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Air Asia brings its LLC concept to London hotels

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Tony Fernandes’ PR dept must be working overtime. Hard on the heals of reports that his long haul airline Air Asia X is scaling back the In-flight Entertainment offered on its planes, comes the news that this hyperactive entrepreneur plans to bring 1,500 new hotel rooms to the British capital.

Tune Hotels.com, part of the Tune Group, Mr Fernandes’ private investment outfit, has formed a strategic partnership  with London-based Queensway Group to invest in, develop and operate 15 hotels. The first example of its “five-star sleeping experience at a one-star price” is scheduled to open at 118 Westminster Bridge Road in the third quarter of this year. The company avoids gyms, conference facilities and up-market catering, and instead focuses on high quality basics such as comfy beds with en-suite power showers and a pay-as-you-use system of optional add-ons for energy-consuming amenities. As you’d expect, the best deals are available for those that book early, online.

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An Expensive Welcome

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The US Senate has just passed the Travel Promotion Act which will allow various schemes to go ahead all of which are designed to encourage visitors to come to the US and make them feel more welcome once they arrive. So far, so good.

It is intended that the scheme will be funded 50/50 by the government and the travel industry. The government will contribute $100m subject to businesses contributing another $100m. It is slightly unclear how the government will raise the money from the travel industry but, unfortunately, it is absolutely clear where the government’s own $100m will come from.

There will be a new $10 per person levy on visitors from most countries that are members of the visa-waiver programme.

So, we will be paying an extra $10 a head to be made to feel welcome.

Frankly, I would feel more welcome without yet another tax…

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The Decline and Fall of Which?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

A publication that is designed to stand up for the consumer and highlight the wrongdoings of large companies needs to be very certain of its own ethics. This might have been the case in the past but, nowadays, Which? magazine seems just a tawdry commercial publication intent on publicising its “sensational” findings – and boosting its sales as a result.

The organisation has just given wide publicity to the results of its annual travel survey which showed the small company, VFB, at the top of the list for customer satisfaction and Thomas Cook and Cosmos near the bottom.

The Which? survey was based on the responses of just 4,500 readers, of whom 308 had taken a holiday with Thomas Cook. According to Cook’s, this is around 1 in 20,000 of the company’s total customers. In other words, it is a completely meaningless sample.

Not only that but, as should be obvious, it is a pretty biased sample. It really is no surprise that the independent-minded, middle-class readers of Which? would prefer a small independent company to one of the big package companies.

Inside Traveller would never be so foolish to run a survey of our own readers and then publish the results as if they were representative of the whole travelling public. Like Which?, we are a niche publication and would hope to find our readers had more exotic tastes than the main market.

If Which? wish to run a survey and publish the results to their own readers then that is fine – it is probably fair to say that many other Which? readers will prefer a company such as VFB to Thomas Cook and Cosmos. What is totally unacceptable is that they then publicise these findings as if they are representative of the whole travelling public when, clearly, they are not.

This sort of nonsense does not do the travelling public any favours and merely shows how far Which? has fallen in its standards.

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Stop Press – Class War Not Over

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Jon Snow and some members of a Channel 4 News team travelled in Business Class between Brazil and the Climate conference in Copenhagen and received the following rebuke from Jeff Gazzard of the Aviation Environment Federation (whoever they are) – “Those who turn left to the posh bit upon boarding the plane are serial recidivist, plutocratic polluters.”

Good to see that some on the Left still use language like this – even if they do not appear to quite understand what all the words mean.

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Wordlocks

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

When travelling, one of my key frustrations is not being able to remember the number combination of my luggage lock. I know it seems strange but numbers just don’t do it for me! So imagine my joy when I discovered that there was actually a luggage lock that uses words instead numbers.

Wordlock luggage locks use letters instead of numbers, making it easier for the numerically challenged to open and up to 10,000 four-letter combinations can be created. You can order the locks from  Amazon UK. Similar versions are also being sold at Staples and online at CuteBitz.com.

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Brazil Ticks All The Boxes

Monday, October 5th, 2009

When a city prepares a bid for a major sporting event such as the World Cup or the Olympics, they make massive presentations which go to great length to show the excellent local transport facilities they have (or hope to have), the large number of good quality hotels at all price levels and the welcome visitors will receive from the locals.

Rio de Janeiro has very bad local transport, few direct air connections to Europe or North America, a congested and antiquated airport, a poor range of hotels which are not outstanding in quality and very expensive (compared to Europe and North America) and a shockingly high crime rate where tourists are frequently targeted.

Not only does it fail to tick any of the obvious boxes – it misses them by miles!

The organisers of both the World Cup and the Olympics have just thrown away their own rule books because of their desire to bring “the forgotten continent” back on to the world map.

It is easy to see why they want to do this – and, to a certain extent – we agree with them. However, Brazil would already be a much bigger tourist destination if the government had made more effort in the past to sort out some of the obvious problems. High prices, crime and poor transport put an awful lot of Americans and Europeans from visiting.

Now, Brazil has a very short time to sort itself out – otherwise, it will take more than a touch of Samba to hide the very obvious flaws. If the government is not  careful, the World Cup and Olympics could be a massive advert of Brazil’s shortcomings as a tourist destination.

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Ryanair charges “staggering”

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

From today, Ryanair‘s checked-in baggage allowance doubles to 30 kilos. Passengers will be able to check-in two bags, each weighing up to 15 kilos. However, fees for checking-in baggage and excess baggage charges will rise. To check the first piece of luggage will cost £15 online or £30 at the airport. The cost of checking in a second piece of luggage will be £35 if done online, or £70 at the airport. The cost of bringing a piece of sporting equipment will be £40 online and £50 at the airport. If your luggage happens to be over the weight limit, you’ll be charged £20 per kilo. This means that if through habit you checked in just one bag weighing 23 kilos, it would cost a staggering £175 (£15 for the bag plus 8 x £20 per kilo above 15 kilos) extra to check-in a bag that would travel free on British Airways and many other airlines.

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Told You So!

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

No sooner than the virtual ink had dried on our last post saying that airlines will launch Sales over the August Bank Holiday weekend and British Airways announce one! Seats are on sale from today until 22nd September.
It is worth remembering that whilst holday weekends are a particularly popular time for airline sales, they will normally start any promotional activity aimed at leisure travellers on a Thursday or Friday in time for bookings over the weekend.

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No need to visit Starbucks ever again

Friday, July 24th, 2009

No one could call me a gadget-junkie. The famous Innovations catalogue with its unmissable offers of electric toe-nail clippers, musical Martini-shakers and dog bowls with timers, left me cold. My mobile is an old Nokia model and will stay with me until I lose it or it breaks down, I manage to drive where I need to without the benefit of satellite navigation and I even buy cd’s rather than downloading music. Even though I love espresso coffee, my machine at home is a standard Gaggia, without all the whistles and bells that some of the new machines come with. In other words, I am the last person you would expect to be writing a positive review of a new product. But, there is always room for an exception…

I can honestly say that my Handpresso travelling espresso-maker has become an essential companion when travelling. Maybe what appeals to me is partly that it is very low-tech – but that would not be enough to win me over. It actually makes very good quality espresso coffee. With one of these in your case, you can be guaranteed top-quality espresso coffee wherever you are.

The heart of the Handpresso is a small hand pump. When you want a cup of coffee, you boil some water (fortunately, most hotels provide kettles in the rooms) and pump air into the machine. You add boiling water to the dispenser, pop in a coffee pod, and then release the valve to deliver a perfect espresso. The key to a good espresso coffee is the pressure the machine produces. Some home espresso machines only manage 8 bars pressure. The Handpresso produces 16 bars which is more than adequate to produce a professional-quality espresso.

It costs around £84 but that is a small price to pay for never again having to search for a decent cup of coffee when you are travelling.

www.handpresso.co.uk


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The most erotic voice in European aviation

Friday, June 26th, 2009

Well, it is Friday so perhaps we can be excused a touch of sexism but this audio clip of a lady air traffic controller caught our attention. It has been doing the rounds of aviation websites and caused much comment. Aside from the quality of her voice (and her excellent English – she could be a Radio Three continuity announcer), it is worth pointing out that her enunication is also excellent.

English is the official language of aviation and all pilots and atc staff have to pass minimum standards of proficiency. However, in many cases, fluency, or lack of it, is not the problem – it is the clarity. Even a native-born English speaker who mumbles can cause confusion. Somehow, we imagine most pilots will pay careful attention to this lady.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=388_1234454637

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