Travel Weekly Blog

Sustainable, responsible or green travel? Our survey said...

2009-07-03T15:43:17Z

There are, I'm given to understand, shades of difference in the terminology of gadding about in an ecologically sound way.

In practice, though, sustainable, responsible, green and eco- tend to be used interchangeably, and may be accompanied by 'travel' or 'tourism'.

So I did what all journalists, advertisers, copwriters and... well, everyone, basically, does. I asked Google what keywords people like best.

Verdict: ecotourism walks it. 'Green travel' comes second, despite being a phrase so flat and dull it sounds more like a stop on the Northern Line than a term for environmentally conscious globetrotting.

Wonder how my own coinages stack up...

Heading to Greece? Check the FCO's fancy dress advice

2009-07-02T14:43:45Z

A colleague has spotted a change to the Foreign Office's Greece travel advice: "Some fancy dress costumers may offend the local Greek authorities."

No prizes for guessing which incident that refers to...

Luxury is... swimming with pigs in the Bahamas

2009-07-01T10:57:48Z

Press release arrives announcing that you can swim with pigs at dizzyingly swish Bahamas resort Royal Plantation Island.

Here's the proof:

Each of the six-villas on Royal Plantation Island comes with its own motorboat, so guests can easily hop across to Pig Beach on neighbouring uninhabited island Big Major Spot. Here they can marvel at the curiously graceful water ballet of the island's rotund wild pigs, who paddle out to greet the boats

Sign me up.

Sorry about the fuzzy image - it's all that came with the release.

Update: some kind soul has sent me a better one...

Oops: Spectator runs BA ad next to BA-bashing column

2009-06-30T09:27:50Z

A copy of the Spectator? £2.95

Reading Chrissy Iley's vaguely correct but infuriatingly self-important bit of airline-bashing, of which BA bears the brunt? Free.

Seeing it next to a full-page ad for BA? Priceless.

Notes from Bavaria: Munich Airport aims to be shopper magnet, transfer heaven

2009-06-26T16:05:24Z

Just had a whistle-stop tour of Munich Airport - note the omg exclusive panoramic pic, taken from the lower tier of the control tower.

Naturally, we got a Munich Airport pitch along with the tour - here are the two elements I found most interesting:

It's bidding for non-travelling visitors too

Between Munich's two terminals (the original from 1992 and the shiny new one from 2005) is a covered square that acts as meeting point and venue.

The new Porsche is on display there just now, but in the past it has hosted volleyball tournemants and big-screen sports matches, notably during the 2006 Germany World Cup.

You'll find some bars with beer gardens there too, including Airbrau, the airport's micro-brewery (the weissbier and pretzels come with my recommendation).

Better still, the airport's businesses are obliged to stick to high street rates. We're told the lack of nasty airport mark-ups makes it an attractive shopping proposition for residents of north-east Munich, for whom a trip to the airport can be quicker than heading into the city centre.

It's an odd-sounding scenario, but certainly more plausible than residents of Hounslow popping to Heathrow to update their wardrobe.

It wants to be the best darn hub it can be

We're told that Munich's newer terminal was designed with transfers in mind. Gates are arranged in a kilometre-long line, so it's impossible to get lost (though God help you if you do go the wrong way, as I semi-cheekily pointed out to the PR).

There's a TV screen at every gate that displays the connections passengers need, and, helpfully, each is accompanied by a big left or right arrow.

May sound prosaic, but anyone who has tackled transfers at the likes of Hong Kong, Charles de Gaulle or - shudder - Frankfurt will see the value.

The airport is aiming for a maximum 30-minute transfer time (our Lufthansa rep claimed to have made one in 15 minutes), and has a control centre that monitors flights, sending out 'mini-vans' (don't worry, they mean buggies) to help late arrivals make their connections.

Anything else? Well, the new terminal is modern and light and airy, but that's par for the course in new airport terminals. More notable is the relative quiet - announcements are kept to a minimum in both volume and regularity.

Have they done research on how well passengers cope without announcements, I ask? The PR doesn't quite answer, instead emphasising that announcements are few, rather than totally absent.

In terms of news, Munich has plans for a third runway and terminal, and wants to get ICE train coverage extended to the airport. None of that's dated at this stage, though.

And yes, if you have 'Heathrow expansion' and 'Crossrail' in your head, you're not alone. Bet these guys finish first though...

I'm in Bavaria with Lufthansa and the German Tourist Office until Sunday June 28 - I'll be posting here (general things) and on the Postcards blog (destination things).

Web tips: Use del.icio.us to feed selected links into destination pages

2009-06-23T08:37:09Z

If you read any travel media, it's likely you've come across inspirational content relevant to the holidays you sell and thought, "How can I put this in the hands of potential customers?"

The obvious thing is to put them on your site's destination pages, if you have any.

It's a triple-whammy: linking to good, relevant travel features gives your users a better experience, adds to your perceived authority on the spot in question, and boosts search engine ranking.

But to get the best value out of them, you want to keep your third-party links regularly updated. This question is how to do that without:

Making the feature a chore to manage
Exposing yourself to the risks of an unfiltered RSS feed (negative stories, coverage of competitors and so on)

'Social bookmarking' sites such as del.icio.us are a good solution, offering the automation of a feed with a degree of editorial control.

Here's what you do.

Get a free account.
Install the toolbar or the Firefox addon so you can save pages with one click.
Save some good pages and 'tag' them with the name of the destination.
Del.icio.us automatically starts an RSS feed for every one of your tags (example).
Add that RSS feed to your page, using a widget-builder like Widgetbox if you need to.
Now every time you see something worth sharing, you just save and tag it.

And this doesn't have to stop at traditional 1,000 word travel pieces. Found a useful discussion on Thorn Tree? Bookmark it and share it with your site visitors. Seen a great flickr photo or youtube video? Ditto.

Needless to say, you can apply the same technique on a more general level. If you just want a single feed of good travel articles rather than several destination-specific ones, use a generic 'travelwriting' tag or forget tags altogether and feed in everything you post to your account.

I save and tag destination-specific pages for some of TW's own destination pages. To boot, another del.icio.us feature posts all the new links I bookmark to our Postcards blog on a daily basis. Pretty handy.

Travel thru a lens: Is Simonseeks a Squidoo for destinations?

2009-06-19T08:32:07Z

So, Simonseeks. I put through Linda Fox's story on it for Travolution yesterday, and managed to skim posts by Matt Parsons and Jeremy Head, as well as some comments on the Travo blog post.

Broadly, two classes of people are asking two questions.

Pro travel writers are asking, can we make money from it?
Amateur travel writers are asking, can we make money from it?

The eagle-eyed will have spotted a similarity there. But the key is what each party means by money.

Pros are assessing Simonseeks as a genuine revenue stream
Amateurs like the idea of getting pennies for something they'd do for free anyway

What I'm not clear on is which of these classes Simonseeks wants to engage. At launch it is pushing content by pros (and, er, Cliff Richard), which means it's coming to market with some good stuff to read.

But 50% of click-throughs is not going to keep the pros churning out guides, so at some point I would expect the current level of quality to dip.

Will the pros stick around?

At that point, one of Jeremy's own reservations comes into play. As a professional and rather good travel writer, does he want to be published alongside amateurs?

It would be worth it for one of three reaons:

He's creaming it in from Simonseeks.
Simonseeks has become so popular that it has killed the businesses pros traditionally work for, making it the only option.
He's doing it because he likes it and/or gets a profile boost from it.

Only the third of those is terribly likely, which leaves Simonseeks squarely in the hands of amateur enthusiasts (plus a few pros who are either doing it for love or profile).

Squids in?

Probably the closest model is the Seth Godin-supported Squidoo, with the destination guide as a 'lens' and its curator taking a small cut of revenue. The split is similar too - this comes from Squidoo's 'about' page:

Squidoo makes money from ads and affiliate links. We give 5% of what we earn to charity. We keep 45% to cover our overhead and stuff. That leaves 50%. That goes to charity or to the people who build the pages

It's not hard to find posts out there on how little income folks typically get from Squidoo (though this proves that it's hard, not impossible). But another key line from its FAQ states:

Most of our best users aren't here for the money. It's just a fortunate byproduct of their passion and great content

Amateur content creators are utterly, intuitively comfortable with this. Even when they did stuff for free they were still getting a better deal than their pre-internet forefathers, whose fanzines had to be printed and stapled and mailed out.

For pros, as Jeremy's commenters largely say, the value is harder to divine.

So, is Simonseeks a death knell for traditional guidebooks? Not really, because functionally it's more of the same. Its revenue model is too slight to upset the existing balance between traditional content and Wikitravel, Tripadvisor and so on. Life for the traditional guides stays tough, but I don't think it gets worse.

In any case, we found this month that traditionl guides already have enemies rather closer to home...

Watch the new Foreign Office TV advert

2009-06-17T13:32:17Z

As I normally do with new ads, I'll leave it largely up to you to comment on this one.

Personally I think it's fairly effective but not sure about 'find out what the British Embassy can do for you' as a call to action - knowing where to go for help is important, but I'd rather see the FCO encouraging travellers to inform themselves and behave properly.

Maybe that's just what I was expecting after reading the story on sex and nudity laws this morning).

Swine flu pandemic: Don't panic, but do make a note of these links...

2009-06-11T16:15:17Z

The world Health Organisation has declared swine flu (aka A(H1N1)) a pandemic.

We've been at threat level five for months, so what exactly does moving to level six change?

According to officials, not much for UK residents [Guardian]. Cases in England are more or less flat, though Scotland is seeing a bit of an increase.

But what about travellers? Says the Guardian's correspondent:

Swine flu in most countries has been mild and there have been no signs of it becoming more deadly. [...BUT...] Swine flu has to be officially designated a pandemic because it is spreading easily in two distinct regions, the Americas and now Australia.

Swine flu is now present in 74 countries [New York Times], so while there's little need to panic it would be wise to keep an eye on the destinations you specialise in.

How? Your go-to resource is obviously the World Health Organisation. Here's what to subscribe to and bookmark:

Feeds

Static content

Further reading

Check the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's site for general and country-specific travel advice.

Travel Weekly has a swine flu coverage page, which has some archived news with a travel trade angle, plus some links to other news sources and background information.

Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre wrote a good voice-of-reason piece about Swine Flu and the media back in late April

Forbes reports that today's news boosted pharmaceutical stocks - but quick checks on TUI Travel and Thomas Cook Group numbers [Yahoo Finance] suggest the big travel companies haven't taken a hit (so far?).

...and you'll find heaven knows how many more articles on the pandemic announcment on Google News.

If you've found any other good resources, share them in the comments section.

ITT: The ABTA election result is imminent - so where's the buzz?

2009-06-09T16:01:46Z

More blogging from our man at the ITT Conference in Dubai...

Shock horror! The ABTA chairman election appears, albeit briefly, to have dropped off the lips of executives here in Dubai.

This might surprise some people back in the UK given the near frenzy of activity in the media a few weeks ago when campaigning between the candidates began.

There are a few possible reasons for this:

No-one cares.
The Thomas Cooksaga is THE topic of conversation.
One of the candidates is considered a shoo-in.
Feeling that the new 'role' will not make a huge difference.

One suspects it is a combination of 2) and 4).

But given the result is being announced here by none other than ABTA boss Mark Tanzer tomorrow night (at around 8pm UAE, 5pm BST), there is perhaps not the buzz people would have expected.

In fact, the only mention of ABTA came during the final session this morning, when The Co-Operative Travel's Mike Greenacre called on the travel industry to back the organisation if it wants policy makers to treat it seriously.

I hope for Tanzer's sake the enthusiasm builds ahead of the result being made public tomorrow.

Twitter 'hype puncture': Missing the point by 9 million

2009-06-09T12:55:02Z

[Sarcasm begins]

Just so you all know - I'm abandoning Twitter following Harvard findings that 10% of users create 90% of content.

I follow just short of 200 people from all walks of the travel industry, and they regularly share great links and make me think and laugh.

But what good is that now I know there are 9 million people out there not posting at all?

The idea of missing out on all the things they might theoretically post if they were a) part of my community of interest or b) interested in participating is too much to bear.

Some of you might be content to use Twitter to keep up with a sensible number of interesting people, but I was in it for those 10 million voices. Every one.

See you in the print letters pages.

[Sarcasm ends]

Link: Sir Richard Branson guest editing Flight Global today

2009-06-08T12:44:53Z

Quick interruption to Kevin's missives from the ITT Conference in Dubai - you may be interested to know that Sir Richard Branson is guest editing Flightglobal.com today.

Sir Richard is selecting top stories, pictures and videos, and has written a blog post on how aviation will fare in the coming years:

Everything has been thrown at our industry - volatile oil, swine flu, recession, environmental pressure, higher government taxes. What next? We're clearly at a tipping point. The next 12 months will determine how our industry looks for the longer-term...

Flight Global is published by the same company as Travel Weekly and Travolution.

ITT: Rumour mill begins to turn as Thomas Cook boss pulls out

2009-06-08T12:06:16Z

More from Kevin May at the ITT Conference in Dubai

There's nothing like a last-minute pull-out of a high profile speaker to get the tongues wagging (in between gasps for the conditioned air of the hotel lobby).

Manny Fontenla-Novoa's sudden disappearance from the programme coincided with news today that the possible demise of shareholder Arcandor had prompted the Thomas Cook Group boss to fly to the less oven-like climes of Germany.

Cue the inevitable rumour-mill sweeping through the restaurants of the InterContinental Festival City Dubai today.

Most delegates are speculating that despite Thomas Cook Group being safe from an operational point of view, Fontenla-Novoa will be looking to shore up the ownership of the company pretty darn fast given how quickly the markets can turn against a PLC.

At the time of writing Thomas Cook Group shares stand at 209.25 - down from 214 first thing today.

One suspects the speculation will to continue throughout the week - although another rumour that the great man himself would still try and get here for his session are apparently wide of the mark.

ITT in Dubai: A room with a view...

2009-06-08T09:07:18Z

Travolution editor Kevin May is going to be guest blogging from the ITT Conference in Dubai. Here comes his first post...

Hopefully I can be forgiven for not being entirely aware of the surroundings last night after arriving in Dubai for the annual extravaganza that is the ITT Conference.

Crawling into bed at 2am at The Address, Downturn Burj, after a long flight from London, it never occurred to me open the curtains or step out onto the balcony.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I discovered this outside the hotel room window.

The tallest building in the world, still under construction about 300 metres away.

For the photographic purists out there, I'll admit I struggled to include it all in the frame, thus why the top is missing.

One of the most obvious things about Dubai is that the construction programme feels like it is a competition between the imaginations of wacky architects.

Fast forward a few hours and I was interviewing the executive chairman of Jumeirah Group, Gerald Lawless, from its Al Qasr hotel by the beach, with the Burj Al-Arab in the background...

...which seems rather tame in comparison these days...

GTA employees have 'lively' chat on Indy's pay cut story

2009-06-04T12:35:14Z

You're all familiar with arguments about employees' behaviour on forums and social networking sites - as rehearsed after the BA Facebook case and various other stories.

So I need add nothing to this little public scrap between Gullivers Travel Associates staff on the Independent.

In it an initially sensible discussion of pay cuts ends up taking in grammar niceties and the words 'moron' and 'chicken'.

Scroll up to see the initial sensible bits.

And remember: be careful out there...