darren Cronian

The Web lends itself perfectly for simple tasks such as flights, city trips, rental cars...but when you start combining these items it can easily take you hours. [People] will do it once or twice and then return to a savvy (!) agent because it's still more efficient.
Walter

I think agents should harvest on the disadvantages of the Web but they should also invest in tech support such as CRM. Not only are websites becoming more user friendly, they also become more savvy regarding your preferences. Once websites do this properly, agents will need to focus even more on niche offerings.
Gualterio

The point is that "booking" is not where agents add value. It's in "finding" and "recommending" particularly if what you want is unusual or undefined. Agents need new models that allow them to get paid for playing to their strengths.
DJ

Nathan Midgley, web producer

The BBC is reporting that a British Airways flight from Beijing has landed short of the runway at Heathrow.

According to the Times, the incident led to Heathrow being closed to incoming and outgoing flights.

UPDATE - 18/01/07, 17.20: There's a good rundown of possible causes on the BBC.

UPDATE - 15.45: The latest on the runway closures from BAA Heathrow:

Heathrow Airport's southern runway was closed immediately after the incident for a period of less than two hours and the airport operated single runway operation during that period. The southern runway re-opened for departing aircraft at 14:30 with arriving aircraft landing on the northern runway.

MEDIA LINKS - 15.10:

• Video coverage (Telegraph)
• Eyewitness reports (BBC)
• Image gallery (BBC)

UPDATE - 14.30: The south runway remains closed, but the north runway is in operation.

All 136 passengers were evacuated. A telephone helpline has been set up for friends and relatives - call 0800 3894193.

UPDATE - 13.50: An eyewitness has told the BBC that the aircraft "took the runway too low," narrowly missing the roof of his vehicle.

At this stage it seems that all passengers are safe, with only three reportedly being treated for 'minor' injuries.

Touch concerned that I am going to get a reputation for spotting this kind of material, especially after the Ryanair calendar post.

Apparently, there are certain flights out of LAX on a Friday afternoon destined for Vegas that are mostly filled with strippers heading off for their weekend of work. That would make sense I guess. But this got me wondering if there are are other such commercial flights that mostly carry a particular kind of professional. Hooters Air did run a service predominantly for golfers . . .
Martin Couzins, online editor

The things people do. Josh Parsons, a lecturer at Otago University, has given a grading to the flags of the world based on design. As well as finding out what some of the flags of the world actually looked like, I was amused by some of the commenatry.

Take the Falkland Islands, for example.

This flag gets a D grade and the following comment.

'Worst UK colonial flag. Has a sheep on it. Actually, if you look closely, you can see that the sheep is riding on top of an island, which is riding on top of a ship. Also the stupid slogan is in English, and is a platitude.'

Here is the methodology for the scoring and thanks to Gadling for pointing us to Parsons' work.
Martin Couzins, online editor

A press release from Boeing indicates that the first flight of the 787 Dreamliner, the manufacturer's new greener aircraft, will now take place in quarter two of this year instead of quarter one.

That will push 787 Dreamliner deliveries back to early 2009, rather than late 2008.

In a Boeing press release president and CEO Scott Carson blamed 'start-up issues in our factory and in our global supply chain' for the latest delay.

Bad news for carriers who have Dreamliners on order. (In the UK: British Airways, First Choice Airways, Monarch Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.)

Nathan Midgley, web producer