Travel Industry
Theories of monetising travel blogs For all the blog posts about how to monetise a travel blog (and I think 500 new ones get written every day), the subject keeps coming up. Everyone’s elaborated on their theory of how to make money from travel blogging and most of the usual suspects (including myself) have had [...]
If you’re the sort of person who likes hearing people moan about trains, then Twitter is a truly wonderful place for you to indulge in your hobby. It’s for this reason that I’m slightly wary about writing this post. I’m not sure the person-ranting-about-train-company genre is in dire need of another instalment. 13.31 to Birmingham [...]
Continue reading about Extortion on the tracks? The great train upgrade squeeze
Virgin Vouchers and Flying Club miles Earlier today, I tried to book two flights to Orlando. I got married in April, and part of our wedding present stash was made up of Virgin vouchers. That’s vouchers created by the Virgin group that can be used on Virgin group products – such as Virgin Atlantic flights [...]
Continue reading about Terms and conditions of endearment: Virgin Atlantic’s self-harming stupidity
Tactical travel? On the Guardian website, there is currently a feature bearing the headline: “Help save Greece! It’s time for tactical travel”. The standfirst reads: “A holiday to see one of humanity’s greatest civilisations may be just the boost the economy needs right now. After all, we owe them for Delphi.” Admittedly, the work of [...]
Australia’s tourism problems Tourism in Australia is currently struggling. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why – the Australian dollar is so high at the moment that it makes the country extremely expensive to visit. There’s no point pretending otherwise, which is why Ben Groundwater’s recent post on the Sydney Morning Herald website [...]
Skiing holidays Summer is a wonderful time of year, if only because we’re spared the acres of newsprint spilled about skiing holidays. I may have got this all wrong, and skiing holidays may be so popular that 20% of the population goes on one at some point every year. But, to me, it seems like [...]
Below, I’ve created a very simple 20 point manifesto that I think all hotels should abide by. Anyone running a hotel who would like to sign up can say “aye” in the comments. I will provide free WiFi that works well in ALL rooms. I will not push two single beds together and pretend they [...]
Continue reading about The Grumpy Traveller hotel manifesto: A 20 point plan
Samoa skips a day The newspapers today are full of the news that the Pacific nation of Samoa has decided to skip a day by moving to the other side of the International Date Line. The idea is to be in roughly the same time zone as trading partners in Australia and New Zealand, but [...]
If you ask me, there are certain criteria that have to be applied if something is to be fairly deemed a ‘service’. Key amongst them is that it has to be genuinely useful and desired. The hotel industry, however, appears to think differently. A service, it seems, is when someone is put in the way [...]
Continue reading about Five hotel services that are not actually services
Fair tax on flying campaign Yesterday, and with much fanfare, a travel industry campaign for a ‘fair tax on flying’ was launched. The consortium behind it is demanding that Chancellor George Osborne doesn’t include any increases in Airport Departure Tax in his next budget. Problems with Airport Departure Tax It’s fair to say that Airport [...]
Continue reading about Does the travel industry REALLY want a fair tax on flying?