Author: Lee Fletcher

Many more British travellers are booking special Christmas Market packages offered by travel agents, according to the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), a UK-based travel agency association. There has been a 20 percent increase in bookings for overseas Christmas markets, compared to the same time last year, ABTA has reported. Christmas markets are traditionally featured in Northern Europe and begin in mid to late November, with many continuing to remain open all through December and into the New Year. In recent years, many cities in the UK have started hosting these markets, which have become popular with UK holidaymakers…

easyJet, the UK based airline, is partnering with Spanish hotel brand, the Paradores de Turismo de Espana, for its website visitors. In one of the first collaborations of its kind, the airline website will be featuring a collection of 94 of the Paradores brand’s individual properties. The accommodations will be available to book for short breaks and long stays as a part of the airline’s holiday deals, through the easyJet Holidays website. Located across mainland Spain and the Canary Islands, the Paradores brand claims to offer a unique experience at each of its resort properties, with a quintessentially Spanish ambience.…

Ryanair, an Ireland-based low-cost airline, is trimming its services to Budapest in Hungary from the UK. The airline is planning to reduce its routes to Budapest, by terminating its services from Birmingham Airport. The airline is blaming the cuts on Budapest Airport’s decision to increase its charges, and plans to reduce its five aircraft fleet based out of Budapest airport to three, as a result. The airline is also considering cutting back on its routes from Budepest to Baden, Bologna, Dusseldorf, Krakow, Lubeck, Malaga, Munich, Oslo and Thessaloniki in Europe. The airline is also planning to reduce its capacities on…

The upcoming solar eclipse in November has seen enthusiasts packing their bags for Australia. This year, a solar eclipse is scheduled for November 14, and Australia is said to offer one of the best vantage points for those wishing to experience one of the world’s most unique phenomena. Shortly after dawn on November 14, watchers in northern Australia will be rewarded with the sight of the moon passing in front of the sun, plunging the surroundings into darkness. Those wishing to view the event from across the Coral sea should be in place by 6:39am local time. If the skies…

E-commerce firm, PayPal has announced an offer that is available to customers that use its service to pay for goods during the holiday period. For the offer period, if a customer sees a product that they have purchased using their PayPal account being offered at a cheaper price, PayPal will reimburse the difference. If a customer does find a product being offered for less elsewhere, they should call the company immediately, as a refund has to be requested in less than 30 days from the purchase date. The firm said that the offer would stand until the end of the…

The Mall at Partridge Creek, an open-air shopping mall in Clinton Township, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, has announced that it will be launching the holiday season in style with its two-day Tree-Lighting Celebration. The mall is to make its tree-lighting celebration a weekend affair, and is to offer live music, apple cider and donuts, photos with Santa and more during the celebration from November 10 to November 11. The celebrations will commence with the lighting of thousands of lights, including a 42-foot tree. This is the sixth year that Partridge Creek has hosted a tree-lighting festival, and as with…

Network Rail, on behalf of Crossrail, a major new railway that is under construction in the South East England, and which will link Berkshire and Buckinghamshire to Essex and Kent, via Greater London, has commenced the restoration of four bridges in Slough and Hillingdon, in readiness for the new electric train service. The Crossrail railway link is currently being constructed across central London, and is expected to open in 2018, operating up to 24 trains per hour between Paddington and Whitechapel, during peak hours of service. The new electric trains are intended to provide a faster, cleaner, smoother and more…

World tourism leaders have hailed adventure travel as the future of tourism, at the 2012 Adventure Travel World Summit, held in Lucerne, Switzerland, in October. Taleb Rifai, the secretary-general of the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), said, ‘Adventure tourism is what tourism should be today and definitely what tourism will be tomorrow’. As responsible tourism gains ground with tourists and the hospitality industry, the chief of travel for Google, Rob Torres, said that serious travel consumers are working towards more experience-based, responsible tourism. Industry leaders from around 60 different countries attended the summit, of which 50 percent were travel industry buyers…

The hospitality industry is predicting a fall in London hotel rates in 2013, due to the supply of rooms outstripping the demand from a weak economy. Research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), a UK based consultancy company, suggests that while London hotels are still enjoying a post Olympics boom, the prices are expected to decrease by around 77 percent from the unusual average daily rate of GBP143 per room, reflecting a post-Olympics hangover. Liz Hall, the head of hospitality and leisure research at PWC, said, ‘The London hotel market has demonstrated remarkable resilience since the start of the recession. This has been…

VisitBritain, the official tourism website for Great Britain, is partnering with British Airways, a UK-based airline company, as part of its marketing strategy following the 2012 London Olympics. The agency has budgeted for a marketing expenditure of GBP13.5 million by partnering with airlines, hotel companies and tour operators, to offer bargains for overseas travellers. In its new phase, the campaign will be offering advertising aimed at travellers in the US, India, China, Japan and the Middle East. The agency will be investing GBP5m in its partnership with British Airways to persuade travellers to visit Britain for Christmas shopping and to…