Travel extra sept 2014 19mb by Travel Extra

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BEDBANKS A GUIDE TO THE MARKET ITALY BEAUTIFUL BOLOGNA AVIATION RYANAIR’S NEW APP London’s War Galleries

Lingus revinvents Astral

Walld Spain

U O Y

e d a r T ER P PA

IRELAND'S PREMIER SOURCE OF TRAVEL INFORMATION Free

SEPTEMBER 2014

VOLUME 16 NUMBER 8

Rooms with a view How to stay ahead in the accommodation game

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Q-tipping point

Go slow at Dulbin airprot aimmigration causes delays

mmigration procedures in Dublin airport are to be revamped in the coming months in a bid to cut queuing times. Queues at passport control reached 40 minutes and more during busy summer weekends, not high by international standards but excessive for an Irish airport. The immigration is run by INIS the Dept of Justice Irish Naturalisation Immigration Service. While no official dispute has ever been acknowledged, there have been issues since 2007 of lengthy queues because of Garda resistance to the move to INIS (Irish Naturalisation Immigration Service) and the decision to introduce civilians to work on the booths. Passport control self service kiosks which were put in place a year ago have been trialling between the hours of 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday only. Making self service kiosks avail-

able only during office hours has been the subject of severe criticism, not least by Ryanair CEO Michael

O’Leary. The trial time is to extended from 7am until midnight.

arents travelling with a child to South Africa this winter must produce an unabridged birth certificate for the child, copies are acceptable. with a sworn translation if not in English. The changes, o South Africa’s immigration rules may be a presuage of things to come for parents travelling with childrent. South Africa’s Tourism MinisterDerek Hanekom said that the rules, confirmed for October 1st 2014, are being implemented in an attempt to prevent child trafficking but acknowledged concerns raised by the tourism industry, including tour oper-

ators and travel agents, saying that “unintended negative consequences must be taken seriously.” The changes are are even more off-putting for single parents, or those travelling alone with their child.. They will also need to produce an affidavit in which the absent parent gives consent for the child to travel, a court order granting full parental responsibilities or legal guardianship of the child, or the death certificate of the absent parent. A further rule requires that the affidavit should be no more than three months old on the date of travel. Under-18s travelling with someone

other than their parents must also carry the child’s birth certificate, alongside affidavits from the parents or legal guardians, copies of the identity documents or passports of the parents or legal guardian, and their contact details. To be allowed to travel alone to South Africa, under-18s will need to produce not only an unabridged birth certificate, but also proof of consent from both parents, or legal guardian, their contact details, and information on who they will be staying with while in the country. Under the new rules, all documents must be originals or approved copies..

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 3

NEWS

DISCVERY Cove, Orlando and Siam

Park in Tenerife were selected as the top amusement park and water park in Tripadvisor reader’s choice list of top amusement and water parks.

NO PHOTOS Wildlife charity Care

for the Wild International called for tourists to stop taking selfies with tigers and other protected animals. The charity is pushing its No Photos, Please! campaign

RISKY According to a survey by AA In-

surance, Irish holidaymakers are more likely to be robbed in Spain than any other tourist destination.

ELYSIAN Estates reported that some

clients requested all members of staff to be dressed in suits of armour to serve canapés and drinks in one of Elysian Estates' medieval castles in a list of top ten unusual requests from luxury travellers.

GERMANY Neuschwanstein Castle,

Immigratin queus during an unofficial go slow in 2010

SOUTH AFRICA KIDS ENTRY RULES

oments Holiday M Sharing Worth

015 2 N U S MMER

NOW! E L A S N O

BLIN ROM DU F T C E IR D esorts NEW KOS hWorld R

las illage, Sp Holiday V Cllubs propertiiees! and Kids’

Europa Park in Rust and Cologne Cathedral topped the list of the 100 most popular sights for foreign tourists in Germany

ITALY 's new entry rules for all state museums and archaeological sites were introduced this week. Visitors below the age of 18 retain free entry to museums however visitors over 65 will have to pay for their tickets

WORLD Challenge, the adventure holiday provider, said that a quarter of 16 and 17year-olds failed to pass a fitness test participants are required to take before embarking on a trekking expedition.

SPAIN In its latest newsletter, Spanish Tourism Office announced the launch of an online lifestyle magazine focused on culture in Spain. Dublin staff also announced the new Spain Train Pass Service from Renfe and said that pets will be accepted as hold luggage on Iberia Express flights to and from Dublin

VISIT WALES is promoting Bounce Below, an underground trampoline that opened in a disused state mine and the Wickedly Welsh Chocolate Factory that recently opened near Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire

Book your Summer 2015 Holiday! ONLINE: falconholidays.ie CALL: 1850 45 35 45 VISIT: Falcon Travel Shops Local Travel Agent Subject to availability. Terms and conditions apply. Falcon is fully bonded and licensed by CAR (TO 021). Departures from Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports.

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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.ie

3-7 News Where to go, how much to pay 6 Hotels: London prrces rising 8 Postcards: News from the trade 6 Hotels: London 12 Italy: New UNESCO heritage site

13 Ibiza: Quiet island 14 Bologna: Why no spaghetti? 16 Spain: Salamanca 17 Spain: Avila 20 Accommodation: Bedbank special 28 Technology: GDS’s move on 34 South Africa: Walking Jo’burg

38 Flying: Airline and airport news 46 Afloat: Cruise and ferry 44 Britain: London’s war galleries 48 Ireland: Footstepping Arthur 49 Global Village Inside the travel industry 51 Window seat: Our columnists 52 Pictures: Out and about

Going truly madly DP

he number of hotel beds that are available to agents through the various booking agents is gargantuan. Some of the most successful travel agencies in the current market are those whose business model is based on dynamic packaging. It is now 80pc of travel agents’ buisness. All of the dynamic packaging agencies, big and small, have bespoke systems that can build millions of offers and options. So how does a perplexed agent handle these options?

CHOOSE your

market. Either find a niche area or find where the masses are going. If you cannot think of one, four-star all-inclusive is a good place to start. Aim for the general family and couples market.

DECIDE who you are going to work with. It is sensible to deal with a handful of decent bed banks that you trust rather than plunge into the great unknown. No matter what supplier they are using nowadays, an agent can offer customers hundreds of thousands of hotel options at a click. Often, only a few dozen of those count in the Irish market. There are a small number of favourite hotels that crop up again and again on wish lists of Irish customers at the key destinations. Even the most exotic locations have only a few hotels that really matter to the Irish consumer.

place, such as CAR coverage and public liability insurance.

LOOK at the paper-

work and see if it reflects what you are doing in practice. Make sure you are always acting as an agent, both on paper and off it.

INVOICE diliA satisfied customer is a repeat customer

DEVELOP your

sales technique. Agents can still persuade customers that they are the best place to book and that they shouldn’t worry that suppliers are named on the paperwork.

DON’T

be afraid to talk price. Even though the internet is awash with direct offers, today’s technology means a good agent can tell every customer with confidence that they can find them the best price. When a customer looks up the internet, the price could be different to what it is in the next hour. If you look at a destination and find a good price, buy it or tell the customer to buy it. With dynamic packaging a price is likely to go up rather than down.

GET the right tech-

nology. Better technology gives agents a lot more flexibility to offer a wider range of products. It is the key to how much product you can access and how quickly you can do so. It puts an agent in control of their

business and, more importantly their margin.

CHARGES

Ask whether the bed bank is buying its own stock or whether it is buying from another bed bank. They may have different cancellation charges, and these could be passed on to the agent without you knowing it.

KNOW your cus-

tomer, and keep it that way. A direct seller can never get to know your customer as well as you do (and many have tried and failed). No internet or online travel agent will know your local airport and its routes and its routes as you do, particularly if many operators don’t fly from there (departures from regional airports such as Kerry are cheaper than from main airports at this time of the year).

SHOW the value of

the flights you source for your customers by comparing them to more expensive ones earlier or later that day. The process if providing good value for money

starts with the best flights. It convinces the customer that you can offer a better holiday at a better price.

FEES When you

charge a consultancy fee, make sure it is clear in the price. Don’t impose your own amendment or cancellation fees.

SELL the extras. For

such an obvious way to increase commission, suppliers say many agents still do not offer products such as transfers and car hire during consultations. Agents do not make the most of what they can do when the customer is in front of them. After sorting out the flights and accommodation, ask the simple question: what do you want to do?

UPGRADES

Use a dynamic package to get a better price or give added value to the customer. The more you add, the more value you can give.

GET the necessary

legal paperwork and business infrastructure in

gently. It is more important than ever that agents make sure their invoicing and terms and conditions are clear, otherwise they could find themselves liable if a supplier fails. Your invoices and terms and conditions must clearly state whether you are acting as the agent or principal. In particular do not confuse booking confirmations with receipts.

KNOW the law.

Making sure you operate legally can take a significant amount of research. While dynamic packaging allows agents to compete with internet pricing, agents need to be vigilant about their adherence to legal and industry standards.

AVOID marking up

or trying to control or change the price of the products.

AVOID picking elements of the product, bundling them up and selling them as an inclusive package. COMPETE If

you do not have the technological might to take on the big online dynamic packaging agents, you can still use dynamic packaging to beat the agency selling packages down the road.

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HOTELS

TAXES Hotel room taxes in Rome are to increase on September 1 as follows: €7 on five star hotels, €6 on four star hotels, €4 on three star hotels, €3 on two star hotels. The taxes are charged up to 10 nights.

SHELBOURNE Hotel on Dublin's St. Stephen's Green has been acquired by US property investment group, Kennedy Wilson. Bank of Ireland has sold half the outstanding u206m loan on the hotel to Kennedy Wilson in January.

KILLASHEE House hotel in Naas was sold for u13.2m by Brehon properties.

WESTIN Hotel on Dublin’s Westmore-

land Street has been bought by John Malone for u65m. Malone now owns three Irish hotels with his partners John Lally and Paul Higgins, the Trinity City Hotel, Pearse Street and the Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place. The Westmoreland St. Westin will be operated by Lalco under a franchise agreement with Westin Hotels & Resorts. The acquisition is expected to be completed in August.

LONELY PLANET listed 10 hidden hotels you can’t reach by road. The list features Pilatus-Kulm, Lucerne, Switzerland accessible only by cogwheel railway; Hotel Annapurna, Samar Village, Upper Mustang, Nepal accessible only by foot or horseback; Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur, Rajasthan, accessible only by speedboat; Estancia Ricanor, Piedra del Fraile, Patagonia, accessible only by foot; Tree Hotel, Harads, Norbotten, Sweden, Berkeley River Lodge; The Kimberley, accessible only by by private plane, boat or helicopter; Burgh Island Hotel, Devon, accessible only by by sea-tractor; Refugio El Padrino, Puerto Williams, Isla Navarino, Chile accessible only by ferry through the Beagle Channel; Jules’ Undersea Lodge, Key Largo, Florida, accessible only by scuba dive; and (inevitably) a novelty, the Soyuz spacecraft. TRIVAGO.ie listed its top 10 hotel

water slides in the world. Atlantis at The Palm resort in Dubai claimed the top spot, followed by Hard Rock Bali in Kuta and Ersan Resort & Spa in Bodrum.

LUXURYA Small Luxury Hotels of the

World survey of 13,000 customers worldwide named Italy as the number one luxury holiday destination, Chanel as the top luxury brand, and the Nespresso coffee machine favourite inroom amenity. Free Wi-Fi was favoured over free breakfast and a Michelin star restaurant favoured over a rooftop bar.

K CLUB has applied for permission to

build another 70 rooms, bring the total to 139. Asked about the significance of the application, GM Michael Davern said that the golf business is not performing as it used to and the hotel business is performing better than it used to. He said that having only 69 rooms was a handicap for the K Club as it tried to compete for corporate business in the five-star sector.

WIFI Hotelwifitest.com is a new website that allows guests search for hotels with the fastest (and slowest) internet speeds and check whether free WiFi is available before they book.

London in summer: rates have risen 10pc year on year

London rising

English capital has fastest rising hotel room prices

ummer hotel prices of u236 have made London the second most expensive in the Trivago monthly hotel price index for Europe. A separate index from corporate specialists HRS showed London had overtaken Copenhagen as Europe’s most expensive city, up 10pc to u163. HRS says that Dublin’s average room rate has increased by 6pc in the last two years, rising from u88 to €102 per night. The comparison website Trivago also said that hotel prices in Dublin have risen to u139, a 24pc increase compared to last year. Hotel prices in Donegal rose by 33pc. Many cities in Europe saw a notable month-on-month price decrease in the

Geneva

Trivago index, including capitals Stockholm (down 24pc to u138), Oslo (-22pc to u129) and Rome (-21% to u123), Brussels (-20pc to u98) and Athens (-20pc to u95). John Pilkington of Trivago said: “it is interesting to note that while prices in many capital cities have decreased this month, those in Dublin continue to rise.” Tripadvisor also nominated London (u235 for a hotel room, u387 per trip) as the priciest European city to visit this summer, followed by Paris (u244 for a hotel room, u387 per trip) and Stockholm (u176 for a hotel room, u387 per trip). The TripIndex calculates "typical costs for two for cocktails, a two-course dinner paired with a

bottle of wine, round-trip taxi transportation, and a one night stay in a hotel during the summer travel months from June to August." A hotel room in Zurich costs u220. Tripindex nominated Sofia as Europe’s bargain destination, at an average price of u140 for the trip of which u71 is the a hotel room, followed by Prague (u147) and Budapest (u149). Tripindex nominated Hanoi the most affordable city in the world with an average trip price of u114 and Las Vegas the most affordable city in the USA with an average trip price of u205. San Francisco was named as the most expensive US city to visit this summer.

Galway

u93

Waterford

u76

u92

Berlin Turin

u75

EUROPEAN HOTEL PRICE INDEX

Florence

Marseille Sligo

u230

u154

u128

u106

London

u149

Amsterdam

u124

Manchester

u103

u236 Venice

u213 Edinburgh

u180 Paris

u176 Cannes Donegal

u174 Glasgow

u164 Nice

u163 Copenhagen

u155

Salzburg

u143 Barcelona Dublin

u139

Stockholm

u138 Munich

u135 Brighton

u133 Milan

u132 Killarney Oslo

u129

Rome

u123 Riga

u121 Hamburg

u114

Liverpool Vienna

u112 Belfast

u108 Cork

u107

Lisbon

Brussels Cologne

u98

Frankfurt Istanbul Kilkenny

u97

Lyon

u96 Athens

u95 Derry

u94

Bilbao Prague

u90 Dresden

u85

Malaga Toulouse

u83

Limerick Madrid

u82

Budapest

u80

Leipzig

Valencia

Bucharest

u67 Sevilla

u66 Granada

u65

Warsaw

u61 Sofia

u56 Zaragoza

u55

Source: Trivago.ie

A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO

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Our global brand, our ground-breaking technology, our licenses, our buying power, our marketing, our in-house long-haul tour operator, our accounting and back office systems

Your rent, your licence costs, your rates, your staff costs

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Fewer sleepless nights

More freedom and flexibility

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d love to talk to you, in complete confidence, about how moving your business to Travel Counsellors could change your life. You can work from home or an office, confident that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re part of the best supported business in the industry.

For a confidential chat to find out more, please call Cathy Burke or Sinead Cregan-Hayes on 0818 33 20 03

BE THE FUTURE: BE A TRAVEL COUNSELLOR bethefuture@travelcounsellors.ie www.travelhomeworking.ie

Page 008 Postcard 08/08/2014 16:16 Page 1

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POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

aroline Coyle of Las Vegas CVA was uncharacteristically coy about the prospect of direct air services to Las Vegas when she briefed Travel Extra, She did say that Vegas’ hosting of Routes last October had spurred interest in direct fights among international airlines. Michael Goldsmith of Las Vegas CVA told Travel Extra it was a question of 'when and not if' there are direct

tihad hosted 370 members of the trade at Koh restaurant in Millennium to celebrate the increase of their Abu Dhabi service from ten to 14 flights a week. Beatrice Cosgrove told the trade that the delinking of the Brisbane and Perth routes will boost Etihad’s connectivity with Australia. She said 32pc of all Irish visitors are choosing Perth as their gateway to Australia.

ix Riviera staff accompanied 30 Irish and British travel agents to inspect the new MS William Shakespeare on a voyage to Cologne. The ship carries 140 passengers and with 35 crew; a 4:1 ratio which is high by industry standards. Riviera says the ship is one of the world’s finest, and emphasises highlights such as the sun deck, where passengers are welcome to visit the Bridge except when berthing or

flights from Dublin to Las Vegas at IPW in Chicago in April. Plans by Omni air to launch a service from Shannon to Las Vegas for summer 2014 did not materialise and Thomas Cook has announced a single charter flight from Belfast to Vegas on July 5 2015. Las Vegas Hosted 37 members of the travel trade at a breakfast event in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin and had an evening party for travel professionals at Cefe en Seine.

The new service will open up easier connections to 45 new destinations in Asia and South Africa. Perth will also go double daily the same day, good news for the large Irish community there. “We have been operating ten a week and have enlarged capacity already in 2014 so it is not too big a jump for us,” Beatrice said. Prize winners included Clodagh Flanagan from FCm, who won the return flights for two to Perth.

navigating locks. The group were treated to a champagne reception by the captain followed by lunch. They had a guided tour of the Roman Museum in Cologne. Picture shows Rory McDyer of Rory McDyer Travel, Stephen Sands of Riviera Travel, Rebekah Commane of Travel Weekly in London, Richard Cullen of Killiney Travel and Alan Darby of PAB travel on board the new ship.

ebecca Kelly and Rose Darby of MSC cruises hosted 26 members of the travel trade and four press to update them on the air to treble their cruise business out of Ireland by 2017. The 2015 summer and 2015-16 winter cruises are for sale and MSC promised prices in their current sale (book by Sept 30) will not be available again. Four mega ships will be delivered between 2017 and 2019. Their “Renais-

he Emirates team of Filippo Rocchi, Anita Thomas, Stephen Davitt and Clareanna Philips launched the Emirates mystery shopper blitz: If the agent recommends Emirates first to Dubai, they will receive a shopping voucher for €50 or a bottle of champagne. Winners were chosen at agents from Donegal to Kerry. It is all change at Emirates in advance

haron Jordan of TTC and Peter Hannaford of Explore Georgia hosted travel media for the launch of the Insight Vacations USA and Canada brochure for 2015. Peter Hannaford described Georgia’s efforts to promote the state beyond its iconic Atlanta gateway. The southern parts of the state, including the coastline, are as easily accessible from Orlando as they are from

sance” ship-elongation programme commences with MSC Armonia next month to followed by Lirica, Sinfonia and Opera, adding 24 metres and 611 passengers to each ship. MSC will base four ships in the Med in summer 2015 and two ships in the Baltic bringing Yacht Club to Northern Europe for the first time. Rebecca talked the trade through MSC’s three pricing levels, Bella, Fantastica and Aurea.

of the commencement of double daily flights on September 1st with Enda Corneille succeeding Margaret Shannon as ireland manager. Margaret’s departure from Emirates was no surprise to those in the know. “When I joined Emirates I told them I would spend two years setting up the operation. My two years were up in December. I had a few more thing to do, but my time is up now.”

Atlanta. He highlighted the double anniversary, 150 years since the Civil war burning of Atlanta and 75 years since Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind was made into one of the most famous movies in cinematic history. Sharon Jordan said that since they opened at the end of 2010 Insight have seen huge growth in the traffic they have sent to the USA.

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POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

he Travel Corporation team hosted 68 members of the trade in the Clarion Hotel in Cork. Picture shows Rosanna Leary, Sharon Jordan, Donna Kenny and Carole Carmody. See more pictures here or connect with the album on Facebook. The agents were updated at a training event on the TTC portfolio of products. Contiki's new 2015-2016 programme is now on sale with 22 itineraries. Insight Vaca-

ew York will unveil a shopping revolution over the coming months, according to Reginald Charlot, Senior Director Tourism Development at NYC & Company. He talked to Travel Extra about upcoming developments in the city (listen here). Two competing Shopping centres, Brookfield and Westfield, will open at the 16-acre WTC site in Lower Manhattan.

group of travel partners from Ontario hosted the travel trade at three separate events to promote the offerings of the Canadian province, served by Aer Lingus’ and two other carriers. The group is pictured at a pancake cooking demonstration at Cook’s Academy of South William Street Dublin: Ursula Barda of Choice Hotels Canada, Mark Rich of Blue Mountains Resort,

tions has launched its 2015/16 USA & Canada including Hawaii and Alaska programme, featuring 16 premium and nine Gold Luxury escorted journeys. Contiki launched its 2015-2016 USA programme with great early booking discounts of up to €710pp. Uniworld has introduced of their all-inclusive packages in Europe, a new Super Ship Catherine and new itineraries in France.

Brookfield opens in the autumn while the first of Westfield’s eventual 460,000 square feet will open in 2015. This will put the nearby Century 21, a favourite with Irish shoppers, under pressure, so is also getting a new look with a new shoe section. Century 21 is also planning to open in a new location close to the Hotel Beacon, where Tom Travers and Gerry Traino are great supporters of the Irish trade.

Anna Pierce of Niagara Helicopters, Nicole Graves of Ottawa Tourism, Brenda Wood of Niagara Falls Tourism, Mia Dario of Eaton Chelsea Hotel Toronto, Lori Reed of Niagara Parks Commission, Eileen Penrose of Premair representing Air Canada, Kelley Coville of Hornblower Niagara Cruises, Gabriele Kotz of Ontario Tourism and Puja Khanna of Aviacircle.

artin Penrose from If Only and Stephen Davitt of Emirates hosted travel agents at the Opening Performance of Dirty Dancing. The Scottish luxury and long haul operator Ifonly is headed up in Ireland by Martin Penrose. They were joined on the evening by Neela Goyal from Jumeirah Group. Picture shows: Martin Penrose of If Only,

indy Brewster of Kimpton Hotels hosted members of the travel trade at Chapter One in Dublin, with the Michelin starred restaurant opening especially for the occasion. Cindy said the response to Kimpton’s first trade mission last year, promoting the vision of Kimpton with its mantra of fabulous chefs and restaurants (the famous wine hour) and European hospitality, was above expectations.

atrick Loueiro, who was born on an Aer Lingus flight 39 years ago, was reunited this month with the cabin crew that helped deliver him. He was delivered by cabin crew member Jackie Ryan, a former nurse, and assisted by a doctor who was travelling on board a Mozambique-Portugal flight on June 11, 1975. He was the only baby to be born on board an Aer Lingus flight. RTÉ 2FM researcher Dave Sherry de-

Nicola MacNally of Clondalkin Travel, Tricia Macari of Clondalkin Travel, Rob Macdonald of Emirates, Ita Hendrick of Travelworld, Neela Goyal of Jumeirah Group, Trudi O'Brien of The Travel Broker, Caroline McDermott of O'Hanrahan Travel, Susan Kiernan of AskSusan and Stephen Davitt of Emirates.

She brought back a group of representatives from leading US hotels in the USA. Picture shows David Powell of Kimpton San Francisco, Racquel Toro of Kimpton Chicago, Kristy Rooney of Kimpton Washington DC, Ingrid Ruz of Kimpton Boston, Cindy Brewster of Kimpton Head office, Greg Evans and Judy McCluskey Kimpton’s representation in London.

cided to track down Patrick after reading about his story in an issue of Cara magazine. Here’s the strange bit: it turned out that Dave’s mother, Anne, was a member of cabin crew on that very flight. Patrick (named after the 747 aircraft, St Patrick) flew in from Portugal to Dublin on Tuesday to have a reunion lunch with 12 members of the original crew to celebrate the anniversary of the mid-air birth.

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DESTINATION USA

he first thing I learnt about Michigan is that it is not pronounced as I thought with a hard Mitch, but like Mishigan, much softer than I expected. It comes from the Algonquian Indian term michigami, or misschiganin, meaning “big lake.” That big lake was never far from the trail I took north through Sugatuck, Holland and Grand Rapids, to Traverse City. The people who came to spread along this lake shore were different from the other ones who came west. Yes, there are Bible towns. Yes there are attempts to recreate a distant European, homeland (the town of Holland has six miles of tulips). But there was also a sense that debauchery was celebrated here, that weekenders from the windy city blew some smoke in their time. They are proud that Al Capone came out here for his holidays and stayed with a mistress who took his great secrets to the grave with her. This side of America has a short history but one full of ambitions and dreams. Outposts turned to settlements, turned to towns, turned to cities, with alarming speed. They tell visitors that there was conflict too, between the wealthy week-

Lake & State

Eoghan Corry on Michigan State’s lakeshore

Frozen lake at Grand Haven enders who came from Chicago and the locals who stayed and endured the hard winters. This was rich farmland, with adequate water to keep industries like cherry sustained. At the Top of the Park, a skyscraper on the lake in Traverse City, they serve desserts laden with the local delicacy. “Cherry Capital of the USA,” proclaims their sign. Almost every town in the USA has to be capital of something, Life is a bowl of cherries here, apparently.

nsalted is the slogan. They use it copiously, like the Great Lakes district was a menu and it was there to counterbalance

the cheese from Wisconsin or the deep pan bounty from Chicago. If you believe the locals, Michigan IS a restaurant, if the food providers and the flag wavers for the local restaurant scene are to be believed. The lake shore is its beauty spot, lung for a state better known for manufacturing automobiles and, in later years, the documentaries on screen of Michael Moore chronicling the demise of same. In Michigan they will tell you that the people are its greatest asset. “They are friendly,” they say and invite the comparison, in contrast when Chicago (people who are friendly are always in

n Aer Lingus fly twice daily between Dublin and Chicago. Fares start at u309 each way including charges. www.aerlingus.com

contrast with some neighbouring state). The shadow of Chicago is everywhere. A Sean Glynn from Tuam runs a beautiful period hotel, the Belvedere Inn in Saugatuck, a little hibernating town where you can get the bus everywhere for a dollar and take paddle boat tours of the lake. Chicago is a culinary capital, but Sean gets them here with the quality of his tasting menus and wine weekends.

hings get better as you go north in Michigan,” our guide Dave Lorenz commented. “Tip of the Mitch is a six hour drive.” But we weren’t going that far. He is as much at home on a kayak as a tour bus, but I was with a group of

international tour operators and media of varying interest and ability, so there was going to be no white water this trip. The best we did was to bash dunes. At we joined a crazed circuit of 4x4 Schumachers who were determined to keep their boy racer status into middle age, a playground of 500 acres of sand dunes to play in.

very museum, wherever you go in the world, has two artifacts, the two that, if you are in a hurry, you can nip in to see and rub your hands together with satisfaction that you have done your duty. The two in the Gerald R Ford Library and Museum in Grand Rapids are two of the strangest, easily selected and easily

seen, the tools that were used in the Watergate break in and the stairs used by the Saigon evacuees in that famous last helicopter out of Saigon photograph.

hat was the abiding memory? It came early in the visit, in one of the first stops on the shores of Lake Michigan, still frozen over. The lake froze this winter for the first time since 1979. The state bird of Michigan is the robin, and that rhyme about the cold wind doth blow seemed appropriate as we gazed from a shredded beach on to the frozen lakescape. It was almost cold enough to swim. The locals said you should see it in summer. I didn’t feel the need. That frozen lake is in my memory for ever. I wanted to keep it that way.

Clockwise: Kayaking on Lake Michigan in summer, Lake of the Clouds, Dune bashing at Silver Lake Sand Dunes, Sean Glynn from Tuam shows off his period residence in Sugatuck and Eoghan Corry by the frozen lake at Saugatuck. Top right: The Gerald Ford library in Grand Rapids.

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CMY

Page 012 Italy Langhe by Conor 07/08/2014 19:08 Page 1

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DESTINATION ITALY

hen you first visit the lush, hilly LangheRoero region in Piedmont you might feel a little sorry for the poor auld farmers that have to nurture such steep land. But such a miserable feeling will quickly dissipate when you learn that there is hardly anything ‘poor’ about the locals here; this is northern Italy after all. And there is nothing ‘auld’ about the farmers either; thanks to the wine school in Alba, the district’s biggest town, a new generation of worldclass wine producers are unleashed into the local economy every year having studied and learned the trade from the region’s most famous producers. So rather than feel sorry for anyone, when you come to Langhe simply lap up the fine weather, enjoy the surrounding Alps and indulge in as many chocolates, cheeses and truffles as your stomach – and wallet – can handle. This is a luxury destination for the ultimate bigbellied foodie. It’s best to picture the layout of Langhe as a cake (a doubly apt description for a region renowned for its confectionaries): the land is di-

Proud Piedmont

Conor McMahon visits Italy’s newest UNESCO site

the vineyard landscapes of Piedmont became a UNESCO world heritage site in March

vided into neat rectangles; the top tier consists of hazelnut trees, while the lower tier is ideal for producing grapes and wine. Most of the hazelnuts grown in upper Langhe are used to create artisan products rather than mass produced goods like Nutella, which happens to originate from Alba (today, the Ferroro family employs about 10pc of the town’s population).

f you visit the village of Lequio Berria, you’ll find the Pope’s hazelnut farm. But here, his Holiness doesn’t care for the smell of funeral incenses or the sound of church bells; instead, his workshop is perfumed with the warm aroma of

n In June, the landscape of LangheRoero became a UNESCO world heritage site along with the neighbouring Monferrato district. The 10,780 hectare site consists of six main components: Barolo, the hills of Barbaresco and Castello di Grinzane Cavour in Langhe-Roero; and CanelliAsti Spumante, Nizza Monferrato-Barbera and Monferrato-Infernot of Monferrato. n One popular way to explore Langhe is by bike. The steep terrain might be a challenge for a rookie, but the views are truly spectacular and worth the effort. Alternatively, you could take the Hells Angels route and see the region by motorbike. n Langhe’s hilly terrain makes it an ideal spot to grow spuds. The loose soil and cooler climate means farmers

roasting nuts and sawdust, while whirring machines and grinding contraptions play a holy symphony. Of course, the pontiff I’m referring to is not Francis of Roman Catholic fame, but rather José Noé, who goes by the name ‘Papa di Boshi’ or ‘Pope of the Woods’. Papa di Boshi farm is part of the Mountain Community, a collective of local food and wine producers who pride themselves on quality products. It’s quite clear from my visit that Noé is, like every Italian, deeply passionate about the food he makes. Noé and his team make use of every bit of the nut in their production process, so there’s very

little wastage. As well as selling vacuum-packed nuts, they market a number of products including ice-cream toppings and an unforgettable chocolate spread that would beat Nutella any day (sorry Mr Ferroro). When you descend from upper Langhe, you’ll notice a change in the landscape. This is when you enter the wine region of the district. It is here you will find the delicious Barolo wine, which was the wine drank to celebrate the unification of Italy in 1851. Producers in the medieval Barolo village use nebbiolo vines to produce a wine which takes, at the very least, three years to mature. The WiMu wine museum in Barolo Castle

THINGS TO DO

are less likely to need chemical fertilisers and just use manure instead. The region produces three main varieties: valle belbo, bisalta and entracque. n The region produces delicious cheeses from cow’s and goat’s milk. Travel Extra was given a crash course by the charismatic master cheese taster Paolo Stacchini. We recommend you ask your waiter for the Tomino de Mel o Toma, bra tenero or the Castelmagno. n The Romano Levi museum in Néive is a little gem. Levi was an eccentric grappa producer who created beautiful labels for his bottles. Locals reluctantly admit that his grappa was not the best, but his drawings of female figures, flowers and skies (accompanied by wild handwritten messages) were very popular.

gives a good insight into the wine’s history and cultural significance.

lba, Nutella’s hometown, is like the front door to Langhe. The town is the capital of the district, the white truffle and Dolcetto red wine. Via Vittorio Emanuele, its main street, offers beautiful Baroque architecture and a lively nightlife. There are some unique food experiences available in the town square such as La Piola restaurant, which offers a delicious handmade tagliatelle. The Alba underground tour gives visitors the opportunity to experience the town’s Roman ruins under the main square. Tourists can explore the

n The Ceretto winery family commissioned American artist Sol Lewitt to paint a chapel on the grounds of their vines. Lewitt, famous for his minimalist and conceptual works, painted the exterior and interior walls with vibrant primary colours. The site, popular with Langhe’s under 30s, is a great place to relax and soak up the views with a bottle of wine. n Barberesco village is a popular spot for wine tours. Produttori del Barberesco is a collective of 50 producers which hosts tour groups in its centre. Their wines are reasonably priced and if you get your timing right you will be offered a free tasting. While you’re in Barberesco, be sure to visit the church in the town centre. Don’t let the outside appearance fool you; this is a house of the divil. Inside you’ll find a wine shop that

town’s ancient roads, mosaics, and temples. The Roero district is just across the Tanaro River. Like Langhe, Roero offers tourists fantastic landscapes and is characterised by its deep valleys and amphitheatres. If you visit Govone village, be sure to stop off at Le Scuderie del Castelli di Govone restaurant. With a 23year-old head chef and school-age waiters and waitresses, this quirky restaurant offers customers a traditional food experience injected with youthful energy. Langhe-Roero offers a platter of gastro attractions for both culinary buffs and culinary bluffs. Plus it’s a top destination for those who appreciate landscapes and love to get the most out of their smartphone’s panoramic function. If you’re willing to plunge into the savings, try the famous Alba white truffle. Or at least lisit the Ethnographic Museum in UNESCO site Castello di Grinzane Cavour and see what the fuss is about. Note that Alba truffles are sniffed out by dogs rather than pigs since they do less damage to the truffle. Only the French use pigs, we are told. Make what you want of that.

stocks all of Langhe’s quality produce. n While you’re on the vino, Barolo’s Museo dei Cavatappi (the Corkscrew Museum) hosts tour groups and houses a number of exhibitions on the history of Barolo wine and cork. n The facades and architecture of the Royal Residences of Turin and Piedmonte are popular attractions and offer visitors a glimpse into northern Italy’s medieval past. n The Egyptian museum in nearby Turin houses a larges collections of Egyptian antiquities, second only to Cairo. The museum is currently undergoing a redesign, which is set to be completed in 2015. The museum is working with Google Glass to create a wearable device for deaf visitors. The device will translate tour content into Italian Sign Language and captions.

Page 013 Ibiza 07/08/2014 19:23 Page 1

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here are some holiday destinations that deserve their reputation. There are others which don’t. Ibiza fits into the second category. Because the moment you say the word “Ibiza”, most people think “massive discos with thumping techno-music, cage-dancers and teenagers going out of their minds”. It’s really most unfair to the “White Island” – but when had fairness anything to do with it? When we decided to try out Falcon’s newest destination from Belfast – and informed our friends and family – the response was either “Are you nuts?” Or “You two in Ibiza – you’ll hate it!” Well, we two veteran travellers did go to Ibiza and we were neither crazy nor did we hate it. Because, as with so many other destinations, there is so much more than reputation.

o start with, the massive discos (and they DO exist) are mainly inland. The aptly-named and efficient “Disco Bus” system picks up party-goers from the hotels – and brings them home safely after dawn. There are some lively resorts, fair enough. But there are also plenty of others where the nearest you are going to get to the party-scene are the souvenir shops with their day-glo sunglasses. The place where we stayed was the epitome of a family-style resort. It had a crescent-shaped

Beyond the beat

Anne Cadwallader and Gerry O’Hare find another Ibiza The old town of Ibiza

beach, sun umbrellas and loungers for rent, crystalclear waters – safe for swimming, half-a-dozen cafes and a few more restaurants and three or four largish hotels. It even had shops selling good, old, traditional buckets and spades. And that was it.

f you wanted a day out away from the beach, there were regular, cheap and comfortable public buses to take you to the capital of the island. There was a gentle, slow-moving tracklesstrain to ferry you gently up or down the coast for some shopping or sightseeing. There were water taxis off the jetty so you could explore other beaches – and there were some very lovely sunsets and tower-

WHAT’S HOT

n Being able to leave your wallet in the safe when you go out for the night Knowing the choice of food will suit both the traditional and experimental diner n Price of souvenirs, clothing etc in the local shops n The silent air-conditioning n The friendly staff

ing pine-clad mountains. No lager-louts, no drunkenness, no loud music at night, no worries about crime. Just wall-to-wall sunshine with a gentle breeze, in June, wafting in off the blue ocean. Ibiza Town is really worth a visit. Its centre is a World Heritage site and is truly worth exploring (either early in the day or later on during the height of summer). The tiny, twisting alley-ways make up a living museum – although the cobbled streets are pretty steep going so wear some low-heel shoes to avoid twisted ankles. And, when you reach the top, the view over the bay and up and down the coast is magnificent – with plenty of seating to allow you to drink it in.

WHAT’S NOT

n The hotel corridors are a little dreary and could do with more sparkle and colour n PLEASE holiday-makers don’t rush down to “bag” loungers before breakfast! n The pool-side “entertainment” is fine for children but a bit loud if you’re reading a book.

he price of souvenirs and clothes on the island was a surprise. You really could travel to Ibiza on the plane dressed in just a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and pick up all your holiday-wear when you get to the island. Dresses, croppedtrousers, beach-towels, sandals, handbags – all appeared to be virtually the same price (between five and ten euro). There are plenty of good souvenir shops where you can buy colourful handbags, leather wallets, cotton dresses and towels for a few euro – very tempting to bring home. We stayed in the resort of Cala Llonga – about fifteen minutes from the main airport – in an allinclusive hotel with a stunning sea-views. There were three hotel swimming pools and about twenty steps to the sandy beach which had a day-long life-guard on duty. I’ve stayed in some

four-star hotels where the all-inclusive food, sadly, wasn’t anything to write home about. The Sirenis Cala Llonga has only three-stars and yet the food was far better than we had expected. The hotel is really a two-in-one (ie originally two separate hotels, now run by the Sirenis chain) and you can choose which of the many bars suits your mood from the quiet, adults-only on the Dorada side (with its upmarket all-white bar and large patio with sea and mountain views) to the nightly-entertainment of the Imperial.

ne thing that really set the hotel apart was the genuine friendliness of the staff. No fixed, cheesy grins here but a relaxed and easy way of making you feel welcome and special. Another very welcome discovery was the noiseless air conditioning. At first, when we switched down the thermostat, we thought it was broken because the familiar wheezing didn’t start. Then we realised it WAS working as it was chucking out lots of lovely cool air. I eventually realised that the hotel has a centralised system of air conditioning which is ducted into each individual room. Makes so much better sense than each room having its own machine. There was plenty to choose from at the restaurant, morning, noon and night. From big salads and pizzas and fresh fruit to burgers, hot-dogs, steaks, fish and lovely Spanish spuds (chipped, baked, mashed or simply boiled). All-inclusive means that, when you go out for

the night, you leave your wallet/purse behind. Wine and beer comes included as do your predinner cocktails or gin-and-tonic. It also means icecreams and soft-drinks for kids are included as is all your entertainment either pool-side or later on at night. All music stops at midnight so don’t worry about listening to “thump, thump” all night. And the television in all the rooms is soundlimited. You simply cannot turn it up to full-volume. This means that the majority of people, who want to sleep at night, can do so.

e were amazed to see holidaymakers (who were in the main British) rising early, 6.30 am, to place towels on the sunbeds. We completely refused to do so and found we had absolutely no trouble finding sun-beds, in either the shade or sun, whenever we wanted. So why bother folks???? Who would I recommend this holiday to? Families with children aged under ten who want a traditional, beach-based holiday with no loutish behaviour. Families with teenage children who want to experiment in the big discobars while Mum and Dad chill out at the hotel. Couples who want a completely relaxed week or two with days spent at the beach or pool and evenings relaxing with a drink overlooking the bay from the adults-only bar. Who wouldn’t enjoy it? Loud twenty-somethings who want to party 24-hours a day. Culturevultures who want to spend their holidays in museums, cathedrals and art galleries.

n Anne Cadwallader and Gerry O’Hare travelled to Ibiza with Falcon Holidays and stayed at the Siren's Cala Llonga, part of the new SuneoClub range of great value All Inclusive Holidays. Twin rooms, sea view rooms and family rooms and interconnecting room options are all available. Falcon fly to Ibiza weekly through the summer from Dublin Airport.

Page 014-015 Bologna 08/08/2014 09:34 Page 1

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DESTINATION ITALY

ypical. You go all the way to Bologna to find that spaghetti Bolognese is a fiction. They do lots of pasta, infinite varieties of pasta in Bologna, but no spaghetti. They can serve you alternatives, Belly button of Venus (tortellini), Lucretia Borgia’s hair (tagliatelle) and a tangled mess called strangled priest – they say the politics of Bologna is red as the ceramic roof tiles. You have to bring your own food to the best eating house in Bologna, the ancient Osteria del SoleChiara. Diners buy mortadella and parma ham at the deli shops of the “Mercato di Mezzo” and top it up with typical wines from the hills of Bologna such as white Pignoletto and the red Sangiovese. Italian town life congregates here, two women of a certain age berating their ex-husbands, the tourist from Scotland with his out of date guide book, a nervous young man with a girl who is better looking than he is (and knows it), an all-male group joking and bantering about calcio, all of them chatting under the streaming Med sun, tucking into the bought in bread rolls, ham and olives and savouring the wine – the most faithful lover any of us will ever meet.

he storied city outside (and above our heads) packs a punch as enticing as its food basket. Don’t tell them in Cork, but Bologna is the rebel county, with its string of communist mayors and air of contumacy. This is a city that doesn’t shy away from controversy. A statue outside the pope’s stopover bedroom was considered too pornographic for the pontiff and had to be modified. The city clerics tried

Bologna night life is lively in a city of 60,000 students

Land of fast cars and slow food Eoghan Corry in Bologna and its hinterland

to build a cathedral bigger than the Pope’s, He objected and sabotaged their project by expanding the university. The San Petronio church has an offensive even more image, featuring Mohammad in hell with the name affixed in case anyone might miss the reference. It is especially incendiary as human effigies are not acceptable in Islam and was targeted by the offended during the wars when it was first painted, and in again in more recent times. Bologna’s spiritual treasure is the tomb of St Dominic, then as now a major player in the Champions League of saints, famous for promulgating the rosary. A

young Michelangelo designed three statues here, Which one? No one is certain. “I think it is the one on the right,” our guide Paulo Zangieri said. Then there is the delicious church of the ribbon, Santo Stefano, and, this being Italy, a few towers to climb. The best views are from the wobbly looking Torre degli Asinelli, 500 steps high. Students are not supposed to climb until they have graduated. Massimo Terracina, the great Bologna based travel writer, did so and has been on the road ever since. Explains a lot. If you want to learn what is special about Italy, and how culture comes with a small (Ital-

ian) C rather than a big pretentious (French) one, this is a place to whet your appetite.

or boy (and girls) who like fast cars, the Ferrari museum in Medina is a surprise. The building an unusual shape. The old building, the workshop used by Enzo Ferrari is still there. They built a modern museum in the shape of a hand almost like it is grasping its predecessor. A soundtrack, perhaps the most peculiar to be found in any modern traction, plays national anthems of leading countries in a loop. Some of them are not even the national anthems of car producing or driver breeding nations. But it

works. And the reason is that it lends an air of grandeur to the business of bolting together wheels, nuts and combustion engines. That's what Ferrari did best. In an industry that has been reduced to buffoonery by the antics of Jeremy Clarkson and his plagiarists, the Ferrari museum in Modena is a reminder of the greater purpose, the ambition, the willingness to follow their dreams, that inspired the men of another age and ours to chaste faster and safer and better built motor cars.

ass the truffles on the left hand side. A former olive mill is the heart of the agritourism action in this

area. They have 10 rooms to offer and an amazing culinary and oenological experience. The biggest problem they and we face is how loosely the definition of agricultural tourism is applied throughout Europe. Even the regions in Italy have different definitions. In Tuscany the emphasis is on accommodation. Over here in Emiglia Romagna a certain percentage of the working hours of the staff must be spent in agriculture, rather than tourism. The Italian hotel rating system already, the definition of five, four and three star varying from region to region. When it comes to agri-tourism, there is no chance of the different regions getting the act together. I asked would there be a chance that the important and that the vetted, authentic and house proud agri-tourism words would form their own private organisation, the equivalent of the Blue Book in Ireland. I was told that it's not going to happen. The Irish trade would love a proper agri-tourism product they can present to their clients, vetted and

Page 014-015 Bologna 08/08/2014 09:37 Page 2

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DESTINATION ITALY already overseen with standards that are met to a degree that will not end up being tested in front of are district justice in the country courtroom. Unfortunately Italy is not in the position to provide that. But no matter, they provide something better. There is a menu to devour. n Squacquerone, formaggio di fossa di Sogliano, salame romagnolo (salami) n Bufala e rucola con patate e tartufo nero (truffle) n Strozzapreti al guanciale, aceto balsamico invecchiato di Modena e formaggio di fossa (strangled priest pasta with balsamic vinegar and cheese) n Tagliata di manzo di razza romagnola con salsa chimichurri, formaggio raviggiolo e verdure croccanti (beef) n Maialino arrostito alle erbette aromatiche con friggitelli e paprika dolce (pork) n And house wine "locanda Antiche Macine " panzerotti ripieni di and Dolci e biscotti fatti in casa con Albana (sweet wine).

ess than an hour down the coast is the city’s playground, the triple centre resorts of Rimini, Riccione, and Cattolica. The journey there takes you through fields of sunflowers, the cherry or-

I feel like I must have lost some points off my license, as well as several points off my anatomical conditioning.

View from the Torre degli Asinelli

chards for which the province if Emiglia Romagna is famous, barley and maize (being harvested as we sped by), famous for peach, apple and kiwi trees, past the villas where produce traditional balsamic vinegar is produced, past the set of the film Novecento by Bernardo Bertaluci, (near San Donnino), pas the vineyards of Marcello, one of the best red sparkling wines in the world and the omnipresent Lambrusco grapes, so important to be accorded their own statue in Modena, like you would pay tribute to famous poet, or famous dynasty of poets Lambrusco is an extra dimension of reality

rather than a grape type, with distinctive regional variants, l'ambrusco Di Sorbara, l'ambrusco Di Castelveltro and l'ambrusco Di Grasparossa. The land here is precious and kept for tillage. The animals are kept in byres and stables. And you cross the Rubicon. You do it without noticing, a bridge on the A14 from Bologna to Rimini. Historians still squabble as to which was the real Rubicon. An undistinguished stream bears the name nowadays. Once you are across it, like Caesar, there is no going pack. You are in the playground. Partyland.

The Ferrari car drive costs u350 an hour, climbing the Torre degli Asinelli and Restaurateur Stefano Bussaglia who hosted Irish travel media and their hostess Paola Galinwli at Ristorante Ciacco on Via San Simone

t is an exclusive and surprisingly chic partyland. Real Italian families come here and that peculiar Italian Adriatic resort facility, the beach club. Since the 1920s they have provided ever more elaborate facilities for beach-goers who pay from u10 a day: €28 for 3 people for beds and umbrellas, services include yoga and pilates lessons, restaurants, showers, and entertainment. If you miss the towers, pop along to Aquafan waterpark. You look down from the top of Kamikaze with that generic theme park enhanced heartbeat – “will I get down but of course they wouldn’t get insurance if I didn’t

(would they?)’” – a familiar fear that all these water slides are supposed to invoke in would be riders. Then you start moving. And then you don't see anything, because the water splashes across your eyelids, and in the absence of windscreen wipers, there is nothing to see. All you know is that you have hit a good wall of water. Your bum by now is well spanked, your togs beginning to creep up an orifice which was NOT meant for entry, and you have ground, or perhaps watered, to a stop. The theme park owners had helpfully put up a big red sign telling you your speed, 85.9km.

ut Kamikaze is not the' signature ride in Aquafan water park. You must trek 250m, collect your water raft, mount steps until you reach Extreme River. Extreme River descends a slide that is shaped like a V. Two people sit in each water raft and are launched down what looks and feels like a cliff face and then ascend a similar cliff face on the other side. It takes three, four, five swings before you are heading for the exit through a V and a short drop to a shallow pool where there are anxious teenagers waiting to collect your water raft and have a go for themselves. Being Italian, they all look hopelessly romantic and like they are in love. From the front the view is terrific, like you're about to go down a particularly wet ski slope with no skis and precious little protection except the possibility of ascent on the other side of the V. The fun does not end with the rides. All of the toilets at squat toilets. That might provide most demanding challenge of the day.

n Eoghan Corry travelled to Italy and Emilia Romagna with Topflight who provide Sun holidays to Rimini, Riccione and Cattolica on the Adriatic coast and short breaks to the city of Bologna. n Flights are with Topflight partners, Aer Lingus. n He stayed at the 4 star Hotel Patrizia, u799pps which includes flights, transfers, and half board hotel accommodation, with complimentary bicycle hire. n Topflight can organise weekend/short breaks to Bologna. A typical 3 night stay in low season costs from u309 depending on flight timings. n Rimini and this area of the Adriatic Riviera has 15kms of beaches, Day trips from Rimini can be organised to cities close by including Ravenna, and Bologna. When 2 fee paying adults pay to 16 theme, water and marine parks in the area 2 children will go free, offer includes Aquafan Water Park, Italy in Miniature and Cattolica Aquarium, In Rimini and Riccione spend the day at a Beach Club: €28 for 3 people for beds and umbrellas, services include yoga and pilates lessons, restaurants, showers, and entertainment for adults and children. n Topflight can organise cookery courses, trips to ferrari and wine tasting. n Call Topflight on (01) 2401700 or www.topflight.ie

Page 016 Salamanca by Marie 07/08/2014 19:54 Page 1

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DESTINATION SPAIN

e arrived at the Parador de Salamanca at dusk on a cold November evening. With the curtains fully drawn my room was as toasty as could be but I couldn’t resist as peek to see if I had a window with a view and I wasn’t disappointed. The Parador de Salamanca is located on a hillside on the left bank of the River Tormes affording it spectacular views of a city which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. The skyline is what you would expect of a heritage site with towers, cathedrals, churches and many other ancient buildings just waiting to be explored. A short walk brought us to the Roman Bridge and the entrance to the city. Measuring 176 metres in length, it was constructed over the River Tormes at its widest point. Historians believe it was built in the first century AD and it was an important part of the Roman silver route. At the city end is a small church and right in front of this building is a bang up to date skateboard park for teenagers which can be described as a very interesting collaboration between church and state. Salamanca’s Old Cathedral is one of the city’s two Cathedrals with the other one being; yes you’ve guessed it, the New Cathedral. Even

Scholarly Spain A

Marie Carberry in Salamanca

The walls of Spain’s univeristy city

more confusing is that they are not separate entities but joined together with the Old Romanesque dating from the 12th century and the New gothic constructed in the 16th century. The New was built when the Old deemed too small and sure why waste a perfectly good site when you can just add on. Some restoration work took place in 1992 with a fascinating addition to the stone carvings adorning the outside walls in the form of a tiny astronaut. How historians will figure this one out in five hundred years is anyone’s guess.

bove the Old Cathedral are the Medieval Cathedral Towers standing at 110 metres tall and giving splendid views of the city. An exhibition shows visitors how the towers were built and their 900 year history. On the tour you can also enter the New Cathedral via a platform which gives dizzying views and an altogether different perspective of the central nave and vaulted ceilings. Founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX the University of Salamanca is famous for being the oldest institution of third level education in Spain. In 1254 Pope Alexander

THINGS TO DO PLACES TO SEE

n The building which houses the Casa Lis (Museum of Art Nouveau and Art Deco) is a work of art in itself with its stained glass windows and facade. Inside is a wonderful collection of Chryselephantine (small sculptures made of bronze and ivory) and porcelain dolls. n The Asador Don Mauro restaurant in Plaza Mayor is a typical Salamancan restaurant. Take a long lunch and watch as the waiters dextrously carve wafer thin slices of Iberico ham that melt in your mouth. n One of the cities loveliest buildings is the Casa de las Conchas (House of

the Shells) named after the scallop shells adorning its walls. It now houses a public library. n The Huerto de Calixto y Melibea or Secret Garden is located behind the cathedral and is the site of Spain’s version of a Romeo and Juliet (La Celestina) type love story. It is filled with olive trees and affords lovely views over the city. It is said that all visitors to Salamanca must look for the lucky frog. He is positioned high up on the carvings on the outside of the Universidad Civil. Good luck finding him.

IV acknowledged it as being one of the four great universities of the world alongside Oxford, Paris and Bologna. Miguel de Cervantes and Christopher Columbus were among the students who studied here. Inside you can see a 16th century lecture hall with its seating and podium still intact. What is also interesting is the status of the scholars is still on view with the plush seats up the front and the more uncomfortable hard benches down the back. Today things are on a more even keel with 30,000 students taking part in academic courses each year and everyone gets the same seat. 1n 1929 University of Salamanca was the first Spanish college to offer language courses to foreign students.

oday there are many colleges in the city offering language courses and there is a huge connection with Ireland in that many Irish students, my own

daughter included, study Spanish in Salamanca each year. Even in the depths of winter you will hear the lilt of Irish accents as you wander around these beautiful streets and, in particular, in the stunning square of Plaza Mayor which is considered to be one of the most beautiful squares in Spain. It is not hard to see why. Built between 1729 and 1755 its initial use was for bullfighting. Today it is the place for locals to gather and socialise and to appreciate its wonderful baroque architecture. Salamanca is known as La Dorada or ‘The Golden City’ because of the mellow effect of its sandstone buildings and the Plaza Mayor is a very fine example of this. In the summer the Plaza it is littered with students sitting crosslegged on the cobble lock as they try to study. One thing they don’t have difficulty getting to know is the nightlife and what a nightlife! Come 4pm and

Salamanca starts to shed any sense of formality as the shops reopen after siesta and the streets are filled with families imbibing the atmosphere, meeting friends and generally having a good time. Salamancan's love good food and, like the rest of Spain, don’t dine too early. It’s not unusual to see restaurants taking orders up to 11.30pm. Children are part and parcel of the package so expect to see entire families eating late into the night.

hen the little ones eventually do go to bed it’s time to party, party party as Salamanca’s bars and nightclubs come into their own and what a choice there is. From Captain Haddocks with its array of nets and marine memorabilia to Posada de las Almas (house of dolls) with its walls made out of dolls houses and a DJ sitting up a tree, there is a vast array of the weird and the wonderful. Nightclubs are just bigger versions of the pubs but they all serve drinks the size of your head for half the price you would pay for a normal shot at home. The music pulsates and continues until 5am but Salamancan's just want to dance and have fun so while the drink may be cheap it is not consumed in enormous quantities and the atmosphere is all the better for it. Salamanca lies just over 200km west of Madrid and is served by excellent rail and bus and bus links that are cheap and easy to use. A beautiful, medieval city with spectacular after dark illuminations and a great night life, it has something for everyone.

n Marie Carberry travelled to Salamanca courtesy of the Spanish Tourist Board and Salamanca City Council. n Flights to Madrid were provided by Iberia Express. For prices and schedules go to www.iberiaexpress.com

Page 017 Avila by Marie 08/08/2014 10:18 Page 1

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DESTINATION

ully illuminated, the fortress walls of Ávila make for an impressive sight day or night. Constructed out of golden sandstone in the 12th century, they fence an area of 31 hectares and their circumference is a lengthy 2.5 kilometres. In a spirit of friendly co-operation, Jews, Mudejars, and Christians all partook in its construction and the result is one of the most beautifully preserved, fortified cities in the world. Parts of the wall are open to pedestrians and there is even a section that is wheelchair friendly. Strolling along the top, between buttress towers, it’s not hard to imagine how safe medieval denizens felt here. At three metres thick and with an average height of twelve metres no one but no one was getting through here. At 1132 metres, Ávila is the highest city in Spain, is located about 120 kilometres west of Madrid and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985. The Cathedral is Ávila’s most impressive building. Standing just inside the old city with its apse in-

ÁVILA

Walled wonder

Maire Carberry visits Avila

geniously built into the wall thereby forming part of the defence, it is built in gothic style with a timeline that stretches back to the 1100’s. Part of the tour includes a small gallery which houses the busts of two German saints. Look closely and you will the top of the head has been pared off and covered with a metal grille. Under the grille are the actual skulls of the two ladies in question. If that doesn’t scare the life out of you then the Street of

n For a wonderful view of the walled city stop at Mirador de los Cuatro Poste which consists of a lookout called the ‘Four Columns’, a Roman bridge and the Romanesque Hermitage of San Segundo n Convento de Santa Teresa is the epicentre of a pilgrim visit. There are three attractions here: the church, a relic’s room and a museum. n El Monasterio de Santo Tomas was commissioned by the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabelle. The cloisters lead to a church that contains the remains of Don Juan, the monarch’s only son. n Palace of Los Veleda is located at the Plaza de la Catedral. Built in the 16th century it is now a four star hotel. Take a look at the ground floor restaurant with its impressive galleries and arches. n For wonderful food take a table at the Puerto de Alcazar. It was here that the Irish author, Kate O’Brien, took a sojourn to write and there is a plaque on the wall dedicated to her.

Life and Death to the right of the Cathedral just might do the trick. Narrow, dimly lit and with a sharp right turn at the end, it is where dastardly deeds were carried out if you wanted to get rid of someone quickly and silently. Ávila is nothing if not atmospheric.

ne of city’s most famous citizens is St. Teresa. Born in Ávila in 1515, St. Teresa joined the Carmelite order in 1535.

ALCALÁ DES HENARES

n Teatro Corral de Comedias is one of Europe’s oldest theatres and it is still possible to see the stone floor that people sat on 400 years ago n Cathedral of Santos Niños Justo y Pastor on Calle de la Tercia was an old collegiate church and rebuilt by Cardinal Cisneras who, along with Ferdinand and Isabella, is said to have greatly contributed to Spain’s golden. The cathedral contains the incorrupt body of San Diego de Alcalá n Calle Mayor is Alcalá’s main street and was conceived as a 12th century major artery. Striking architecture along with a busy shopping area makes this a must visit. n Alcala is famous for its storks which build enormous nests on the chimneys and towers of the historic buildings and monuments and provide tourists with their very own ‘Route of the Storks’

After a vision of Christ she strove to create a more primitive form of the Carmelites and began writing a series of books extolling the ecstasy of Jesus. She was in Alba de Tormes in 1582 when she passed away and a decision to bury her there was taken lest the citizens of Ávila claimed her as their own. This didn’t stop a close ally, Father Gracian, from digging up her grave a year later. Her body was found to be incorrupt and the bold Father Gracian decided to cut off her left hand and bring it back to Ávila. Once there he removed a finger and wore it around his neck for the rest of his life. In 1585 he went back for another go and, this time, finding her body still incorrupt, cut off what remained of her left arm. Her body was transferred back to Avila on the order of the Pope and when there relics were made of her jaw, right arm, right foot and other bodily bits and pieces. This may sound grue-

some to us but the practice of saving relics was of its time and the story, in the hands of our excellent guide Blanca, makes for a fascinating account of life in Ávila during this period. The 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Teresa will take place in the city in 2015 and pilgrims from all over the world are expected in this wonderful city. Before you leave have a taste of Yemas de Santa Teresa, a sweet made from the yolk of egg. It is, as they say, an acquired taste. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site is the town of Alcalá des Heneres, located about 30 kilometres west of Madrid and ideal for a day or overnight trip from the capital. Like Ávila it is well served by public transport which is cheap and reliable.

lcalá des Henares is the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes and The Museo Casa Natal de Cervante on Calle Mayor, is where he was born.

The museum, which has free entry, serves to recreate the atmosphere of 16th century family life with sitting rooms and bedrooms furnished in the style of the age. Life and death was dealt with within the walls and this is evidenced by a tripod birthing chair in the kitchen that was used by women in labour. “Very comfortable,” our guide, Javier, assured us. The females in our group weren’t so sure. Close by is the Archbishops Palace, a 15th century fortress castle, where it is claimed Christopher Columbus badgered Queen Isabella to let him off to discover far off lands six years before the discovery of America. Beside the Palace is the Monasterio de San Bernarda, which houses the fascinating and detailed Santa Sabana exhibition of the investigations into the Turin Shroud. The exhibition is on tour in Spain and will remain in Alcalá until the middle of January. Science rather than faith based, it provides a superb insight into the attempts to establish the authenticity of the Shroud while giving a gruesome yet enthralling account of the life and death of a condemned man. You cannot leave Alcalá des Henares without visiting its famous University of Alcalá on Plaza de San Diego which is the second oldest in Spain and the reason Alcalá was designated a World Heritage Site. Founded in 1499 it became the model for other universities around Europe and the Americas and is still in operation today and just another, in a long line of reasons, to visit this lovely town.

n Marie Carberry travelled courtesy of the Spanish Tourist Board and SpainHeritageCities.com n Accommodation in Ávila and Alcalá de Henares was provided by www.parador.es/en/portal.do n Flights to Madrid were courtesy of Iberia Express. For prices and flight times log on to www.iberiaexpress.com

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ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL

ed banks are here to stay. Pat Dawson CEO of the ITAA says dynamic packaging now represents in the region of 80pc of most travel agent’s sales. There are at least nine major players in the Irish market playing for the business of agents and even more in the B2C market. So what will differentiate one bed bank from another? Lowcost CEO Paul Evans emphasises speed. “Agents are all looking for ways to cut costs. A faster system saves money. And we maintain a telephone contact. In the rush to faster and faster systems people under estimate the power of the telephone.” “We can also get instant hotel pricing comparisons on extranet, if the prices are too high we get on to them and they change it instantly.” Google say that if you are not loading in 4 seconds you are losing 40pc of your business. When booking a holiday people look at 12 websites. This rises to 20 in a recession. That is why speed matters. That is why the functionality of the site maters, your reputation, ease of use, and word of

Room bang a bang T

Velassaru in the Maldives: Bedbanks started in beach destinations but quickly expanded throughout the industry

mouth are totally crucial.

nitially it was independent providers who have grown quickest in this segment. With about 70 bed-banks are already active in European holiday destinations, destination-based bed-banks began to take over traditional tour operator functions such as bundling procurement volume and capacity

Coffee machine at Alpin Royal, Valle Aurina, Italy

management. Perhaps inevitably the big tour operators responded with bed banks of their own. TUI, Thomas Cook, Rewe and FTI began to build bedbanks of their own with varying degrees of success. These were dedicated to supplying hotel capacity to tour operators and travel agents in order to compete with the independent providers.

For hoteliers, new providers offer an opportunity to diversify their distribution channels, reduce dependence on large clients and win additional business. Tour operator head offices were moving away from procurement and production and towards product designers and marketers as a result. TUI subsidiary Hotelbeds.com, with rev-

enues of €1.2 billion last year, sees itself as market leader in this area, followed by GTA, which was bought by Kuoni last year. Hotelbeds.com aims to increase the hotel capacity in the database by another 20pc by next year. At present, the Majorca-based firm has some 51,000 hotels in its system, roughly half resorts and half city hotels. Hotelbeds.com, like most bed-banks, markets most of these as a reseller charging a slightly higher price as its profit margin, while the rest are marketed with commission payments. Thomas Cook built up a similar operation in Majorca through Iberoservice, its incoming agency. This would make additional hotel capacity available to travel agents for direct booking. Initially, the product will complement the existing tour operator model and then integrate the English -based bed-banks Hotels4U and Medhotels in a second stage. The middle man has not been shy about muscling in on its hotels. Suppliers complained that bed banks are mak-

ing very small margins and going for volume. o prove big is not necessarily better, an irish bedbank entered the field and began to win the loyalty of agents. Oldcastle based BookaBed, has been the winner of the accommodation supplier category at the Irish Travel Industry awards every year since for 2010. The company was launched by Karl Tyrrell and Jackie Clynch in mid 2005 as a trade only accommodation supplier. It is entirely Irish owned and operated. It has grown and prospered since then under Karl Tyrrell and his team, led by Lee Osborne and Beverleigh Fly as General Manager to co-ordinate the Irish and International sales teams. BookaBed’s growth rates are phenomenal: 80pc in 2010, 60pc in 2011, 100pc in 2012 and 2013 and 2014 has started off very well for BookaBed with sales currently up 170pc on same period in 2013. There were successful launches of the site in the

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SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 21

ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL north, Britain, and Australia with sites now live for Canada, German and the USA. New additions to the website included Trip Advisor reviews, attraction tickets and cancellation charges on top of last year’s additions such as scheduled airlines, low deposit long haul flight and hotel packages. "Being a trade only supplier and seeing such large increases in sales really is fantastic" said Sales Manager Lee Osborne, "we completely rely on the trade for business and would like to thank all agents for their continued support. It has been a great year so far and it is all down to the travel agent." “We are mindful that the business and the support that we have received has been built up on the back of the quality

Great Neck, Long Island, USA

service we provide,” Karl Tyrrell says. “We pride ourselves on being personal, approachable, friendly and helpful and our number one aim is continue this approach while offering the largest choice of accommodation

at competitive rates.” Karl describes their progress as the result of “getting on with our jobs of trying to sell hotels at great rates and provide a great service to the trade. 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 a lot over the years my aim is to keep the small company touch

when dealing with our loyal customers.” "We are continually trying to improve how we work and we invest a lot in technology to make sure we have the best system possible.” Bookabed also reor-

ganised their call centre and launched their online group booking engine in the last year. This booking technology allows access to 1,000,000 global group coordinators and to their 40,000 hotel supplier partners speeding up

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ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL the hotel bidding process for discounted group rates. This system continues to improve its offerings to increase the efficiencies of travel agents. Groups can take time to obtain rate proposals. However, the ability to co-ordinate directly with the hotel for any other requirements such as meeting rooms, dining options and local attraction prices. n Distribution: integrations into the major travel technology companies such as Multicom, Traveltek, Digital Trip, CSI and Dolphin Dynamics. They say this will strengthen distribution into new and existing markets. n Product: developing links directly from hotel chains such as IHG, Wyndham, and Marriott further strengthening our content and pricing. August will see Dynamic Package tool bookable on our new site allowing agents the option to book low cost carriers along with accommodation and transfers in the one booking providing a one stop booking system for the travel trade. Their most recent update to their site included. Bookabed have added 10 new staff in the past 14 months, seven of based in Ireland, two in England and one in Australia. They are currently on the look out for partners in various countries around the world. Plans for this year include a white label version of Bookabed to be made available to agents as well as launches into other markets worldwide.

eff Collins and his father stared Globe Hotels, an exclusively Irish bed bank in 2004, and four years later were integrated into Vertical by Peter Heaney, meaning that Globe acquired the technological clout to compete with the

The growth of bedbanks reflects the changes throughout the industry

big international players. “ In the current environment agents are going more loyal, sticking with the guys they know,” he says. “The bigger players are only number crunchers. We offer 24 hours emergency back-up if there are any problems.” “I know every manager, every owner, I know all their staff. We are at the end of the phone to help people. In one case I ended up giving someone directions to a hotel in Paris.” “The main thing Globe Hotels offers is exclusive rates to trade. We won’t be offering the same hotels to the consumer. Our new suppliers are being accepted only on an exclusive basis. Our product won’t be showing up anywhere else.” “We have our own directly contracted hotels, the hotels that specialise in the Irish market .” “We have three suppliers who are exclusive the company, dealing only with Globe. In addition we can offer 140,000 properties from 17 suppliers offering the most niche destination at the end of an instant search.

If you want a hotel in Angola, you got it.”

owcostbeds draws from 52 databases. It also offers product on other bedbanks on Evans’ premise that “you get your margin from your own product, you get the range from other people.” It is available in eight languages and ten countries. Some of his rivals, Evans say, know nothing about product and are basically just distributors. He says the difference between Lowcostbeds and other bed banks is that they started out life as a direct loading system rather than a reservations system. “Some of our opponents are selling packages dynamically rather than genuine dynamic packages.” “The others started as reservations systems and tried to develop the back end. Our system presents the product first and then you input the transfer or flight.” While Lowcostbeds offers 400,000 hotels on its database, 70pc of their business goes through just 500 hotels, the “cas-

tles” as Evans calls them. “We end up with a massive cost advantage on your castles, the guaranteed properties.” Lowcostbeds started out life as a laptop contracting system. “The speed to market is incredible. Sadly the days when people booked twelve months out is gone, three months is the average. “Today it is all about deals, deals constantly updated. From the time we load the system we could have 25 different prices as we go along.” Lowcost signed a deal with the ITAA last September. Pat Dawson says it has cleared some very muddy water as regards agents’ coverage should anything go wrong with a bedbank. It goes beyond the sort of business failure, as happened with On Holiday Group. “It is really important because we have had this situation before and Lowcost beds are the only ones who have put their hands up, taken their money from the wallet, and signed the deal. “Our members have had claims of anything

u25,000 to from u80,000. What happened was there was there was a problem in the hotel with slippage or accidents, and the customer is going to go for the lowest hanging fruit which is the travel agent.” “They are not going to sue a hotel in Barcelona or Sicily. That would take a long, long time and they would have to spend a lot of money.” “We insist on our agents having the proper insurance, which you don;t get on www dot. Clem and I sat down and signed an agreement. We are delighted they had the courage to do what they did.”

o matter how big the direct business gets the trade continues to grow, says Evans. "As agents move from traditional o dynamic packaging we want them to come to us. If anything arises we will look at our systems and ask if there is anything we can do. We can give them website they can price themselves. “Our quality control is completely ruthless. And

there is no point in Lowcostbeds being high cost beds.” “Tour operators have to move on from the sangria welcome meeting, the 12 stops on the bus before you reach your hotel, not getting the tickets until two weeks before, the wallet, all of those things,“ “I am a big believer in putting the customer in control. It is essential for us all to get the product right. Your reputation is fundamental to repeat business and margin. All the reviews will be stay on the review centre, your ratings, your reputation management, it comes down to the answer to the question: did I have a good holiday?” “You can’t afford to let the answer to that question impact on your reputation or indeed to have any issues at all. That is why it is important not to exaggerate, to tell it how it is, the margins are not high enough to have problems.” More recently, companies have expanded their product ranges to include long-haul and city destinations in an attempt to

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ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL

improve margin. It is very competitive business and analysts say there is still room for consolidation which will lead to further maturing, and then margins will creep up The market continues to be dominated by late bookings. Lowcostbeds sales director Paul Evans reports more than 60pc of bookings are for travel within six weeks. If you snooze you lose never had such meaning.

arryl Ismail’s Innstant Travel, the online wholesale division of Innstant Group (www.innstantgroup.com) is a privatelyheld travel and software company, which has offices in a number of international cities including the US, Europe and the Middle East. Their online B2B

Naladhu Maldives

booking engine with excess of 240,000 properties worldwide including hotels, apartments, holiday homes and villas with up to same day availability. In addition Innstant has 50,000+ transfers,

10,000+ tours, 1,000+ car hire options, 1000’s of sports tickets, 24/7 support and loyalty points for every booking – live on www.innstanttravel.com Agents can access Innstant Travel’s prod-

ucts, special offers and rates by visiting www.innstanttravel.com and completing the registration or by contacting john.booty@innstanttravel.com

he German based HRS concentrates on the corporate traveller. The two big moments in their history were the decision to go online in 1995, and to go global in early 2000.

They have now achieved a web presence of 12m visitors a month in 180 countries, 30 offices around the world, 1,300 staff, 250,000 hotels. They are differentiated from the market in that

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ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL

Beach hotels can turn up on several different bed banks at different rates ference in price means the traveller will just book with that price. With all the price comparison sites anyway everybody is checking our prices so if you're not offering parity on price you might as well go home. One cent can make a difference. You can't even get your exchange rate wrong. Everything's got to be absolutely perfect.”

100,000 hotels come through the GDS and then they add 150,000. Jon West of HRS Ireland and Britain says ”we take all of that to the corporate market place, whereas booking.com and Expedia take all of their content to the leisure market place.” ”The sole traders will still treat themselves as a leisure customer but they can't load corporate negotiated rates or corporate discount they don't offer negotiated rate on behalf of the customers and they can't take the content to a closed corporate group.” “There are two strings to our bow, one is all about leisure and the leisure rate whereby we need to be on parity to our competitors because a one cent dif-

e outlines the changes face by bedbanks in delivering their product over the web. “The OTA’s are very good at quality of content, all of us. Content has redefined the delivery of a hotel over the Internet. The Internet is, obviously, merely an enabler. Be-

cause the Internet is so quick now, the quality of your content really becomes important. You don't put up a thumbnail you put up a HD photo. You don't put up one HD photo, but 30 HD photos. People want to know what it looks like in the bar, at the reception, at the front of the hotel, what is the view like, everything. And they will now scan through it. So in the last two years we have come from recommending five hotels to recommending 30. We have been adding video, regardless of whether it is a leisure or a corporate customer. If for any reason you have no photographs of the hotel, nowadays, no bookings. End of. Price is very very important.

Why YOU should think Globe

A message from Jeff Collins n today’s competitive Bedbank market, stick with the one you know.

Globe Hotels have been supporting the Irish Travel Trade since 2004. We are currently the preferred accommodation supplier to Travel Centres and Travelsavers with significant year over year growth with both consortia. We will launch a new Globe site later this year which will include added functionality and a faster to book process. We will offer more exclusive partners online via the globehotels.ie website than ever before with unique deals especially in the Middle East and Asia.

We are not just talking about content. We are talking about all components of content. The primary concern of the corporate travel manager is that you have got to have good prices best booking rates at low rates and the cancellation. Primary concern is the lowest possible price. It is not the same in every country and it is a good indicator of whether countries coming out of recession. Managers say don't see any change in direct spend budgets over the next year, which is a good indicator of the Irish economy, but it is ready to move forward. It could be three months, 12 months, six months, they don't see decline they don't see growth.”

e says if the hotel does not offer free cancellation up to 6 PM on the day of arrival, they will lose bookings. One in 10 bookings are going to be cancelled before arrival. Of that one in four have passed their cancellation date. Corporate buyers have got to add that to the cost of their hotel. Whatever that portion is 6pc, has to be added to every price that you are quoted. When you move cancellation policy back to later, that figure comes down. “If they do offer that cancellation up to 6pm they will have less cancellations than they would have if they'd had a 24hour cancellation policy. There are two reasons for that. One is the behaviour of people, if you were 24 hours house there are two things that affect us. One is the behaviour of people. If you are forced to decide on 24 hours cancellation you will play safe and cancel the hotel. If you have 6 PM free cancellation you take more time to make sure the meeting will actually happen. Hotels get less cancellations that way. It is almost like you have gone into a contract with the hotel you have been really reasonable to me I would be really reasonable to you. A lot of the hotels are now moving that cancellation policy to midnight. That makes a huge difference. We are when we see this information it underlines that 6 PM cancellation is nearly as important as the price.

With additional airline capacity available to these regions for Irish travellers, Globe Hotels wants the travel trade to capitalize on this opportunity for their clients. We will also offer more worldwide partners and unique offerings from other bedbanks. Direct contracts for clients favourite properties will continue to be an important part of our brand with exclusively negotiated added value elements passed onto our trade partners, e.g. the Cordial group with free room / board upgrades and spa options. Globe Hotels will continue to work as a trade only site offering 100% support to our travel partners. We are based in Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath with a team of experienced agents on hand to assist with all queries. We are contactable 24/7 with a 24 hour emergency phone number available to travel agents and their clients. When your clients are happy, you are happy. Jeff Collins

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ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL

Sourcing places to stay

ccommodation-only suppliers to the trade, also known as “bed banks” first emerged in 1999 and hit the headlines over the coming years as they led to an sharp increase number of agents using bed banks rather than selling traditional packages. The theory was simple, old style package holidays were dead. Agents wanted access to hotels, and in the cacophony of choice they needed someone to wholesale those beds for them. Traditional bed banks provide their services in three ways, acting as principal, agent or supplier. Some of the main players are;

AGODA Consumer bank specialising in securing the lowest discount hotel prices in Asia Pacific. Based in Singapore with operations in 13 other Asian cities, Agoda’s bed bank network includes 475,000 hotels worldwide.

BEDBANK.NET

Among

the original Med specialists in the business, offering 10,000 hotels, villas and apartments worldwide. Popular destinations include USA, Canada, Greece, Cyprus, Mainland Spain, the Canary Islands, Balearics, mainland Portugal, Madeira, Malta, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Bulgaria, Croatia and the Caribbean.

BOOKABED Among the original Med specialists in the business, offering 10,000 hotels, villas and apartments worldwide. Popular destinations include USA, Canada, Greece, Cyprus, Mainland Spain, the Canary Islands, Balearics, mainland Portugal, Madeira, Malta, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Bulgaria, Croatia and the Caribbean. BOOKING.COM

The con-

sumer bank considered to be Europe’s leading online hotel aggregator based on total room nights sold. Booking.com offers rates for any type of property, ranging from small independent hotels through to a five star luxury. The site is available in 21 languages and offers 524,181 properties worldwide in 41,000 destinations. It is also taking on Tripadvisor with 33m reviews.

EXPEDIA says that

half of the Irish Travel Agency community have already opted into their Travel Affiliate program. Expedia TAAP is supported in Ireland by ATTS Travel Representation Solutions. ATTS provide on the ground local contact for account sales and support to Expedia TAAP enquiries. The big advantage of Expedia TAAP is the commission for bookings made through the Expedia website. Agents have easy access to rates and inventory available through the huge buying power of the global Expedia brand, which includes Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Egencia, eLong, Venere.com, trivago, Expedia Local Expert, Classic Vacations, Expedia CruiseShipCenters, and CarRentals. com. Expedia says 40,000 travel agents in 29 markets worldwide have registered for the Expedia Travel Agent Affiliate programme on www.expedia.ie/travelagents.

FLEXIBLE TRIPS

Thomas Cook owned operation which was headed by John Grehan offered 1,500 beach and city destinations and 70,000 hotels in Ireland, Europe and worldwide. The website now diverts to Thomas Cook’s English operation. John Grehan now heads up Justsunshine’s Irish operation.

GETABED Fast growing com-

pany with “ambitious growth plans” in place under commercial director Tony Quinn and first generation Irishman Kerry Sullivan. It is also one of the

oldest, having been trading since 1991 and has built up a reputation for longhaul and city accommodation as well as beach resort properties. It has a dedicated Irish website getabed.ie.

GETABED AND GET ALL THIS UNDER ONE ROOF

At Getabed we’re dedicated to getting it just right for the travel agent and have been for 23 years! That means making recommendations on our ‘Director’s Choice’ and ‘Best Seller’ hotels. It means providing you with a huge choice of great value, quality accommodation and transfers in over 170 countries around the world. It means VɈLYPUN H^HYK ^PUUPUN J\Z[VTLY ZLY]PJL HUK [LJOUVSVN` L_JS\ZP]LS` [V [OL [YH]LS trade. And all under one roof.

100% trade focussed

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ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL

GLOBE HOTELS Trade

only operation which are preferred suppliers to Travelsavers Ireland and one of three accommodation suppliers to Travel Centres. Founded by Jeff Collins and his father in 2004, they have three exclusive suppliers, and future contracts are being signed only on an exclusivity basis. “I know the Irish agents and what they need,” Jeff Collins says. “We will offer more exclusive partners online via the globehotels.ie website than ever before with unique deals especially in the Middle East and Asia.” Many agents already have TARSC back office systems which integrate with Globe.

GROUPLEADER Bob

Haugh’s newest venture is designed for anyone who wants to buy groups. The system invited hotels to bid for group business.

GTA Hotels/Gullivers Travel Serv-

ice, perhaps the largest bed aggregator in terms of sheer geographic scale with 18m XML requests received everyday, GTA offers offer discounted hotel accommodation, tour guide and transfer services, unique experiences, city tours, excursions, attraction tickets and restaurants from more than 45,000 suppliers in 185 countries. They process 21,000 bookings every day and sell 12m room nights in 25 languages.

HOTELBEDS offers 60,000

hotels across 180 countries and is in 100 source markets worldwide, selling exclusively to tour operators and wholesalers around the world. They are very interested in breaking in to the Irish market. Owned by TUI its technology allows agents to maximise revenue through online distribution channels, view all new bookings, amendments, cancellations and rooming lists, query invoicing details, payment status, statement of accounts, payments in advances and deposits or contact them to solve any invoicing related issues.

HOTELOPIA Part of TUI

Travel PLC empire (the world’s largest

Hotel du Petit Moulin, Paris

vertically integrated travel company), Hotelopia is a leading European hotel aggregator, offering discounted accommodations to both the business and leisure traveller at 40,000 hotels, in 2,800 destinations. They are also in the reviews business and now have 220,000 reviews on 50,000 hotels and apartments.

HOTELS.COM

Probably

the largest and most widely recognised hotel aggregator in the world, The database of more than 70,000 properties worldwide includes bed-and-breakfasts, condos and all-inclusive resorts. Part of the Interactive Affiliate Network which includes expedia, hotwire, tripadvisor, and a number of other leading online travel sites.

HOTELS4U - A subsidiary of

the Thomas Cook Group that offers 200,000 properties concentrated in Spain, The Canaries, Algarve, Turkey & Egypt as well as a wide range of city

The stylish Hotel Le Bellechasse Paris

break hotels world-wide.hotels worldwide.

HRS German based corporate spe-

cialist which offers negotiated rates to corporate buyers with the flexibility to allow company employees to search for and book their own hotel rooms. Their recent survey of Irish corporate buyers was the most extensive ever compiled by an accommodation supplier on business buyers.

INNSTANT TRAVEL

Darryl Ismail’s company’s advantage is higher commissions, 20pc in many cases, and exclusive deals with key hotel groups and early online booking discounts. Innstant Travel’s website, www.innstanttravel.com, offers 240,000 properties in 14,000 destinations worldwide with up to same day availability, The company provides travel inventory and XML solutions of its globally contracted rates to retailers and tour operators in the travel industry.

LOW COST BEDS are part of Lowcost Travel Group, launched by Paul Evans in England in 2004. Evans was familiar with the Irish market from his First Choice days when he worked with Bill Smith and Damien Mooney and appointed Clem Walshe to head up the Irish operation in 2011. It initially specialised in Majorca, Ibiza, Turkey and Egypt and is seeing growth in Malta and the Canaries. Walshe has added several specialist Irish (usually ex-Budget Travel) properties to the portfolio and has increased the

level of support to Irish agents since Grainne Caffrey joined the team. The website enables agents to book, amend and cancel accommodation in 150.000 hotels worldwide via the web or a direct XML connection - allowing them to tailor make ideal low cost trips for their clients. . It also enables agents to filter results by criteria such as free kids and early-booking discounts. Users can also book transfers via sister company Resorthoppa, which it no longer wholly owns having sold to A2B Transfers in June 2012, but still works with. Lowcostbeds recently trebled the number of directly contracted hotels in the Caribbean, including 350 hotels on Jamaica. The group ran its first consumer TV advertisements in Ireland this year and a direct charter to Palma for a short summer season, changing its status to tour operator. It recently concluded a supplier agreement with Worldchoice Ireland. Both Lowcostbeds and Resorthoppa offer free cancellation and amendment, 15pc as a standard rate of commission and promises to price-match if agents find the same product cheaper elsewhere.

MED HOTELS

In England

this is Thomas Cook’s trade bed bank while Hotels4u is the consumer accommodation brand. Focusing on the massmarket, volume end of the sector it says its Thomas Cook-ownership enhances its buying power and gives it access to exclusive deals. The trade brand has 118,000 properties, of which

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SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 27

ACCOMMODATION SPECIAL

TRAVEL AGENT

Intense competition have forced some operators to throw in the towel

about 5,000 are directly contracted Mediterranean and worldwide beach properties.

MIKI

one of the

largest and most experienced wholesale tour operators in Europe, and also one of the longest going having operated and developed systems for 30 years. They say the data they work with and the systems they provide are among the most effective in the industry.

SUPERBREAK

.com, England hotel bed bank specialist. A subsidiary of Holidaybreak PLC, a leading UK tour operator, Superbreak currently offers 1700 hotels spread across some 400 UK cities and towns. Additionally they are growing their overseas offering, currently

at 3,500 hotels.

TRANSHOTEL

Spanish Grupo Transhotel consists of six companies related to the tourism sector, offering its portfolio of more than 60,000 hotels and all types of services throughout the world for 78,800 travel agencies worldwide.

TRAVELCUBE

The Kuoni-owned online bed bank has a database of 30,000 supplier partners.in 54 countries worldwide with content sourced from 42,000 hotels and apartments, 5,000 private and shared transfers, 11,000 sightseeing tours and attractions and 300 online travel guides. It is considering weekly flash sales exclusively for travel agents. Groupon style deals will be nego-

Internacional Design Hotel, Lisbon

tiated by TravelCube's sister company GTA and its hotel suppliers, each of which will be available on its website for seven days.

AFFILIATE PROGRAMME

Relax ! You have Expedia TAAP

VENERE Another online leader in the European hotel bed bank sector, Italy-based and Expedia owned venere.com offers 100,000 lodging properties ranging from 1 to 5 star luxury hotels.

YOUTRAVEL

English based but operates in Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Ireland, Norway, Russia and France, its main focus is the Mediterranean, with a slight bias towards Greece and offers 4000 hotels. It sells via agents as well as direct to consumers. Youtravel offers agents a standard commission of 15pc.

Find the best deal for your customer The most reliable partner for travel agents Unlimited package combinations & generous commission • 290.000 Hotels • Best Car Providers • 300 Airlines

Phone (0)1 517 1525 Mail taexpediaie@expedia.com Web www.expedia.ie/travelagents

Page 028-031 technology 08/08/2014 09:43 Page 1

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 28

TECHNOLOGY

Travelport’s FY boost

ravelport which operates Galileo, Worldspan and Apollo GDS’s in Ireland, has just celebrated twelve months of its ground breaking Merchandising Platform investments in Beyond Air to payments, corporate travel and hotel distribution aspects of their Travel Commerce Platform and a new longterm agreement with

Delta Air Lines for the provision of hosting services for two of their airline operating systems. Merchandising Platform has strengthened the group’s air proposition with the signing of new ground-breaking agreements with Ryanair and AirAsia, an extended partnership with easyJet, and 50 airline agreements for Rich Content and

Travelport team: Robbie Smart, Joanne Madden, Sinead Reilly, Tara Hynes, Naomi Byrne, Front: Catherine Brennan and David Conlon.

decision on a revamp of Aer LIngus in house booking system Astral is imminent. While revealing that the current system is not running on its own for some time because is so old, Aer Lingus have never been in a standard client supplier relationship with one of the major GDS’s and “we are glad for that,” Christoph Mueller says. “We want to play a lead role in replacing our current in-house PSS with a more enhanced version currently not on offer from traditional providers. We have worked on very sophisticated business cases.” “The added value we can create from the additional revenue makes the business case for the airlines.” “The cost is not significant. If you see the distributions costs in today's

Branding functionality. Travelport also purchased Hotelzon, a European based provider of corporate hotel booking technology, purchased 49pc of Locomote, an Australian based corporate travel procurement and management platform and purchased a further 16pc of eNett, their own B2B payments company fronted by Brian Staunton, taking their share from 57pc to 73pc in a transaction valuing the company at approximately $450 million. The deal with Ryanair announced in march was a breakthrough in the Irish market where Ryanair has a 37pc market share. Sinéad Reilly “low cost carrier domination was the source of difficulty and this has overcome that difficulty. It is bringing value back in the travel agent ability to add value for the con-

Sinead Reilly of Travelport and Brian Staunton of Enett

sumer.” “This is a hugely important partnership for travel agencies in Ireland, 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 here in Ireland.” “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 Irish travel agency and tour operator customers.”

An all-new Astral A

3 year plan to replace Aer Lingus inhouse PPS

Christoph Mueller

world, you go through the entire value chain the travel agency, via the GDS, and everybody who is involved, I believe the cheapest solution for the customer and the cheapest solution for the airline it's providers on the online base in cutting out those things.

er Lingus has been using middleware from Datalex which enables it to communicate within the PSS inventory and the online booking engine. “It complicated but it serves the purpose very well.” “We will keep on investing in this technology. It is not so simple like to buy a machine like a hi fi for your living room. It needs to communicate with departure control system and the online booking engine. If you consider the landscape of interfaces we have to programme it is not easy to understand by someone who is not familiar with that technol-

ogy.” “We believe it is worth making the necessary investment from the airline side to comply with the new standard the communication between the PPS inventory and the booking system. Mr Mueller says the revamp will be concluded in three years from now. “So far, going into the NDC area, is still a huge potential for improvement from an efficiency point of view for the entire industry. “We are in large parts compliant already with what NDC envisages because our customers want it. We don't see it at the pain we are glad. “The contents we can

offer on the Internet for example legroom, all comes naturally in the booking flow. We know that from modern retail providers like Amazon, we must go that way. “It is a consumer friendly solution, such are the fees due to buy an airline tickets, plus the added value products, from a customer and from a producer's perspective and the lowest as opposed to what have we have today.

e says Aer Lingus intends offering an entirely new product. “We had negotiated with our potential provider that other airlines be supplied.

Travelport travel commerce platform providing distribution, technology, payment and other solutions for the $7 trillion global travel and tourism industry. It has a presence in over 170 countries, employs 3,600 and an additional 1,100 employees at Interglobe and 2013 net revenue of $2.1bn,

Since we have been very successful in the past, and we cooperate with a lot of small airlines, notably a Aer Arann for a regional product, it will prove attractive for small airlines, At one stage 20 airlines worldwide were customers of Aer Lingus for PSS services.” “I believe there are still barriers of entry even though we can we can fight them but it may be very useful for small airlines to team up with us.” “We had customers in all business models in the past, not only legacy carriers, customers in Russia customers in Africa, customers in the charter sector, so we had a variety of clients.” We have that experience. We are proud of that we have and we would like to carry that into the future. We will head into the next decade with this technology.”

Page 028-031 technology 08/08/2014 09:43 Page 2

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 29

Amadeus u3bn R&D

TECHNOLOGY

Unlock your future success today Imagine what you could do with more content, accessed in a more reliable way, that’s easy to use.

Amadeus team in Ireland; Diane Bouzebiba, Olwen McKinney, Volker Lorenz, Trish O’Leary, Stephen Brennan and Siobhan Boskett McGuigan

recent macro-economic study into global travel trends commissioned by Amadeus reported that over the next 5 years, demand for travel is set to continue to outstrip growth in Gross Domestic Product. In addition to this economic optimism, Amadeus envisions the future as being more personalised, more connected and more sustainable. There are now more than 1m apps available through the Apple store with a similar number available to download from the Google store. There’s never been a better equipped generation for being able to customise their technology and gadgets. Amadeus invested u3bn since 2004 in research and development. Last year it committed 15pc of total revenues into funding technology to solve 21st century business issues. Amadeus m-Power enables travellers to stay up-to-date with changing travel plans and it also enables them to research and book travel on the go, extending the customer relationship beyond the traditional pre-trip phase to encompass the entire trip duration. Amadeus e-Power complements traditional travel agency operations by putting all the information at the customer’s fingertipsallowing them choose to book online over the weekend or speak to consultants the next working day. Amadeus Mobile Messenger. enables travel management companies and their corporate customers to easily locate travellers and communicate with them, wherever they are in the word. This is helpful during times of disruption due to

natural disasters or political unrest. Online itinerary management such as Check My Trip and mobile check-in apps mean that paper documentation is increasingly redundant. When you multiply these small gains byms of passengers takingms of journeys, the environmental advantages quickly add up. Amadeus Hotels now boasts enriched content that offers a single display with 690,000 shopping options, meaning agents do not waste time visiting scores of websites and comparing the results with chain hotels in the global distribution system Hotel bedbank, boutique property or hotel chain booking is fully integrated with the Passenger Name Record. This benefits both the travel consultant and the traveller by offering a single record with the latest updates on flights, hotels, rail journeys and car rental all in one place. This expanded content is now available via Amadeus Hotels Plus in the Selling Platform as well as Amadeus eTravel Management for corporations and Web Services for IT developers. Amadeus Light Ticketing has been developed to enhance the booking flow of low cost carriers. Being able to compare the services side by side traditional, network carriers, gives travel consultants the confidence that they are providing their customers with exactly what’s needed to make the best informed decisions. EasyJet was the launch partner for this new technology and other carriers are being added throughout 2014.

Amadeus is delivering new sales opportunities and improved eﬃciency thanks to our new, integrated content. Our enriched Hotels marketplace puts mainstream chains alongside bedbank content. We’ve also made it easier to book low cost carriers such as easyJet so you can compare all the ﬂights on a single screen. Plus we’ve introduced Cruise Shop; a better way to book holidays at sea for cruise specialists and non-specialists alike. Unlock your future success today. Your customers will love you for it. Contact Olwen on 021 879 2504 or Trish on 021 488 6870 or email sales@ie.amadeus.com or visit www.amadeus.com

You can follow us on:

AmadeusITGroup

amadeus.com

Page 028-031 technology 08/08/2014 09:44 Page 3

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 30

TECHNOLOGY

Planes, trains & GDS’s

ravel was always at the cutting edge of technology. Airlines were the first big customers of the early computer networks. Irish innovators were among those who drove the technology. Sabre and Galileo were the ipneers. In 1959 when American Airlines set up the first computer network with remote terminals, eventually to become Sabre, and 1971 when United Airlines launched the system that would eventually form the basis of Galileo. Instant data was now available to the travel trade on a convenient terminal, but did not allow the agents to book tickets on competitor airlines. In Europe, this worked well with legacy flag-carriers. The United States was more complicated. With each airline operating their own database, the system needed to be aggregated and made interactive enough to take and recognise bookings. Due to the high market penetration of the Sabre and Apollo systems, other airline groups started their own systems to gain market share in the increasingly lucrative computer reservation system market. Aer Lingus, interestingly, went it alone with the Astral computer system which was sold on to 20 other airlines at one stage. Galileo and Amadeus both date from 1987: Galileo was formed by nine European carriers, British Airways, KLM , Alitalia, Swissair, Austrian Airlines, Olympic, Sabena, Air Portugal and Aer Lingus. A consortium led by Air France and Lufthansa developed Amadeus. Three years later, in 1990, Delta, Northwest Airlines, and Trans World Airlines formed

Technology panel at the ITAA conference in Granda last November: Fergal Kelly of Travelport, Alexandre Jorre of Amadeus, Dishad Coffoor channel strategy manager of BA, Helena O’Connell of Aer Lingus and John Galligan of John Galligan Travel.

Worldspan and Galileo was merged with United Airlines Apollo system in 1992.

y 1992 four main intermediaries monopolised global distribution systems, Amadeus, Sabre, Galileo and Worldspan. They providing the technology to travel websites to search, price and book flights, hotels, cars, trains and cruises. Within three years airlines ways looking at ways of using the internet to bypass the high GDS charges. Worldspan and Galileo were both integrated into Travelport in 2006, when the four became three. Analysts wonderwed would the next step drive these intermediaries out of the market. It was speculated that airlines, tour operators, hotels and travel websites would somehow be able to combine to deliver their efficiencies to the travel agent, or even more ambitiously, to the consumer. American Airlines and others tried to bypass the GDSs more recently and have the travel websites link directly to the airlines' own reservation systems to save cost. Europe proved a more complex market than

America so the GDSs are more important here. Air France is good at selling its flights directly to customers in France, because it is the best known and most popular brand, but it needs the GDSs to bring in business from Ireland. For Aer Lingus, the reverse is true. Ryanair took their inventory offline altogether in 1996, eventually returning to Travelport in March 2014. Ryanair fares will be on Amadeus by the end of 2014. There are separate Ryanair terms and conidtions. They keep their lowest promotional fares separate from the GDS. Aer Lingus also went offline between 2002 and 2009. While they are on GDS systems outide of Ireland, Irish agents do not have access to their inventory. It is no longer regarded as an option for a low cost point to point airlines to stay aloof from reservation systems, most two sector airline books are too complex for a simple internet engine, especially when issues like transfer times come into play. The “direct is better” argument is seldom heard nowadays and not just because airlines have had

another think. The naysayers underestimated the cacophony of the new internet age. The business of selling and buying a holiday became, if anything, more complicated.

ravel agent and consumer buying one both got more access to information, but the sheer volume of background noise drowned out the ability to make an informed choice. Meanwhile a whole raft of travel websites emerged who found it more convenient if the airlines kept providing reservations via the GDSs rather than deal with them individually, to avoid the expensive process of having to create their own data streams. Further databases emerged feeding these websites. These databases were, in turn, bought up by each other or by traditional GDSs. n Amadeus is used by Air-Savings, Anyfares, CheapOair, CheapTickets, ebookers, Expedia, Flights, Jetabroad, Opodo and Tripsetc. n Travelport is used by BookIt.com, CheapOair, ebookers, Expedia, Flight Centre, Hotels, Hotwire, Orbitz (of

which it owns 48pc), and Trailfinders. n Sabre is used by Lastminute.com, Priceline, Travel Guru, Travelocity (which it owns) and Zuji. Amadeus and Travelport came to dominate the Irish GDS market as Sabre almost opted out altogether, although they have a full time representative in Ireland.

hen IATA introduced their New Distribution Capability last year, it sent a shudder through the GDS sector. But GDSs say that they already have products in the market with capabilities that IATA says its (NDC) will deliver. Cork based Fergal Kelly, vice president of content for Travelport, said that Travelport is already implementing the capabilities that are offered by NDC using readily available technologies and standards. “The technology barrier which IATA claims as the reason for NDC being implemented, simply does not exist,” Kelly said. Amadeus said that it, too, already has capabilities that NDC claims it alone would enable.

Amadeus added that it supports the goals of NDC “both philosophically and with the development of our own platforms, where most of these functionalities are already available.” NDC is an initiative to develop an XML-based language standard for travel agent distribution, for the purpose of selling a wider range of airline products and services through travel agents.

here are more lucrative ways that the airline and GDS industries can combine. More airlines are putting their ancillary products into GDSs, making it easier for agents to book them. Airlines and GDSs are finally filling the "black hole of ancillaries, Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorks said recently. He said that adding a la carte features to travel agency systems has been the "holy grail" of airline distribution. Some ancillaries have profit margins of 100pc. Travelport's Merchandising Platform is now used by 50 airlines and was instrumental in closing breakthrough deals with lowcost airlines Easyjet and, eventually, Ryanair in March 2014. Amadeus Light Ticketing, launched with Easyjet, enabled comparison between low cost and legacy fares. Amadeus currently sells ancillary services such as lounge access and checked bags and sports equipment for 14 airlines, through travel agencies in 45 countries, up from just 28 in 2012. Sabre is currently booking ancillary services for nine airlines, with three more soon to be online and 21 more in the pipeline.

We’re

redefining travel commerce Our travel commerce platform aggregates content from the world’s leading travel providers and delivers it in real-time to travel agencies and corporations in over 170 countries around the world. It’s only through our commitment to collaboration, and the desire to discover the unique business challenges of each of our customers, that we’re able to develop technology and smarter solutions that are redefining our industry.

Discover more at travelport.com

TRP_8039_A4_generic_ire.indd 1

01/08/2014 13:41

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DESTINATION SOUTH AFRICA

h Cleopatra’s with the creamy food, no wonder you have to walk up a mountain this morning,” said our Zulu guide Thandeka Mlaba when we hiked for 2.3km up to see the SAM rock art at an ancient Drakensberg cave. She was right, C l e o p a t r a ’ s (www.cleomountain.com) serves huge and adventurous five and seven course dinners. They don’t just serve it. They perform the dinner like a theatrical show. Even the manager who reads out the menu, Philippa Knight, turns it into a Tony-contender. Not that I was up for it. My stomach has been unwell since the night before the shark cage dive, either the oysters of the vindaloo the night before are now the chief suspect as more than one of the party has come down. I was the heaviest to fall, and spent the night after that dinner depositing the takings in the toilet. Then second night I just skipped dinner altogether. Occasionally abstention is best. The peak of Giant’s castle 10,869 feet (3,313 metres) is located just above our resort, Cleopatra Mountain Farmhouse. Note thee farmhouse, not a lodge (they stress), different from everyone

Drakensberg Diorama

Eoghan Corry finds much to please the palate in Kwazulu Natal

Neighbour Goods springs to life on weekends, a converted car park become a market and music venue

else. They are the last farm left in this region of the uKhahlamba/Drakensberg Park. Richard Poynton serves what might be the best food on the continent here. He has 11 bedrooms, pretty typical size my mountain resort standards but it is his kitchen that makes the difference. Despite the terrible gravel road, he hopes dinner guests will come in to dine and help the small resort pay its way, not easy in such a remote region.

The best food on the continent? Richard Poynton’s amazing menu at Cleopatra’s is conveyed to the guests by Philippa Knight. Right: guide Thandeka Mlaba tells the story of the ancient settlements at Main caves

He grows much of his own vegetables, in a garden that has had to be baboon-proofed. “We live with them, we just don’t like feeding them,” he says of his primate guests. How does he keep them away? “We use 36,000 volts, that usually does the trick. It is not harmful to them, it is DC.” Not PC, DC you understand.

ichard keep chickens and lets them out to play every day. Play with the predators? Naw. While the 36,000 volts keeps the predators away, there are a few problems with birds of prey (everyone loves the taste of chicken, it appears) but they tend to get only the younger chicks, and snakes who love the eggs. Otherwise, it works. Richard and his wife Mouse built a private house near their resort over a stream, on steel girders, with separate two storey units for their elder and younger daughters, something like we should have done for you girls. They have a wine cellar on the waterside, the rocks still in position. It

was a house straight out of a magazine. They didn’t get an architect to do it, they did it themselves and it was loveable for that. There was a cat who rules the house and two dogs, one of whom looked like a wine barrel with legs. There are also two dogs at the Cleopatra Farmhouse. Uju (Zulu for Honey) and Treacle. While I was writing my notes, sitting in bed, they burst through the door, investigated for food and came to my bedside to nose me with familial enthusiasm. I recognised the wish list from my dogs at home – a walk up the mountain. But they came back down mountain and back in to the room with me and led me to my swimming togs. So it was back in the cold water at the dawn of day, a pond choc full of fish and two dogs trying to do synchronised dog-paddling with me.

he drive to the rock art was 45 minutes on the bouncy roads that characterize this province, this country, just to get us into the mood. There was

snow at the top of the Drakensberg mountains as we drove, the first snows of autumn. What amazing views, and what amazing art work. There were two galleries on our art tour, reached by an uphill trek, 2.3km through a narrow path with breath taking mountains above and streams below, a supposedly poisonous snake with black and white markings passed on front

of us at one stage, short (a youngster) and unconcerned before it slid into the undergrowth, and then, we arrive at the rock face. You don’t do THAT at MOMA, Tate Modern or Musee D’Orsay. “The person who was legalised to do the painting was the shaman,” Thandeka Mlaba said. “Hunters, they would put poison on the tip of the arrow. They would get poison from the snake, and leave the snake, the

A helicopter trip to Champagne Castle

Page 032-033 S Africa Karkloof 08/08/2014 09:53 Page 2

NOVEMBER 2013 PAGE 33 animal, alive. They would cut the piece of the meat which had the poison and bury it. In case a bat would get the poison. They respect the nature. If you kill the snake you would destroy the nature.” These paintings won’t be here much longer. Thandeka says that every year the paintings get fainter. We spend our lives trekking around galleries trying to work out what the artist is saying once they throw out the traditional meat-and-two-veg techniques, perspective, foreshortening, modelling, chiaroscuro etc, and here we are in a cave looking at hunter-gatherer art which did the same thing millennia before Braque and Picasso. There is irony that those who laughed at Picasso, were the same guys who came to Africa and sneered at or, worse, defaced the native rock art.

or those who want another perspective, Westline offer Helicopter flips into the Drakensberg Drago Peaks park. The little plateau near Champagne Castle (why still use European names here instead of the Zulu originals?) where the helicopter landed in the evening light was as peaceful and beautiful a spot as I have ever found. It may have also been the quietest. Africa is a shrieking, twittering,

DESTINATION SOUTH AFRICA

View from Cleopatra’s Lodge

hissing, croaking, roaring continent. The silence was somebody elses, it was not ours, and as if we had borrowed it. Here there was no sound at all. Not a bird, not an insect. In the distance you could see the movement of distant birds of prey floating and swooping, But here there was nothing. Imagine a life up here as a goatherd, like St Patrick. The peace, the silence, the sense of isolation.

skipped dinner, it was another five courses and not as nice as the first night, my colleagues told me, and we left the following day on a long drive to the most luxurious spa lodge I have been

in Africa, www.karkloofsafarispa.com. The owner, Fred Worner, says he spent 250m rand building his resort in the wrong province beside the wrong town. He is in KwaZulu Natal beside Pietermaritzburg, not western Cape beside Cape Town or Stellenbosch, or even closer to Durban. He charges 9,000 rand a night and needs occupancy of 1520pc to stop losing money, as he has done every year since he opened in 2008. He is not getting it. The hotel is all inclusive in the extended sense: it includes alcoholic drink and as many treatments as you want. Diner time is whenever the guests want, game

drives are whenever the guests want. Their selection of game drives will never make the Karkloof special. It is a private reserve, so it is never going to really cut it as a safari destination, although lots of western honeymooners do their Western Cape garden and wine route trails and stop at a private reserve and think they have been on safari. This is grassland cut deliberately to look like savannah, a far pretending to be a park. They don’t have elephants because they would wreck the vegetation. They don’t have lions, cheetah or leopard because the fencing would be complicated. They do have a beautiful waterfall you can walk up to and take pictures and a sumptuous valley on the Ngemi river with three valleys and three perennial rivers. It is never going to be the Masai Mara, but they do have two troops or rare Samango monkeys, happy looking hippos (we viewed them, appropriately, in the rain on an early morning game drive), and a fabulous collection of 13 rhinos at a time when it is being wiped out in the wild and being poached at outrageous rates from private reserves.

The female rhino had lost her horn in a rhinoceros scrap. It takes five years to regrow. We wanted to tell her not to regrow it. Our game driver Freedom Kwidini stopped and we got very close to them, their big wide mouth grinning and we heard that vacuum cleaner sound. They also have 300 species of birds on their 3,000 hectare park, more species than the island of Ireland. “That’s a trumpeter hornbill,” said our tour guide Janet “Shiney” Bright. “They sound like babies crying.” She paused. “Or else it is a big cat.” The distinctive call of the Cape Turtle Dove is everywhere to be heard, the source of an endless supply of jokes, starting with the assertion that it , in the morning it cries “work harder, work harder,” in the evening it calls “drink lager, drink lager.” Shiney added the latest punch line: “COSATU, COSATU,” the giant trade union that is always going on strike. We saw nine gnu, in little groups of three positioned like Leonardo da Vinci’s last supper. .”Is that enough to constitute a herd?” asked Shiney.

he spa is great with a salt water pool, and cold and hot plunge pools. They offered a range of about 50 treatments, with choices of skin-scrapes and various body defoliation wraps in oil and vegetables, chocolate and something that smelt like baby milk formula (I think the treatment is called Raffouil). I was unambitious in my choice, the darkened salt ware pool that the menu described like “being back in the womb” did not work for me. As I lay there the salt was stinging my eyes as I lay on my back. I dropped out early, an abortion or a caesarian, I am not sure. I then had a boisterous Thai massage by a girl who spoke very little English and my Thai was not enough to get a conversation going. She pummeled me and dragged me, my tight hamstrings and swollen tendons straining under the pressure. I could only think of the indignity of explaining how I pulled a hamstring with a 19-year-old Thai girl sitting on my back pulling me ankles backwards towards my head at an angle. I then fell asleep. The real world seemed far away.

n Eoghan Corry was a guest of SATB.www.southafrica.net n Cleopatra Mountain Farmhouse PO Box 17, Balgowan, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 3275 www.cleomountain.com +27 33 2677243 n Karkloof (near the capital of Pietermaritzburg) www.karkloofsafarispa.com n Helicopter flip www.westline.co.za/charter-dragon-peaks.php

Clockwise: Photographing at Karkloof game park, mountain view, a friendly rhino, room at Cleopatra’s, and the baboon fence at Cleopatra Lodge garden

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NOVEMBER 2013 PAGE 34

DESTINATION SOUTH AFRICA

ohannesburg city centre has long been regarded as a no-go area, not just for tourists, but even for tourist attractions. The Museum Africa, the first museum to be curated after 1993 was located out of town and it sent out a message to the world. Don’t go downtown. Peculiarly, the apartheid museum wasaso sent to the sububrs, removed both from city and removed from the comunity which had sustained much of the struggle. Planners ignored what should have been an ideal site for the apartheid museum, the old police building in John Foster square where many atrocities of apartheid took place, including the mudrder of Steve Biko. There are some truths that we travel scribblers take as self-evident. One is that downtown Johannesburg is a no-go area for any sensible tourist. It is commonly described as the most dangerous city in the world. People who know nothing else about Johannesburg know of its horrors, murders, muggings, carjackings. The rental car companies used to tell people not to stop at red lights at night in the city centre. Locals still don’t

Jo’burg If you Dare Eoghan Corry celebrates the return of the walking tour of Johannesburg

Neighbour Goods springs to life on weekends, a converted car park become a market and music venue

take a pedestrian crossing green light for granted even in daylight. Johannesburg city cenhas slowly climbed back into the guide books with attractions of its own. The blocks around the law courts and public art that flooded the city is one. There are 450 public art installations, and the Newtown Precint park were festooned with public art. Ranks of pewter heads were scattered on poles through once menacing streetscapes. Here you will find the

Tour guide Tania Ollson and director Jo Buitendach of Past Experiences

founderstatue of heorine troubadour Brenda Fassie, and if you are lucky (as we were) a lady boy prepared to sit on the empty stool beside her statue to sing one of her most famous songs. But Johnnesburg’s reputation meant nobody came to walk these streets. Until now. Last summer I walked downtown Jo’burg with my characterastic gait, camera and laptop on my shoulder. It is astonishing what those of us who stayed away have been missing. Just as every city is about its people, so with Jo’Burg. And many of the most interesting of them are to be found downtown. The diversity of the city manifests itself in the food, the music, and most noticeably in the market places. “I have never been anywhere where in one city block you can hear 10-12 languages,” tour guide Tania Ollson of Past experiences says.

Tour guide? Yes, Johannesburg now has walking tours, albeit walking tours that come with an indemnity form:

If you If you PAST Experiences is not liable for any injury, illness, death or related medical costs, theft suffered by an person or persons, loss of, or damage to any property occurring or arising from any tour undertaken with PAST experiences or arising from the use of the facilities made available. By signing this form you agree to the above statement. Past Experiences (the name is deliberate, founder Jo Buitendach wanted to specialise in archaeology, but followed the market demand) launched the tours in 2012. The arrival of Past Experiences walking tours was heralded as the first sign that Jo’burg is wrestling to win back its reputation. The city also launched open top red bus tours in September 2012. The ubiquitous bus tour you see in every other city in the world causes an element of surprise in the carjack capital. There are other surprises: here you will find the biggest visitor attraction in the country. World of Beer attracts more visitors than Robben Island and is based in the city

centre precincts that once counted as close to the worst of the badlands. The fresh-as-a-rose Rea Vaia system, a bus network that operates with tram like infrastructure only without rails and wires, now carries 60,000 a day through once forbidden streets. Around Newtown in heart of the inner city badlands, the little patch of green that is the biggest public park in the inner city, you can walk

freely again without danger. The slogans on the billboards about hope and change carry a little more meaning with every walking tour.

e have a suburban culture for a reason,” says Tania Ollson. “People had to leave our cities by law. Every city has distinctive neighbourhoods. Uniquely in Jo-

Tourists photograph the statue of Brenda Fassie

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hannesburg was it delieated by race and enforced by law.” A neighbourhood that started as an Indian, Chinese, or Black usually remained thus under the jackboot of the social engineers. A small window of liberality at the beginning of the 20th century allowed some Asian merchants to buy property and open shops near the court house. There was a Chinese club and a few places where blacks were allowed to gather (Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo’s legal offices was one, it has been rescued from destitution and refurbished as a small museum in the past two years. Until 2009 it was a refuge for squatters. The badlands are fitted on to the original orderly grid system, a railway defining its northern border, Prichard, Market, Commisioner and Market Street forming fourparallel arteries towards the skyscraper financial district, Marshalltown. Archive photos show neat rows of parked cars along these streets in the 1940s and 1950s. By the 1970s thestereets looked abandoned and decaying. The city council virtually gave up. The battle to keep the city functioning made Jo’burg one of the more eco-friendly cities in the world. Until recently the metal manhole covers were stolen almost every week. They developed

more environmentally friendly clay versions. Nobody steals them any more.

Bernard Viljoen’s photographer’s studio has some fun with the city reputation

he facepaint of the inner city is informal, the graffiti of the gable walls, although graffiti is not seen as public art it is one of the most popular tours. A piece by Herakut on Commissioner Street is among the most famous. Johannesburg is one of the world’s newest large cities, founded as a mining camp in 1886 and growing to 3.2m people today. All the great influx cities, and Johannesburg may be the most spectacular example, have ethnic neighbourhoods and suburbs. The difference here was that the ethnic boundaries were legally enforced, right up to the 1990s. The inner city suffered most. It was never one of these neighbourhoods and treated with suspicion by the regime.

ania has her theory that Jo’burg’s dreadful reputation may have been engineered and manipulated like as the system which created it. “People were expecting a big bomb to explode in the early nineties. When it did not happen people turned on Jo'burg’s crtime, it became the scapegoat.” “Things were never nearly as bad as people made out, especially those South Africans who left or who travelled abroad. “I have been pick pocketed in Prague. I have never been pick pocketed in Jo'burg. And I walk this city every day.” It has an untidy air. Houses with galvanized roofs still stand down street from the concrete offices. They cannot be demolished, or even the squatters moved on under city regulations. Corner lots lie vacant. Uncollected refuse was strewn across sidewalks (this was Saturday morning, so the debris was worse than normal, our guide told us). Landmarks were discarded to the rubble. The 1937 ESKOM Building was torn down in 1983, while the Beaux Arts Supreme Court building is hidden behind an ugly security fence. Not all was lost Some of the collection of art deco buildings have been restored. The city has

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DESTINATION SOUTH AFRICA

of Arts on Main have become a showpiece of urban renewal) are the best you can do. One photography project initiated here by Bernard Viljoen involving street kids is called “I was shot in Jo’burg.” The market places at Braamfontein are also attracting people from the suburbs, 6,000 streaming every Saturday to the honeypots on the other side of the railway from the city centre. “At least they are coming south of Empire Road,” Tania says.

The Carlton Centre

fourth highest concentration of art deco in the world. The pigeons had gathered in one corner lot leaving pigeon call-cards in a layer along the street.

owadays they charge 15 rand go to the top of Carlton centre, Africa’s tallest building built in a flush of enthusiasm in 1971. The hotel which was part of the Transnet complex closed many years ago. Michael Jackson stayed there amongst other celebrities. But towards the end of its existence, the Carlton became one of the most infamous hotels in the

A world for the wrong reasons: because almost everyone who stayed in the hotel was mugged. That was that. There were no more big hotels in the city centre nor are there plans for any. Although there are hopes that the Carlton will reopen. The Transnet offices are being occupied again after lying empty for many years. The Reef hotel on the corner of Harrison, the Mapungubwe apart hotel and smaller accommodations (such as 12 Decades Art Hotel) around the trendy new arty district of Maboneng (Johannesburg's creative capital, where the trendy galleries

The former no-go Newtown Park, Street art, the courts of justice and World of Beer, South Africa’s most popular urban attraction

multi-storey car park on Juta Street has been turned into a Saturday market called Neighbour Goods (think of the G as a H in Afrikaner manner), where Burgers of all ages and races come to sip beer and chew biltong. The idea originated in Cape Town. When they started a Johannesburg version, they chose the inner city. Other areas are opening up. Yeoville, a melting pot neighbourhood for the whole of Africa, offers food tours. Though, Tania says, I would not recommend people to go there alone. They built this city in a hurry, tore and replaced the original buildings in a hurry, hurriedly allowed the city centre to descend into the abyss. Dragging it back out is not going to be done in a hurry.

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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

Eoghan Corry tries a bungee swing in Durban

Eoghan Corry on a bungee swing in Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium

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.

Eoghan Corry second on the left after the shark

Instead they chum the 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 encounters, 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.

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.

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.

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

DISCOVER CAPE TOWN’S CHARMS With up to two daily flights to Cape Town, it’s easy to find one to suit your customers’ schedules. And thanks to our comfortable Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft, as well as efficient connections from Dublin and Belfast via London Heathrow Terminal 5, they’ll love the journey too. Book now via your GDS.

Information based on summer schedule. Details correct at date of print.

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VIRGIN Atlantic announced a new Belfast to Orlando service for next summer. The service will operate Thursdays in June and July commencing July 25, 2015. AER LINGUS REGIONAL

reported its best month since it was set up four years ago. Last month, the airline carried 130,098 passengers, a 37pc increase compared to last year. Passenger numbers were up by 26pc for the first half of 2014.

LONDON CITY Declan Collier, CEO of London City Airport, highlighted statistics from the London Civil Aviation Authority that said LCY was the most punctual English airport last year: “we have the shortest average delay in the country, at just six minutes compared to an average of nine minutes.”

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

No time for Texas Aer Lingus to add more trans-Atlantic in 2015

ETIHAD launched a daily service be-

tween Abu Dhabi and Rome. CEO James Hogan said the new service was “the next step in a burgeoning relationship with Italy”.

AER LINGUS transatlantic feed from Stobart Air/Aer Lingus Regional has doubled in the first four months of 2014.

ICELANDIC Swords based Air Contractors are wet-leasing an Icelandic B737 freighter.

BRUSSELS Airlines will offer a choice between four travel products from September, check & go, light & relax, flex & fast nd biz & class. EMIRATES announced a fourth daily flight between Dubai and Johannesburg from Oct 26. Emirates is to add Dubai-Budapest daily from Oct 27 with A330-200. The Kiev service will be suspended from August 2.

CYPRUS government is seeking to divest its 93.67pc stake in Cyprus Airways. GUESTLOGIX on-board retail and

payment technology provider to airlines, rail and the passenger travel industry, will base its Global Customer Support Centre in Dublin

ALITALIA has agreed with the trade

unions except CGIL on the conditions for the entry of Etihad.

CAR TRAWLER According to a survey by Car Trawler and Idea Works Company, global airline ancillary revenues grew to $31.5bn for 2013.

BOEING is working on a high-capacity revamp of its 777 model to attract low-cost airlines. Key elements of the B777X design include windows that are 15pc larger than the competition, new interior design that allows airlines to customise cabin architectures by class, lower cabin noise and higher cabin humidity and cabin altitude of 6000 ft (comparable to the 787). SITA launched smartphone check-in technology claiming that wearable tech offers big potential. QANTAS will reduce the size of the lavatories on its 737 fleet.

The United hub of Houston in Texas is still a step too far for Aer Lingus ambitions Air Canada) and 30pc feeding the er Lingus is to schedule an- said. The reality is that an east coast Irish Gateways. other trans-Atlantic east coast route to the Philadelphia/New York The Aer Lingus brand share of pasroute for summer 2015. sengers at Dublin, Cork and Shannon region is more likely. Aer Lingus All the talk was of Texas after the came close to operating what would for H1 was 45pc. The Aer Lingus Aer Lingus results were announced in August with United’s hub in Houston effectively be a short haul service to share of direct transatlantic passengers was 53pc. or American’s hubs in Dallas and Halifax last year. During the results presentation it The airline reported its product imMiami outlined as likely targets. The speculation was fuelled by talk was reported that transfer traffic on provements: re-designed lie-flat Business Class seats/beds, service attuned by Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland Aer Lingus services was up 33pc. It was stated that new routes would to time of day (including quiet night and Kevin Toland of DAA that Texas have to be underpinned by gateway to time services), food, entertainment, was a likely new target. “I will not mention any destina- gateway traffic which have consti- lounge and amenity upgrades, a webtions but we have very concrete plans, tuted about 50pc of Aer Lingus site and app re-launch, the move to there is more good news to come and transatlantic sales up to June, with Heathrow T2 and the extension of that will happen while I am still here,” 20pc fed into North American Gate- pre-clearance to afternoon flights to Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller ways (fuelled by United, JetBlue and the USA

EMIRATES COUNTS DOWN TO DOUBLE DAILY ON SEPT 1

mirates is counbting down to second daily flight from Dublin to Dubai to launch Sept 1. The route will be a B777-300ER with 360 seats in 3-class configuration 8-42-310 . EK164 will depart Dublin at 2220, arrive in Dubai 0855. EK163 will leave Dubai 1600 to reach Dublin at 2050. Anita Thomas and Ireland A new Ireland manager, Enda Corneille, is in

place in advance of the launch and Emirates has recruited new staff for the new double daily. The single daily Dublin-Dubai service was far more successful than they hoped, exceeding expectations much faster than was predicted and we need more seats to satisfy demand. The airline inaugurated a daily flight between the two cities on January 9, 2012 using a three-class, 237-seat Air-

bus A330-200 but reported loads of more than 90pc on many of the services making it one of its most successful route launches ever. A larger Boeing 777300ER was introduced from July 2012 increasing capacity by 52pc with each rotation providing seating for 360 passengers - 310 in Economy, 42 in Business as well as eight First Class Private Suites.

Enda Corneille

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u u

THE FLYING COLUMN Aviation with Gerry O’Hare RYANAIR FLYBE TO LAUNCH LCY ON OCT 27

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 40

announced a Six Nations flight between Shannon and Cardiff for Wales v Ireland, departing 14.30 on Friday March 13 and returning from Cardiff on Sunday March 15 at 18.15. Two flights from Dublin depart at 10.55 and 14.05 on Friday 13 and return from Cardiff on Sunday 15 at 14.20 and 15.35.

DUBLIN With 134 direct return flights a

week to North America, Dublin was ranked 7th in Europe as a hub for transatlantic passengers ahead of Istanbul, Brussels and Gatwick, and behind Heathrow, Paris Charles De Gaulle, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Madrid and Rome.

lybe, Europe’s largest independent regional airline, will deploy one of five Bombardier Inc. (BBD/B) Q400 planes to serve London City from Dublin four times daily. Flybe will also serve

Belfast three times a day starting Oct. 27. The airline says the new services will attract about 500,000 passengers a year, and routes to skiing regions and other vacation destinations in France and Spain will follow.

Flybe plans to tap clients from London’s City and Canary Wharf financial districts by offering services from an airport quicker to reach than Heathrow. Flybe now serves London’s Gatwick, Stansted and Southend airports.

“We are delighted to reenter the London market at London’s most convenient airport following a rigorous profitability analysis utilizing our strict route assessment model,” Flybe Chief Executive Officer Saad Hammad said.

AMERICAN Airlines is to suspend the Dublin to JFK route between October 25 and March 29.

5TH FREEDOM Christoph Mueller

of Aer Lingus expressed his opposition to the opening of Ireland-US operations to non-EU carriers, as proposed in the Minister for Transport’s draft Aviation Policy. He noted that only two non-EU fifth freedom transatlantic operations remain and that they derive from rights given 20 years ago which would not be given today. The proposed Ethiopian Addis-DublinLAX route will be impacted by this.

SHANNON AEROSPACE

Revenue at the Lufthansa-owned Shannon Aerospace Ltd increased in 2013 by 27pc to u71.69m. The numbers employed decreased marginally from 487 to 484.

WTM

insights asked whether airline and hotel operators should be offering in-destination services, such as attraction tickets, on their mobile apps, with the rise of discounted data roaming deals.

DUBLIN AIRPORT National Geographic has opened a store in Terminal 1 of Dublin Airport. The 300 gate area has been transformed into a brighter area for passengers in T1 and a major retail development on the Street will be ready next year. Butlers have been moved down on the opposite side of the street opposite WH Smith.

BRITISH Airways extended its hand

baggage only fares to include all short-haul flights from Gatwick, Heathrow and London City airports.

EMIRATES will host cabin crew recruitment drives in three locations this month. The events will take place at Harbour Hotel, New Dock Road in Galway City on August 23; Clarion Hotel, Lapps Quay, Cork City, August 28; Hilton Dublin, Charlemont Place, Dublin 2 August 30. ENGLAND

Passenger numbers on international routes from English airports were up 4.5pc in the period January to June 2014, with Ireland the sixth more important pairing up with 4.95m passengers (+8.9pc), behind Spain (11m), US (8.3m), Germany (5.9m), Italy (5.4m) and France (5.05m).

EASYJET estimates that it will serve

30,000 passengers during the first 12 months of its new Belfast-Reykjavik service.

Beatrice Cosgrove on board the Etihad A330

Etihad’s 3-class

Mix of planes as Abu Dhabi carrier goes double daily

tihad’s Ireland country manager Beatrice Cosgrove urged the irish trade to take advantage of selling options on Etihad’s evening aircraft, the three class Airbus 330 (8-32-191. She says first class is popular on the onward legs on Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi to Australia and other popular destinations. The evening flight from Dublin to Abu Dhabi now offers a rare first class offering out of Ireland.

The morning (09.20) flight uses a 380-seat B777-300 arriving at 19.40 in Abu Dhabi, and the evening (20.55) flight uses a 262-seat A330200, arriving in Abu Dhabi at 07.20 the following morning. Return flights are at 02.25 and 09.15. The double daily schedule opens up 800 weekly connections to 45 Etihad Airways destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and India including Bangkok, Beijing, Brisbane, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila,

BA MIXES CRAFT ON NEW DUB-LCY ROUTE

ritish Airways is to launch its five-a-day service from Dublin to London City Airport on October 26 using a mix of Embraer 170 and 190 jets. "Our customers wanted direct access to the Docklands and Lon-

don's financial centre and the excellent schedule we are offering means they have plenty of choice whether they are flying for business or pleasure," commented Willie Walsh, chief executive of BA owner International Airlines Group. "The addition of this new route complements

our existing eight times daily Dublin to London Heathrow service and develop business and tourism links between Dublin and London," he added. British Airways resumed flying on the Dublin to London Heathrow route in the summer of 2012.

Melbourne, Perth, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Dublin born VP Guest Services of Etihad, Aubrey Teidt said the big positive of Etihad business class is dine on demand; “you tell us when you want to eat not us telling you, like on many airlines.” She talked about improvements to the Etihad lounge experience around the world. Etihad’s u1m state of the art lounge in Dublin airport’s T2 serves up 60 meals a day to Etihad customers.

Keith Chuter BA Ireland manager

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SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 41

FLYBE HEADING EAST WITH NEW ROUTE FROM DUBLIN TO LONDON CITY Plus two more brand new routes just added - to Inverness and Southend

lybe, Europe’s largest independent regional airline, has great plans for Dublin! It has recently added three new routes, the first of which will boost connectivity between two of Europe’s most important capital cities with the start a brand new service from Dublin to London City Airport starting on 27th October 2014. Seats are on sale now at www.flybe.com or via your GDS systems, with one way fares from €60 including taxes and charges

Quicker and efficient access into London – and onward connections with Flybe

Flybe’s new Dublin to London City route will provide direct links for customers direct into the heart of London’s financial district. There are four conveniently timed services a day, that include business - friendly flights arriving in London before 09:00 for those who diaries are particularly time-critical. The route is also expected to be popular with leisure passengers travelling to and from the Republic of Ireland and the UK capital with several

options available for comfortable day returns.

Plane to train times

Flybe’s new flight to London City is especially convenient, being significantly faster overall than travelling via any other of the larger London airports. London City airport is conveniently located in the heart of the financial capital with connections offered every ten minutes by Docklands Light Railway, a couple of minutes’ covered walk away. On arrival at London City, it takes just 15 minutes from the aircraft wheels touching down on the tarmac to boarding a train. With Canary Wharf right on its doorstep, and excellent onward travel options, Westminster is only 25 minutes away, and Waterloo 23 minutes – and on returning to the airport, it only takes only 20-minutes to pass through from check-in to departure gate.

Booking with Flybe is easy and convenient Booking flights to London City has never been easier with Flybe through local

travel agents. And there’s no charge for customers paying by debit card. You might also want to check out the great hotel offers through the Flybe website’s Booking.com link where there is a huge selection of hotels at great prices.

Flybe’s 60:60 on time guarantee

Flybe is aiming to become Europe’s most punctual airline. So it recently launched a world-first 60:60 Guarantee that promises passengers if a flight arrives more than 60 minutes late at stand due to a delay within Flybe’s control, they qualify for a €60 voucher towards their next flight if booked within 60 days. You can’t get better than that!

Refuel on board!

We asked our passengers what sort of refreshments they’d like on-board. The result? A brand new ‘Refuel’ menu, that offers a higher quality choice of good value breakfast, lunch, snacks and beverages with healthier options and produce from much-loved foodie brands, all of which reflect the energy

and vibrancy of Flybe’s ongoing brand refresh.

Creating a ‘deli in the sky’ feel, with a hand-picked selection of grazing-inspired options, we hope they’ll enjoy our revitalised menu offered with stand-out service and product delivery.

But that’s not all…

Flybe recently announced daily services from Dublin to Inverness and London Southend. These new routes can also be booked now online at www.flybe.com or via your GDS systems with one way fares from €42 (including taxes and charges). Flights start on Sunday 26th October, 2014.

Book seats today!

With these three brand new routes joining its long established services to Exeter and Southampton, Flybe is not only cementing its position as Europe’s largest regional airline, but is also upholding its customer promise to be ‘The Fastest Way from A to Flybe’. For further information visit flybe.com.

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IAA reported a 4.4pc increase in the volume

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

of North Atlantic Communications flights between Europe and North America. Total flights in Irish airspace in June increased by 7.6pc compared to the same month last year, including a 10.7pc increase in Ireland’s en route traffic. There was an average of 1,759 daily flights last month. The busiest day was June 24 (1,955 flights in Irish airspace). International arrivals and departures were up 3.6pc in Dublin, down 8.7pc in Cork and up 24pc in Shannon.

AER LINGUS announced the ap-

pointments of Bernard Bot as its CFO and Federico Balzola as CPCO. Current CFO and executive director, Andre Macfarlane, will step down on September 1.

SHANNON airport reported a 15pc increase in terminal passenger numbers for the first half of the year.

BRITISH Airways said that all Ireland

Group Sales are to be transferred to the airline’s Group Sales office in Manchester. New contact details will be in place from this date. Details of the groups’ terms and conditions can be found on batraveltrade.com. For all new and existing bookings, Irish travel agents can call: +3531-5319039 Mon to Friday 08.30—17.00.

CORK Airport has updated its app by adding live bus and coach departure times.

SMBC Dublin-based SMBC announced a record order by a leasing company for singleaisle aircraft at Farnborough air show, 110 A320neo and five A320ceo.

BRITISH AIRWAYS' Hand Baggage Only fare was extended to all economy fares types on European flights to/from Heathrow, City and Gatwick. LUFTHANSA ’s profit fell due to strikes and excess capacity.

VIRGIN Atlantic announced that it intends to go public, but the number of shares and price range has yet to be disclosed. IAG

which owns BA, Iberia and Vueling,

reported a half-year operating profit of u23m, compared with a loss of u33m in the same period last year. Willie Walsh said capacity will be trimmed 3pc for winter.

AIRBUS launched two upgraded models of the A330-200, the A330-800neo and A330900neo. Delivery is expected by end of 2017.

NCA took 115 enforcement actions against businesses last year, including Aer Lingus and Ryanair for failing to provide an email contact address for consumers on their website. BRITISH AIRWAYS cancelled 12 round-trip flights from Heathrow to Tokyo Narita from its January 2015 schedule.

RYANAIR is looking to fill IT roles at its digital hub in Swords. Chairman of the Westminster Intelligence and Security Committee Malcolm Rifkind said tightening airport security is unavoidable because of “devilish technical skill” adopted by militants to create increasingly sophisticated devices.

Michael O’Leary at the launch if the Ryanair app

It pays to be nice

Ryanair’s profits boosted by new strategy

he launch of Ryanair’s new business product in September as a potential game changer for the airline, according to airline CEO Michael O’Leary. For an extra u40 business passengers will be given baggage allowances and more flexible terms. Rome, Madrid, Bergamo and Barcelona will be increasing to twice daily, Birmingham and Manchester to four times daily. The business product launch is the latest in Ryanair’s Ryanair’s Summer 2015 schedule is to be released in mid Sept, earlier than usual. The results announced in July indicated: n Load factor up from 82pc to 86pc n Ryanair is predicting fares will rise 6pc in H1, but will fall 6-8pc in H2. n Full year guidance raised to u650m from u620m. n Profit up from u78m to u197m, mainly due to Easter falling in Q1 this year

The return to travel agents and the new friendlier image of the airline has boosted Ryanair's forward bookings by 7pc. The troublesome seven-day checkin threshold remains, but O’Leary pointed out that the new mobile app means holiday makers who don’t want to pay for allocated seating don’t have to get to a desktop connected to a printer while away on holidays. The average fare in 2013 was u46 compared to the European average of u160. “That difference helped the people who travel with Ryanair save u9bn last year and u10bn this year. The airline now has have 1600 routes, flying to 186 airports, 69 bases in 30 countries and 84.6m customers. The fleet currently consists of 300 737s with 180 new aircraft that will allow the airline to grow 40pc in the next five years. Ryanair reported that forward bookings were up 7pc as a result of their “always getting better” campaign, which comes with five dimensions:: n Fix the things that customers don’t

like n Develop the Ryanair offer, n Improve our brand and marketing, n Improve the travel experience n Improve the digital experience They launched a new version of the website in November, and reported 2.5m unique customers had signed up for My Ryanair since December, Other innovations included quieter flights, eased restrictions on the second carry on bag, fees cuts (particularly in relation to re printed boarding pass), and allocated seats. The winter schedule was launched early and they launched Ryanair family extra, introducing family-friendly features, most of which were already available from other airlines. They started to take group bookings, started corporate sales, teamed up with Google flight search, put their inventory on Travelport and will announce a second GDS partner, Amadeus, later in the year. They are also carrying on major rebranding at al their big bases with a second branding campaign to come in September.

LINGUS OPENS HEATHROW LOUNGE

he Aer Lingus Gold Circle lounge at Heathrow T2 opened The lounge is situated at a prime location beside the Blumenthal restaurant with daylight views of the apron.

It starts a seaon of business class product improvements for Aer LIngus which will include completely re-designed lie-flat Business Class seats/beds This summer Aer Lingus is offering revenue passengers on its transatlantic

routes the chance to bid for an upgrade to business class. Once you’ve booked a transatlantic flight, you will be invited to make a bid to ‘upgrade yourself’ by paying a sum in addition to the cost of your original ticket. Bids start at u300

and go up to u900. Aer Lingus reported in August that business class load factor for the first half of the year was up about 6 points to 69.9pc. The right-sized business cabin in Shannon drove the business class load factor there up 13.5pc.

Page 038-043 Flying 07/08/2014 21:40 Page 4

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 43

THE FLYING COLUMN

Catch-up app

Ryanair plans passbook compatiability in next phase

t was presented as a breakthrough in the Ryanair’s Getting Better story, but Ryanair’s mobile telephone app, launched last month at the company’s new headquarters in Swords, was just a catch-up. Ryanair’s marketing manager defended the delay, citing what he called “second mover advantage” which “allows you to spend less money.” “Three years ago this was a very different space.” The new app allows Ryanair customers to receive the boarding pass direct to the phone for the first time. For some time now gate staff had been accepting a scanned pdf on a smartphone, but the app brings Ryanair up to speed with almost every other European airline in delivering a boarding pass to the phone. That is as far as it goes for now. The airline still include Passbook compatibility in their next app release in the autumn, along with push notifications and more languages. They plan to have apps in all of languages in the 30 markets they operate by end October. At present 18 of the 187 airports to which Ryanair fly will not accept the

has issued permits to 22 operators to use drones or remotely piloted aircraft systems to be used mainly for aerial survey, filming and photography. Aviation regulations governing drones in Ireland mean that operators are restricted to flying no higher than 150m and no further than 500m from the control station.

RYANAIR reported a 5pc increase in

passenger numbers for June; its load factor increased by four points to 88pc. From October, Ryanair will be flying out of Hamburg and scrapping its service from Lübeck, which is 70km from the city, with services to Lisbon (daily) and Porto (3 per week). It is also adding Berlin-Porto (4 pw). Hamburg already has services by easyJet and WizzAir.

ARAN ISLANDS Public Service

Kenny Jacobs launches the new Ryanair app smartphone boarding pass. Passen- device is the fifth most useful thing gers will be notified of this as soon as that they do on it.” they try to check in. If you fly with us on a regular basis Kenny Jacobs described the way we should be on the real estate on consumers use their Smartphone as your home device, beside your bank less a phone than a digital Swiss army and the calendar. That removes the knife. need to go to Google, Yahoo Bing or “Other than the wets coast of the any other search engine. USA Europe has the most connected “It will also give us a lot more data internet population that there is.” on our customers, their search behav“It is currently 60ps and that will iour and try to integrate with the be 90pc by 2016. We spend an aver- transactional behaviour that we have. age 12 minutes a day talking on the What we will do with integrate this phone and two hours looking at con- into the digital experience that custent.” tomers get on the Ryanair website., to “Europeans now say talking on the serve them a better experience.”

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MICHAEL O’LEARY AER LINGUS: It’s more about working with 7-DAY CHECK IN: People think that this the government to help them achieve what they want, rather than us being desperate to buy another bankrupt airline.

BUSINESS ROUTES The new business routes in September will be a game changer. Why would you travel on a turboprop with Aer Lingus when we have daily services to these cities. BEING NICE IKEA, Aldi, Lidl have shown how to be softer in communications. We went too far down the road of the Millwall strategy.

LOYALTY We prefer to work on genuine loyalty

rather than loyalty programmes. There is a lot more low hanging fruit to go for before we go for loyalty. When we do, our loyalty programme wil be individualised to each user. It will be a new kind of loyalty programme, not the type that rewards people for whatever zillion miles they use.

RUSSIA

DRONES The Irish Aviation Authority

The visa issue for cabin crew has been resolved, and both Vnukovo (Moscow) and St Petersburg are still on the agenda. Moscow will not make money in the winter, there is a chance St Petersburg will make money in the winter. The route does not make sense without support from Tourism Ireland. What are they at? They have an office in Moscow and no route.

was introduced to make money. It was not. We start selling allocated three weeks in advance and if we allowed everyone to check-in online more than seven days in advance all the best seats would be gone and it would not make sense to ask them to pay for allocated seats. Now the seven day check in and the mobile app mean that people don't have to find a desktop computer and a printer when they are away on holiday.

PROFITS We had a very strong Q1 and we're headed for a strong H1. This being nice to people is working a treat.

BUDAPEST was a good idea. We went in after Malev went bust. Within a month we were set up and we delivered 2m passengers a year. The problem was we didn't do a deal. A year later we went back to Budapest airport and said we wanted a deal, they said no we have Wizz. So we took out 1m passengers and now we are in talks again.

AIRBUS We are considering going to Airbus and looking to the A320 to compete with 200-seat Max for the next Ryanair order.

STANSTED is a 10 year deal with a low cost base. The cost base compensates for the high APD in Britain. The savings compensate for the extra cost of Britain’s crazy taxation system.

Obligation contract for the provision of air services to the Aran Islands held by with Aer Arann Islands has been extended by a year to September 30 2015 according to retiring Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Dinny McGinley.

QUICKPARK and Irish Greyhound

Board are offering free admission with every Quickpark receipt presented at participating greyhound tracks for any night of racing until August 31. Participating venues are: Shelbourne Park, Harold’s Cross, Waterford, Cork, Tralee, Limerick, Galway, Mullingar and Newbridge.

AIR NEW ZEALAND became the first airline to fly the “stretch” version of Boeing’s Dreamliner, the 787-9. IATA

urged airlines to embrace auto check-in en masse.

LUFTHANSA will continue its Munich-Dublin service in winter 2014/15.

SPAIN is to freeze airport tariffs until 2025 in a bid to boost traffic.

SHANNON Outgoing transport minister Leo Varadkar said Shannon has proved it can “stand alone”. ALITALIA were named joint official global airline carriers for Expo Milano 2015, which takes place May 1 to October 31, 2015. ETIHAD is offering a complimentary 2night luxury stay in Abu Dhabi to business class passengers. Customers must book by September 15 and fly before September 30.

OMEGA Ulick McEvaddy‘s Omega Aerial Refueling Services is to offer tanking services to the European Defence Agency.

VIRGIN plans to provide passengers with stand-up comedy, with comics to perform live mid-flight. IAA launched a new application, Asset, a cloud-based application for AIM.

WIZZ Air denied that it is in talks with potential buyers. FLYBE launched its new on-board menu, Refuel.

Page 044-045 Afloat 08/08/2014 10:00 Page 1

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 44

AFLOAT

CELEBRITY Cruises launched Up,

Up and Away, a range of offers including a booking incentive for agents along with a raft of customer offers to entice holiday bookings this August and September. Agents will also receive a u20 Love2Shop voucher for all Celebrity Cruises automated bookings made during August Offers for clients such as free ocean view to balcony upgrades, reduced flights from just u199 per person. Celebrity Cruises launched a new portfolio of materials to aid agents, Xtra trade pack for independent partners and consortia, allowing them to produce individually branded website banners and posters/ Agents can request the Celebrity Xtra toolkit via cruisingpower.ie.

MSC Cruises partnersed with the baby brand Chicco to make a range of Chicco’s market-leading products – such as strollers, bottle warmers and baby backpacks – available to families during their voyages.

PRINCESS Cruises has ordered a third Royal-class cruise ship from the Fincantieri shipyard for delivery in 2017. The 143,000-ton ship will carry 3,560 passengers.

ROYAL Caribbean European holidays are offering summer holidays with 600 free flights on select European holidays: a seven-night Western Mediterranean fly-cruise on Liberty of the Seas, u1,469 per person (based on two people sharing a balcony stateroom). STENA A poll by Stena Line found that

Mrs Brown is the preferred sat nav voice for holidaymakers. The foul-mouthed Mrs Brown beat off Stephen Fry and Morgan Freeman

NORWEGIAN Cruise Line upgraded on-board dining with culinary favourites, new menus and more variety. Norwegian Cruise Line and Sixthman promoted autumn and spring line-ups for festivals at sea.

CELEBRITY Eclipse, still a favourite

with Irish guests, will emerge from dry dock in May 2015 following its refurb. The ship is being fitted with the Gastrobar premium craft beer and comfort food venue and Slush poolside refreshments and stylish frozen drinks bar. This refurbishment will coincide with the launch of Celebrity Cruises’ new Suite Class.

FRED OLSEN's Boudicca passen-

gers have taken to Facebook to complain about the £10 cover charge at the new Grill, worried that Fred Olsen will follow the example of other cruise lines by adding extra costs.

HURTIGRUTEN

is offering two trips to an Arctic wilderness lodge by husky or snowmobile which can be added to voyages starting or ending in Kirkenes between January 5 and April 5, 2015.

NORWEGIAN

has banned smoking on ship balconie from November 1.

LOUIS Cruises has unveiled plans for a

new brand called Celestyal Cruises that will use two of its existing ships.

ROYAL Caribbean is adding a $10 surcharge for DreamWorks character breakfasts.

MSC Cruises signed a contract with Italian shipyard Fincantieri confirming the construction of two new cruise ships, with an option for one more vessel.

MSC goes mega

Seaside Project will be wider rather than longer

SC cruises intend to treble their cruise business out of Ireland by 2017. The 2015 summer and 2015-16 winter cruises went on sale at the beginning of summer. This is the first time ever that MSC has had prices available so far ahead. Early booking offers include up to u240pp off the brochure rate for those booking before September 30, complimentary ‘Experience’ upgrade from ‘Bella’ to ‘Fantastica, upgrade to balcony from only u240pp and a promise that these prices and offers will not be available again. Four mega ships will be delivered between 2017 and 2019. The two new ships, known as Seaside Project, to be built by STX France will be wider rather than longer, so they can call into any ports in the world (MSC says without exception). The ships will be designed with outdoor promenades and restaurants, a two deck level waterpark, front

façade duplex cabins, two deck level inside promenade and panoramic sea view lifts, They will be included as warm weather ships and so are likely to be placed in the Caribbean. MSC is lengthening some of their ships. The MSC “Renaissance” shipelongation programme commences with MSC Armonia next month and will be followed by Lirica, Sinfonia and Opera, adding 24 metres and 611 passengers on each ship. Rebecca Kelly, says “with that class of ship is not MSC as we know in Ireland. This class of ship was not us at all. They know us from the Fantastica, Divina and Splendida and even the Musica and Magnifica. These are smaller ships. MSC now have a wider choice, we have ships that hold 4,000, ships that hold 3,000 and now the small ships, but brand new, that can hold 2,000. Now I am proud of them and they will be doing really nice itineraries. With the price you are getting for that

it is practically a brand new ship. “We are going to increase prices but we are not going to price ourselves out of the market.” “We will have four ships in the western Med and four ships in the eastern Med, at about u899 for fly cruise. Splendida will come in to Ireland three times next year.” “The focus will be on the Mediterranean not on the Caribbean. We have pulled Divina out of the Caribbean from the summer.” “Last year we had allocations on Barcelona. The cruises went on sale in November and in January they were all sold out.” “What we are trying to do this year is move away from the different embarkation points because there were problems with guaranteed cabins.” MSC will base four ships in both Eastern and western Med in summer 2015 and two ships in the Baltic bringing Yacht Club to Northern Europe for the first time.

NORWEGIAN’S 2x4,200PAX ORDER

orwegian Cruise Line announced that together with Meyer Werft it will build two new Breakaway-Plus class cruise ships for delivery in spring 2018 and autumn of 2019. Each ship, weighing in at 164,600 gross tonnes, will include 4,200 passenger berths. Each ship will cost about u1.6bn.

It continues a period of rapid growth for the cruise line. Norwegian’s latest ship, Getaway, started cruising from Miami in February, following in the wake of last year's debutante, the New York-based Breakaway . Slightly larger versions, in the shape of Norwegian Escape and Norwegian

Bliss are being built and will be entering service in autumn 2015 and spring 2017. "Norwegian Breakaway and Norwegian Getaway have proven themselves as industry game-changers and are extremely popular with our guests," said Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian Cruise Line's chief executive officer.

"It was only natural that we build on their success with this new ship order that further solidifies our long-term growth strategy." Bernard Meyer, managing partner of the shipyard, added: "We are thrilled that Norwegian Cruise Line has the continued confidence in MEYER WERFT to expand their fleet. We are very proud ."

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SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 45

AFLOAT

Northern delights

Charter flight from Dublin among Hurtigruten highlights for 2015

D O ferry +hotel frfrom

together

€75papn*

Maxine Dunsdon and Daniel Giles of Hurtigruten

urtigruten ;launched their winter and 2015 programme at an event in Dun Laoghaire. The Nordnorge will be returning to the Svalbard/Spitzbergen run for the summer in 2015. Hurtigruten have a new Dublin charter direct to Tromsø on Feb 16 for a 5 day Arctic Highlights

tour from u1,237pp. News for winter 201415 includes a new transfer option at Kirkenes airport to the Snow Hotel, clients can now transfer by dog sleigh and a new 8 day Arctic Explorer itinerary and join a new whale watching excursion. The 2015 Norwegian voyages programme has

added a new experience of sleeping out on deck on all coastal ships under the midnight sun. Voyage of the Vikings will depart in September 2015 with dedicated lectures. The Explorer voyages programme will feature kayaking, fishing with the officers, sleeping out on deck and overnight camping.

oyal Caribbean’s entertainment offering wil include what the cruise line claims is a ground breaking trapeze act, Two70° ipairs technology with dancers, singers, aerialists and musicians. Quantum of the Seas and sister-ship Anthem of the Seas(debuting in Southampton, in April 2015, will introduce: n Ripcord by iFLY, a

heart-pounding skydiving experience; n North Star, a thrilling adventure that transports guests more than 300 feet in the air n SeaPlex, the largest indoor sports and entertainment complex at sea with bumper cars and roller skating; n The cruise line’s largest and most advanced staterooms ever. n Dynamic Dining, a foodscape of 18 restau-

rant concepts to replicate dining in a cosmopolitan city, some with celebrity partner-chefs. The Quantum Class spans 18 decks carries 4,180 guests at double occupancy and features 2,090 staterooms. Quantum of the Seas will sail out of New York Cape Liberty for her inaugural season before homeporting in Shanghai.

QUANTUM OF THE SEAS UNVEILS TWO70 ACT

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Page 046 Hull by Siofra Tobin 07/08/2014 21:43 Page 1

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 46

DESTINATION ENGLAND

hey don’t use the slogan "It's never dull in Hull!" anymore. It might be a bit cheesy for modern taste. But they could. Many Irish people know their Yorkshire, Jarvik, Leeds, Whitby, the Brontes, Herriot, Last of the Summer Wine and brass bands. Few know anything about Hull.. The city was not an obvious must-visit on a trip to Yorkshire. Everything changed with the opening of the opening of the Deep, the city's £45.5m millennium project and the deepest aquarium in Europe. The tourist board offers "city trails from fish to ale" as one of its city's high points. Locals say the fish and chips are the best on offer in a country which made the dish famous. Chip shops in the city centre serve their chips covered in spice.

f you fancy a beer, why not take the Ale Trail self guided tour? This way you can get a taster for their delicious underpriced ale, whilst getting an insight into a real British pub. I particularly liked ‘Ye Olde Black Boy’ for a pint of ale, and the ‘Lion and Key’ for some traditional English pub grub. Their fish and chips are a clear winner in my books. They were also voted Hull & East Yorkshire pub of the Year in 2011.

To Hull and back

Siofra Tobin Larkin visits Yorkshire’s secret attraction The sound of the hooves is easily evoked by Hull’s streetscape

The Olde White Hart (yeoldewhiteharte.com) is the most famous, the plotting parlour, where the city's leaders decided not to open the gates to the King Charles and so casing England’s civil war in the 1640s. You can look at the bones and skulls found in the walls and peek at mysterious, darkened back rooms over the years.’For re-

tail’therapy take in the new shopping centre, St Stephen's and the bustle of Ferensway. Philip Larkin, the poet who spend some time in Belfast, has had a trail (thelarkintrail.co.uk), named in his honour taking in 25 locations, marked by wall plaques. Most of the city’s landmarks get a mention in a Larkin poem, he de-

scribed the Mercure Hull Royal Hotel as a place where "silence laid like carpet" in his Friday Night at the Royal Station Hotel.

ull has eight museums in total, all of which are free entry. The Streetlife Mu-

seum of Transport was in fact one of my favourites, and probably the most popular. There displays a collection of old cars, trams and shops. It’s like taking a step back in time and strolling through a 1940’s British high street. Up the road, the unimaginatively titled

Hull and East Riding Museum (26 High Street) covers the area's archaeology and geology, a mammoth guarding the doorway. Second best of the museums is the Maritime Museum In Queen Victoria Square with its intricately carved whalebones and wicked looking harpoons. The history of the trawler was centred on this port. The darkened glass windows mean that from inside it always looks like it is stormy outside. Another reason to stay longer. The fish trail is an oddity. Follow the silver fish sculptures embedded in the Tarmac and cobbles through the city centre. The marina has pleasure crafts and the beautifully regenerated old Fruit Market.

trip to Beverley is well worth the twenty minute

drive. Beverley, a historic town, amongst cobbled streets and courtyards, is brimming with good restaurants and has an array of upmarket shops worth browsing. The Saturday Market has a friendly and energetic vibe, from selling scrumptious foods, household goods to modern clothing. A Saturday morning well spent.

See the guide to Hull's museums hullcc.gov.uk. Siofra Tobin Larkin travelled to Hull as a guest of Yorkshire and Visit England.

The marina, the Deep at sundown, the cathedral and the nearby coastal life experience is always nearby

Page 047 WW1 London by ida 08/08/2014 16:31 Page 1

way from the battlefields, England has really interesting offerings for the WWI-obsessed traveller. Oh yes, dear reader, there is a lot more than just I in this weird and wonderful group. We study battle plans, explore sites for rusty shell fragments, follow the movement of evacuees, delve into the marvelous inventions of makeshift war medicine, and keep our interest whetted with the war that historians describe as the ‘gift that keeps on giving.’ Local history societies, schools and other groups up and down the island are organizing war site trips to tie in with key commemorations between 2014-18. Gallipoli, Messines, Ypres, the Somme, are all in train, but there are several sites in the UK that are more easily accessible, particularly to the individual traveller.

he Imperial War Museum in Lambeth has been

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 47 closed for over a year to prepare the new WWI galleries, which focus on the story of Britain’s war, rather than trying to tell the complete story. The story is layered by using different media. Digital images of war posters in the exhibition include Irish recruitment posters, which reveal something of the massive involvement here, as many towns had recruiting stations. Conscription became a contentious issue in Ireland towards the end of the war, as the British army ran out of man power for their war machine.

One of the most interesting features of the new exhibition is that it uses quotations from soldiers’ letters and memoirs to bring home the human story of the war, the horrors, the loneliness, the food, the bravery. For Irish visitors, there is little mention of the Irish regiments, which may disappoint some, but there are sections on the

4LEST WE FORGET

n The British Library exhibition, ‘Enduring War. Grief, Grit and Humour, runs until 12 October. It’s a small but well worth seeing exhibition of personal objects to do with the war. n A hankerchief with the lyrics of “A long way to Tipperary”, a knitting pattern for balaclavas, which reminded me of the thousand articles Wexford knitters sent out to their soldiers in 1914. The exhibition is themed around humour, comradeship, family and faith. n Enduring War is on the display in The Folio Society Gallery at the British Library and was supported by Europeana 1914-1918. Seehttp://www.bl.uk n Exhibition opening hours Monday – Thursday 9.30 – 20.00, Friday 9.30 – 18.00, Saturday 9.30 – 17.00, Sunday and Bank Holidays 11.00 – 17.00

DESTINATION ENGLAND

Cannon’s Echo Ida Milne visits London’s was galleries

The Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

1916 rebellion and on the war of independence and civil war. There is also a rare banner of Na Fianna, Constance Markievicz’s equivalent of the Boy Scouts; the banner was donated by Queen Elizabeth. Many of the visitors liked the Victoria Cross exhibition, which focuses on the individual acts of

THE Z HOTEL

n The Z Hotel group were hosting the international journalist teams for the event. The Irish and the Indian groups stayed at the Z Soho, which is a really central location just off charing Cross Road and a few minutes’ walk from the New London Theatre. n The Z hotel concept is to give good value in limited space – in the case of the Z Soho, the rooms were tiny but zenlike. The television was literally on the wall at the end of the bed, from which one could touch the clear glass bathroom wall; the suitcase was stowed in under the bed, and the hanging space was just a hook, but it all worked. The hotel is built from a merging of old townhouses around a central courtyard . It has one small café bar, which offers free wine and truly fabulous cheese to its guests every evening from 5pm n http://www.thezhotels.com

n Ida Milne travelled to London courtesy of Aer Lingus, as a guest of VisitEngland. There are numerous events being staged all over England for the centenaries. For further information see VisitEngland.com and VisitEngland.org. n Aer Lingus fly eight times daily to London Heathrow from Dublin and also form Cork, Shannon and Belfast.. Best fares on www.aerlingus.com

bravery. There should be strong Irish interest in this section – Clongowes Wood College, for example, has had four past pupils be awarded VCs, one, to Athy man John Vincent Holland, for his contribution to WWI, with the Leinster Regiment.

he Imperial War Museum at Lambeth is open daily from 10am-6pm. Admission is free, and there is an excellent coffee shop. The museum is a short walk from the tube station, and is well served by buses – many London buses now have air conditioning and are a more comfortable form of travel than the Tube during hot weather. No trip to London is re-

ally complete without a show. For the war buff, War Horse is a fantastic offering. Based on a novel by Michael Morpugo, the story follows the lives of a teenager and his horse, acquired in a crazy bidding war between his father and his uncle at a horse sale.

he horse skeleton puppets, each manipulated by three humans, become extraordinarily real as the story progresses, so much so that when a horse dies you suddenly realize it is not actually an animal. Tickets for the show at the New London Theatre start from a very reasonable 15 pounds. The night we went, there were loads of teenagers in the audi-

HMS Belfast and Tower Bridge

ence, which gave a great atmosphere. The show is suitable for children over ten. Shows are on Monday, Wednesday - Saturday 7.30pm; Tuesday 7.00pm, Thursday & Saturday 2.30pm. London and the south east has lots more to offer to the war buff – the Indian journalists headed to Brighton after London to visit the Pavilions, which housed Indian soldiers during the war – it was thought that the soldiers would feel more at home in the exotic pavilions than in regular quarters. Several of the country houses were turned into war hospitals, including Highclere, the site of the Downton Abbey series. Many of them have exhibitions that are worth checking out.

Page 048 Destination Ireland 08/08/2014 16:42 Page 1

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 48

DESTINATION IRELAND

ootstepping the childhood landscape where Arthur Guinness grew up sounds like a sobering experience. The new trail that has been opened ion North Kildare may be the closest walking trail to Dublin city if you discount the very challenging Wicklow Way. Arthur’s way, unlike the pints that he brewed, is largely flat. It is flat and easy to walk because it makes use of the towpath of the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was central to Arthur’s business plan, he sent the barrels of alee that he brewed (not yet stout) into 16 of the 32 counties connected by the waterways that had already started their excavation in his childhoods, but were not completed

as far as the Shannon until the year of his death The walking trail takes in the landscape of his childhood, around the towns of Leixlip, and Celbridge and Ardclough, It finishes, as Arthur’s journey did, in the scenic graveyard of Oughterard. There his tomb is inside the church, almost unher-

The launch of Arthur’s Way opens a new suburban trail

Pints of entry T

The Royal set of the Kings of Leinster, Lyons Hill, pictured at sunrise at the end of Arthur’s Way

alded, and definitely not on the guide books. Until now.

here are mixed feelings about bringing so much attention to such a beautiful graveyard. Can it remain as unspoilt with all the extra attention? It is less than 2 km from the exits at junction 5 or junction 6 of the N7, depending on which direction you come from, like the Irish “asking for directions” joke,. It sits at the of end of a short gravelly avenue, with overhanging trees, up a style into the mounded graveyard, past the 8th century round tower and through an entrance that was originally the window of a 14th cen-

tury church. You couldn’t ask for better from Ireland of the ruins. When you have finished paying homage to the maker of many the great night, and many the great hangover, you can ascend the roof and look out across 13 counties. And that is just the finishing post. Arthur’s birthplace is disputed between two of the three towns, Patrick Guinness, a descendant who has plotted the Guinness ancestry with the passion of a stakeholder, says that Arthur was born in Celbridge where his newborn nose met “the smell of malting barley.” Celbridge was a happening new town. It was created as an extension of the avenue to

the house of the local grandee, William Conolly, powerful political broker of 1720s Ireland whose first step was

to anglicise the name of the town from the awkward and overtly Irish “Kildrought.” Arthur Guinness’s father Richard and his patron, Arthur Price were among those who flocked to the new town to share in the bounty and spoils of Conolly’s game:. Conolly had allied himself with the victorious

William III after the Battle of the Boyne, to help divvy out the largesse of the defeated. When the land division was completed, several hundred thousand acres had accidentally ended up in William Conolly's own property portfolio.

any the mouths came to feed from William Conolly’s trough. Arthur Price, the family chaplain, finished up as Archbishop of Cashel, third most powerful churchman of the establishment, and when he died, left £100 each to his Brewer’s sons, the youthful Arthur and Richard Guinness. They set up their first brewery in Leixlip. The spot is now Luke

Moriarty’s Court Yard Hotel and this is where Arthur’s Way starts. It passes through the managed parklands of Castletown Estate, saved from decay and development by Patrick Guinness’s father, Desmond, It then passes through the town of Celbridge with an above-average selection of Georgian house fronts, along the approach road to Hazlehatch and then, again. Off road to follow the towpath along the canal, the haunted 13th lock, allegedly built through a graveyard, to the Henry Bridge, grooves carved in the stone from centuries of tow ropes, and up the hill to the graveyard.

rthur’s Way is originally conceived as a walkway, a tranche of money was secured by Kildare Fáilte to upgrade it to a cycle way. Parts of it are not up to the high standards of cycle ways on the mainland (France has 2,300km of separated cycle way, Germany 1,800, we have 38) but the towpath offers real possibilities. Why stop there: why not carry on to Sallins, Digby Bridge and Robertstown, a Kildare Camino for the modern pilgrim. San Arturo de Compastello has a nice ring about it.

n Arthur’s Way was officially launched at the beginning of August by Kildare ambassadors Gay Byrne and Yvonne Keating. It continues for 16km from Leixlip, through Celbridge, Hazlehatch and Ardclough to Oughterard cemetery.

Clockwise: Oughterard round tower seen from the roof top of the old church, Arthur Guinness’s statue in Celbridge Main Street, The canal at the haunted thirteenth lock, Oughterard church showing spot where Arthur Guinness is buried at the church wall between it and round tower, the remains of the arches which supported Richard Guinness’s original brewery in the church car park in Celbridge and (insets) canal towpath from the 13th lock and Paul Carty of the Guinness Storehouse, Chairman of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation, pictured at the grave of Arthur Guinness.

Page 049-050 Agent 08/08/2014 16:55 Page 1

Inside the Travel Business

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 49

GLOBAL VILLAGE

SKILLNET Fionnuala Carter’s skillsnet programme for the ITAA has brought the training scheme to a new level: Travel Law Webinars with Anne Dolan proved a big hit last week. The scheme invited agents to sign up and pay for one participant and receive additional free places for your company on request. EUROPEAN Here The European

Commission estimates that 20pc of holiday makers now opt for new packages, they might book their flights and a hotel from one operator and rent their car via another website. The Commission’s reforms have been stalled for a year and this week the Commission issued a reminder that member States have still not passed proposals made 12 months ago to reforms to meet these trends and to include additional cancellation rights, including immaterial damage, such as for a spoilt holiday, and ensuring that national insolvency protection schemes are recognised across borders.

EMIRATES appointed Filippo Rocchi

to the corporate sales team in Ireland, supporting Sales Manager, Anita Thomas. His experience includes Alitalia, Malev Hungarian Airlines and Ryanair, and travel agents including FCM Travel solutions and BCD travel.

ITAA Affiliate Programme reported its 70th member, flybe. NYC&CO The 2014 NYC Official

Travel Planner is available online covering New York's accommodations, dining, nightlife and transportation.

INNSTANT Travel appointed Fiona

Foster (pictured, ex-Thomas Cook) as Head of Global Operations.

TRIPADVISOR agreed to buy Via-

tor, a booking resource that features more than 20,000 bookable tours and attractions and more than 600,000 reviews.

BOOKABED, in conjunction with Attraction World, hosted 65 members of the trade in The Bodega in Cork.

SKAL International Dublin club secretary Michael Byrne says completed forms for the September 2 lunch on board Ruby Princess must be with him by August 14.

ETOA The European Tour Operators Association appointed Martine Ainsworth-Wells as new Director of Marketing & Commerce.

INNSTANT TRAVEL appointed

Gary Gillespie as London head of sales. The group added a new collection of Chateaux and Hotels to its portfolio.

DSD Do Something Different is encouraging holiday makers to take part in one of its cycling experiences: 4-hour London family bike tour, u25pp; 3-hour Florence bike tour, u35 for adults; 9-hour Haleakala Sunrise Cycle Safari, u157; 4-hour electric bike tour over Golden Gate Bridge, u65. DoSomethingDifferent.com is offering travel agents the chance to win a holiday for two to PortAventura for bookings made before August 31.

North star on Quantum of the Seas

‘All aboard’ call

ITAA conference lined up for Quantum of the Seas

ll aboard for a brighter future will be the theme for the annual conference of the Irish Travel Agents Association on board Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas. Delegates will arrive on board at lunchtime on October 31st. There are tentative plans for a golf day the day before. That evening there will be cock-

tails, a tour of the ship and a casual dinner. On Saturday conference registration will open at 9am and the conference will take place. There will be a members only session and then in the afternoon a lunch and team activity, followed by a formal dinner. Everybody will be off the ship at 7am and transfers will be arranged to Heathrow, Gatwick and Southamp-

NDC AND E-MOBILE TO FEATURE AT KILLASHEE

ravel Centres are preparing for their 10th annual owner/managers conference and supplier workshop. Dominic Burks says “decisions have yet to be made in regard to the final conference pro-

gramme, seminars on issues such as NDC, mobile solutions and e-commerce in general are likely to feature, as will a formal presentation on South America, on which the travel agency group have recently launched a programme.

The conference is one of the largest of its kind within the Irish retail travel industry. Conference returns to the Killashee House hotel in Co. Kildare and the consortium promises some great music, entertainment and networking opportunities.

ton, As well as the 200 ITAA agents, there will be 400 UK agents and 800 other travel professionals from around the world. The 200 places at the conference have already been filled and there will is a waitlist for further delegates. The ITAA expects 190 travel agency staff to attend the event.

VISITBRITAIN SURPRISE NEW CEO

isitBritain has appointed a travel industry veteran, Sally Balcombe, ex TUI, Opodo, Travelport and British Airways Holidays, as chief executive officer. Britain attracted a record

22,813,000 visitors in 2013 and is now the eighth most popular tourist destination for international visitors, behind France, USA, China, Spain, Italy, Turkey and Germany. Ireland is the fourth

Dominic Burke

biggest source market for Britain with 2,395,000 visitors, 7pc of all visits and the seventh biggest in terms of spend. England is Ireland’s favourite international destination, sending 1.8m visitors, spending

£594m. Ireland is the biggest source destination for Wales with 132,000 spending £25m. Ireland sent 107,000 visitors to Scotland, substantially down over the past three years from 156,000.

Page 049-050 Agent 08/08/2014 16:56 Page 2

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 50

Inside the Travel Business

GLOBAL VILLAGE

The demise of Malev reminded consumers that bonding does not extend to airlines

Over-bond fund

Industry’s u54m in bonds that will never be called in

igures seen by Travel Extra suggest that the Irish travel industry has an emergency fund of u55.4m in bonds that will never be called upon. The Commission of Aviation regulation requires travel agents to bond 4pc of their turnover and tour operators to bond 10pc. This has resulted in a cumulative tour operators bond of u18.4m and u37m for travel agents. This suggests the formal Irish travel industry is worth u1,110,600,000 a year, with the unlicensed travel industry said to be a multiple of this. Pat Dawson CEO of the ITAA describes the situation as crazy. “Minister Donohue has to have a look at this and do something. How can small

businesses sustain this? It is anti competitive. Our competitors are the airlines. The 10pc the tour operators bond and the 4pc travel agents bond is the same money. The travel agents 4pc is part of the tour operators’ 10pc.” “They are talking about creating jobs and at the same time in travel they are squeezing small businesses.” Pat Dawson has called for the bonding system to be replaced by a 40c charge on every flight that would maintain an adequate compensation fund which would cover airlines as well as travel agents and tour operators. “It would be cheaper on the consumer if this was implemented, rather than the u1.75 per passenger that the bonding element adds to the cost of a

holiday.” “Credit card companies are also looking for their own bonds.” The bonding system is based on outdated legislation from the days before the internet and the online purchase of travel, notably the Transport (Tour Operators and Travel Agents) Act of 1982 and the Package Holidays and Travel Trade Act, 1995. Refunds have proved controversial and often take many years to sort out. Two and a half years after the demise of Malev travel agents have still not been refunded their money, despite the existence of a compensation fund of $19m tied up in an account in Hungary. Funds lodged by Budget Travel have still not been repaid five years after the tour operators’ demise.

AEREPS TO BE WOUND DOWN AS JOHN DONOHUE JOINS CITYJET

ereps will be wound down in teh cmoing months as John Donohue is to join Cityjet Patrick as Sales and Relationship Manager Ireland & Britain. John Donohue says it is an exciting time to be joining Cityjet with its newfound freedom from Air France ownership and his specialist field

will be working with the trade and with corporates, the lifeblood for a primarily business oriented airline. John Donohue’s long career in the travel industry includes spells at JWT, British Midland and Maersk air before joining Bournemouth airport. He founded aereps in 2006 and it gained prominence with the addition of high pro-

file accounts from Las Vegas in 2007 and NYC&Co in 2008. He says aereps will be wound down over the coming months “to everybody’s satisfaction”. Frances O’Reilly and Gary Byrne are the company’s other full time employees. Patrick Lukan has been appointed Chief Commercial Officer at CityJet.

ADVENTURE HOLIDAYS

Drew Duggan’s Adventure Holidays' top-selling products this year include self-guided leisure cycling and walking holidays, particularly with the over 50s market to destinations with short transit times and where clients can arrive on any day of the week and this way we can get great value airfares. Biggest long haul adventure/active holiday trip is the Lycian Way with good connections with Turkish allowing us to include a stopover in Istanbul. Adventure Holidays pioneered holidays in Puglia on the new Ryanair service to Bari, as well as walking holidays in Andalucia, particularly the Las Alpujarras, a low level walking holiday and hour and a half from Malaga. It is priced at u600pp including private transfers, accommodation on HB, route notes & maps and luggage transfers. Beyond the French Rivera selfguided walking tours and Lake Constance cycling holidays are selling well.

TRAVELPORT has increased its stake in eNett International, their joint payments venture with PSP International from 57pc to 73pc.

BOOKABED has signed a deal with the Freedom Travel Group and Co-operative Personal Travel Advisors, strengthening the company’s presence in the English market.

GTI new tours on sale include Chasing the Northern Lights, travelling Winter 2014 & Spring 2015, battlefield tours with additional dates for 2014 and May 2015, Corfu, Sardinia and Majorca tours are back for Autumn 2014. Topflight confirmed that Simon Daly is joining the company as Director for Topflight Worldwide on August 11. CAR The Commission for Aviation Regu-

lation has released its guide to submitting applications and any supporting documentation for travel agents and tour operator licences requiring renewal in autumn 2014.

SUNWAY Dawn Conway

has joined Sunway as Cruise Product Manager and will operate from Sunway Head Office in Dun Laoghaire. Barry Hammond recently joined Sunway as Worldwide product manager.

LOWCOSTBEDS are giving

away a week’s accommodation to a sales consultant who makes a booking with any of the Blue Sea properties before August 31. Lowcost launched a summer sale with Blue Sea properties offering savings of up to 30pc in Spain, Malta and Morocco.

SABRE is to offer GDS limo bookings. TRAVELPORT has now signed up

50 airlines to participate in its Rich Content and Branding Technology.

EXPLORE Adventure travel specialist

reported a 25pc increase in cycling holiday sales year on year, over a 10-week period.

TTC

John Donohue

Karen Hogan of Justsplit won The Travel Corporation summer agent incentive, u1,000 home and garden make-over after a summer campaign by TTC staff.

Page 051 window seat 08/08/2014 16:33 Page 1

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 51

WINDOW SEAT

Busman’s holiday: Grainne Caffrey

The Fench connection: Plage la Baule in Pays Loire

Every month we ask a leading travel professional to write about their personal holiday experience. This month: Grainne Caffrey, of Lowcost Beds

oming from a large family, (a travel agent’s nightmare enquiry; 2 adults and 6 children), July and August were spent in the sunny south east, Poleshone, Co Wexford. The sun seemed to shine a lot more then, or so I thought. When I was 12 years old, we went on our first family holiday to the Costa del Sol for 3 weeks, I recall the waiter in a restaurant saying ‘seis bambino’s’ and having to put two tables together.

That was the one and only family holiday spent abroad, it certainly was no holiday for my parents!

My mum was an air hostess with Aer Lingus in the 60’s, a very different career back then. She enjoyed some wonderful opportunities and took advantage of travelling. Listening to her regaling her adventures of travel, sowed the seed, I love going abroad on holidays. There were many perks of working in the ‘industry’ over the years especially working with Joe Walsh Tours and Falcon, life seemed to be a permanent holiday or so my friends thought. With so much choice and flexibility with Aer Lingus and Ryanair, we tend to do a fly/ drive holiday, using hotels through lowcostbeds. Top of the list is France. Over the last 5 years, my Husband Tim and I have visited some fabu-

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

t is a mark of changing times that our accommodation and technology issue is now one of the most read online, not just in Ireland, but around the world. The move by the traditional travel trade from tour operators to dynamic packaging has been a game changer, almost as dramatic as the arrival of the internet and the loss commissions from airlines and tour operators. Media coverage of the OHG collapse, especially the shrill, high-

drama forum of call-in radio, taught us two things. The public knows little or nothing about how bed banks work, and the regulators are about ten years behind the game in coping with it. Regulators and legislators have been left behind by the change sin almost every aspect of the travel industry. The changes to bedbanks seems to have left them further behind than most. What to do? The public needs to be better informed. Bedbanks

themselves have to let the public know exactly what the strengths and weaknesses of the model are. Agents need to communicate with their clients across the counter. The ITAA, the consortia and the chains should also look at the sort of guarantees that the ITAA has negotiated with Lowcost Beds to bring consumer protection, and equally importantly, agency protection in sync with the new world of DP. Everybody will sleep a lot easier once that happens.

lous places mainly on the West coast of France though we have had some lovely holidays in the mountains. We love taking off in the morning and following one of the many well signed cycle paths that wind among vines and cornfields and the vast Atlantic horizon. It’s really enjoyable, stopping off for a dip in the ocean and then taking a mandatory pit stop that involves sampling the local wines. We love trying the local restaurants, the selection is vast. My favourite hotel and holiday has to be the Hotel Le Clos on Ile De Re. C’est la vie!

IN YOUR NEXT TRAVEL EXTRA: Available to Travel Agents or online September 15 2014

SKI & SNOW ISSUE Kirchberg La Plagne Sierra Nevada Tignes Zell am Zee TRENDS

Page 052-054 pics 08/08/2014 10:14 Page 1

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 52

MEETING PLACE

had, Sarah Slattery of Shannon O’Dowd of Eti loney of Etihad at the Skytours, and Karen Ma nch party in Koh Etihad double-daily lau

Jackie Herssons of Tra velmood, Mary King of Travelsavers and Olw en McKinney of Amad eus at the Etihad double-da ily launch party in Koh

Bracken of Blue InsurIan Kennedy and Ruth nces event at ura ances at the Blue Ins rk Shelbourne Pa

Clodagh Oxley of the Dublin Visit USA Comm ittee and Beverleigh Fly of Bookabed at the Kim pton function in Chapter One,

mystery shopper blitz Winner of an Emirates ne’s Travel in Longford prize Rose Kane of Ka Emirates. with Filippo Rocchi of

Out and about with the Travel Trade

Joanne Coll and Caroline Gallagher of Travel Department at the Etihad double-daily launch party in Koh Restaurant Dublin

Beatrice Cosgrove, Ire land country manager of Etihad and Cormac O’C onnell of Dublin Airport Authority at the Etihad three-class A330 event

vel Fiona Dobbyn of Classic Resorts and Rhona Mc- Carole Carmody and Rosie Leary of The Tra orGe vel Cann of FCM in the Etihand lounge at the Etihad Corporation and Peter Hannaford of Tra blin Du e Fir in orgia event three-class A330 event gia at the TTC and Ge

Bronagh McNamara and Lisa Byrne of American Holidays with Paul Hackett of Clickandgo at the MSC Cruises event in the Residence,

Jon Woulfe of Dublin Airport Authority, Sandra Finnegan of Globe Travel and Karl Tyrrell of Bookabed at the Etihad three-class A330 event

Linda Jones and Tim Ca rey of The Travel Boutique at the Hurtigruten event at the Shackleto n Exhibition in Dun Laog haire

n, James Fleming of Su Martin Penrose of Ifonly the at es cap Es nd Isla y of way and Brian McCarth rty pa nch Etihad double-daily lau

John Devereux of SHGI/American Holidays, Beth Sandra Mooney of Cassidy Travel an d Trudy Bond of Visit California and Austin Carroll of Plat- Mason of AE Consulting at the breakf ast event inum Travel at the ViceroyCalifornia trade event for the travel trade hosted by MSC Cru ises

Lisa Byrne of Travelmo od, Paula Cross and Cia ra Jeanette Coughlan, Lorraine Costello, Nadine Foley of Platinum Travel and Bronagh McNama ra Farrelly, and Mandy Walsh of Travel Counsellors of Travelmood at Etiha d in Koh at the Etihad double-daily launch party in Koh

nces Advisor to Blue Insura Mike Feeney Strategic e Blu the at Blue Instances and Maeve Slalom of rk Pa rne elbou Insurances event at Sh

Page 052-054 pics 08/08/2014 10:15 Page 2

Out and about with the Travel Trade

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 53

MEETING PLACE

at ce Swords of Sunway Dawn Conway and Ali , ire ha og La n in Du the Hurtigruten event

Aubrey Teidt VP Guest Services of Etihad, Eli ssa Booth of Hannon Travel and Roger Barrett of Travel Counsellors at the Etihad A330 event

the Murphy of Skytours at Katie Fields and Mary rty pa nch Etihad double-daily lau

Deirdre Sweeny of Su nway, Shane Cullen of Killiney Travel and Jua n Cullen of Supersun Travel at the Etihad do uble-daily launch

e Insurances and Carol Ciaran Mulligan of Blu Holidays at the Blue Inn Anne O'Neill of Falco ourne Park, surances event at Shelb

Ciara Foley of Platnium Ttravel, chair of the Vis it USA Dublin committee and Ger Hayes of British Airways at the TTC an d Georgia event in Fir e

John McKibbin of Getabed and Olwen McKinney Tony Collins of Topflight and Valerie Mu rphy of Etihad at the Etihad do of Amadeus at the Blue Insurances event at uble-daily launch party in Koh Restaurant, Millen Shelbourne Park nium Walkway Dublin,

Clem Walshe of Lowcost Beds and Gonzalo Ceballos director of the Dublin office of the Spanish Tourist Board at the Lowcost event in Dobbins

l bate Travel with Rache David O'Hagan of Dona ova an ukh So a ian ry and Tat Mulligan, Sarah Slatte d launch party in Koh ha Eti the at urs yto of Sk

Mary McKenna of Tour America, Fiona Dobbyn of Classic Resorts and Beth Bond of Black Diamond Group at the Viceroy Hotel Group event

Sharon Jordan of The Travel Corporation an d Peter Hannaford of Tra vel Georgia at the TTC and Georgia event in Fire Dublin

Pat Dawson CEO of the ITAA and Carmel Aylward of King Travel at the MSC Cruises event in the Residence, Dublin

Niki Stanford of Clickandgo and Polly Bond of Touramerica at the MSC Cruises event in the Residence, Dublin

Lisa Croke and Tom Britton of Marble City Travel at the breakfast event for the travel trade hosted by MSC Cruises in the Residence

of d and Noeleen Lynch Valerie Murphy of Etiha ss -cla ee thr d ha Eti the Atlas Travel/Gohop at port, Air blin Du at nt eve 30 A3

Maxine Dunsdon Sales Manager and Daniel Giles Regional Sales Ma nager Ireland & Scotland, who hosted travel trade in Dun Laoghaire

and Rebecca Kelly of Roz Walsh of Travelfox vel akfast event for the tra MSC Cruises at the bre ce en sid Cruises in the Re trade hosted by MSC

Page 052-054 pics 08/08/2014 10:15 Page 3

SEPTEMBER 2014 PAGE 54

MEETING PLACE

Bracken of Blue InsurIan Kennedy and Ruth nces event at Shelances at the Blue Insura bourne Park

Bronagh McNamara of American Holidays, Clodagh Oxley of Visit USA and Cindy Brews ter of Kimpton Head office at the Kimpton functio n

G with Stephen Byrne Anthony Efinda of HR e Brennan of Budget Yvonne Tully and Louis io Tourism event Travel with at the Ontar

Clare Dunne of Travel broker and David Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;G rady of etravel at the Kimpto n evening function for the trade inâ&#x20AC;&#x2C6;Chapter One

Out and about with the Travel Trade

Karen McGee, Aine Corrigan and Elena Gogol- Grainne Caffrey of Lowcost beds and Pat Daweva of Carlson Wagonlit at the Kimpton function son CEO of the ITAA at the Lowcost eve nt n Do bb ins Bistro, Dublin, in Chapter One, Dublin

Sharon Jordan of The Travel Corporation and John Devereux of American Holidays at the Kimpton function in Chapter One,

Bettina Haltmeyer of Clickandgo and Ben Redmond of Atlas Trvael/Gohop at the Kimpton function in Chapter One, Dublin,

Susan Kiernan of Asksusan, Bettina Haltmeyer of Clickandgo and Austin Carroll of Platinum Travel at the Kimpton function in Chapter One

at Amanda Hynes, Margaret Campbell and Kristin Marie Porter of Sunway Kathy Cashe and Ann stSkinner of American Holidays at the Las Vegas We the at nt eve g nin the Ontario Tourism eve CVA event in Cafe En Seine bury Hotel Dublin,

Tom Britton of Marble City Travel and Matt Co rcoran of King Travel at the MSC event in the Residence, Dublin

Caitlin Burdock, Paddy Dunne and Karen Whyte of American Holidays at the Ontario Tourism evening event at the Westbury Hotel Dublin,

ry vel Department and Ma Brendan Breen of Tra event ast akf bre the at vel Downes of Cassidy Tra d by MSC Cruises for the travel trade hoste

Dominic Burke of Travel Centres, Wendy Aitken of Best4travel and Ma urice Shiel of Topflight at the MSC Cruises eve nt in the Residence

sers ht, Henika Patel of Ca Tony Collins of Topflgi at ca eri Am r Tou ight of International and Liz Wr tel Ho rne ou elb Sh the the Las Vegas event in

Niki Stanford of Clicka ndgo and Polly Bond of Touramerica at the MS C Cruises event in the Residence, Dublin

rbed, Tom Britton of Ma Beverleigh Fly of Booka at ca eri Am r Tou Wright of ble City Travel and Liz Chapter One, in n ctio fun n pto the Kim

96306 HOLIDAY WORLD full page 2015_96306 HOLIDAY WORLD full page 2015 11/06/2014 17:20 Page 1

Featuring:

Wedding & Honeymoon Destinations at Home and Abroad

YOUR TRADE DAY Friday 23rd January, 2015 VISIT

To Pre-Register for FAST TRACK ENTRY log on to www.registrationdesk.ie/holidayworldtrade

VENUE

RDS Simmonscourt | Simmonscourt Road Ballsbridge | Dublin 4

EXHIBIT

Please contact Maureen Ledwith, Sales Director t: + 353 (0)1 291 3700 e: maureen@bizex.ie To find out more log on to:

www.holidayworldshow.com

DUBLIN

HOLIDAY WORLD 2015 SHOW DATES RDS SIMMONSCOURT

Fri Fri Sat Sun

Jan Jan Jan Jan

23rd 23rd 24th 25th

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HOLIDAY WORLD 2015 SHOW DATES KINGSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HALL BELFAST

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1 pm - 9 pm Trade and Public 11am - 5.30pm Trade and Public 11am - 5.30pm Trade and Public

96306 50+ SHOW full page 2015_96306 50+ SHOW full page 2015 11/06/2014 17:51 Page 1

Kings Hall Pavilion, Belfast BT9 6GW, Northern Ireland 16th/18th January 2015

The Belfast Telegraph 50+Show will be staged

alongside the highly successful Holiday World Show, entering its 23rd year and firmly established as one of the BIGGEST and BEST attended public exhibitions in Northern Ireland

• • • • • •

Featuring:

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WHY YOU SHOULD EXHIBIT AT THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH 50+SHOW • Estimated 80% of the country’s wealth is held by people aged 50+ (The Henley Centre)

• 31.7% (or 574,000) of the Northern Ireland population are 50+ (Northern Ireland population census) • 62% of Belfast Telegraph readers are 50+

• As a group they are more likely to have substantial assets, cash and the time to enjoy life. Whilst they are less likely to have any mortgages, school fees and 9 to 5 jobs. To exhibit please contact

Maureen Ledwith Sales Director +353 (0)1 291 3700 e: maureen@bizex.ie

Paulette Moran Sales Manager +353 (0)1 291 3702 e: paulette@bizex.ie