Travel extra april 2014 summer cruise edition

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CRUISE PRICES AND OPTIONS 2014 NEW PRESIDENT FOR THE ITAA AER LINGUS GOES FLAT IN 2015 IHF Conference

Bedbank shock

New routes

R U O

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IRELAND'S PREMIER SOURCE OF TRAVEL INFORMATION

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APRIL 2014

Cruising the Med Everything your clients need to know

VOLUME 17 NUMBER 4

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T

The wanderers

The Irish travel more than any other EU country

he Irish are the most travelled peoplein the EU and the second most travelled perople in Europe behind Norway.

The Preferences of Europeans Towards Tourism report for 2013 showed that 85pc of the Irish population travelled abroad at least once in 2013, second to Norway’s 90pc.

More than 15pc of the Irish travel abroad more than four times a year, 60pc took at least one short break up to 3 nights, 65pc at least one break of between 4 and 13 nights and 26pc a break of more than 13 consecutive nights away.

Holidays in second homes, either at home or abroad, were taken by 16pc.

Of the 15pc who did not travel just over half (57pc) gave financial reasons as the reason for not taking a foreign holiday.

Asked about their holiday choice: 49pc chose a sun-beach holiday, 39pc VFR, 22pc citybreak, 18pc culture, just 15pc nature and landscape (one of the lowest on the continent), 14pc sports and events, 11pc sporting activities, and 9pc wellness and spa.

Of these 15pc booked a holiday over the counter at a travel agency and 20pc over the phone, compared with 78pc on the internet, 20pc through someone they knew, 7pc on site at the holiday location, 7pc at an airline desk, and 4pc by post.

Ireland is ■ No 1 in the number of people who plan to go on holiday in 2014 at a different time of year than last year (13pc), ahead of Italy (12pc).

■ No 1 in the number of people

APRIL 2014 PAGE 3

NEWS

TURKEY extended the transition period

of the e-visa process until December 31 instead of April 30 as originally planned.

INDIA’s visa-on-arrival scheme is expected to be rolled out in October to tourists from Ireland and other countries. Visitors can collect their 30-day visa at one of India's 26 major airports. India accounts for a small proportion of international tourist trips to Asia, just 6.6m in 2012, compared with Thailand's 22.3m.

UNIVERSAL Orlando announced a

Four out of every five people in Irleand travel abroad each year

who plan to go on holiday for more than four nights in 2014 (59pc), ahead of Norway (58pc).

■ No 1 in the chart of those for whom the quality of activities or services is the main reason to go back to the same place at 40pc ahead of Finland 37pc and joint No 1 with Malta (94pc) among people who were satisfied with the quality of activities and services during their main holiday ■ No 1 in the chart of those who were satisfied with the way tourists were welcomed on their main holiday last year (93pc).

■ No 2 in the chart of the number of people looking to the recommendations of friends, colleagues or relatives as the most important sources of information with 67pc after Latvia (72pc).

■ No 2 in the chart of those who used the internet to arrange holidays at 78pc behind Norway (80pc).

■ No 3 in the chart for people plan-

ning short-stay trips of up to three consecutive nights at 45pc behind England (48pc) and Finland (47pc).

■ No 3 in the chart of people who purchased the various tourism services separately behind Norway (69pc) and Denmark (65pc).

■ No 4 in the proportion of people who registered a complaint about their holiday at 6pc, behind Sweden (12pc), and Denmark and Malta at 4pc. Europe-wide most formal complaints concerned the accommodation (41pc), followed by transport (22pc), restaurants (17pc) and leisure activities (8pc).

When asked what country they intended to spend their holiday in 2014, 32pc of respondents in Ireland chose a home holiday. The big drop was in sport-related holidays, well down from a chart-topping 15pc in 2012 to 4pc on 2013 (no prizes for guessing why). Ireland was in 7th place (28pc) among those who chose to holiday outside the EU28.

new attraction at Wet 'n Wild, Orlando’s original water park to open summer 2014. Aqua Drag Racer will stand about 60 feet tall and send four passengers at a time to race each other through interlocking tunnels and down steep hills, while traveling at 15 feet per second face-first on their stomachs atop a foam mat. Universal say the experience can be compared to the Olympic sport of skeleton, minus the ice.

DISNEY Ratatouille dark ride will open

at Disneyland Paris this summer. Disney Paris has reopened Autopia, Casey Jr. Cique Train, Le Pays des Contes de Fées, and Thunder Mesa Riverboat while Indiana Jones Temple du Peril – remains closed until Summer 2014.

While official figures are not released it is believed that Disneyland Paris had 1m fewer visitors in 2013 than in 2012.

SPAIN The Spanish Tourist Board has

launched a new Twitter account @spaininireland. Spain attracted a record 60,661,073 inbound visitors in 2013. Passenger numbers from Ireland were 1,270,038 up 6.8pc, making Ireland the 14th most important inbound market into Spain, according to the Instituto de Estudios Turisticos.

AUSTRALIA Tourism Australia say

60,600 Irish short term visitors travelled to Australia in 2013 down 1.1pc on the 2012 figure of 61,300. Ireland has slipped to the 20th most important inbound market to Australia.

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Page 004 Knowledge 13/03/2014 09:43 Page 1

APRIL 2014 PAGE 4

THE KNOWLEDGE Travel Extra Advertising & Subscriptions 6 Sandyford Office Park Dublin 18 (+3531) 2913708 Fax (+3531) 2957417 Editorial Office Clownings Straffan Co Kildare Managing Editor: Gerry O’Hare gerry@travelextra.ie Editor: Eoghan Corry eoghan.corry@ travelextra.ie Publisher: Edmund Hourican Sales Director: Maureen Ledwith maureen@bizex.ie Accounts and Advertising: Maria Sinnott maria@bizex.ie Picture Editor: Charlie Collins pix@travelextra.ie Chief Subeditor: Ida Milne ida@travelextra.ie Chief Features Writer: Anne Cadwallader anne@travelextra.ie Contributors : Eanna Brophy eanna@travelextra.ie Marie Carberry marie@travelextra.ie Carmel Higgins carmel@travelextra.ie Cauvery Madhavan cauvery@travelextra.ie Sean Mannion sean@grafacai.ie Conor McMahon conor@travelextra.ie Ida Milne ida@travelextra.ie Catherine Murphy cathmurph@yahoo.com

Travel Extra takes no responsibility for errors and omissions.

Distribution Manager: Shane Hourican shane@bizex.ie Origination: Typeform

Printer: WG Baird Limited Caulside Drive Greystone Rd Antrim BT41 2RS Contact 01-2957418 if you have difficulty getting Travel Extra.

CONTENTS

www.travelextra.info

3-7 News Where to go, how much to pay 6 Hotels: News 8 Postcards: News from the trade 10 Cruise: Summer 2014

S

20 Bit Milan: Italy woos lovers 21 New routes: Pick of the destinations 22 France: Lore fo the Loire 24 Ireland: Home holiday news 26 Afloat: Stena goes to France 28-32 Flying: Trans Atlantic summer

33 Bedbanks: Llife after OHG 34 Global Village Inside the travel industry 36 Window seat: Our columnists 37 Pictures: Out and about

Selling cruise holidays

budget cruisers. Combining a week’s Mediterranean cruise with a week in a familiar Majorcan resort gets over the fear factor and means they can enjoy the best of both worlds.

elling a cruise holiday has become much more interesting in the past year after the biggest reconfiguration of market share in the Irish market in twenty years. Here are some points to ponder:

BUDGET It is all about budget. This needs to be established at the very beginning of the conversation along with finding out their expectations of the trip. Spend time on expectations before you offer advice. If in doubt, sell from the top down. As Larry Pimentel, CEO of Azamara says, ‘your customers will soon tell you if that is not their budget.”

CHANGE their

thinking. Common preconceptions about cruising may be turning some clients off, that cruising is for older travellers, that you spend all your time on the ship, that sea-sickness is an issue, and most of all that cruising is expensive.

LUXURY Sell the

dream. Point out all the luxury options for special occasions such as anniversaries. On all of the newer ships in the past 10-15 years, there is no such thing as steerage. All staterooms are well appointed, well above water, and have all the mod cons of 4 and 5 star hotels.

DRINKS packages

are all the rage. The top end ships include drinks in their all inclusive prices but most lines do pre-paid packages.

REPEAT Encour-

AGE

Drinks packages have become an integral part of the cruise sell

age your customers to discuss their next cruise with the 'future cruise consultant' on board there are lots of extras, and you can come back to your travel professional to discuss adding on flights, hotels or tours afterwards.

SWITCH SELL:

Agents don’t get many clients walking through the door with a cruise brochure so they have to try to switch-sell. If clients want a city break, suggest a mini cruise.

Cruising is the easy way to see the Caribbean in one holiday, visiting 10 islands in two weeks for instance.

ONBOARD

spend items need to be clarified as many customers think the cruise prices are so good. They think there must be a catch, usually this is not the case.

SHORE Cruises

try to allow passengers as much time ashore as possible, sailing at night and waking up in a new port. Warn that shore excursions can be expen-

sive (although many cruise lines are offering these as commissionable extras) and that they can explore on their own.

Find out what they want ashore, the big ships can only get in to a limited number of ports, smaller ships offer more variety and specialist options.

EMPHASISE.

value and price. Show just how much prices of traditional cruises are dropping. There is lots of information elsewhere on this, but it is important to stress the per-day cost all inclusive which works out at €50 on Caribbean cruises.

SEASICKNESS fears can be assuaged by telling them modern ships are well stabilised but if you are concerned choose a big ship and a cabin on a lower deck in the centre of the ship, where there is less movement, and cruise more sheltered sea areas such as the Baltic and Adriatic, which don't have big Atlantic swells.

FIND out the currencies onboard, which can

make a big difference against the current rate.

Many of the big cruise specialists highlight this daily on their websites/social media.

KEEP them up to

date with new facilities, new ships, new routes, and direct pick ups from Ireland. Establish an ongoing relationship.

VARIETY Suggest a river cruise or an extension to a cruise for a different experience.

River cruises are raising standards quietly and quickly, in Europe and on the Nile.

SUGGEST unusual destinations. The big cruise lines are going to Asia, Africa and Australia. Try Hurtigruten for Antarctica and Star Cruises for Asia.

Disregard what cruise lines say about average ages (it means little to a customer, although people on the mainland tend to cruise younger, the mid 40s in Spain and Italy versus 62 in England, with Ireland and the USA in between). The real clinchers for younger cruise passengers is the growing number of on board activities, sun cruises and shorter cruises.

GET proper training.

You will sell more effectively if you know what you're talking about. Detailed knowledge will help you identify the right cruise for each customer. Training webinars where you don’t have to leave the office are more popular. And read the monthly cruise pages in Travel Extra.

SAFETY Accidents on cruise ships are nothing new. Statistically the risk of being caught up in one is miniscule.

You are in more danger on your drive to the airport than on a cruise.

FLY CRUISE CRUISE & The security of selling STAY Several cruise the package with the lines offer land stays pre and post cruise. For those not sure they will like a holiday at sea, it could be the final clincher. Cruise-and-stay is especially popular with first-time and

Cruise line is all transfers, Hotel, checked baggage (one piece in Europe) and earn full commission on the air element, even with low cost carriers.

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B

No 1 sun Island Island off Belize comes top of Tripadvisor chart

NEWS

CANADA is to increase working holi-

day visas for Irish people to 10,700 from 6,350 last year. The young professionals and international co-op categories will open for applications on March 11th, with the first round entries for the working holiday category to follow on March 13th. A second working holiday round will be announced at a later date.

DUBAI says bookings made prior to March 31st with arrivals from March 31st will not be exempt from the new compulsory Tourist Dirham tax to be levied on all booked hotel accommodation in Dubai from that date, the tax ranges from AED7/€1.40 in one star, AED10/€2 in two and three star, AED15/€3 in four star and AED20/€4 per room in five star.

SURF European Big wave surfer Miguel Ruivo will conduct a series of Intermediate Bootcamp week sessions in Ericeira, including video analysis and improvement advice, for Nicky Kelly’s Surf Holidays, designed for people who have been surfing for a few years and want to get to the next level.

SEAWORLD’s Aquatica is hinting it

San Pedro Ambergris Caye Belize

will open a new drop ride in Orlando in 2014.

Explorer’s Reef opens at SeaWorld San Diego next month, a transformation of the park’s front entrance from “gate” to “experience.”

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elize’s Ambergris Caye was accorded best island in the world on Tripadvisor’s annual island reader’s choice chart.

The western Caribbean island where scuba divers can tour the Belize Barrier Reef or the 400-footdeep Blue Hole filled with sea life and stalactites has just enough amenities to make it exciting, but not so overdeveloped that you’re tripping over flip-flopped tourists,” according to TripAdvisor.

It finished ahead of: 2 Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, 3 Bora Bora, Society Islands, 4 Marco Island, Florida, 5 Lewis and Harris, Outer Hebrides, 6 Naxos, Cyclades, 7 Aitutaki, Southern Cook Islands, 8 Nosy Be, Antsiranana Province, 9, Easter Island, Chile and 10 Ko Tao, Surat Thani Province. Three Scottish islands made the top ten in Europe but, alas, none from Ireland.

APRIL 2014 PAGE 5

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Page 006 Hotels 11/03/2014 13:16 Page 1

APRIL 2014 PAGE 6

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HOTELS

CHARLEVILLE Park Hotel in Charleville, Co Cork has been put up for sale for €3.75m.

THE ANNER Hotel in Thurles and the Midleton Park Hotel in Cork were sold for €3m. Minister Michael Ring said Nama receivers are in danger of turning rural towns into deserted villages. The Indo property section said new developments totalling €890m, many of them concerned with tourism, are planned for Dublin's Liberties.

DOONBEG Donald Trump’s sons

came to Clare to complete the €15m purchase of Doonbeg Lodge. Philip Reid described the purchase as the best bargain Donald Trump will get in his career. Trump himself declared after buying the club: "Doonbeg is an already terrific property that we will make even better”. Their affinity to Ireland goes back to Dorothy Curry from Co Cavan, who looked after the Trump boys when they were young.

SHORTAGE Difficulties in accom-

modating the 16,000 delegates at the Web Summit this October indicated that Dublin is crying out for more hotels.

VALUEThe Backpack, Cape Town, South

Africa was rated the best value place to stay by Lonely Planet.

LAS VEGAS The mysterious bou-

tique hotel positioned at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard has been officially christened ‘The Cromwell.

Starwood Aloft brand plans to debut in Sarasota, Florida in August 2015.’

WORLDHOTELS launched a loy-

alty programme: Peakpoints, members can earn two points for every euro spent on their room at 500 hotels. The first yoo2 hotel in Worldhotels’ portfolio is Yoo2 Taksim Sq Istanbul.

ABU DHABI’s 149 hotels and hotel

apartments got 2014 off to a flying start with guest arrivals up more than a third against January 2013.

SHANNON College of Hotel Manage-

ment says it delivered 100pc graduate employment rate for 63rd year in succession. Of the 92 students who graduated last week, the 38 Irish graduates coming from counties Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Sligo, Wexford, Dublin, Kildare, Westmeath, Galway, Waterford and Mayo.

ORIENT-Express Hotels are to rebrand

as Belmond.

RELAIS and Chateaux has added six

new members to its international hotel and restaurant collection: Maison d'Uzes in Gard, France; Hotel Restaurant Mammertsberg in Freidorf, Switzerland; Chasa Montana Hotel & Spa in Samnaun, Switzerland; Myconian Utopia Resort on the Greek island of Mykonos; Mihir Garh in Jodhpur, India; and Brilliant Resort & Spa in Kunming in China's Yunnan province. Relais & Chateaux was established in France in 1954, its mission is to spread its "art de vivre around the world by selecting outstanding character properties" it now has 520 hotels and restaurants in 64 countries.

Dalata to float

D

Biggest and fastest grwoing chain goes to market

alata hotel group, which operates 34 hotels in Ireland and Britain a third of which are under the Maldon name, plans to raise €200m through IPO. The largest chain in the country, which operates 34 properties, is planning further expansion as the recovery in the country’s hotel market gathers pace.

Dalata owns the 12-strong Maldron chain of three and four-star hotels, which includes one property in Cardiff. It also operates a further 22 unbranded hotels in Ireland under management contracts, mostly on behalf of banks and receivers.

Reflecting the rising optimism of Irish hotliers, Tom Barrett of Savills Ireland said revenue per available hotel room in Dublin rose 11pc last year to €71,10pc in Cork, 9pc in Galway and 12pc in Kilkenny.

Savills said 39 hotels worth €200m

G

Geneva

€222 London

€171 Stockholm

€156 Paris

€155 Venice

€154 €150 Milan

were sold in Ireland last year. Key deals included Trinity Capital Hotel in Dublin to US billionaire John Malone for €35m, the Clarion for €33m, Citywest for €30m, the Morrison for €22m, Fota Island Resort in Co Cork to the Beijing-based Kang family for €20m and Ashford Castle for €20m.

Eslewhere plans for the replacement of the Ormond Hotel on the north Liffey quays in Dublin with a 170-bedroom six-storey hotel, along with a new pub, were rejected on the grounds they were “monolithic” and “unsympathetic” to the surrounding area.

GENEVA IS MOST EXPENSIVE

eneva has the most expensive hotel rooms in Europe this month with an average price of €222, a whopping €51 ahead of second place London, according to Trivago.

At the other end of the scale Europe has three cities with hotel rooms averaging under €60: €60 in Budapest, €59 in Warsaw and €57 in Sofia. Trivago aggregates 97 different

Oslo

Lynn Cawley and Stephen McNally

€146

websites and compares prices. Hotel prices have increased dramatically in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Dublin for the 2014 Six Nations Championship.

Prices are up by 250pc in Cardiff, 147pc in Edinburgh and 42pc in Dublin, while the most significant increases can be found in Cardiff. Hotel prices increased by 250pc this Friday 21 February, when Wales took on France at the Millennium Stadium.

The average price of a hotel room in Ireland rose by 4pc since January to €89, down 1pc since last year. The average price by city was: Donegal €130 (+19pc month-on-month, +3pc year-on-year), Dublin €99 (+10pc month, +6pc year), Belfast €93 (+4pc month, +2pc year), Kilkenny €91 (0pc month, -4pc year), Killarney €90 (-3pc month, +1pc year), Cork €84 (+2pc month, 2pc year), Galway €82

(+4pc month, -5pc year), Sligo €82 (-1pc month, 2pc year), Tralee €82 (+5pc month, -2pc year), Waterford €81 (same as last month -5pc year), Derry €80 (+1pc month, 4pc year), Limerick €74 (+1pc month, -4pc year).

Prices for a standard double room are calculated on the basis of over 2m daily price enquiries for overnight hotel stays generated through the search engine.

EUROPEAN HOTEL PRICE INDEX €132 €112 €95 €87 €78 Copenhagen Frankfurt Donegal

€130

Barcelona

€120 Munich

€118

Amsterdam

€117

Brussels Edinburgh

€114 Cologne

€113

Cork

Rome

Hamburg

€93

Salzburg

€105 €103 Brighton Lyon

€102 Vienna

€100 Dublin

€99 Florence

€96

Kilkenny Liverpool

€94 Belfast

Berlin Kilkenny

€91

Glasgow Killarney Marseille

€90

Nice

€88

Toulouse

Lisbon

Cork Madrid

€75

Istanbul

€86 €84

Galway Sligo Tralee

€82

Waterford

€81 Derry

€80

Source: Trivago.ie

Malaga

€76

Dresden Valencia

Lepizig Limerick

€74 Prague

€72 Bilbao Sevilla

€71

Athens

€70 Bucharest Zaragosa

€69 Riga

€66

Granada

€65

Budapest

€60

Warsaw

€59 Sofia

€57

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APRIL 2014 PAge 7

Conor McMahon reports

IHF CONFERENCE

McNally new IHF president Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland; Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore TD; and Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Leo Varadkar TD, at the announcement of Tourism Ireland’s Global Greening lineup for St Patrick’s Day 2014.

T

he new man wearing the chain at the IHF is from a chain. Deputy CEO of Dalata Hotel Group Stephen McNally was elected president of the Irish Hotels Federation for the next two years.

The conference called for a 30pc reduction in local authority rates.

Guest speaker futurologist Paul Dixon, said that in order to understand the future of travel, hoteliers have to understand the “madness of customers”.

He said that hoteliers have to understand their customers’ experiences and that “the greatest riskis institutional blindness. It is crucial for hotels to have a decent mobile website, 82pc of research buying decisions are made on mobile and that 85pc of all web traffic is lost in five seconds because of poorly-built websites.

Tiny things really matter, “like having a large-print restaurant menu and legible shampoo bottles”.

Looking to the future, with a rapidly aging population it is important to think about over 50s’

TOURISM IRELAND’S BIGGEST EVER GLOBAL GREENING FOR ST PATRICK’S DAY Stephen McNally with Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons experiences in hotels.

Dixon also recommended almost instant email responses, regular social media engagement and even told hoteliers to challenge negative posts on TripAdvisor.

Designer Mel McNally said customers want spalike bathrooms that are better than home.

Oversized bathtubs, waterfall showers and hisand-hers sinks are in vogue. The blurring of indoor and outdoor settings is a definite trend at the moment and a multifunctional foyer is a must-have for hotels. A dramatic change of lighting can transform the atmosphere in the foyer and dining area, which is popular with parents who are looking for a

KENMARE

Lace Festival won Best Innovative Gathering at The Irish Hotels Federation Gathering Awards.

Other winners: Best Sports Gathering: Emerald Isle Gathering, Best Arts & Culture Gathering: The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, Cork, Best Family Gathering: The Stack Clan Gathering, Best Gathering Festival: Kilkenny Tradfest, Each of the winners receives a €2,000 bursary to be used to host a future event.

SURVEY The pre conference survey indicated: ■ Hotel room occupancy levels were flat (up 1pc) and rural hotels faced

restaurant that serves as both a casual dining area for the family and a chillout for the parents. “Fourstars need to add boutique,” McNally said, and recommended that hoteliers play on the Irish culture to create unique spaces.

Food writer John McKenna urged hoteliers to create “emotional experiences” for their customers: “Irish hospitality is fundamentally about emotional experiences, hotels can use cheap initiatives to create these experiences like making the perfect ham sandwich (not an easy task). And a good barista will serve hotels well “because there’s big money to be made in coffee.”

weak domestic demand and difficulties encouraging overseas visitors to venture outside cities and traditional tourism locations.

8364700 www.hostels-ireland.com ■ IHF CEO Tim Fenn said “We’re effectively seeing a three-speed recovery with Dublin city centre positioned in the fast lane and tourism hotspots such as Cork, Galway and Killarney doing fairly well.”

■ 68pc of hoteliers plan to take on additional staff over next 12 months ■ 75pc of hotels and guesthouses reported difficulties hiring suitably qualified craft-level staff.

T

ourism Ireland lined up a fairytale ending for St Patrick’s Day this year, with Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland® Paris, the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Petra in Jordan joining its Global Greening 2014.

The annual initiative, which sees a host of major landmarks and iconic sites around the world turn green for St Patrick’s Day, has grown from strength to strength, with a number of new landmarks signing up to take part this year.

Other new sites going green for the first time in 2014 include Canada’s famous ski resort of Whistler; one of the highest waterfalls in Europe, the Rhine Falls near Zurich; the distinctive Evoluon Eindhoven in the Netherlands; a host of sites in Chicago – including Soldier Field stadium (home to the famous

Chicago Bears team), the Trump International Hotel & Tower and the Wrigley Building and Millennium Park; four iconic skyscrapers in Philadelphia – including the second, third and fourth-highest buildings in the city; Kaprun Castle in Zellam-See and the Skiwelt Söll (ski resort), both in Austria; the Petřín Lookout Tower in Prague; the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai, India; the new SSE Hydro in Glasgow; and Hannover Town Hall.

The new sites join some ‘old favourites’ which have gone green in previous years – including the Pyramids in Egypt, the ‘Welcome’ sign in Las Vegas, the Sydney Opera House, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the London Eye, Table Mountain in South Africa, Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building in New York, the Prince’s Palace in Monaco, the Allianz Arena and Odeonsplatz in Munich, the Sky Tower in New Zealand and the Cibeles Palace and fountain in Madrid

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POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

T

he Emirates team of Anita Thomas, Margaret Shannon, and Valerie Murphy (pictured) hosted the Irish travel trade for a rugby panel discussion at Il Posto.

Margaret Shannon said the second Emirates flight would be the last out of Dublin in the evening and opened up new connections that were not previously available to Irish customers.

The second daily service will start on

U

NWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai opened Internationale Tourismus-Börse, ITB Berlin which attracted 10,147 exhibitors from 189 countries.

The 21 exhibitors on the Irish stand were: Abbey Tours, Aer Lingus, B&B Ireland, Causeway Coast & Glens, Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience, Gaeltacht Irland Reisen, Guinness Storehouse, Groupleader.com, Irish Ferries, Irish Welcome Tours, Jameson Distillery

F

itzparick’s Castle hotel in Killiney hosted a conference on tourism for the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown FG TD Mary Mitchell O'Connor at which Leo Varadkar suggested Dublin could get more tourists.

He mentioned Dun Laoghaire as a possible location for the National Diaspora Centre which will cost between €5m and €26m depending on the approach taken with the capital cost likely

September 1st, meaning 720 seats a day to be filled to Dubai. Margaret said: “Our load factor has been unbelievably high.”

Getting seats on our services over the past 12 months has been difficult because of the high occupancy rate. This opens up huge opportunities.”

“We will continue to offer first class on both services. We are the only carrier offering three classes to the ME.”

Tours & Banquets, Killarney Hotels Ltd, Select Hotels of Ireland, Silver Line Cruisers, The Castle Collection, The Inn at Dromoland & Dromoland Estate, Titanic Belfast, Treacys Hotel Spa & Leisure Centre, Tullamore Dew Visitor Centre, Vagabond Tours and White Hotel Group/Irish & English Tours. Picture shows Michael Collins, Irish Ambassador to Germany; Tourism Minister Leo Varadkar; and Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland.

to be considerably less if an existing building can be found. A study by Fáilte Ireland found that a centre could be viable and self-financing, but it was improbable that it would be able to meet its own building costs.

Various speakers including Travel Extra’s Eoghan Corry outlined the options for Dun Laoghaire as it tries to differentiate itself from tourism to the capital city.

Y

ou won’t find it in many brochures, but Europe’s southernmost ski resort (with the largest number of sunny days) Sierra Nevada came to Dublin to promote its offering at the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin.

María José López told gathered travel agents about the 100 km of ski slopes, upgraded facilities and one of the biggest snow parks in Europe as part of

P

edro Bollinger the MD of start-up airline Windavia says that he is considering extending the Madeira Sunday flights to 12 months from the current April 13 to October 5 season if he gets sufficient support from the travel trade.

Dublin is one of the classic routes for Madeira and Windavia have availability for a second rotation should bookings require it.

U

nited Airlines, California Central Coast Tourism Council and San Francisco Travel hosted eight travel agents who won a place on the trip from a recent booking incentive, flying from Dublin with United to its New York/Newark hub and then onward to San Francisco.

The group spent two nights in San Francisco before commencing their

a campaign to promote Sierra Nevada in European capital cities. The evening ended with a flamenco concert from Salvador Andrades. From right to left: Gonzalo Ceballos Director of the Spanish Tourism Board in Dublín), María José López Director of Cetursa Sierra Nevada, Rosa León Director of the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin and Antonio Martín Machuca, Andalusian Tourism Board representative in London

Windavia is a virtual airline operating six aircraft and intends working closely with the trade in Ireland. The airline started when they saw the opportunity created with SATA left the market Picture shows Paul Weir and Freddie Aravena of Airline Business with Pedro Bollinger general manager of Windavia.

Topflight launched a continued programme to Madeira for 2014 as the new flight was confirmed with Windavia

journey down the Pacific Coast Highway through Hearst Castle, San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach, Solvang, Ventura, and Cambria.

Picture shows Mary McGovern, Karen Condon, Lorraine Roche, Edel Clune, Aoife Gregg, Cara Barry, James Mead, Bernie Roche, Fergus Burke and Stephanie Nagle.

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POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

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adeira’s sandy little sister, the island of Porto Santo were newcomers to the annual Portuguese Tourist Board roadshow in Dublin, a bustling evening presided over by recently-retired Portuguese TB Dublin director Jose Ramos.

Many hotel groups were there among many familiar faces such as Luis Cuelho of the Algarve (pictured here with Maria Joao Gouvela of the Azores).

H

ugh Bruton of Brittany Ferries hosted travel media in Dublin to brief them about the forthcoming season of Saturday sailings on the Pont Aven.

The season begins March 15 using the Brittany Ferries flagship Pont Aven and finishing, unusually, with one rotation by the Bretagne on November 1st.

The crossing from Cork to Roscoff

T

he Malaysia Ireland Association’s inaugural Malaysia Ireland Association dinner in the Shelbourne Hotel was told by Minister Fergus Dowd of the importance of promoting trade in both directions as we enter the Asian century.

Irish tour operators were hosted at the event by Isabel Oliveira of Malaysian Tourism.

Separately Malaysian Airlines has

The Algarve has turned into the story of the summer, with a record 80-plus flights a week from six Irish airports in 2014, including morning rotations by Aer Lingus 280-passenger trans-Atlantic A330 craft and extra rotations recently announced by Ryanair from Dublin.

Luis says there are over 120,000 tourist beds ready to receive any Irish holiday-makers who wish to go.

takes 14 hours and there are departures every Saturday for arrival in France on Sunday morning.

Brittany Ferries say the Cork-Roscoff route will be served by their new gaspowered €270m ferry when it enters service in late spring 2017. The ferry is to be built by STX France in St Nazaire.

Cork-Roscoff traffic was up 13,2pc in 2013 to 41,655 passengers,

partnered with Meath Chef Richard Corrigan is scrambled eggs, sunny side up, soft-boiled or poached eggs for breakfast, cooked from scratch on board by Malaysia Airlines’ cabin crew.

The airline’s ‘Chef on Call’ service can be pre-booked in advance a range of gourmet dishes. Their signature Satay, a traditional Malaysian dish, win the award for Best Airline Signature Dish at the SKYTRAX World Airline Awards.

T

anes Petsuwan the Tourism Authority of Thailand executive Director for Europe hosted Irish agents and tour operators at an Amazing Thailand event in the Doubletree by Hilton, Dublin.

Most of the 29 Thai hotels, attractions and ground handlers who came to the event had been at ITB in Berlin the week before. They participated in a networking lunch, an afternoon round table

E

nda Kenny told the CHAMP event in the House of Lords in London that China and India will be the first countries to get the common travel area visa waiver under an agreement between the London and Dublin governments.

“Two small countries,” he told an eclectic audience of political, trade and tourism interests including England’s Labour Party leader Ed Milliband and

S

eattle tourism came by to brief the Irish travel media about developments.

They including the relocation of the Museum of History & Industry with nearly 50,000-square feet of exhibition and program space and the new Center for Innovation showcasing Seattle, the home of Apple’s, role in innovation and entrepreneurship. Taste Washington, the nation’s largest single-region wine and

with tour operators and an evening round table with travel agents before departing for Manchester.

The event included a panel discussion analysing trends in Irish tourism and the difficulties facing tour operators sending people to Thailand which featured Tony Collins of Topflight, Brendan Barry of Discover Travel and Eoghan Corry of Travel Extra. Tanes Petsuwan is pictured addressing the gathering

NI Secretary of State Theresa Villiers, “if 100m come to Britain we will be happy if 80m of them come to Ireland.”

The Champ event is now in its 11th year and brings together a cross-party spectrum of guests from Britain and Ireland, largely through the enterprise of former Labour MP Alfred Dubs.

Brian Ambrose chairman and Niall Gibbons CEO of Tourism Ireland are pictured at the event.

food event, happening in Seattle March 29-30.

Seattle’s signature attractions such as the landmark Seattle Centre tower. Pike Place Market and the waterfront and are all viewable on an easy day tour, day trips beyond include Bainbridge Island, Mount Rainier, San Juan Islands and Snoqualmie Falls. Washington State is the second largest wine-producing state in the US, boasting over 800 wineries.

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What your clients should know

The good ship Deja Vu

T

his year is shaping up to be another big one for the cruise industry, with five huge new ocean ships and 29 river ships scheduled to launch. The first big cruise ship launch of 2014 is already under way. Norwegian Getaway cruised out of Rotterdam on January 11th and was formally named in Miami on February 7.

Sister ship to Norwegian Cruise Line’s Breakaway launched last year, it ill include a Grammy museum, an ‘Illuminatorium’ featuring magic, illusions and supernatural effects, and Hollywood musical Legally Blonde.

Norwegian (with the launch of Epic) and Royal Caribbean, who launch Quantum of the Seas in October, are attempting to rework a model that has remained unchanged for decades.

All cruise ships come from the same template, more or less decided by the previous generation of Americans for Americans, but now some afterthought is being shown to the rest of the world.

The essentials are: ■ a big crimson-upholstered theatre at the front over two floors, ■ a big crimson-upholstered dining room at the back over two floors, ■ a long casino in between on one level (Disney is the only cruise ship not to have a

casino) ■ a shopping precinct between them on another level, usually the deck above the casino.

The deck, where ship meets fresh air after 11 storeys in midsized ships and 16 decks in some of the bigger beasts, will have: ■ a spa and an indoor pool at the front, ■ an open air pool and poolside bars in midship deck with an upper deck area for beach beds, ■ a big informal buffet restaurant at the back.

Once you have been on one, you will know your way around them all.

On top of that is an activity area (perhaps a rock climbing wall, a pitch and putt, and a soccer court) on the roof/deck.

The decks in between shopping/casino and the pools have

2014

corridors of cabins that go on for ever. Big ships offer fewer inside cabins and more balconies. The premium brands now offer balconies with 90pc of their cabins.

Cabins, no matter what the view, tend to be small and confined.

There is no escaping this fact although most lines now call them staterooms for image reasons. They are standard design as well, but Norwegian Epic had a neat departure when they built their cabins/ staterooms with a curve, in the form of a wave.

Each ship has a well kept secret cabin or two, one on a turn that can be bought for the same price as the one next door but it offers a little extra space.

Knowing these secrets is the key to success as a travel agent.

THE CRUISE LINE: BUILDS OVER NEXT FOUR YEARS

■ Regal Princess - 3,560 passengers, May 20 ■ Norwegian Getaway- 4.028 passengers, February ■ TUI Mein Schiff 3 - 2,500 passengers, June ■ Royal Caribbean Quantum of the Seas - 4,100 passengers, November ■ Costa Diadema- 4,800 passengers, October

2015

■ P&O Brittannia- 3,611 passengers, March

■ Aida Prima- 3,250 passengers, March

■ Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Seas 4,100 passengers, May ■ Norwegian Escape- 4,200 passengers, October ■ Viking Star- 944 passengers,

2016

■ Third Quantum Class ship Royal Caribbean - 4,100 passengers ■ Third Oasis Class ship Royal Caribbean - 5,400 passengers

■ Blue Star Titanic II, 2,345 passengers ■ Carnical Vista, 4,000 passengers ■ Regent Explorer, 738 passengers ■ Unnamed Holland America - 2,660 passengers ■ Unnamed AIDA Cruises - 3,250 passengers ■ Unnamed Seabourn, TBA ■ Unnamed Star Cruises, 3,360 passengers ■ Two unnamed Viking Ocean cruise ships- 944 passengers

2017

page 011 12/03/2014 12:03 Page 1

THE SILVERSEA DIFFERENCE

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MEDITERRANEAN

• Butler service for every suite

• All ocean-view accommodations

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Overnight in port TERMS & CONDITIONS: These offers are available only on new bookings of select sailings as indicated. Bookings that are cancelled and re-booked do not qualify. Silver Privilege Fares shown are cruise only, in Euros, per guest based on double occupancy of a Vista Suite and reflect the highest savings available for each voyage. Single supplements are available on request. Silver Privilege Fares are capacity controlled, are likely to increase, and do not guarantee suite availability, due to limited inventory. Book early to take advantage of the most generous savings and to secure your preferred suite selection. Savings may vary by suite category, and may not be available in all categories or combinable with other savings programmes and promotional offers. Additional restrictions may apply.

For more information or to book please call 01 611 0560 or email resuk@silversea.com For sales support please contact Jon Knight jonk@silversea.com

Page 012 cruise 12/03/2014 11:19 Page 1

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ruise lines discovered long ago that a well fed passenger is a happy passengers, and the result is that people eat 20pc more when they are on a cruise ship.

Hotel manager on Briliance of the Seas Marcus Zillman brought Travel Extra behind the scenes of the operation on the 2,500-passenger Brilliance of the Seas recently.

The numbers are astonishing. The 280 wines on the wine list. The dish washing machines cost $160,000.

Zillman remembers the time it took $1,000 to get new broccoli after batch had caterpillars (“we don’t describe it as broccoli we describe it as seasonal vegetables.”

There is a pattern to what the customer eats.

Zillman says: “the over indulgence starts in the first three days and then tapers off and the meal sizes are reduced in all the restaurants.”

The food is prepared centrally for the first sitting, then the second sitting, the buffet (Windjammer in RCCL ships), speciality restaurants (although some have their own kitchen, such as the Portofino on RCCL ships) and at 8pm the night shift starts and bread is baked for the morning.

T

hey serve 14,000 meals a day, and the makings of 1,000 full meals are pulped and sent into the

What your clients should know

Preparing dessert for 2,500 passengers has a whole new challenge

Behind the scenes A

The massive F&B operation for thousands of cruise passengers

sea (the only thing they are allowed to dump).

The ship speed when they dump must be six knots, as they roll along the pulped food is shot into the sea, and there are fish who apparently know when this is happening and gather for the feed.

Depending on ingredients, they prepare one meal in the largest volume, the chef’s recommendation. About 50pc of people take the chef’s recommendation.

The dessert hierarchy is soufflé, cheesecake and then crème bruleé. “We

wreck our heads trying to think up new desserts,” Zillman says. “But people just want the stuff momma used to make.”

There are other patterns to watch. Burgers and pizzas are brought in for school holidays, when the ship first moved to Europe they ran out of lamb shank. The beer is calculated carefully too, 65 barrels for a twelve day cruise in Europe.

s t o n i s h i n g l y, ALL of the food is brought from the USA in container ships (“everything works better in the USA”) .

Cruise ships talk about sourcing food locally, but the products are bought in bulk and frozen. Hence order meat, not fish.

Frozen meat, fish, and vegetables are then loaded on to the cruise

Food preparations for multiple restaurants on the cruise ship and (on right) Marcus Zillman

ship, 18 pallets of them, meat, veg and fish come in sequence so that they can be moved in order and to make sure all the meat does not arrive at the same time.

Serving the meals is a mini miracle, performed daily. Each waiter deals with ten guests in one sitting and 22 in another.

Then they alternate back again.

“We have 1,100 chairs

in the main dining room,” Zillman says. “It means that 1,000 people all arrive looking to be served in a 15 minute period. A bit like a banquet, but unlike a banquet you get a choice of three soups and three starters, ten main courses and seven desserts.”

And then, three hours later, the miracle all happens again.

page 013 12/03/2014 12:04 Page 1

G E A IN M N IL RO LO SA M CE O R FR BA D N

A

W W HERE, ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL

A new destination in the Mediterranean Allure of the Seas coming Summer 2015 ®

CRUISINGPOWER.IE Royal Caribbean Travel Agents

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CRUISE EUROPE 2014

ight Royal Caribbean ships will sail the Med this summer , down from 12 in 2012, The Liberty of the Seas, the Serenade of the Seas, the Splendour of the Seas and later Oasis of the Sease will sail the Mediterranean Independence of the Seas, the Adventure of the Seas, the Brilliance of the Seas and the Legend of the Seas in Northern Europe. Amsterdam was dropped as a Royal Caribbean option for 2014.

The 3634-passenger Liberty of the Seas is particularly popular in the Irish market. This summer a DreamWorks Experience featuring parades, themed activities, and events based on film characters will be a highlight aboard Most of Royal Caribbean’s 2014 Europe fleet have undergone the cruise line’s fleetwide revitalisation programme.

This delivers an expanded array of delicious onboard dining options, such as the casual dining Park Café, Boardwalk Dog House, and Rita’s Cantina to more sophisticated culinary experiences such as Samba Grill Brazilian steakhouse, the new Viking Crown Lounge with a menu of appetizers in a re-conceptualized modern club atmosphere, Izumi Asian Cuisine and the Chef’s Table.

Royal Caribbean’s youngest guests, ages 6 to 36 months, can enjoy the new Royal Babies and Tots Nursery, while threeto 11-year olds are led by college-accredited counselors in educational and programmes developed with Fisher Price in the complimentary Adventure Ocean program.

Teenagers also can meet new friends on their Europe cruise and hang out with peers in their own dedicated lounge and enjoy activities such as learning to mix music

What your clients should know

8-ship season

Oasis of the Seas: Mini-season in Barcelona

Royal bring Oasis to Europe for the first time

in Scratch DJ sessions or teen-only rock-climbing wall and FlowRider surf simulator sessions.

The recently revitalised ships also feature new modern amenities, such as pervasive Wi-Fi throughout the ship, digital signage, flat-panel televisions in newly refreshed staterooms, and a poolside, oversized LED movie screen for guests’ enjoyment as they bask in the grand European sun. Independence of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas each also features a FlowRider and cantilevered whirlpools, as well as Europe’s only ice-skating rinks at sea, also aboard Navigator of the Seas and Adventure of the Seas.

According to Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain, the Irish have the highest onboard spend and the highest satisfaction rating of any country.

Irish guests really ‘get involved’ in onboard activities and enjoy facilities such as Broadway-style theatre shows.

About half of the 60,000 cruises sold off

ROYAL CARIBBEAN

the island are Royal Caribbean cruises. The Irish office dates to 1999 and has maintained double digit growth through much of its existence, including a record 34pc in 2008, the year we entered recession. In 2013 the line lost market share in the first major reconfiguration of the Irish cruise market in twenty years.

Ireland and UK director Stuart Leven says: “The reason so many cruises are sold by the travel trade is the travel trade adds real value, the travel trade do a job that the crusi ecompanies can’t do on their own.

They touch people. They touch people. They give us geographical coverage.

They give us passion and expertese on the shop floor that we simply could not do.”

“I came from an airline background. I lived

through the airlines when they amde all the changes when they were changing distributioin, a lot of it driven by low cost carriers. A cruise is much more complex. People don;t just buy on one or two things alone. I don;t beleive that we would ever move away from an expert sitting on front of a customer, and anyone who says that they can I don’t think they are being realistic.”

“I am inheriting a really good relationship with the trade. I want it to be even better. I am inheriting a brand that has great resonance with the customers and I want people to know it, and I don;t want them just to know it as a cruise company, I want it to be known for the service ” He says that Royal Caribbean’s new policy it to emphasise experience

over price. “It has to be an experiential thing, getting away as an industry form always tryign to cmpete the price of the crusie to actually competing on the value of the offer, an experience that wil match up and surpass something that is landbased.”

Royal Caribbean VP International Dominic Paul says: “the complexity of the cruise offering to consumers makes us comfortable with our trade partners. We see longevity in the trade model but the offering needs to continue to evolve. We are looking for more routes to reach non cruisers.”

“We have made a huge fleet investment and not just new ships. As well as the Eu300m revamp of Royal Caribbean international ships, the line has invested in stronger partnerships with key travel partners.”

“We don’t want to become a travel agent. We cannot give impartial advice. We cannot give competing quotes While some of the cus-

tomers will always want to go direct to the principle,, we will continue to work with the trade. You can add a lot of margin and a lot of value to the customer experience by focusing on that.”

“We are open for direct customers but we do not undercut the agent. The direct business will grow, and we are open for business to people who will come direct. But we will pass bookings over to the travel agent if customer wants.”

Service to agents include the field sales team, staff incentives, toolkits, co-operative marketing, online marketing, ship tours and seminars.

“The next few years will be tough,” Dominic Paul says. “Consumers will look for more value, for more inclusive and more differentiated experiences and will look for more online. Cruise lines will need to add value.

Agents will need to own their space. Even though we are not out of recession people will still travel and there will be winners. But when you build ships you take a 40 year view.”

The eight ships will be based in six ports:

BARCELONA

where two RCCL ships, the 2,974-passenger Liberty of the Seas and the 2501-passenger Serenade of the Seas will be based from April to October as well as the 5,4000 passenger Oasis of the Seas which comes to Barcelona for a miniseason in September.

Liberty of the Seas will sail roundtrip from Barcelona on a sevennight, Western Mediterranean itinerary, calling at Provence (Marseilles) and Nice (Villefranche), France; and Florence/Pisa (La Spezia), Rome (Civitavecchia), and Naples/Capri, Italy. The Aug. 10 sailing calls at Cannes, France, instead of Nice. A four-night,

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roundtrip itinerary departing May 14 will offer Cruisers a taste of the Freedom-class experience, with a call at Nice and Florence/Pisa.

An eastbound trans-Atlantic sailing on May 1 and westbound on Oct. 26, both 13-night itineraries, will bookend Liberty of the Seas’ Europe season.

Serenade of the Seas will alternate on longer nineto 12-night Mediterranean Greek Isles and night Mediterranean Venice itineraries the latter featuring an overnight in Venice.

Royal Caribbean have an allocation on Aer Lingus Barcelona flights which have been timed to connect with the big ship sailings.

COPENHAGEN

Where the 2,076 passenger Legend of the Seas will operate a pro-

What your clients should know Southampton is obviously designed to offer no fly cruises from England but Irish people have joined the ships there in increasing numbers using the Flybe connection from Dublin or Belfast or coming through Heathrow and Gatwick.

Royal Caribbean have a flights deal with Flybe to Southampton.

Freedom of the Seas out of Barcelona is popular in the Irish market

gramme to the Baltic and St Petersburg in Russia.

HARWICH

where the 2501-passenger Brilliance of the Seas will be based. Royal Caribbean have a flights deal with Aer Lingus Regional to Southend.

ROME where the the 2501-passenger Sere-

nade of the Seas will sail a seven-night Eastern Mediterranean itinerary, which calls at Sicily (Messina), Italy; Athens (Piraeus) and Chania (Souda), Crete, Greece; and Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey. Alternatively, Cruisers have a second option to embark on their seven-night Eastern

Mediterranean cruise, sailing roundtrip from Sicily (Messina).

SOUTHAMPTON where two RCCL ships, the 3,114-passenger Adventure of the Seas and 4,370-passenger Independence of the Seas will be based as well as the 2,852 passenger Celebrity Eclipse.

VENICE where the 2,076 Splendour of the Seas will alternate seven-night Greek Isles and Greek Isles & Turkey itineraries. The ship will reposition from Sao Paolo, Brazil to Barcelona for a 14-night trans-Atlantic voyage on Apr. 25, and then start its Europe season with an eight-night Italian Mediterranean and Adriatic itinerary from Barcelona to Venice.

Splendour of the Seas

concludes its Europe season with a sevennight Western Mediterranean cruise from Venice to Barcelona on Nov. 15, before returning to Sao Paolo on Nov. 22 on a 15-night westbound trans-Atlantic itinerary.

From September the 2,490 passenger Serenade of the Seas will homeport in Venice and alternate 10-night Greek Isles and 11-night Greece and Turkey itineraries. Cruisers also can sail into Europe with Serenade of the Seas on a 16-night trans-Atlantic cruise from New Orleans to Barcelona on Apr. 26.

Cruisers also can choose a nine-night eastbound sailing from Barcelona to Venice on Aug. 27 and a 10-night westbound return on Oct. 27, takeing guests throughout the Italian Mediterranean and the Adriatic.

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What your clients should know

The new Caribbean

T

Shore excursions are the key to Med cruising

The early morning departure from Venice is regarded as the must stunning seascape in Europe. here Seabourn Odyssey takes sail

he ratio of Caribbean to European cruises used to be 70-30 and slowly changed to 60-40.

Now it has reversed, with 60pc of clients choosing Europe for their cruises.

An Irish favourite, Barcelona was singlehandedly responsible for much of this growth, particularly when the Aer Lingus service tied in with cruise departures.

According to John Galligan the most common fears of first time cruises is that they won’t like the people on the ship, the food will be awful, there

Y

ou cannot but notice the TV, press and online adverts for cruise holidays. So what is delaying your clients?

The top reasons for going remain the same.

■ Travel far unpack once ■ Value for money ■ Amazing Destinations ■ Floating resorts for all ■ Do a little or do a lot ■ Luxury fine dining In 2013 over 21m people of all ages took a

will be nothing to do, they will hate it and will be stuck out in the sea, they will get seasick and the cruise lines won’t cater for their special needs.

He says the key to having happy customers is to sell the right cruise to the right person, by querying what they like doing, what is their budget, are they beach or city types, what duration they want, do they want a long or a short flight or a direct departure, whether they are travelling alone, as a couple or as a group, and crucially what age they are.

All of the cruise lines cruise holiday, on ships that are now generally at least twice the size of the Titanic and house Rock climbing walls, 400 seat theatres, ice rinks and dozens of bars and restaurants along with relaxation spas and stateof-the-art fitness centres.

The average cruise lasts 7.1 days The mindset that cruising is for older people is fast disappearing. Ships are being gauged towards families and a younger

say the average age is falling. But the slide is barely discernible. Europeans however tend to cruise younger. Currently the average cruise age is the mid 40s in Spain and Italy, 51 in the United States, and 62 in England.

S

hore excursions are the reasons that the Med has become the new Caribbean. Europe has an array of interesting cities a night sailing away from each other. Unlike Caribbean (or crucially, Alaskan) shore excursions there is lots to do and in some

market.

Features that have been put into place into today's cruising make most cruise ships innovative and exciting with each catering for all kinds of age groups.

Meaning whatever age bracket you come under you can enjoy any activity that suits you, from formal evenings with dancing to clubs and games rooms for children and teenagers.

cities up to 20 different excursions to sell to cruise clients.

Cruise companies who used to reposition their ships from the Caribbean to Alaska for summer first started to chose Europe instead in the early noughties. Then came cheaper trans-Atlantic fares and the first stirrings of interest in cruise in European countries.

Shore excursions are a valuable revenue earner for the shipping line, for ground handlers and for agents who sell ancillary product. Hence the number of cruise ships plying their trade on the Med has increased rapidly.

The Irish clients who used to (paradoxically) get a Caribbean cruise cheaper than a European one, have been watching this with interest. There is more capacity on the Med and more packages to sell, often at terrific prices.

Since 2006 the five largest cruise ships in the world were built in Europe and brought across the Atlantic to ply their trade out of Fort Lauderdale. Now two of them

are back, along with several of the previous generation of biggest ships in the world.

N

ow the key ports of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Civitavecchia, Copenhagen, Palma de Majorca and Southampton are hosts to several huge ships at once.

The state of the art embarkation terminals at these ports and the easy airport transfers made cruising more accessible than it had been before.

Europe’s itineraries cluster around the principle cities Ajaccio, Ancona, Argostoli, Armonia, Barcelona, Bari, Catania, Civitavecchia, Corfu, Corfù, Dubrovnik, Genoa, Goulette, Ibiza, Istanbul, Izmir, Katakolon, Kotor, Livorno, Mallorca, Marseille, Mykonos, Naples, Palermo, Palma, Piraeus, Salerno, Santorini, Valencia, Valletta and Venice, The access points to Athens and Rome can be grimy and industrial, as can the port areas of cities like Genoa, but there are

E

spectacular ports for entry and departure like Venice. ntry level cruise for an Irish person has changed too. It used to be a small and older ship, including the ships from the likes of Fred Olsen that used to call to Dublin. Now it is more likely to be one of the biggies from Royal Caribbean, MSC, Princess or NCL. Another change is that the Middle East is now a base so that ships such as MSC Lirica and RCCL’s Brilliance of the Seas are repositioning from Abu Dhabi and Dubai rather than across the Atlantic.

A big advantage of the cruise lines moving ships to Europe in the spring and back in the autumn to the Caribbean is repositioning cruises. These tend to be long on sea days and short on port calls, and can cost as little as $50 a day. Allow plenty of time, beware of bad weather on trans-Atlantic crossings and expect an older crowd.

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SC are traditionally the last cruise line to launch their summer brochure, something that wil change in years to come according to the cruise line CEO Gianni Onorato.

They have also introduced a new pricing structure in 2014, with four tiers of prices replacing the Rubik’s cube of inside and outside cabins with different amenities.

Their newest ship Preziosa was christened in Genoa in March 2014 bringing the MSC fleet back to 12 vessels and will cruise the Mediterranean this summer from Genoa.

It joined other ships in her class. The 3,502 Passenger MSC Divina launched last May the third in the Fantasia Class series. , Enhancements included an infinity pool in the aft of the ship. The “beach zone” adjoining the glass balustrade, offers a unique view of the ship’s wake fading into the sunset.

Passengers in the expanded MSC Yacht Club can dine in

What your clients should know

MSC change the game MSC Armonia their private restaurant.

The cruise line is also introducing a new pricing policy this summer and agent promotions.

MSC introduced Aurea Spa Suites a aboard the 18-deck, 3959-passenger Splendida and sister ship Fantasia, the flagships of the fleet.

The suites, which are in proximity to the MSC Aurea

MSC

Spa, will come with unlimited access to its thermal suite, private consultation with the spa doctor, a Balinese massage, a facial treatment, a solarium full-body tanning session, refreshments, and an additional array of spa services.

The Irish market has been a success story for MSC. Giles Hawke of MSC says “we need to increase the selling price.”

He has seen a €20 increase per day in cruise selling price in the past two months.

“The key factor with MSC is the international mix of passengers, it gives you a different experience to going on a cruise

that is full of one nationality.

The other things that are key are the Mediterranean heritage.

There is a factor about being Swiss, safety, security and things go well.”

“There will always be low prices available from MSC on certain sailings. We have to avoid under-selling the quality of what we got.”

THOMSON CRUISES. A new adventure over every horizon.

From Sorrento to Casablanca, we take our customers to more ports than you’d expect. You can fly straight to your Thomson Cruises holiday from either Dublin, Cork or Shannon.

Plus, we’re one of the only cruise lines to include tips and service in the price of your holiday.

Call 1800 927 404 visit your local Falcon Travel Shop or Travel Agent.

Designed for you. From Normal booking conditions apply. Please see our booking conditions for further information. Thomson is a trading name of TUI UK Limited, a member of the TUI Travel PLC Group of Companies, registered in England and Wales under number 2830117 and whose registered office is at TUI Travel House, Crawley Business Quarter, Fleming Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 9QL.

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APRIL 2014 PAGE 18

S

CRUISE EUROPE 2014 SILVERSEA

ilversea’s luxurious fleet will be journeying to destinations around the globe.

The Mediterranean will be visited by Silver Cloud, Silver Wind and Silver Spirit. New ports of call include Mellila and Almeria in Spain and Kavala, Greece. Silver Shadow will be cruising in Alaska, the home of diamond-blue icebergs, rushing mountain streams, waterfalls and flowers of every colour.

A Silversea Expeditions cruise in April 2014, the latest addition to the Silversea Expeditions fleet, the luxurious 120-guest Silver Discoverer sets sail to the most remote corners of Asia-Pacific.

Adventure to Australia’s hidden treasure, The Kimberley. Explore New Zealand’s Sub-Antarctic Islands, a pelagic paradise and photographer’s dream or watch Geysers gush across the landscape of Kamchatka in the Russian Far East.

L

What your clients should know

Silver Galapagos continues on its year round exploration of the beautiful Galapagos archipelago on two unique 7-day itineraries. Guests can look forward to up-close encounters with an abundance of wildlife, including sun-basking land iguanas, giant tortoises, blue-and red-footed boobies, colourful marine iguanas, sea lions, penguins and Darwin’s famous finches.

Cruises feature a series of destinations lectures, photo presentations and daily recaps as you sail from one destination to the next.

Zodiac excursions and interactive walks ashore are led by the best and brightest in their field – marine biologists, ornithologists, geologists, botanists, historians and anthropologists.

Everything is included, from the fine wines and spirits aboard the ship to the small-group excursions ashore.

PRINCESS

ast year the Princess new 3600-passenger Royal Princess, entered service in the Med. Thomas Cook look after Princess Cruises i nIireland and the cruise line will be seeking a new GSA. Among the features are a glass-bottomed Sea Walk, extending 28 feet beyond the side of the ship 128 feet above the ocean; two fresh water pools flanking an island area between them; evening water and light shows featuring a computerized fountain with 85 water jets..

The cruise line offers a unique mix of big ship and small 68-passenger ship experiences, as well as some extended

AZAMARA

Solo travelers will be accorded a new rate on 25 of Azamara's 2014 cruises. The single supplement will drop to 25 percent for exclusive occupancy of a double accommodation on some trips to Europe, the Far East, and the West Indies.

DISNEY's ships will roam the world in 2014, with cruise series scheduled for the Med from Barcelona and Venice, the Southern Caribbean, Alaska and Western Caribbean and Disney's traditional Caribbean and Bahamas trips from Port Canaveral.

CARNIVAL’Any passengers

who wish to leave their cruise within the first 24 hours of the voyage will receive a full refund of their cruise fare plus an additional 10pc and complimentary return air transportation .

CRYSTAL's two ships will

cover a lot of territory this year. They'll visit 194 ports in 68 countries. A midsummer Arctic Circle cruise from

cruises which depart European ports.

The line is offering 57 Europe cruise itineraries, from classics like the Grand Mediterranean cruise or Scandinavia & Russia cruises sailings to new 7-day Interludes and immersive land and sea cruisetours.

The ships will call at more than 130 European cruise ports, including Cephalonia in Greece and Waterford.

Signature Princess two-day experiences offer more time in cruise destinations like Cairo and Giza, Egypt and St. Petersburg, Russia.

Ciaran Carraher represents Princess Cruises in the Irish market. It works on net sales rather than commission.

Copenhagen to Stockholm will visit 10 ports during a 15-day trip.

CUNARD are represented in

irelnd by Thomas Cook.Highlights include three around-the-world trips, 70 Med departures to 25 ports, 10 transatlantic crossings between Hamburg and New York,

FRED Olsen are old favourite sin ireland with smaler more intimate ships. Balmoral and Boadicca offer an array cruises entering smaller ports.

SEABOURN has signed a letter of intent to construct a new 450passenger ship in Italy for delivery in late 2016..

COSTA's next ship, the 3000-pas-

senger Costa Fascinosa launches on

May 7. It is the sixth in Concordia Class series and is set to begin service in July

against the backdrop of the tragic wreck of the cruise line’s flagship.

P&O are represented in Ireland by Thomas Cook.

T

HURTIGRUTEN

N

NCL

aking a voyage on a Hurtigruten ship along the coast is one of the best ways to appreciate summertime in Norway.

Thanks to the light during the Summer months, the whole country bursts into life. Flowers bloom, rivers fill with fish and waterfalls cascade towards the ocean creating a picture-perfect setting for a Summer Holiday.

The intense extended daylight above the Arctic Circle lasts around the clock, making every Norwegian ‘night’ a joy to behold. In fact, you may have to force yourself to go to bed. This natural phenomenon is found in latitudes north of the Arctic Circle, where the Sun stays on the horizon for 24 hours.

orwegian took delivery of the 4,000-passenger Norwegian Getaway on January 10.

Getaway boasts 28 dining venues, including seafood restaurant Ocean Blue

by New York Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian and a branch of Carlo’s Bake Shop

by Buddy Valastro, the TLC “Cake Boss.”

The entertainment lineup includes Broadway shows Legally Blonde and Burn the Floor and dining and magic venue, the Illusionarium.

Norwegian Getaway’s sister ship, Norwegian Breakaway, homeported in New York, was named ‘Best New Ship’ in the 2013 Cruise Critic London Editors’ Pick Awards.

The Breakaway includes three Broadway shows, a comedy troupe, dueling pianos, a celebrity restaurant, five water slides including the first free fall slides at sea, a three-level sports complex, a nine-hole miniature golf course, basketball court, rock climbing wall, studio cabins for single travellers, private-enclave suites, a 23,000 square foot spa covering two decks and featuring 22 treatment rooms, and more.

Among its more exotic features is a real ice bar — requiring guests to wear hooded coats and gloves to keep warm.

They join five NCl vessels in Europe, Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Star, Norwegian Spirit and Norwegian Jade,.

Norwegian has two 4,200 passenger vessels on order at Meyer Werft: Nor-

‘Summer and Midnight Sun’ voyages depart daily from 1 June to 31 August and one of the true highlights of voyages over that period is the Northbound diversion into the UNESCO-listed Geirangerfjord.

There are currently early booking offers available on Summer Classic Voyages, with prices for the 'Classic Voyage South' from Kirkenes to Bergen starting from 1,062 per person when you book an unspecified cabin (based on two sharing). Flights, transfers and local hotels are available for an additional cost.

Danie Giles deals with the trad ein Ireland on behalf of Hurtigruten.

wegian Escape with delivery scheduled for autumn 2015; and Norwegian Bliss for

spring of 2017.

Norwegian Cruise Line is the official cruise line partner of The GRAMMY Awards and is an official partner of the Rockettes and Radio City Music Hall.

Norwegian Sun sails from Copenhagen doing nine-day Baltic Capitals cruises and the only cruise itinerary with an overnight stay in St Petersburg, Russia.

Norwegian Jade, cruising year-round in Europe, offers seven-day Greek Isles and Adriatic itineraries conveniently visiting premier ports like Santorini, Mykonos, Ephesus, and Athens, Greece and Dubrovnik, Croatia – ports that other cruise lines only offer on longer itineraries. At Le Bistro offering delicious French cuisine, every table has an ocean view.

The Europe schedule for summer 2014 is: The Europe schedule for summer 2014 is: ■ The 2,018-passenger Norwegian Spirit from Venice, Malaga and Barcelona ■ The 2,402-passenger Norwegian Jade from Rome (Civitavecchia) ■ The 4,100-passenger Norwegian Epic from Barcelona, Rome and Marseille.

■ The 2,002 passenger Norwegian Star from Copenhagen.

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APRIL 2014 PAGE 19

CRUISE EUROPE 2014

What your clients should know

Six Celebrities on show

12-night sailings from Barcelona and Venice among the Med offerings

C

elebrity Cruises’ summer programme in Europe sees six ships sailing the region.

Guests can choose from 12 new itineraries including new seven-night sailings from Barcelona to Venice, 12 and 13 night Classical Mediterranean cruises and 13 night Istanbul overnight sailings.

Summer 2014 will also include calls at

CELEBRITY

102 ports in 30 countries with five new ports of call – Zadar (Croatia), Porto Torres (Sardinia, Italy), Almeria (Spain), Sochi (Russia) and Lerwick (Shetland, Scotland).

Celebrity Constellation will continue to sail 12 night Norwegian Fjords, 12

night Scandinavia and Russia and 12 night Arctic Circle sailings from Amsterdam. A new 14 night Amsterdam to Istanbul itinerary includes a brand new port of call for Celebrity Cruises in Almeria (Spain).

Celebrity Cruises’ newest ship, Celebrity Reflection, will again be sailing a series of 10 and 11 night Eastern Mediterranean cruises from Rome (Civitavecchia, Italy). The ship boasts a number of industry firsts, including spainspired AquaClass Suites and the ultraluxurious Reflection Suite - the first to include a glass shower extending out over the edge of the ship.

Celebrity Silhouette will continue sailing 11 night Italy and Croatia and 12 night Adriatic cruises as well as a selection of new itineraries Every Celebrity Cruises ship in 2014 will offer the services of a Destination

Concierge. Their knowledge of the ports of call on every itinerary will allow the them to guide guests through their adventures on land, including Celebrity Exclusives, or to create excursions tailored for individual guests’ preferences.

Celebrity Cruises ships boast a vast collection of original, contemporary art by artists including Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor, designer shopping boutiques and a fully equipped gym. Guests can enjoy relaxing in the onboard Elemis AquaSpa or solarium, or head to the iLounge internet café to use, learn about or buy a range of Apple products.

Culinary onboard offerings include healthy-eating speciality restaurant Blu, an ice-topped Martini bar and the awardwinning Qsine – the novel restaurant first introduced to Celebrity Eclipse to much

WE’VE ALWAYS OFFERED THE LIGHTS...

NOW WE GIVE YOU THE FLIGHTS!

EXCLUSIVE CHARTER DEPARTURE FROM DUBLIN This winter promises to be the 12-year peak for Northern Lights activity. Offer your customers a Norwegian coastal voyage with Hurtigruten. With pre-bookable excursions including dog-sledging, the North Cape and snowmobiling, and direct flights to Tromsø from Dublin, it really is the trip of a lifetime.

• 5 days from €1237pp* • NASA predicting the best Northern Lights in 12 years!

• A choice of exciting winter excursions

T: 01 607 4420 E: uk.sales@hurtigruten.com W: www.hurtigruten.co.uk

A different kind of cruise

*Price based on 2 people sharing an inside cabin on a half board basis including transfers and flights departing 16 February 2015. Other cabin grades available at applicable prices. Not included: porterage, excursions and travel insurance. Price includes flights and transfers costing £480. Subject to availability and Hurtigruten’s normal booking conditions.

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APRIL 2014 PAGE 20

Conor McMahon reports from Milan

That’s amore

BIT MIlan showcases Italian weddings and honeymoons

BIT 2014

SARDINIA An autumn voyage around

Barbagia will showcase Sardinia’s rural handcraft and culinary traditions involving more than 30 rural villages in the heart of the island.

VENICE An Veneto is playing up its culture and history assets by launching new wedding facilities in the Venetian Villas and the Pedemontana, and launching an audio trail app that acts as a guide to the Dolomites.

FLORENCE An and TUSCANY have launched a new Welcome Wedding Planners initiative.

LOMBARDY An Keeping an eye on Expo 2015, the Lombardy region is focusing on farm holidays. Mantua and Oltrepo are among its most popular destinations.

LAKE COMO An Lake Como Active

Holidays is offering seaplane tours and mountain bike tours of the lake, which is surrounded by a crown of mountains with peaks up to 2,700m high. The bike tour offers views of Lake Como’s shore and surrounding villages.

The route is almost entirely flat with mountain excursions made by railway.

CALABRIA An has re-opened its Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria.

B

SORRENTO An will exhibit ceram-

ics, drawing and oils by Picasso from May to October in Villa Fiorentino.

San Gimignano - a wedding favourite

orsa International Tourism Exchange (BIT) took place in Milan’s Fiera Milano venue last month, attracting 62,170 people over three days, reduced from the usual four.

The event was launched at an opening conference by Italy’s minister for cultural heritage and cultural activities, Massimo Bray.

According to the Italian National Tourism Observatory, only 23.4 million Italians went on at least one foreign holiday in 2013, a decline of 12.2 per cent compared to 2012 figures. Domestic holidays in Italy have also decreased by three per cent.

Minister Bray was hopeful in his opening speech that the universal exposition, which comes to Milan in 2015, will be “a crucial factor” in improving Italy’s tourism market.

Operators from all 20 Italian regions attended the event, including Lazio and Sicily, which both made a return to this year’s BIT. Exhibitors from more than 100 countries attended the event. Tourism Ireland did not attend.

In January to September 2013, 246,000 Irish visitors travelled to Italy, behind Spain (1,125,000),

France (461,000) and Portugal (287,000).

In the same period, 234,000 Italians travelled to Ireland, one of four key markets to show a decline in 2013.

O

ne of the strongest travel motives for Italians is honeymoons and romantic getaways. Among the world exhibitors, the Caribbean responded strongly to this market trend: the Anguilla region dedicated Valentine’s Day at BIT to a special offer for wedding planners.

Other popular honeymoon and romantic destinations for Italians are the Dominican Republic and the Cook Islands, both of which had a strong presence at BIT 2014.

Most visitors to Italy come from emerging markets from the BRIC countries and Eastern Europe, Poland in particular. Among the new-entry destinations at BIT 2014 were Armenia, the Czech Republic, Georgia and Latvia, reflecting this trend.

According to an annual report by Italy’s culture and leisure organisation, Federculture, city breaks to capital cities are still popular among

Italians, but the destinations have changed, with new trends pointing east: Budapest and Varazdin in Croatia are proving popular for short breaks.

A

dventure holidays to destinations like Ethiopia, the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and the Sub-Saharan Africa are attracting niche travellers in the Italian market.

BIT 2014 hosted 70 training and information events which attracted 3,600 trade professionals, with an emphasis on the role of social media in the travel business. TBNet, Italy’s first travel blogger network, held its official launch at the second day of the event.

Around 750 meetings were arranged between companies associated with Expo Milano 2015 and international trade professionals.

In a closing statement, Fiera Milano’s exhibitions division director Marco Serioli said he was pleased with the quality of this year’s BIT and claimed that “The close links and synergies with Expo also proved to be a decisive factor [for buyers].”

BIT 2015 will take place in Fiera Milano from February 12—14.

PISA From October to November, visitors are invited to experience how an olive farms works and get to make their own olive oil.

SICILY An The Windsurf World Festival on the Beach, takes place in May. IRELAND is the latest country to con-

firm it will be at Expo Milano 2015, bringing the total to 142. The main avenue is being built near Fiero Milano. The theme is food and sustainable development and it is expected 20m visitors will attend. The event was launched at an opening conference by Italy’s minister for cultural heritage and cultural activities, Massimo Bray.

TUSCANY launched a new Welcome Wedding Planners initiative.

VENETO An reported visitor trends to-

wards the Venetian Villas, the Pedemontana and its Hills, wedding facilities and new audio trail apps to the Dolomites.

THE SOUTH reported interest in Puglia’s luxury resorts, Calabria’s beaches and the newly-renovated Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria and its Riace Bronzes.

LOMBARDY

is focusing on farm holidays with an eye to EXPO 2015: Mantua and Oltrepo are among the most popular destinations.

ITALYis the country where the mosttIrish couples chose to marryaccording to the Department of Foreign Affairs which reported a 12pc increase in Irish couples choosing to marry abroad in 2013. The Department provided 3,000 letters of freedom overall.

Page 021 new destination 12/03/2014 11:30 Page 1

APRIL 2014 PAGE 21

DESTINATION

The April Shower 28 new routes from Ireland launch in one month

W

Boat trip to Rovinj: irish tourism to Croatia was up 31pc even in advance of new flights to Pula.

hile farmers are preparing the hay, the holiday makers are making it. This April there are 28 new air routes scheduled to commence from five Irish airports and four different airlines this month, including a big trans-Atlantic launch..

DUBLIN-BARI (Ryanair, www.ryanair.com/ie).

Puglia’s stand at the recent Holiday World show literally whetted the taste-buds of the Irish travelling public, they brought their own cookery demonstration.

You don’t have to wait until high summer to visit the south-eastern coastal region , in fact it is a lot more beautiful amid the almond blossom of spring than heatbaked July and August.

SHANNON-BRISTOL (Aer Lingus Re-

gional, www.aerlingus.com).

South eastern England comes is a two-diamond offering, the waterfront town of Bristol and Bath with its famous Georgian streetscapes (think of the “Who will buy” scene in Oliver). Hotel, restaurant and beverage prices are about a quarter less than you will pay at home.

DUBLIN-CHANIA (Ryanair, www.ryanair.com/ie).

Crete can be warm when the rest of Greece gets surprisingly cold. Crete has the added benefit that its most popular tourist sight, Knossos (the largest of all the Minoan palaces), is open year-round. Plenty of restaurants in the port towns stay open out of season. Chania has the advantage of having that lived-in year round feeling that other resorts don’t have.

DUBLIN-COMISO (Ryanair, www.ryanair.com/ie).

The south coast of Italy has often been forgotten in our rush to Taormina and the hotspots of the north, The Roman remains, greek cities and old medieval quarter of Ragusa, hewn out of rock and clinging to the sides of a steep ravine, are stunning.

KNOCK-KAUNAS (Ryanair, www.ryanair.com/ie).

Kaunas is the Cork of Lithuania, a house-proud second city which regards itself as the leader of Lithuanian academic and cultural life. Kaunas Castle is Lithuania’s most renowned ancient building. But that is just the start of it, Kaunas airport is just 104km from Vilnius the capital of Lithuania (that is nearer than many Ryanair airports, they might even called it Vil-

nius). Lithuania’s signature attraction Aukstaitija National Park is an excursionist’s easy 170km away.

SHANNONKRAKOW (Ryanair, www.ryanair.com/ie).

Poland’s ecclesiastical capital is one of the most beautiful in Europe, with ancient cathedrals, university halls and guesthouse originally built for pilgrims. It is like stepping back into 1950s Ireland if you go on the day of a religious festival, and there are many.

DUBLINMARAKECH (Ryanair, www.ryanair.com/ie).

Prices in Morocco are about a third less than the Canaries, with Ryanair giving direct access to the red-earth fortresses and busy markets in Marrakesh (served by Ryanair). Be sure to check out the modern hotels and the

cleaned-up seafront in Agadir, where Sunway have a flight.

SHANNONPOITIERS (Ryanair, www.ryanair.com/ie).

Poiters had exactly one international route when Ryanair decided to open a flight to Shannon. It has great access to the beaches to the north and south one of Europe’s best and most underrated theme parks, Futuroscope, and because the airport is only two kilometers from town you can get from there to Paris on the TGV Atlantique more easily than you can from Beauvais.

Paris-Poitiers perhaps?

DUBLIN-PULA (Aer Lingus, www.aerlingus.com).

Dubrovnik is the honeypot tourism destination for Croatia but there is much more, Pula in the north gives access to a cascade of red-tile vene-

tian villages with connections to James Joyce, - eight national parks including the stunning Plitvice Lakes National Park, 11 parks of nature and the island of Brijuni where Tito keep a collection of exotic animals: you can still drive around in his open top cadillac.

DUBLIN-TORONTO (Aer Lingus www.aerlingus.com): Three airlines are trying to entice us to Toronto this year so watch hat the competition does to air fares. Aer Lingus are first into the field, launching a week earlier than planned on April 14th. They are using a smaller aircraft than their standard Airbus A330, a Boeing 757 with a single aisle but it is as luxurious as you will get on the Atlantic, with Eu2m worth of new seats and plush seat-back video entertainment.

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APRIL 2014 PAGE 22

T

DESTINATION FRANCE

he ribbon of castle along its banks can be a distraction, but to see the star of the show, perhaps the star of France itself, it is necessary to swim the Loire at dusk.

The Seine is a bigger celebrity, the Rhone wider, the Canal du Midi the package holiday icon, but the Loire remains central to understanding what France is about, its longest river (1,013 km, just made it to four figures) and still deliciously moody, despite the centuries of attempting to tame its intemperance.

Lore of the Loire

T

his heat is so intense there is only one solution, long drives in the air conditioned car with the temperature turned down as low as it can go.

The little town of Beaugency combines everything that is great about the Loire region.

One of Le Plus Beaux Detours de France, its church has light streaming in sideways, much as it would have when they annulled the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine here and sparked off the hundred years war. My daughter Constance found an antique shop where she bought Bulletin de Theraputique from 1883, three euro and she is reading it from cover to cover.

Each day starts with a dip in the Loire, surprisingly fast flowing for a

Eoghan Corry goes camping on the banks of a fabled river

T

The Loire at Beaugency: the river has served as the artery of French history and commerce

river that is so big and already so far from its source. This region of France is very different from where I have been before, big farms with the harvest in full flow.

The key is to go off the main roads and drive the small country by-ways, along country path where cars have to stop and yield to each other, in and out of village after village with its markets square and its blocksized church. The hanging baskets of flowers and shutter-protected windows go on for ever.

There is a statue of Joan of Arc in every market square. You can see a pattern here. Beaugency has the best Joan of Arc statue, with her banner and lance, positioned so red-faced tourists are almost forced to take their pictures up her skirt. The picture postcard village has a small stream running down the middle of tits main street, culverted and then opening like a porpoise coming up for air.

In Chateaudun we found a delicious town of which few have ever

heard.

he ribbon of castle along its banks can be a distraction, but to see the star of the show, perhaps the star of France itself, it is necessary to swim the Loire at dusk.

The Seine is a bigger celebrity, the Rhone wider, the Canal du Midi the package holiday icon,

but the Loire remains central to understanding what France is about, its longest river (1,013 km, just made it to four figures) and still deliciously moody, despite the centuries of attempting to tame its intemperance.

T

he stadium chateaux, filled with tourists listening to audio guides,

like Chambord, there is somewhere smaller and equally intriguing nearby, like Talcy.

We are the only tourists in Talcy’s Italianate Renaissance mansion. The Auberge de Chateau nearby has no English but one of the warmest welcomes in France.

There were also some self-indulgent diversions along the trail of South

■ Eoghan Corry travelled to France with Irish Ferries on their direct service from Rosslare to Cherbourg (www.irishferries.com) and Roscoff.

■ He stayed with Canvas holidays on their campsite at Chateau des Marais, where Canvas Holidays has 30 pitches www.canvasholidays.ie

Clockwise: Canvas have 30 pitches at Château des Mairais, driving in Beauce, canoeing on the Loire, sunflowers and a Beaugency homestead

Page 022-023 France 12/03/2014 11:36 Page 2

APRIL 2014 PAGE 23 Leinster saints Fiachra/Fiacre, Irish saints who set up their stall along the Loire.

Their fame spread across France and still lingers, as much as at home. Fiachra is the patron saint of STD’s which is a complicated tale in itself.

Our big trip was to Tours and its amazing cathedral. The small streets are full of amazing local shops, a bulwark against the homogenised shopping streets of Europe. I particularly like the gingerbread in the window of Hansel and Gretel patisserie.

E

ach campsite in France has its rhythm, and the rhythm varies from site to site, region to region.

There is a general pattern to affairs, common to them all. The early morning swim with the Germans and Parisians (there is never an English speaker in the deepest pool before 10, and the modern pools ARE deeper (ours in Chateau des Marais in the Loire

C

ampsites are graded like hotels, four stars for the best facilities, more than one pool, slides, play areas and onsite dining.

Note that sites in France are graded up to four stars: most bigger operators use three and four-star sites. If you prefer canvas, on-site tents normally have a kitchen, fridge and electric light.

LA GRANDE METAIRIE Set

among the amazing Celtic stones of Carnac with good local markets, a fine site for mixed age groups – ziplines for the adventurous, plenty of bar entertainment, frolicksome goats and calm ponies, and a decent restaurant. Charming.

DOMAINE DE LA FORET Very

Valley was 2.5m deep).

Then shortly afterwards the queues of daddies in at the breakfast baguette shop (85 cent, so fresh the yeast is humming), the comings and goings of cars en route to local markets and sights, the enthusiastic queues of cyclists, each a veritable Nicholas Roche or Dan Martin and the troops of kids off to the Whoopi Club.

This is followed by the heat-exhaustion of mid afternoon and the splosh of laughing children and sunburned parents in processions down the water slides. I love waterslides, the long and the windy ones, but they are put together for agile children travelling at speed, not the middle-aged and potbellied 90-kiloer who bumps along unevenly, feeling the rim between each section on their sunburned skin.

Then the evening, pizzas from the camp takeaway, Liverpudlians laughing in the bar, the muffled microphone sounds of a quiz or karaoke session,

DESTINATION FRANCE

Generations of craftsmanship went into the creation of Chambord Castle

teenagers with bicycles flirting and admiring each other in whispered phrases that need no translation despite their multi-lingual nature, barbecues outside the caravans and tents, the voices raised a notch with every bottle of great value local wine that is emptied.

Until the night when

everything goes quiet, darkness descends and the last Liverpudlian is coaxed out of the bar: “I’ll put it in a plastic cup for you.” The crickets sing their love songs, the Loire goes pouring by and all in the world seems right.

PLACES TO EAT

■ The picture postcard town in Beaugency featured restaurants such as Le Martroi and Chez Henry.

■ Blois restaurants included Hôtel Restaurant Côté Loire, L’Orangerie du château, Au rendez-vous des pêcheurs, ■ Orleans restaurants included Chez Eugène, Restaurant Les Toqués, Restaurant La Dariole, and La Parenthèse.

FRANCE: THE CAMPSITE CHRONICLES LE CHATELET

Good for small children and getaway adults, a little treasure on a clifftop with stunning views of the Breton coastline, as close to the ferry as one could wish, with a lovely cliff-bottom beach.

LA BOUQERIE.

Domaine de la Foret

French campsite, complete from this year with its own petanque pitch.

Lovely relaxed atmosphere; an hour’s drive to the magnificent Puy du Fou theme park.

LES MENHIRS Breton favourite, close to the resort of Carnac Plage and a great site.

One of the best pools in

the camping business.

BOIS DORMANT

Big child friendly site in the heart of the Vendee, among a cluster of fine four-star resorts. Great entertainment and pool facilities, sandy beaches nearby and lots to see.

Good day trips to safari park Parc Sauvage, and a visit to St Gilles Croix

de Vie, a French take on Courtown, is a must.

LE RUISSEAU. Another teenage hit, one of the liveliest sites in south-west France. Ideal for exploring the Biarritz region and hopping across the Spanish border. Be sure to catch a game of Basque pelota.

Cool hillside location in the Dordogne, near Sarlat and the gourmet capital of Europe. Check out truffles, the foie gras, and a canoeing must-do down the river.

CHLOROPHYLLE Lively and convenient Loire location ideal for wine and catching one of those "son et lumiere" (sound and light shows) at one of the magnificent Loire châteaux. It has one of the best water slides in the business.

DOMAINE DES ORMES

Big resort on the Border between Brittany and Normandy, 4,500 holiday makers on site at peak, which means lots of activities, archery for the kids, zip wires, and a option to spend a night in a treehouse, the next big thing in the French camping experience.

Close to Mont St Michel so you can see that amazing tide-coming-in thing; police patrol the sands on horseback to warn the unexpecting to turn back before the crucial moment.

COURTILLES DES LIDO Near

Fontainebleu, and prized not so much for its excellent facilities as for its proximity to Paris and Disneyland.

page 024 south africa 12/03/2014 16:00 Page 1

APRIL 2014 PAGE 24

I

DESTINATION SOUTH AFRICA

t is not pride that comes before a fall, but sheer unadulterated terror.. A cross between zip lining and bungee jumping is the bungee swing.

You jump from a height of 108 metres over the green grass, bounce on the rope and swing out into the middle of the new soccer stadium in Durban.

Comfort zone is not even in the same galaxy as this experience. I am not afraid of heights but standing on the platform I was terrified. It took them three goes to get me the edge, I then jumped like a coward, screaming and clutching the rope, persuading myself it was more a zip line than a bungee. The drop was sudden and nit too long before I was left floating in the air, arms outstretched like an angel. It was peaceful, exhilarating and most importantly, over.

Coming back was painful. They hoisted me up, bobbing like an orange in a bath-tub, and I spun outrageously backwards and crashed into the viewing platform. But I was so filled with adrenaline and fear I did not mind.

What about it? The drop is so quick you could not really appreciate it. The time bobbing around over ground is like an eternity. A great experience?

Perhaps.

Glad that it was over.

Definitely.

In the Swing

H

O

Eoghan Corry tries a bungee swing in Durban

Eoghan Corry on a bungee swing in Durban’s

aving survived that, it was time to go shark cage diving. Shark cage diving is a growing and thriving industry, tourists cannot get enough of it in the new age of experiential tourism.

It works the same way all around the world: the boat owners put a big cage on board the boat and head out to sea; eight kilometers in this case, and then drop the cage in the water.

They put people inside the cage, so the animals can come and look, a bit like the monkey cages in the zoo except in reverse.

They then charge the sharks twelve euro to come and look at the humans. Or so it should be.

Instead they chum the

Eoghan Corry second on the left after the shark

sharks with fish oil, liquid anchovy oil to bring them near to the boat. They then feed them bits of chopped up fish so that they stay around while each of the divers gets in the water.

It is a bit like those safari people who feed lions to bring them close to the vehicle. A definite no no.

The boat skippers say that fishermen have been doing it for generations but really that is not a defence. The people from Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA) say they have finally certified one shark dive for good practice, something which surprised me as the entire concept is problematic.

ur shark diving guide at Park Rynie near Durban chummed and fed merrily. Our host John Miller and the deck hands Muzi Zikhali and Lindani Mathjwa are not doing anything different from everyone else on the other corner of the country around Cape Town.

The upshot is that when they put me and two of my travel writing colleagues into a cage and the sharks came and swirled around us.

Okay, the ethical considerations are not what comes to mind when you are down there. First the sound, the bubble of your air and the dull boom of the underwater ocean, then the clink, chink of the cage.

Then the animals themselves, they look like Mo from the Simpsons except with more teeth showing twenty odd shiny pearlies on the lower jaw all exposed at once. But the feature that strikes you most is their eyes, round and glassy. Most of the western cape dive experiences the ones out of Gansbaai and Kleinbaai, are Great White Shark en-

counters, much more glamorous and Charlie Boorman. Our encounter was with tiger sharks.

There was a menageries around them, little ones eating parasites off their backs, big round ones, repeating a cyclical and frenzied tennis-match over and back manoeuvre.

W

e had a good look, then a research vessel came by noisily and the sharks all left. So the skipper moved the boat.

We went down for a second look, fewer sharks but again that amazing sound and amazing view of the animals.

Then an embarrassment. Motion sickness. In a shark cage. I felt queasy every time I returned to the surface. I went down underwater again hoping that it would go away.

My stomach was now filled with salt water as well as everything else. I had worked on my laptop on the drive to rocky bay beach. This has my stomach a little upset before we even put to sea. The oysters starter, two types, and the vindeloo curry

from the night before also has my stomach upset.

Maybe the nervousness of being so close the shark has also played its part. The heavy weighted diving belt, tight on my middle-age spreaded midriff, played its part too. The great question of the moment in those extremely shark infested waters was: do I get sick over one of my fellow writers in the shark cage and have the ignominy of this mishap forever ringing through print, airwaves and web.

I surface and go back to the boat. There are few feelings of uncertainty like the nausea that suggests the food supply of the previous 24 hours is all about to come up the way it went down.

Another colleague is now getting sick over the edge. Feeding the sharks perhaps.

T

hey are beautiful and unthreatening animals, graceful, agile and muscular. They only appear menacing because we have seen one Jaws sequel too many.

They moved gracefully and they came right up close, which considering my hands and feet were both hanging on to the cage, was a little disconcerting. ] These dives are good to demystify the shark, maligned for being more aggressive than actuality.

You can’t overdo the rehabilitation of the muchmisunderstood beautiful animals, and chumming might be a small price to pay. You got to recognize some of them, with their scars, mementoes of past battles, what a life story they could tell. As well as eating the bait thrown overboard I saw one swallowing a live fish.

Life snuffed out in a bite.

To quote Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, makes you think.

■ Eoghan Corry travelled to South Africa as a guest of the South African Tourist Board. www.southafrica.net

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€

DESTINATION IRELAND COMMON

visa arrangements for Ireland and Britain are to commence in mid-2014.

ITOA Sue Uda of A Touch of Ireland was elected new President of the Incoming Tour Operators Association Ireland at their Annual General Meeting in Druids Glen. Sue has over 30 years’ experience in the industry, based in London and Dublin.

TRABOLGAN

Holiday Village, East Cork re-opens on March 28 with a 33pc early bird discount offer for packages that include the indoor Subtropical Pool Paradise and live character shows from Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, Barney the Dinosaur and Angelina Ballerina.

IRELAND became the first country in the Hailo global network to get complete country wide coverage. Irish taxi drivers can connect to over 430,000 customers and growing on the Hailo network.

DOONBEG Donald Trump said British designer Martin Hawtree will either enhance the existing course or completely redesign a new links couorse.

WINTER was the wettest on record with

Shaun Quinn, CEO Fáilte Ireland, Minister Michael Ring and Fiona Monaghan of the Wild Atlantic Way.

The WAW factor

O

2,850 signs send the Wild Atlantic on its Way

ne of the revelations at the launch of the Wild Atlantic Way promotional campaign

by Fáilte Ireland was that, already, 95pc of images used abroad from Ireland are of the west coast.

Full signage will be place at end of March, 2,850 signs at 980 junctions were being erected, national routes are already signed, the mobile app will be ready in June and already 15 of biggest inbound tour operators are already programming the Wild Atlantic Way (for a video of overseas reactions from DERtours and CIE Tours International.

Project director Fiona Monaghan said German cinema audiences gasped when they saw the soul-stirring cinema advertisements for the route (Irlands spektakuläre Küstenstraße) as have their French equivalent (La Côte Sauvage d'Irlande). She said this is about a rebirth for the businesses along the route.

Fáilte Ireland CEO Shaun Quinn says there is a need to address the developing gap between tourism in Dublin and the rest of the country and the Wild Atlantic Way would help address that. “It is more than a road and

a bit like a shopping aisle, visitors travel on it and go off it to consume”.

Minister Michael Ring pointed out that tourism creates jobs away from the big commercial hubs and declared “the west of Ireland had beauty, infrastructure and people” and recycled the joke about the WAW being known as the Ring road. is the successor of the Gathering, the next big idea.

The Wild Atlantic Way promotional campaign is to be extended to Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Fiona Monaghan compared the trail with the Great Coastal Route in Australia and the Pacific Coastal route in California except it is longer. with 159 discovery points with signage and interpretation and 16 signature discovery points. She stressed that the success of the initiative depends on businesses and communities along the route.

There are 2,500 tourism enterprises along the route and she hoped this will encourage new businesses and start-ups: "the marketing is in place and it is up to us to deliver on the marketeers' dreams.”

Fiona Monaghan detailed the explosion of adventure events on the

route and the expanding blue ways, a maritime version of the land based greenways, signed trails for kayakers and scuba divers. She said this would encourage more visitors to engage with water, seascapes by boat & land and 26 offshore islands can be accessed from the route. She said there was a lot of work to be done on community briefings along the route so nobody who was asked by a tourist could reply: the what? A video was shown featuring the people of the Wild Atlantic Way. Three Wild Atlantic Ambassadors spoke at the event: Michael Vaughan of Vaughan Lodge who said the route will make businesses economically viable that were not until now and talked about restorative power of coming to countryside and discovering nature compared with the high price of therapists in New York. Anne Ferguson of Ocean Addicts in Kinsale who said Ireland has some of best scuba diving but did not have the marketing power to compete until now. Margaret Cunningham of Glencolumbkille folk village talked about the impact of the disproportionate route on Donegal.

Valentia Observatory recording 848mm of rain over three months, 183pc of average,

RESTAURANTS Guest speakers for the Restaurants Association Conference in the Shelbourne Hotel, on Wednesday March 26th include: Peter Kreiner of NOMA Restaurant Copenhagen, Joe Warwick Founder of World’s Top 50 Restaurant Awards and Author of Where Chefs Eat, John Teeling of Cooley Distillery, Ami Hovstadius of the Swedish tourism and Andrea Coffey of Google Ireland.

BOTANIC GARDENS Twas

the top attraction in the Office of Public Works figures for 2013: Botanic Gardens 550,000, Farmleigh 435,476, Kilmainham Gaol 326,206,Rock of Cashel 255,338, Castletown House and Parklands 244,416, Kilkenny Castle 241,302, Clonmacnoise 139,413, Phoenix Park Visitor Centre 137,755, Newgrange 133,616, Dun Aonghusa 105,539.

KILKENNY launched the Medieval Mile from the Castle to St Canice’s Cathedral.

KUONI India, launched a new, dedicated

Ireland brochure for Indian tourists at Tourism Ireland’s first India seminar in Dublin.

BELFAST St George’s Market won ‘Best Large Indoor Market’ at the annual NABMA awards in Birmingham.

TOURISM IRELAND won the award for “best potential destination” at the fifth annual Ctrip ‘best tourism destination’ awards ceremony in Shanghai. Tourism Ireland wants to grow Chinese tourism from 17,000 visitors in 2012 to 50,000 per year over the coming five years.

AOIFE The festival and events organisers

body AOIFE has been appointed Festival Hub for the EU Commission supported EFFE - Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe project.

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UNIWORLD has named its ship to launch on the Rhine-Main-Danube in the spring of 2015, the SS Maria Theresa.

STENA Line have concluded extended

charter agreements with AS Tallink for M/S Stena Superfast VII and M/S Stena Superfast VIII until autumn 2019.

ROYAL CARIBBEAN

announced the first itineraries for Anthem of the Seas ex-UK cruises in 2015. Fares for threeday taster cruise start at €500.

HURTIGRUTEN will operates a direct charter from Dublin in 2015 with highlights including a trip to the North Cape - the Northernmost point on Mainland Europe as well as a visit to the Snowhotel in Kirkenes and a Midnight concert at the Arctic Cathedral in Tromso.

CELEBRITY Cruises 2015 sailings

went on sale on March 18, five ships sail in Europe, with Celebrity Equinox based in Barcelona, Celebrity Reflection based in Rome, Celebrity Silhouette based in Amsterdam, Celebrity Constellation based out of Venice and Celebrity Eclipse based out of Southampton. New for 2015 will be the new Suite Class experience with a suites-only restaurant, VIP lounge and complimentary premium drinks.

AIDA Cruises grew by 20pc in 2013. The

German market for ocean cruises grew by 9.2pc in 2013 to 1.69m passengers.

NORWEGIAN Epic will homeport

year-round in Barcelona and will sail Canary Islands & Morocco and Western Mediterranean itineraries during the 2015/ 2016 winter season. Cruises will go on sale in Ireland in early April.

STENA HSS Fastcraft will return for its

seasonal service on its Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead route from Wednesday April 9 until Tuesday September 9.

CHAPMAN Freeborn and EYOS Expeditions announced a collaboration to offer yacht voyages to what it says are some of the most remote places on Earth.

ROYAL CARIBBEAN said over two-thirds of bookings for the first day of sales on Anthem of the Seas were for premium balcony and suite accommodation.

DISNEY ships received 29 awards in the

Cruise Critic Cruisers’ Choice awards including 13 number one awards such as Best Overall, Best for Families, Best Service, Best Dining and Entertainment, Best Cabins and Public Rooms for the Disney Fantasy in the Large Ship category.

NORWEGIAN preview brochure,

which includes new European cruises to the Norwegian Fjords, North Cape and around Britain. Norwegian Cruise Line’s Travel Partners Website now combines trade resources and online learning portal NCL U in one interface. See the webinar postcard on www.agentsuk.ncl.eu to register.

The Celtic Link service fro Rosslare to Cherbourg is being rebranded

Stena expands

T

Stena to run first direct Ireland-France route

he Celtic Link route from Rosslare to Cherbourg is to be taken over by Stena Line with effect from Monday March 31.

Celtic Link currently provides a three times weekly service between

M

Ireland and France with the MV Celtic Horizon, which can accommodate 1 000 passengers, 200 cars and 120 freight units. The all year round service currently operates from Rosslare at 21.30 on Tuesday and Thurs-

MSC’s NEW PRICE PLAN

SC launched their new four-tier Experiences pricing structure to the trade on Friday, based on experience and inclusions rather than just cabins.

It comes into force for winter 2014/15 sailings and replaces the current over-complicated cabin pricing.

Guests who are already booked onto sailings will not be affected.

MSC say it is based on consumer research,

M

which found 30pc of passengers are price sensitive while 70pc decide to book cruises based on quality factors.

Sales tools and a FAQ sheet are available to travel agents detailing dining priorities; how upgrades will work and adding extra packages The Bella Experience will offer the lowest prices with an inside, ocean view or balcony cabin and full access to the pool, gym, activities and entertainment.

Fantastica, will have the Bella benefits as well as booking flexibility; 24-hour room service; 50% discount on fitness classes; special events for kids; free breakfast in cabin and dinner sitting priority.

Aurea will cover balcony and suite accommodation with the above benefits plus a complimentary spa package; priority embarkation; complimentary products and unlimited drinks with every meal.

day with a Saturday sailing at 16.00.

From Cherbourg the schedule is 21.00 on Wednesday and Friday with a Sunday sailing at 16.00 with a journey time of approx 17 hrs.

Giles Chawke

MSC REVAMPS LONDON TEAM

SC say that Oliviero Morelli is moving from his current role of Product Director based in London.

Giles Hawke is now Executive Director to the Ireland, Britain and Australia.

Sabine Ficek, Finance Director, and Alessandra Pierleoni, Marketing Director,

continue within the Ireland and Britain leadership structure.

He takes up the position of Managing Director for MSC Cruises Japan.

Rebecca Kelly, who won travel representative of the year at the Irish Travel Industry awards, will continue to support the Irish

market. Giles Chawke says that irish sales increase the group will consider increasing the Irish team.

Lorenzo Diamantini will be moving from his role as Sales Director for Ireland to take up the position of Deputy Executive Director for the Anglo Saxon markets in Geneva.

As Lorenzo moves to Geneva, Stephen Moffett will add Ireland into his remit as Sales Director for MSC Cruises Ireland and Britain. Lee Strongitharm joins from Carnival England into the newly-created role of Commercial Director for MSC Cruises Ireland and Britain.

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AFLOAT

Epsilon: latest addition to the Irish Ferries fleet

I

The stormy seas Passengers down, freight up since start January

rish Continental Group the parent of Irish Ferries results reported passengers are down 4pc so far in 2014, but roll-on-roll-off freight volumes are up 18pc.

They said 16pc of budgeted sailings have been cancelled since the start of the year, resulting “in some loss of discretionary passenger business and a disruption to freight business”

Irish Ferries' passenger numbers carried were up 1.6pc at 1.568 million (2012: 1.544 million).

In the first half of the year, passengers were up 0.3pc and car volumes down 4.2pc. In the seasonally more significant second half, passengers were up 2.6pc and cars up 1.6pc.

Irish Ferries' car carryings remained resilient during the year, at 350,900 cars, (2012: 353,800), down

slightly (0.8pc) on the previous year.

The Ferries division employs five owned multipurpose ferries, four on routes to and from the Ireland and one chartered in New Zealand.

In addition to the owned fleet the Division also charters in one further vessel as part of its operations.

In 2013, 4,381 sailings were operated by Irish Ferries, carrying passengers, passenger vehicles and freight.

MSC say that Oliviero Morelli will be moving from his current role of Product Director based in London on March 20 to take up the position of Managing Director for MSC Cruises Japan. Lorenzo Diamantini will be moving from his role as Sales Director for Ireland to take up the position of Deputy Executive Director for the Anglo Saxon markets in Geneva. As Lorenzo moves to Geneva, Stephen Moffett will add Ireland into his remit as Sales Director for MSC Cruises Ireland and Britain. Lee Strongitharm joins from Carnival England into the newly-created role of Commercial Director for MSC Cruises Ireland and Britain. Giles Hawke is now Executive Director to the Ireland, Britain and Australia. Sabine Ficek, Finance Director, and Alessandra Pierleoni, Marketing Director, continue within the Ireland and Britain leadership structure.

NORWEGIAN Cruise Line financial

results 2013 reported revenue of $2.6bn, up 12.9pc, boosted by the line’s first Breakaway class ship, and the start of development of recently acquired island destination in Belize.

CUBA Midway through its successful in-

augural season, Cuba Cruise, the niche product affiliated with Louis Cruises, announced new sailing details for 2014/2015 featuring sevennight circumnavigation every Monday..

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THE FLYING COLUMN

CORK Airport completed a €3m redevelopment programme which began in January 2013, upgrading the baggage security screening system, introducing new screening technology for liquids and gels, upgrading the customer information desk and redeveloping the screening and airside vehicle access point used by General Aviation and Private Aircraft.

RYANAIR’s new CCO David O’Brien,

says the airline wil fly three or four a week to St. Petersburg and three or four to Moscow. He said Ryanair will grow to 110m passengers within the next five years. On trans-Atlantic for a tenner, he said All the long-haul orders are sewn up for a long time to come. We’re not going to do this with old aircraft. If an order collapses somewhere, we’ll nip in.

ETHIOPIAN Airlines will go daily

with its 21:00hrs service between Addis Ababa and London Heathrow from July, adding a Tuesday flight to its previously 6w service.

Ethiopian will move into Heathrow's new T2 in September, offering same-terminal connections with Aer Lingus. The airline is implementing its 15 year strategic plan to become the leading aviation group in Africa. Represented in Ireland by Premair, they offer connections via Heathrow and Frankfurt to Addis Ababa and onwards to African destinations.

Connections are available through Copenhagen with SAS. It recently made Vienna its ninth European destination and hopes to start a Dublin-Addis Adaba service in January.

LUFTHANSA say portable electronic devices can be used in all phases of flight.

AER ARANN

owner Stobart is to sell off half its core business.

RYANAIR’s passenger traffic grew 7pc to 4.5m in February. Traffic grew by 300,000 to 4.5m customers (up 7pc). Load factor increased 1pc to 78pc. Annual traffic to February 2014 rose to 81.9m customers (up 3pc). Short haul traffic at Aer Lingus dragged down passenger figures in February. Long haul passengers increased by 7.0pc from 43,000 to 46,000, Load factor in February 2014 was 67.3pc compared to 68.3pc for the same month in 2013.

ETIHAD

is creating of the Etihad Aviation Group, a new structure marking the transition from a single entity airline to a wider global aviation group. Etihad reported profit up 48pc from US$42m to US$62m.

BA included Dublin in a list of six cities

with cheaper 'day trip' fares for under £100, if you fly out and back on a Saturday or Sunday.

SAO PAOLO topped a list of the ten worst airports in the world, followed by 2 Chicago Midway, 3 JFK New York, 4 N’Djamena Chad, 5 Paris Beauvais, 6 London Heathrow, 7 LaGuardia NY, 8 NinoyAquino Manila, 9 Jomo Kenyatta Nairobi, 10 Tribhuvan Kathmandu.

ETIHAD increased its stake in Aer Lin-

gus from 2.987pc to 3.01pc. Chief financial officer James Rigney said Etihad has already recouped its investment.

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

Atlantic summer

D

Dublin will have 268 flights a week to N America

ublin Airport says that during the peak summer months this year, 268 flights will operate each week from Dublin to/from North America (220 USA, 48 Canada).

This is an average of 38 flights per day (19 each way).

The launch of new routes to new routes to San Francisco, Toronto and St John’s, Newfoundland, coupled with additional capacity on existing transatlantic services, will deliver a 17pc increase in Dublin Airport’s North American capacity in 2014, a total of 320,000 additional seats.

Last year’s record 1.9m passengers who travelled between Dublin and North America is likely to be overtaken in 2014 with new routes to San Francisco, Toronto and St John’s, Newfoundland. Capacity to the US/Canada is up by 320,000 (17pc), 10pc to the US, 80pc to Canada.

US Customs & Border Protection will pre-clear all US-bound flights from Dublin Airport to the United States this year. enabling Dublin, passengers to arrive in the United States as a domestic traveller, making connections and onward travel easier.

Until recently some afternoon flights through Dublin did not preclear customs and immigration.

Air Canada Rouge are operating the only wide-bodied service of the three to Canada.

Aer Lingus is bringing forward the launch of the Dublin-Toronto route to April 14 which puts it first into the field ahead of Air Canada Rouge (May 1) and Westjet (June 15).

United Airlines are adding 16,000 seats for Summer 2014 (June 6 to

E

All of Dublin’s US bound flights will pre-clear this summer

Aug 19) with 74 extra flights on a second daily Dublin-Newark service, UA131 at 12:30pm arriving Newark 4pm, return flight, UA130 10:25 pm arriving Dublin at 10:20 am the following day. The flights will be operated by Boeing 757-200 aircraft with a total of 169 seats – 16 flat-bed seats in United BusinessFirst and 153 in United Economy, including 45 Economy Plus seats with added legroom and increased personal space.

US Airways is to use a larger aircraft on its Philadelphia to Dublin service, an Airbus A330-200 with 252 seats, between March 29 and October 24 next year. It will have 20 Envoy Suite lie-flat seats and 232 seats in economy. US Airways are the second airline to introduce lie-flat seats on the north Atlantic routes from Ireland after Delta.

Airlines Serving the US from Dublin: ■ New York JFK – Aer Lingus, Delta Airlines & US Airways/AA ■ Newark – United Airlines ■ Boston – Aer Lingus ■ Atlanta – Delta Airlines ■ Chicago – Aer Lingus & US Airways/AA ■ Philadelphia – US Airways/AA ■ Orlando – Aer Lingus ■ Washington DC – United ■ Charlotte – US Airways/AA ■ San Francisco – Aer Lingus Airlines Serving Canada from Dublin: ■ Toronto – Aer Lingus, Air Canada rouge & Air Transat ■ St. John’s – Westjet ■ Montreal – Air Transat

EU CHANGE STATE AID GUIDELINE

U commissioner Joaquín Almunia unveiled tougher laws to ban public funds for big airports in his new guidelines on how Member States can support airports and airlines in line with EU state aid rules.

Airports under investigation include several in Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Romania and Spain, with a number involving Ryanair.

State aid for investment

in airport infrastructure is allowed if there is a genuine transport need and the public support is necessary to ensure the accessibility of a region. Operating aid to regional airports (with less than 3m passengers a year) will be allowed for a transitional period of 10 years under certain conditions.

Airports with an annual passenger traffic of below 700 000 may face increased difficulties in

achieving full cost coverage during the transitional period, the guidelines include a special regime for those airports, with higher aid intensities and a reassessment of the situation after five years.

Start-up aid to airlines to launch a new air route is permitted provided it remains limited in time.

The changes focus on those airports which the EU thinks will have the biggest impact on competi-

tion EU proposals for the next round of passenger rights legislation is likely to include clauses on tarmac delays.

Details are still to be thrashed out between the EU's legislative organs but the most likely change will be food and refreshments after one hour,and the obligation of a return to the gate after two hours unless safety/security reasons prevent this.

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THE FLYING COLUMN

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

RYANAIR say that while Google Flight Search has not yet been launched in Ireland, Irish passengers can still log on via google .com/flights. Ryanair say the partnership with Google Flight Search will allow faster access to its 1,600 routes.

LUFTHANSA

unveiling its new Premium Economy Class at ITB Berlin with a 38" seat pitch. The seats can be booked from May onwards and will be available from November 2014, initially on the Boeing 747-8. While the seat will be branded as premium economy, it will be classed as economy within the booking system and will not carry benefits such as a dedicated check-in.

Shannon airport: back in expansion mode

Hangar expansion

T

Shannon development reflects airport growth

he Shannon Group has announced plans to develop new hangar after reaching capacity on existing space.

The airport currently has 50,700sq meters of space in nine hangars, all of

which will be fully occupied following the signing of contracts with Air Contractors. To meet a current request for near term additional hangar space, the board of the Shannon Group recently agreed to seek planning permission and to tender for the

NORWEGIAN T/A PLAN FLIES IN TO A STORM

T

procurement and associated works of a fabric hangar of 4,300sq metres capable of accommodating wide-bodied aircraft. Shannon chair Rose Hynes said: “The airport has paid its own way since separation, absolutely, no doubt about it.

he campaign continued apace to prevent Norwegian Air Shuttle’s opening of an Irish operation to bring its business model to transatlantic flights.

Three big carriers, Delta, United and American, have filed complaints with the US Department of Transportation.

Norwegian put another €46.6m into its new Irish subsidiary as it prepares to use Ireland as the base for its long-haul service.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar was asked by Edward Wytkind of

Washington DC-based union group Transportation Trades Department to reject the licence application. Lee Moak of pilots union ALPA asked how the Irish government will exercise its oversight

responsibility when NAI never actually operates to or through Ireland.”

Norwegian has signed an agreement to lease four more Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners to enter service in 2017 and 2018.

urkish Airlines say 16,000 passengers took advantage of their free city tours while in transit in 2013.

The tours are provided

by TourIstanbul. To par-

ticipate passengers wishing to join need to present themselves at the hotel desk in the arrivals hall of Ataturk International Airport at least 30 minutes prior to the departure of

the tour.

No advance reservation or booking is required and the tours are free to all eligible passengers.

T

TURKISH Airlines CEO Temel Kotil says his company regards Dublin Airport as a potential “gateway to the Atlantic” despite the failure of talks with Aer Lingus regarding a possible partnership that would feed Turkish feeding passengers to transatlantic services.

RYANAIR Italy’s anti-trust authority Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato chaired by Antonio Cicatralà fined Ryanair €850,000 for what it alleged was insufficient transparency in the sale of travel insuranch: it was necessary to go through the window of Country of Residence and select the option “refuse insurance”, positioned between Netherlands and Norway.

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ISTANBUL TOUR A HIT

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www.aircanada.com/rouge/en/

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APRIL 2014 PAGE 30

THE FLYING COLUMN

WESTJET which commences a Dublin-St John’s service on June 15, has signed Panasonic Avionics Corporation to provide it with in-flight entertainment .

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

A350 delay

MERGER OFF Brendan Howlin

said the government has abandoned plans to merge the Aviation Regulator and Irish Aviation Authority due to advice from Europe.

RYANAIR suspended 18 routes this summer from Dusseldorf Weeze and airport traffic will fall at least 20-25pc according to the airport CEO. EMIRATES are to fly Dubai to

Chicago operated by a Boeing 777-200LR from August. Emirates Abu Dhabi-Chengduu goes daily from the current 5w on March 30.

QANTAS is dropping its services be-

tween Perth and Singapore and downgrading Singapore services out of Sydney and Brisbane from B747s to smaller and more fuel-efficient A330s now that most European traffic has switched to Dubai. It will keep its twice daily A380 services to London, despite speculation that either one or both routes would be dropped in a bid to reduce losses. Tallaght-born CEO Alan Joyce said he was "absolutely committed" to Qantas, despite calls for his resignation as the airline suffered a loss of Aus235m/€152m, the biggest first-half loss since the Keating government began cutting it free from government ownership in 1995. Qantas plans to shed 5,000 jobs from its 33,000strong workforce. Staff costs are twice as high as those at Emirates, Etihad and SIA, and it is facing increased competition in its home market. Virgin Australia blamed intense competition, subdued demand and economic uncertainties for its own €55m loss.

IAG British Airways' owner International Airlines Group returned to profit after Iberia restructuring and benefits of more Heathrow take-off and landing slots. Air France-KLM improved from a net loss of €696m to a net loss of €349m, actual net loss was €1.8bn compared to €1.22bn in 2012.

FINNAIR is to add operate 17 weekly

services to Bangkok up from its current double-daily.

DELTA is revamping its frequent flyer

programme to reward passengers who buy the most expensive tickets. From January 1 next year it will move to a system where passengers will be awarded miles based on the price of their ticket rather than distance travelled.

Members will earn between five and 11 miles per US dollar spent, depending on their SkyMiles status and benefit from new OneWay Awards, the introduction of additional Miles, cash award options and improvements to delta.com shopping tools.

QATAR Airways unveiled their A380-800

First Class seats at ITB Berlin with Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit first to test the product.

Qatar is upgrading its business class seat and IFE systems on select A330-200 and A320 aircraft

T

Aer Lingus will still take nine craft in Airbus deal

The third and fourth test flight craft for the A350 take to the air over Toulouse earlier this month

he original delivery dates for Aer Lingus nine A350XWB aircraft cannot be achieved so Aer Lingus and Airbus are renegotiating delivery dates likely to be over the 2018-2020 period.

Aer Lingus will still take nine aircraft, probably a mixture of A350-900 and A350-900R variants, which has more limited range.

Airbus reported higher costs on the A350, its newest widebody jet, in its annual results this month as two more A350 XWB flight test aircraft, took to the skies above Toulouse bringing the total number of A350 XWBs now flying from two to four.

Airbus said it would raise output of its A320 family of small jets to 46 aircraft a month by the second quarter of 2016 from 42 now. Boeing's rival jet aims to hit 47 a month by 2017.

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The news came in the course of Aer Lingus’ reporting an operating profit of €61.1m for 2013, an 11.6pc fall on 2012, with some good news from long-haul revenue (up 11.1pc to €381.6m) and transatlantic passenger numbers (up 12.2pc).

Christoph Mueller told the annual results presentation conference that having a mix of smaller shareholders, rather than potential large-scale stake building by a few investors is best for the airline.

Contract flying operations on behalf of Virgin Atlantic Airways operation broke even in 2013, reflecting start-up costs incurred in early 2013, and is forecast to turn profitable in 2014.

The airline reported increased private demand from Ireland and corporate demand for San Francisco.

Aer Lingus said nNew routes

LUFTHY’S 70pc ONWARD

aracas is among the unusual top twenty transfer destinations through Frankfurt that were reported by Lufthansa in their briefing for the Irish travel media this month.

Lufthansa reported its most successful year ever in Dublin during 2013 with passenger figures of 369,676 beating the previous 2012 record by 6.75pc.

Three quarters of Lufthansa passenger from Dublin were trans-

fer passengers through Frankfurt and Munich with the top transfer destinations were Moscow, Kiev, Tel Aviv, Lagos, Sofia, Beijing, Caracas, Tokyo, Zagreb, Cairo, Graz and Minsk.

Lufthansa’s Dublin to Munich service will increase to 4w and further to 5w in July.

Two thirds of the tickets on Lufthansa’s Irish routes are sold in Germany.

Last year Lufthansa saw record load factors on their Irish routes and are looking forward to more growth

in 2014.

Just over 50pc of the tickets sold in Ireland are sold through the trade and London-based Irish and Britain manager Christian Schindler of Lufthansa says he will continue to support the trade in Ireland.

In addition, Lufthansa’s low cost subsidiary Germanwings have four services from Dublin to Dusseldorf, four to Cologne and a service from Dusseldorf to Knock. Lufthansa have 300 aircraft on order.

Toronto and San Francisco are selling in line with expectations.

It reported that full US Customs and Border pre-clearance has been secured for summer 2014 schedule.

Aer Lingus Regional is now growing independently as a franchisee, with aircraft to be based in Cork and Shannon for summer 2014. Aer Lingus mainline will not be switching any more capacity to Regional.

In 2014 the focus will be on reducing costs, improving products and service, selling the additional long haul capacity and on load factor: it was stressed that 25pc of Aer Lingus seats remained unsold in 2013, Christoph Mueller wants to use the Aer Lingus cash holding to be an active participant in the consolidation of the European airline sector, otherwise cash would be returned to shareholders.

Christian Schindler

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THE FLYING COLUMN

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

Going flat for 2015

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Aer Lingus uses Irish designed business class

er Lingus are to get new lie flat seats in premier class in early 2015.

Aer Lingus are the third airline to

introduce lie-flat seats on the north Atlantic routes from Ireland after Delta and US Airways.

The airline will use the Thompsons

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Vantage XL seat from Thompson Aero Seating in Portadown, which has Jetblue, Swiss and Air Canada as customers.

The forward facing, fully-lie flat bed will offer a generous bed width of 24”-25”, all with direct aisle access. Thompson say the airline can fit in more seats and offer all passengers forward facing seats with completely horizontal beds and more workspace.

The seats offer increased shoulder width, longer bed length, more leg and foot space and extra storage capacity. There is better aisle access, additional work space and a large monitor for each seat.

Aer Lingus will launch its new reservation system with enhanced retail selling, a new website, and a new mobile app in autumn.

TURKISH REVAMPS BUSINESS CLASS

urkish Airlines have revamped their business class service to go with their lounge expansion in Istanbul.

Business Class passengers are allowed up to 40 kg of free checked baggage. Passengers in Business class are also allowed two carry-ons.

Business Class or Elite Plus card holders destined for Istanbul are issued a “fast track” card at check-in, allowing access to the specially designated Passport Control Kiosks 29-30.

Turkish Airlines Dublin flight schedule will increase from 10 to 12 flights a week from April 1st.

Chef Clodagh McKenna with Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller and cabin crew members Claire Sutton and Leanne Donnelly launch a new onboard menu on short haul flights, known as Bia.

RYANAIR is seeking to appoint an agency partner to develop its data and customer relationship marketing as part of its revised customer strategy. Ryanair announced a new collaboration with Paypal.

FALCON/Thompson launched an online check in service for their Irish clients for Thomson Airways flights. Passengers can now check in and print their boarding cards before they get to the airport.

AER LINGUS third B757 EI-LBT has been rolled out as St Brendan.

HEATHROW Airport Terminal 2, to

which Aer Lingus moves on July 9, announced its 64 shop and restaurant retail line-up featuring Cath Kidston, London's Pride by Fullers, Bottega Veneta, John Lewis and Michael Kors.

A new 270-degree observation deck, converted from a former airline lounge, opened in Heathrow T4 between gates 15 and 16. The airport plans to cut 200 jobs, despite making its first profit since 2006.

ETIHAD will launch a non-stop daily

service between Abu Dhabi and Phuket on October 26 using Airbus A330-200 aircraft, with 22 Business seats and 240 Economy seats.

AER ARANN/Aer Lingus Regional

have brought forward the start date for basing brand new ATR 72-600s in Cork.

HEATHROW

T2 to which Aer Lingus moves on July 9, will have a row of kiosks for check-in and printing baggage tags and a fast-drop area where passengers show their boarding pass and passport, and staff will take bags and introduce them into the system.

RYANAIR say 700,000 customers signed up to the My Ryanair customer registration service where details can be stored online.

BA Willie Walsh, Chief Executive of British Airways' parent company, International Airlines Group, officially opened British Airways new £300,000 lounge at Belfast City Airport.

Guests at the opening of the 285sqm development included Trade and Investment Minister Arlene Foster.

CLODAGH’S MENU THE QUEEN BIA A SUCCESS

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er Lingus launched three new pre-order BIA meal options for customers travelling on short-haul flights, The menus were designed in collaboration with restaurateur Clodagh McKenna.

Meals can be pre-ordered on aerlingus.com with the delivery on board if ordered in advance

■ the Power Me Salad (€7.50), ■ caramelised onion & leek quiche (€7.50) and ■ a children’s macaroni cheese meal (€5) made with Irish cheddar and served with an apple and grape fruit pot, a Lily O’Brien cookie and a kid’s fruit shoot.

ETIHAD

is to fly its first A380 from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow in the first week of December and then roll out the aircraft to New York, Sydney and Melbourne.

CORK Airport made Google Indoor Maps available for all public areas of the airport. A new Cork Airport App has been developed with Irish web design company FeedHenry.

FLYBE are to replace their Dash 8 with an E-195 on the Dublin Exeter route.

EUROPE Passenger numbers at Euro-

pean airports were up 3pc in 2013. Numbers at Irish airports were up 4.2pc. Other increases include Turkey 15.1pc, Russia 12.3pc, UK 3.4pc, France 2.1pc, Germany 0.5pc, Italy 1.9pc, Spain -3.5pc.

TURKISH Airlines Lounge in Istanbul has added another 2400sqm to its existing 3500sqm, increasing the size by over 40pc,

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THE FLYING COLUMN

SINGAPORE Airlines and Turkish

Airlines have agreed a major expansion of codeshare ties, covering destinations beyond both Istanbul and Singapore. Singapore Airlines is to close its Dublin office in Dawson Street bringin an end to an era of Singapore involvement in the Irish market, at its peak during the heyday fo Joe Hogan.

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

GARUDA

Indonesia became the 20th Member of SkyTeam Alliance.

AER LINGUS

Regional said it is on target to fly 300,000 passengers on its Cork routes having allocated its two newest aircraft to service the expanded Cork routes and a new route to Newcastle to launch March 28.

TURKISH Airlines is revamping its

Miles&Smiles frequent flyer programme, with new rules that include earning Miles from all tickets including promotional tickets.

Finnair will begin operating aircraft with fullyflat business class seats to Tokyo and New York from April 1, and to Beijing and Seoul from May 1.

BA Gold Executive Club members will now

receive two upgrade vouchers for one person, instead of a single upgrade voucher for two, when they earn 3,500 tier points.

SRI LANKAN will join Oneworld on May 1 having been a member elect of the alliance since mid-2012.

RYANAIR said it is adding extra flights,

without saying how many, on four Dublin routes to Barcelona, Beauvais, Faro and Nice, in addition to Ryanair’s 9 new Dublin routes to Almeria, Bari, Basel, Bucharest, Chania, Comiso, Lisbon, Marrakesh and Prague, which will start in April, and extra flights on its Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, London Stansted, Madrid and Manchester routes. It means the Algarve will have more than 80 flights a week from Ireland this summer from six different operators.

LINKSAIR The English regional airline

LinksAir announced a service between Belfast City Airport and Robin Hood DoncasterSheffield Airport from April 11. Picture shows Sinéad Murray of Tourism Ireland, Anne McMullan of Visit Belfast and Ellie McGimpsey, Belfast City Airport.

DUBLIN AIRPORT Last year

521,000 Northern Ireland passengers travelled through Dublin Airport, up 15pc.

IAA

The Irish Aviation Authority reported Irish terminal air traffic grew by 6.5pc in January. Dublin was up 8.1pc with an average of 396 daily movements. Cork was down 2.5pc, with an average of 48 daily movements. Shannon was up 3.2pc with an average of 38 daily movements. North Atlantic Communications flights (Europe to North America and vice versa via Irish airspace) saw a marginal increase of 0.5pc in January 2014, when compared to January 2013.

DUBLIN Airport accommodated 1.3m

passengers in January, up 10pc.

Michael O’Leary and Ray Conner of Boeing: Availability of long haul aircraft is his T/A getout

Atlantic mischief

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MIchael O’Leary’s trans-Atlantic for a tenner saga

ichael O’Leary demonstrated Ryanair’s new-look website and soon-to-belaunched app to Irish hoteliers at last month;s IHF conference.

He announced that he would be stepping out of the limelight to allow Ryanair’s more customer-friendly advertisement campaign get under way and uninteniotnally signalled just exactly why when he reignited the “trans-Atlantic for a tenner” story.

Michael O’Leary said in his address to the IHF that the while "being savages" for free publicity worked in newer markets such as Italy where Ryanair was still breaking through, it just annoyed people in its more ma-

ture markets.

He gave some examples: his proposals to charge for using the toilet on aircraft (June 1 2009) and plans to fly passengers to US for under €10 (June 17 2008 at the infamous beds and blowjobs press conference and again June 23 2013 on Bloomberg). Then, when Olivia O’Leary pressed him on the issue, O’Leary reverted to type and replied that he hoped to launch long haul once Gulf airlines like Qatar and Emirates (which he dubbed “extensions of the state’s penis”) stop buying up longhaul aircraft.

Ryanair would fly from 12-14 major European cities to 12-14 major

ONLY WIDE BODIED SERVICE TO CANADA

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ir Canada Premium Rouge launched their services on the only wide-bodied service to Canada this summer.

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The airline is promoting advantages such as a generous baggage allowance, priority checkin and boarding, a wider seat with 2x2x2 configuration, complimentary

wireless streaming of on-demand entertainment, and premium meal service served with complimentary wine and spirits.

US destinations and a full service would begin within six months of Ryanair getting the aircraft to do so.

The trans-Atlantic ten-euro story went viral (again, for the third time) with more than 200 articles worldwide. Willie Walsh was even asked about it at the IAG results and bemusedly replied it could never happen because of taxes and airport charges.

Michael Cawley told the Shannon Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Dromoland Castle that Ryanair “is only scratching the surface” of its potential in Europe, stating that carrying 200m passengers in a single year “is very realistic”. He said Ryanair "lost families in a big way" last year.

CITYJET WILL STAY IRISH AIRLINE

eter Oncken of Intro Aviation says that Cityjet will continue to be based in Ireland for the foreseeable future after the acquisition by Intro is completed in the coming weeks.

He said the offer by Intro

for Cityjet envisages "ongoing commercial co-operation with Air France as part of a new industrial plan", the two sides said in December. Intro is also buying Cityjet subsidiary VLM, based in Belgium.

Financial terms of the deal

Eamon Flanagan

haven't been disclosed.

In its fourth-quarter results, Air France-KLM said Cityjet has been reclassified as a discontinued operation. Cityjet made a €209m loss in 2012 after shouldering €185m in exceptional costs. Assets in-

clude takeoff and landing slots at London City.

AFP reported last mnth that an internal Air France document suggests that Air France negotiated a five year profit-sharing arrangement with Intro when they take over.

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here was a strong reaction to the report in Travel Etxra’s Sunday Supplement about the collapse of On Holiday Group, the bedbank headed up by Steve Endacott in England and Brendan Mallon in Ireland, and its related family of bed banks (Holiday Broker/Eurorooms).

Karl Tyrrell and Clem Walshe were invited to address the issue. This is the article as it originally ran: The problems relate more to the model itself than OHG in particular.

The very concept of a bedbank slips through the cracks of the bonding system. It means Irish agents will be out of pocket accommodating clients whose bookings have been cancelled as a result of the failure. Hoteliers who are owed an estimated €9m are now likely to demand payment from current guests.

The company says that “All monies received from agents is held in ring-fenced client accounts and will be re-

APRIL 2014 PAGE 33

AFTER THE OHG COLLAPSE

The bedbank dilemma Is your booking with OHG?

turned by the On Holiday Group to agents in the next few days”.

Steve Endacott blamed a judgment in the English courts on disputed VAT payments for the failure.

This raises alarm bells as other bed banks are disputing the tax terms ap-

Karl Tyrrell and Clem Walshe on a burning issue

plied in London. Another bed bank won a landmark London Supreme Court decision, but it came too late to save the On Holiday Group.

Even worse, many bedbanks enhance their database by using other bedbanks, some of whom

Clem Walshe: ‘Directly contracted stock is the key.’

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Paul Evans and Clem Walshe, Lowcost

e have worked hard over the last number of years to establish ourselves as a key trading partner with Irish travel agents.

We have recently increased our cities and long haul portfolio which will further improve our worldwide property offering and we’re currently developing some excellent XML relationships with a number of Irish agents.

We pride ourselves on being competitive and want to win market share, but only if it makes commercial sense. The key to our global growth over the last 10 years has been the successful manner we’ve re-invested company resource in our brand.

The lowcosttravelgroup was founded in 2004, employs 350 staff based across

47 countries and carries over 2 million customers annually. It is forecasting annual turnover to exceed the $1 billion mark by 2016. lowcostbeds has become one of the leading independently owned bed banks in the world and now deal with over 36,000 travel agency partners in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australasia and is on course to double the amount of contracted hotels available to its customers over the coming months.

Industry leading technology provides agents with access to highly competitive rates and availability from over 200,000 hotels. lowcostbeds directly contracted stock provides travel agents with exclusive access to unbeatable rates across a wide range of key properties in popular destinations. Attractive commercials and an experienced local team have also contributed to the success the brand has enjoyed in the Irish market.

The company is currently recruiting locally to add to their Irish trade support team headed up by Irish Sales Manager Grainne Caffrey.

do not operate in the Irish market at all.

A failure by a third rank bedbank could end up costing Irish travel agents money and reputation.

The bonding system, devised in 1983 before bed banks, online transac-

tions and widespread use of credit cards, has been creaking under the force of change for decades.

Even from the beginning, there were anomalies that airlines are outside the system, leaving agents open to the sort of havoc that accompa-

nied the collapse of Malev. Two years later no compensation has been paid.

Disputes within the system were largely responsible for bringing down Eugene Corcoran’s Budget Travel (over the level of bonding required when capacity was reduced). Several business were forced from the market place because of the lean that bonding put on their cash flow.

A chorus of industry individuals and organisations, including the ITAA and ITOF, have been advocating that bonding be abolished altogether and replaced with a flat tax on airline ticket sales.

Minister Leo Varadkar has parked a response to submissions on bonding until European legislation is complete, which appears intent on opening the market to companies licensed (but not bonded) in other EU countries.

In the meantime Irish agents who are being forced to rebook their clients this week are left potentially high and dry.

Karl Tyrrell: ‘Check bedbank is in profit and don’t pay far in advance’

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Lee Osborne and Karly Tyrrell Bookabed here are many Bedbank options for agencies to choose to use, some based here in Ireland, others in the UK and then more as far afield as Inda and the UAE but i do urge agencies to choose carefully.

Insist on not pre paying to far in advance if at all and do some research, check the company's lastest accounts to see if they are profitable Some of the big bedbanks in the UK have been posting year on year multi million pound losses or have accounts which show an obvious risk.

However agencies here do still decide to book with them and pre pay them weeks in advance.

In relation to some Bedbanks selling at heavily discounted rates Karl Tyrrell stresses that If it seems to good to be

true, it probably is.

We are all mostly buying from the same sources be it the hotel or local DMC's, some of us choose to to try to make money and our model is it to work off margins that make us profitable and secure, however this cant be said for some others looking to win market share quickly which of course is not a sustainable business model and is very risky.

BookaBed have experienced huge growth of the last few years, Our strength is our company values, we have a great team who put a lot of focus on customer service, we are honest and agents can trust that we will do our best for them and although we have grown alot over the years my aim is to keep the small company touch when dealing with our loyal customers.

We are continunally trying to improve how we work and we invest alot in technology to make sure we have the best system possible. This month we are launching an update to our site which includes Trip Advisor reviews and Attraction tickets" 2014 has started off very well for BookaBed with sales currently up 170pc on same period in 2013.

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GLOBAL VILLAGE

Inside the Travel Business

WTM World Travel Market 2013 said it has generated £2.2bn in industry deals, up 19pc on WTM 2012. Trade visitor numbers were up 5pc compared to 2012, welcoming more than 50,000 participants over the four days of the event.

CONTIKI launched its 2014/2015 brochure, highlights include like the Greek sailing itinerary on the Saronic coast on a yacht for 8 days with a trained skipper (no tour guide) for a hands-on sailing trip, visiting Hydra, Nafplio, Aegina and other calls. Guests help prepare meals, keep the boat ship shape and assist in sailing, €673pp. All Contiki coaches will now have wifi available, with 90pc of Contiki hotels also offering wireless connections. Contiki early bookings are up year on year, Sharon Jordan’s The Travel Corporation reports “increased demand for the Contiki product plus a trend that Contiki’s early payment discount is working.”

GTA renewed its distribution deal with

Hilton Worldwide. GTA’s enhanced distribution deal with Mövenpick went live.

STA Travel and Brand USA unveiled American Road Trip videos. A study by Oxford Economics indicates that Brand USA’s marketing efforts generated 1.1m incremental international visitors to the destination – a 2.3pc more than would have occurred without Brand USA marketing initiatives.

AMADEUS announced it is partnering with the European Travel Commission to promote Europe as a tourism destination.

CUSTOMERS who book parking e si-

online at QuickPark.ie, and tune in to Radio Nova can win free parking for a year, and an overall prize of an overseas holiday.

CELEBRITY Cruises is giving agents to confirm a new 2014 or 2015 booking between now and April 30 for the chance to win one of five £100 Ticketmaster gift cards each week, redeemable on events and concerts in Ireland and Britain, including GAA fixtures, Katy Perry and Robbie Williams.

CSO The CSO overseas travel stats showed that Irish people took slightly more trips abroad than last year, with 1.197m people travelling overseas, up 1.4pc.

SUNWAY Holidays is increasing its

cruise department with James Fleming moving from his Club Med and Rivercruise brief.

James has been with Sunway for three years and is now back in the Dun Laoghaire HQ and will lead up this new cruise team. Sunway cruise partners including Norwegian Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises, MSC Cruises, Holland America, Silversea and Carnival Cruise Line & Star Clipper Cruises.

INSIGHT Vacations brochure Page 4 has a new feature to showcase Insight's tours in mystical India, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, download the Layar app for free, hold your phone over the brochure page and a video will appear: get.layar.com

ITAA CEO Pat Dawson addressing a press conference during the 2013 ITAA Conference in Granada

President Skelly

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Martin Skelly new president of the ITAA

s the only nominee for the post, Martin Skelly of Navan Travel will become the 18th president of the Irish Travel Agents Association for a two year period after the forthcoming AGM at Bewley’s Leopardstown on April 3.

There are no nominations for treasurer which presents the ITAA with a dilemma. Martin is number 18 in 44 years. While two consecutive terms are not allowed by constitution, four previous presidents re-

turned to serve a second term.

Martin Skelly previously acted as president duing a four-month interim period between Pat Dawson stepping down from the Presdiency to become CEO of the ITAA. The ITAA AGM wil consdier constitutional changes to reduce the quorum for meeetings and will also have to consider the election of a treasurer.

There were no nominees for the position.

The ITAA have also lodged a complaint with

ITAA PRESIDENTS

1970 Michael Kelly 1972 Louis Byrne 1974 Con Neenan 1978 Andrew McKenna 1980 Michael Kelly 1982 Michael Doorley 1984 Jim Loftus 1986 Con Horgan 1988 Eugene Magee 1990 Tony Brazil 1992 Jim Sharkey

1994 Gerry Benson 1996 PJ Brennan 1998 Gerry Benson 2000 Fergus Kilkelly 2002 Tony Brazil 2004 Michael Doorley 2006 James Malone 2008 Jim Vaughan 2010 Pat Dawson 2012 Clare Dunne 2014 Martin Skelly

madeus reported a market share increase to 40.1pc in total air travel agency bookings and a 7.2pc yearon-year increase in earn-

ings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to €1.2bn.

Air travel agency bookings increased by 6.5pc, to 443.4 million, on the back

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the Dail committee on finance about the practices of credit card companies Agents have either been asked to put bonds on place

Martin Skelly for the withholding of funds up to 30 days.

The new financial criteria for IATA is another financial hardship to some agents which means the number of IATA plates being handed back all over Europe is growing and consolidators are increasing their volume of sales.

As regards the October

9-10 conference he ITAA is still in talks with three or four parties before deciding a venue. The options include a cruise destination.

Other topics to be covered will be the relationship with tour operators, who offer online discounts and incentives to the consumer to book direct.

Pat Dawson, CEO of the ITAA says “if tour operators want to exist in Ireland in the long term they want to have respect for the travel agent.”

“A travel agent needs a gross margin of 7pc to pay his bills before he starts making a living.

“Do tour operators want us to go working for them and let them get all the profit?”

“Some tour operators to drive as much as direct from the consumer as they can. If this continues don’t blame the travel agents for reducing their capacity.”

of strong growth in North America (+38.1pc) and Latin America (+12.5pc).

Passengers Boarded increased by 9.2pc,to 615.7 million, with a 57.6pc rise

in Asia Pacific.

Amadeus acquired Newmarket International, a leading US-based Hotel IT provider, for $500m last year.

AMADEUS RECORDS GROWTH

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Inside the Travel Business

APRIL 2014 PAGE 35

GLOBAL VILLAGE

TOPFLIGHT WorldWide’s new Thailand brochures are currently being delivered.

Highlights include Phuket and Koh Phi Phi, trekking in Chiang Mai and shopping in Bangkok. Topflight MD Tony Collins says Worldwide business is “going from strength to strength: we have seen an increased demand for holidays to Thailand and this has encouraged us to undertake this brochure. We have a solid team of experts in-house who know Thailand and can guide customers with ease and confidence.

ROYAL Caribbean’s Jennifer Callister

Kenny Jacobs, Ryanair chief marketing officer and Simon Ferguson, Travelport regional director

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GDS shake-up

Ryanair choses Travelport to re-enter GDS

he much-anticipated announcement that Ryanair is making its content available through Travelport, with fares and ancillary product to be introduced in phases from March 19, has shaken up the Irish GDS market.

Kenny Jacobs, Ryanair chief marketing officer, said: “This partnership with Travelport is a significant development for Ryanair and for businesses across Europe and beyond as we continue to evolve our business offering.

"More than 22pc of these customers already choose Ryanair for business travel and we expect that percentage to grow as this partnership allows corporate travel departments, travel management companies and businesses even greater access to Ryanair’s low fares and routes.”

Simon Ferguson, Travelport regional director, Ireland and Britain said: “This is a hugely important part-

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nership for travel agencies in the Ireland and Britain, and we are delighted to be providing them with fares and ancillaries from one of the highest profile low cost carriers in the world and a very important one in this region.

"Ryanair has fully embraced what we can uniquely offer through our industry-leading technology and we look forward to working exclusively with the Ryanair team over the coming months to help them reach new travellers whilst providing more indemand, low cost air content to our UK travel agency and tour operator customers.”Sinead Reilly of Travelport Ireland said it was “a hugely important partnership for travel agencies in Ireland,.”

“We are delighted to be providing them with fares and ancillaries from one of the highest profile low cost carriers in the world and a very important one here in Ireland.

“Ryanair has fully embraced what

we can offer through our industryleading technology and we look forward to working exclusively with the Ryanair team over the coming months to help them reach new travellers whilst providing more in-demand, low cost air content to our Irish travel agency and tour operator customers.”

Travelport highlighted the fact that Ryanair’s decision to work with Travelport followed the launch last year of the Travelport Merchandising Platform in Dublin last March, an aggregated shopping component designed for low cost carriers.

This technology enables low cost carriers to provide their content via an API connection, rather than the more traditional fare filing methods often favoured by network carriers, and have their fares and ancillaries displayed, compared and booked in exactly the same way.

The technology was developed using the Ryanair requirement, an astute move in retrospect.

PACKAGE CHANGES UNDER WAY

he European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection voted on the controversial proposed replacement for the Package Travel Directive, the principal legislation governing package travel in the EU. The Parliament's legal affairs committee and its internal market and consumer protection committee endorsed the Commission's proposals on Package Travel,

(IP/13/663), the European Account Preservation Order (IP/11/923), and on the jurisdiction rules for the specialised European patent court (IP/13/750). A plenary vote is expected in March.

England’s CAA researched reactions to the directive: ■ The group broadly welcomed the revised Directive, which it felt was long overdue.

■ There is concern the

proposals could create a gap in protection for sales made directly by businesses established outside the European Economic Area (EEA) - potentially leading to serious consequences for competition and consumer protection.

■ The new Directive must ensure that there are effective information requirements so that consumers are clear when protection applies and can make informed choices when

booking trips abroad.

■ There are clear practical implications for consumers if insolvency protection is provided on a cross-border basis. Language barriers and the need to repatriate consumers to third party countries could limit consumers getting access to the help that they are entitled to. For example, claiming a refund could become extremely difficult.

and Jenny Rafter embarked on an Allure of the Seas and Europe Summer 2015 trade sales blitz in Dublin and with the news that Serenade of the Seas, Rhapsody of the Seas and Splendour of the Seas will all sail from Europe. Serenade of the Seas (based in Copenhagen and Stockholm) will join Anthem of the Seas, Adventure of the Seas (both based in Southampton) and Brilliance of the Seas (based in Harwich) in the North Sea in summer 2015 and offer a range of Scandinavia and Russia, as well as Norwegian Fjords sailings.

AMA of Classic Resorts will join The Travel Corporation at the end of the month as Business Development Manager.

ISLAND ESCAPES Brian McCarthy formerly of Topflight has joined David O’Hagan of Donabate Travel in a new venture, Island Escapes offering Dubai, Madagascar, the Maldives, and Mozambique, as well as combination holidays and honeymoons. Shane Coburn and Milana Maliaukaite are also on the Island Escapes team.

INNSTANT Travel has appointed Susan McCarthy as Contracts Manager. Innstant has increased its online events tickets portfolio to include more than 20,000 events tickets worldwide all online in www.innstant.travel.

COLEEN BUTLER has joined

Bookabed as the company’s new Contracting Product Manager, having previously been with Touramerica and Global Contracts Manager with Innstant Travel.

VOYAGES-SNCF launched a new website dedicated to Irish travel agents and tour operators.

AMADEUS and Aerticket announced

they are extending and expanding their partnership globally.

TRAVEL COUNSELLORS

Ireland reported January is their best ever month since they launched in September 2005: 29 of the 52 Travel Counsellors also had their own personal best ever month (sales and earnings) and the home-working group had a 22pc increase overall compared to their previous best ever in January 2013. Travel Counsellors officially launch in Belgium this month to grow its network of 1,300 homeworkers in Ireland, Britain, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, Canada and Dubai.

SUNWAY launched a new Couples Retreats and Honeymoon brochure.

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APRIL 2014 PAGE 36

WINDOW SEAT

Busman’s holiday: Don Shearer

Home sweet hime: it is hard to beat the camping experience in France

Every month we ask a leading travel professional to write about their personal holiday experience.

This month: Don Shearer, general manager of Worldchoice Ireland

V

iva La France!

What’s the difference between and Egg and France?

You can beat an Egg!!!

Polite version of an old one I know, but for me, France, and in particular the Atlantic coastal resorts, offer the real deal when it comes to chilling the beans (French of course).

I was persuaded many

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years ago by a colleague in American Holidays to try the mobile home experience.

Take the ferry, load the car, strap on the bikes, kids, surf boards, togs and head for Roscoff. I was hooked!

You can bring as much luggage as you like, your car magically becomes a large, fast suitcase which you don’t have to try and smuggle on board and then squeeze into an overhead bin!

Then “hey presto” you can get into it after

eating, drinking and sleeping, throw all the family in and drive to your destination.

The selection of

beaches, towns, resorts and sites from North to South are too numerous to mention, but I found a little slice of heaven in a sea side town called St Gilles Croix de vie, situated In the Pays de las Loire region of the Vendee.

That was the best part of twenty years ago and in the words of Mr Remington, I was so impressed I bought the company, in the guise of my holiday home.

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

he arrival of 28 new air routes in one month will be a landmark moment in deciding whether the Irish holiday maker has recovered from the Lehman recession.

Even in the good times this was a big number. Some of those being launched, mainly by Ryanair in what it calls a salute to the departing €3 travel tax, are a tad optimistic. But they have been scheduled, and that is all that matters for now.

While those of us who are close to the travel industry have been talking up recovery in recent months, instancing the huge growth in trans-Atlantic capacity, the reality is that Aer Lingus and the US Airlines have looked off-island to fill many of those seats.

As the new routes take off in every direction, all has changed.

Some are the genuine sun routes, the flights tthat we need to keep the industry alive and stimulated. Some are expat routes or business routes, or a combination of each.

Take the ferry, take the car

All are likely to make people think of going away again New routes come cheaper than established ones, which could give families escape from the price drift which has affected the Spanish and Canary Island honeypots in recent years.

And all that is before Emirates and Etihad go double daily in the autumn.

It’s not hot out there yet, but you can feel the temperature rising and some of the warmth returning.

IN YOUR NEXT TRAVEL EXTRA: Available to Travel Agents or online April 15 2014

AUSTRALIA ISSUE Magical Lord Howe Island Sydney beyond the Bridge Theme Parks open 2014

Page 037 - 038 pics 13/03/2014 09:38 Page 1

APRIL 2014 PAGE 37

MEETING PLACE

nne r America and Clare Du Mary McKenna of Tou iEm the at A ITA the of ent of travel Borker Presdi , rates event in Il Posto

Jenny Rafter of Royal Caribbea), Alan Mcara and Sandra Smith of Travel Leaders, Jennifer Callis ter on a Royal Caribbe an agents visit

om Travel and Daniela Ciara Mooney of Freed the Portugal roadshow in Pinto From Vista at the Morrison Hotel, Dublin

Danny Giles, Hurtigrut en; Mark Davidson, Oa sis Travel Belfast; Emma Bunbury, Thomas Cook Dublin; Carmel Aylward, King Travel Malahide & Raymond Parker, Fehe rty Travel Bangor on the Hurtigruten fam trip to Northern Cape

Out and about with the Travel Trade

Victor Marie of Orient Travel, Isabel Oliveira of the Malaysian Tourist Board and Karl Lonergan of Club Travel at the Malaysia evening in the Shelbourne Hotel

Valerie Murphy of Emirates Alan Mcara of Travel Leaders at the Emirates event in Il Posto

John Spollen of Cassidy Travel and Mary McKenna of Tour America at the MSC All Stars event on board MSC Splendida

Vinod Pellai of Oscar Travel and Michael Caslin of 747 travel at the Emirates event in Il Posto

nAirport and Graham He Aoife Buckley, of Cork Aidan Costello of Portman Travel and Tom Kierh wit hts ing direct flig nessy of Topflight launch nan of Ask Susan at the Emirates event in Il Verona Topflight from Cork to Posto,

Winning table quiz tea m Sonia O'Connor, Lin da O'Donovan, Shirley O'C onnor, Graham Hennessy of Topflight, Lorra ine Fuller and Gonzalo Quinaz of Barter Travel with Gramham Henness y at Topflight agents nig ht in Cork

Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Ireland and David Corbett of the Absolute Hotel, Limerick present newly-weds Roxanne Wilson and Frank Kennedy with Claddagh rings in Tourism Ireland’s ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ garden at Philadelphia Flower Show.

Celine Kenny McGibne y of Cruisescapes, Re becca Kelly and Roz Wa lsh of Travelfox at the MSC All Stars event on board MSC Splendida

d Travel Counsellors an Jeanette Coughlan of droa l ga rtu Po ta at the Daniela Pinto From Vis tel show in the Morrison Ho

Brendan Barry of Discov er Travel and Tim Fenn of Thai Airways at the Amazing Thailand eve nt in the Doubletree by Hilton , Dublin

with Zoe Redmond, Kevin Keogh, Dertour, Berlin Tourism Ireland, at ITB

Louise Tollerton, Laetit ia Wade and Michael Fitzsimons of Fáilte Ire land at the launch of the Wild Atlantic Way in Du blin

a Travel and Freddie Araven Richard Cullen of Killiney the at via nda Wi ent res of Airline Business who rep Morrison Hotel, Dublin the in ow dsh roa al rtug Po

Page 037 - 038 pics 13/03/2014 09:38 Page 2

APRIL 2014 PAGE 38

MEETING PLACE

Out and about with the Travel Trade

s of d and Jackie Hersson Karen Maloney of Etiha the in nt eve nd azing Thaila Shelly Maguire, Deirdre Regan and Nicola Travelmood at the Am blin Du Treanor the team behind Ireland's Blue Book , ton Hil by Doubletree

Gudrun Gorner and Ch ristian Schindler of Lufthansa in the Westin Hotel

Deirdre Sweeny of Su nway and Tony Collins of Topflight at the Amazing Thailand event in the Westbury Hotel, Dublin

Lynn Dempsey of Newbridge Travel and Karl Lonergan of Club Travel at the Emirates event in Il Posto

as Cook, Maurice Sheils Sharon Harney of Thom vel tton of Marble City Tra of Topflight and Tom Bri rs event during the MSC All Sta

r Chandler and Surinde Jennifer Callister, Matt dia bean on a travel me Manku of Royal Carib blin Du breifing visit to

Cristina Silvan of the Marina Club Lagos and Rory McDyer of Rory McDyer Travel at the Portugal roadshow in the Morrison Hotel,

Jeff Brownlee, Bref Ke nnedy and Paal Hanso n at the Dun Laoghaire tou rism conference in Fitzpatrick’s Killiney

Martin Penrose of Ifonly and Maria Calvo of Th ailand-headquartered inte rnational hotel group, Dusit International, at the Amazing Thailand event in the Doubletree

by Hilton, Dublin

Christine O'Sullivan, Lorraine O'Connor, Colette Morey, Jane McMahon and Lorraine Harrington of Travelfox on their RCCL training day

bassador to Germany; Michael Collins, Irish Am radkar; and Niall GibTourism Minister Leo Va Ireland, at ITB Berlin. bons, CEO of Tourism

Jose Ramos and Joaquim Ramalheira at the Portugal roadshow in the Morrison Hotel, Dublin

David O’Hagan of etrave l, Alan Neenan of Breakaway and Cormac O’C onnell of the DAA at the Emirates event in Il Po sto

r America and Lorenzo Mary McKenna of Tou All Stars event on board C Diamantini at the MS MSC Splendida

Cristina Silva of Marina Clu b Lagos with Jean Cantw ell and Meadhbh MacGearail of the Walkers Association at the Portugal roadshow in the Mo rrison Hotel, Dublin, Feb 13 2014

Jim McGonigle of Clondalkin Travel, Noleen Lynch of Atlas Travel and Gerry Bergin Budget Travel groups at the Emirates event in Il Posto

Hardy Travel and Sharon John Spollen of Cassi MSC the g Marseille durin ney of Thomas Cook in All Stars event

page 039-040 12/03/2014 12:09 Page 1

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