Travel Extra April 2016

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CRUISE PRICES AND OPTIONS 2016-17 HARMONY READIES UP FOR LAUNCH MSC MASTER MINDERS OF THE MED IHF Conference

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Everything your clients need to know about summer cruise 2016

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NOW FLYING TO METROPOLIS

I N

C I N E M A S, 2 5 T H

M A R C H

# F LY T O M E T R O P O L I S

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Displacement

Turkey accuses Tour Ops of holding off bookings

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panish and Portuguese prices have been rising and hotels filling early as a result of displacement in the industry caused by holiday makers looking elsewhere from North Africah and Turkey.

Agents say Irish holiday makers are reacting creatively to the extra demand, and moving their hotel location rather than paying inflated prices.

The Irish are moving further from the beach, It is likely that Irish visitor numbers to Turkey this summer wil drop to half the previous levels of 130,000 a year. Charter services, due to start on may bank holiday weekend, have been reduced.

Turkish Airlines says there has been no impact on booking for their double daily service to Istanbul.

At ITB in Berlin Turkish tourism minister Mahir Unal claimed that European tour operators are deliberately holding back bookings for the country to drive down prices.

"They want to force Turkey to re-

Portuguese provinces, north of the Algarve, has some of the best beaches in Europe and a vibrant value added product with boutique hotels, agritourism, rural homesteads and vineyards.

Ephesus: cruise passengers will stay away this summer duce prices even more. But we will not give up on our value for money.

That would put us back ten years," Unal said.

DER Touristik denied the allegations. Rene Herzog said that demand

ATHENS

Aegean have a new overnight seasonal 2w service to Athens starting for summer 2016 and Ryanair have decided to launch 3w year round to go head to head with the newcomers. Aer Lingus increased capacity to Athens as well.

ASTURIAS Northern Span- COSTA Portuguese side of the ish province beside Galicia, a favourite with Spaniards but as yet undiscovered by international tourists.

PASSPORT CARD Best regional ID document was awarded to the Irish Passport Card at the High Security Printing Europe Conference held in Bucharest.

SPIRIT of Scotland Travelpass was launched Monday by VisitScotland in partnership with ScotRail and CalMac will allow people to travel by land, sea and track for one fixed price.

SKI Research by Airport Parking & Hotels

for Turkey has clearly dropped since last autumn. He said “the minister should concentrate on measures to help both Turkey and tour operators bring more guests to the country," he said.

TEN ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS

ALENTEJO Largest of the

NEWS

strait is as easily reached through Faro as Malaga, a favourite for Spaniards with lower prices than the boisterous resorts to the east.

LANGUEDOC New

flights to Montpelier wil make this an attractive French destination, with a tried and trusted mountain and beach product.

revealed that ski resorts, La Plagne, St Moritz in Switzerland and Valle d’Aosta in Italy, charge a call out rescue fees varying from €180 at Valle d’Aosta to €735 at La Plagne.

French resorts including Chamonix, La Plagne and Les Deux Alps provide Carte Neige Insurance from €37.50 to €57, which covers medical and rescue fees for on and off-piste skiing and immediate replacement of lost lift passes.

Alternatively, Verbier in Switzerland offer Snow Assist insurance for €4 per day or €85 per season which covers refunds for rescue costs, ski rentals, lift passes and skiing lessons.

PATA reported Vietnam and Myanmar led the region growth during 2015, reporting year-onyear growth of 18.4 percent and 16.9 percent respectively.

PASSPORTS A clerical officer in the Passport office was jailed for two years, who was paid €12,500 to process five passports for South African nationals who were not entitled to them.

AICHI region in Japan is hiring full-time ninjas to promote tourism. They will perform acrobatics, use ninja weapons and post for photographs with tourists.

UAE was awarded the Guinness World Record for having the biggest flag to be formed by humans, with 3,929 people participating.

MURCIA Spanish region now SEAWORLD agreed to stop breeding

served ten times weekly from Dublin it has 20,000 beds and prices which are stubbornly 20pc lower than the big-bed rival resorts of the Costa del Sol.

orcas. The 28 killer whales currently in its care will be the last generation at SeaWorld.

DUBLIN

was judged joint 24th and Singapore ranked as the world's most expensive of 133 cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

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THE KNOWLEDGE Travel Extra Advertising & Subscriptions 59 Rathfarnham Road Terenure Dublin D6WAK70 t+3531 2957418 Editorial Office Clownings Straffan Co Kildare W23 C6X9

Managing Editor: Gerry O’Hare gerry@travelextra.ie Editor: Eoghan Corry eoghan.corry@ travelextra.ie Publisher: Edmund Hourican edmund@bizex.ie Sales Director: Maureen Ledwith maureen@bizex.ie t: +3531 291 3700 Sales Manager Paulette Moran paulette@bizex.ie t: +353 (0)1 291 3702 Accounts and Advertising: Maria Sinnot maria@bizex.ie T: +3531 291 3707 Distribution Manager Shane Hourican shane@bizex.ie t: +3531 291 3706 Pictures: pix@travelextra.ie Sunday Supplement & Online: Conor McMahon conor@travelextra.ie Chief Features Writer: Anne Cadwallader anne@travelextra.ie Contributors : Eanna Brophy Marie Carberry marie@travelextra.ie Siobhan Coakley Carmel Higgins carmel@travelextra.ie Cauvery Madhavan Sean Mannion Louise McLoughlin Catherine Murphy cathmurph@yahoo.com Cathy Wilson

Travel Extra takes no responsibility for errors and omissions.

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CONTENTS 3 News Where to go,h ow much to pay 6 Hotels: News 8 Postcards: News from the trade

14 Sunway: 50 years a growing 16-19 Cruise: It’s a Med world 22 Alentejo: The new Tuscany 23 War zone: battlefield tours 26 Afloat: Dublin port’s ambitions

28-32 Flying: Aer LIngus 2017 plans 33 Liverpool: Follow the music 34 Global Village Inside the travel industry 36 Window seat: Our columnists 37 Pictures: Out and about

Selling a cruise break choose a big ship and a cabin on a lower deck in the centre of the ship.

You can reassure them that safety onboard is of the highest standard, you are surrounded by like minded people, it is ideal for teenagers.

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ruise lines pay highest commissions and some offer agent loyalty programmes. It is definitely the place to be for a travel agent and customers are afest with an agent.

Consumer campaigns are confusing and change by the week, and what is on offer may not be the best deal. So how do you translate that into sales?

BUDGET It is all about budget. This needs to be calculated at the very beginning of the conversation along with finding out their expectations of the trip. Spend time on expectations before you offer advice. If in doubt, sell from the top down. Customers will soon tell you if that is not in their budget.

DETERMINE the client's requirements. if the destination the most important criteria a larger ship may not be able to navigate the likes of the fjords in Norway, missing the best parts of the itinerary and destination. Some ocean going vessels are small enough to navigate rivers like the Fred Olsen Braemar (which has a selection of river cruises in 2015, offering the best of both worlds).

EMPHASISE. value and price. Show just how much prices of traditional cruises are dropping, the per-day cost all inclusive works out at €50 on some Caribbean cruises.

Check the price of a land based all inclusive or full board week holiday and then price a cruise. Entertainment and activities

Northern lights viewed from Hurtigruten, with direct flights to Tromso offer great value versus a land based product: Grease the musical, skydiving, surfing.

CHANGE their perceptions that cruising is for older travellers, that you spend all your time on the ship, that sea-sickness is an issue, and most of all that cruising is expensive.

When people often say that cruising wouldn't interest them as they don't spend long in a port, a good selling tip is that it's a great way to find out where you want to go back to,

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

DRINKS packages are all the rage. The top end ships include drinks in their all inclusive prices but most lines do pre-paid packages. Fred Olsen offer drinks package at €12 per day

which includes beers, good house wines and spirits and 50pc discount on a la carte wines and premium brands. MSC’s Allegrissimo is cheapest of the big ship brands at €26pp per day (5pc commissionable to the agent) allowing unlimited beer, wine, cocktails, spirits, ice cream, tea coffees etc.

REPEAT Keep customers up to date with new facilities, new ships, new routes, and direct pick ups from Ireland. Establish an ongoing relationship.

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

Loyalty cards entitle the client to 5pc off the next cruise booked with Travel Agent. With most lines, commission goes back to the agent if the next cruise is booked on board.

LINK consecutive cruises: tag one cruise onto another to see more especially in Asia.

FOOD Culinary standards on board continue to exceed expectations. While cruises are know for their food, some clients can be very fussy eaters with unusual dietary requirements, cruising can remove all the hassle of finding somewhere to dine every day, while still offering great food. Healthy food options are becoming more and more apart of the cruise lines fare.

There are speciality restaurants on the bigger ships and some cruise lines are seeking Michelin stars for the chefs..

ONBOARD accommodation is all mod cons with lots of options up to the suites with hot tubs, pianos etc CHILDREN Point out how child friendly many cruiselines are with kids clubs, facilities, babysitting, menus, dedicated pool areas, and Dreamworks characters. Some cruise lines offer allow 18 year olds cruise for free.

FEARS about sea sickness can be assuaged by telling them modern ships are well stabilised but if you are concerned

TIPPING most cruise companies now allow you to pre book gratuities or include them in prices. Be sure to tell clients about these so no surprises at end of week if they haven’t pre paid.

DUTY FREE Point out the duty free shopping available onboard many ships.

SHORE Cruises try to allow passengers as much time ashore as possible, sailing at night and waking up in a new port. Many cruise lines are offering more overnights in destinations which is a great way to see many beautiful cities at night with the cruise ship acting as your hotel. Warn that the cruise company’s own shore excursions can be expensive (although many cruise lines are offering these as commissionable extras) and that they can explore on their own.

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

SWITCH SELL: Agents don’t get many clients walking through the door with a cruise brochure so they have to try to switch-sell.

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Route

Flight #

Departure

Arrival

Dublin to St. John's

WS17

08:35

09:58

St. John's to Dublin

WS16

23:15

07:15+1

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HOTELS

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TRIVAGO said that their average room

prices in Dublin varied between €157 on the southside and €120 on the northside. Visitors from UAE pay most, followed by France, Israel, England and Norway. Finland are best bargain hunters, paying an average of €118.

The IHF says that Trivago’s index relates to just 5pc of hotel bookings.

MARRIOTT international its to double in size when its merger with Starwood is completed by June which will see the combined group have 123,000 opened or signed rooms (Marriott’s 61,000 and Starwood’s 40,500) and a pipeline of 21,500 rooms. Amy McPherson, president and managing director, Marriott International, Europe said, “It’s been an extraordinary time for Marriott. We signed over 10,000 new rooms in 2015 for the first time in our history, doubling in size since 2010."

FITZPATRICK Castle Hotel appointed Mairead Cullen as Director of Sales. A graduate of Shannon College of Hotel Management, Sarah Higgins joined the Grand Hotel, Malahide as Duty Manager.

PWC A PwC loyalty survey claimed millennials are not that different despite belong to the fewest number of loyalty programmes.

ASHFORD Red Carnation’s annual awards selected Ashford Castle’s GM Niall Rochford as manager of the year.

IHF Former Rose of Tralee, Lauren Hogan of IHF Cork branch won employee of the year.

Lauren is from Wexford and is currently living in Cork.

BOUTIQUE Hotels pondered what to do about Airbnb, so far used by 70m guests in 34,000 cities.

HOTELBEDS recorded an average 18pc growth across its European markets in 2015.

ANANTARA’s two new resorts Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort and Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara are set to open in mid-2016.

HILTON Worldwide introduced Connie the robotic concierge.

GRESHAM Rumours of the sale of the

New Hotels Federation president Joe Dolan speaking at the IHF Gala Dinner in Killarney

IHF’s biggest ever Killarney conference sets Hotel Federation record

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elegates who gathered in Killarney for the biggest Irish Hotels Federation conference in recent years were in buoyant mood.

The conference itself was one of the biggest in IHF history with 800 registered delegates. On Tuesday 640 sat for lunch, there were 380 occupied seats in room in the conference room and 420 attended the gala dinner.

Keynote speaker was Donegal manager im McGuinness.

“It is a far cry from 2009,” outgoing IHF President Stephen Mcnally of Dalata said, “when we almost cancelled the banquet because we did not have sufficient numbers.”

A pre conference survey found 82pc seeing an increase in business so far this year compared with 2015 and 80pc reporting an increase in advance bookings for remainder of 2016.

IHF issues raised this week in-

cluded the average insurance premium hike of 20pc for the sector.

New IHF president Joe Dolan called for additional funding for tourism marketing and product development, a capital budget of €300m for tourism-specific projects over a five year period and restoration of funding for Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland.

Liveliest discussion of the event was for the was the OTA session with Jason Grist of Booking.com playing the fall guy for the assembled hoteliers, engaging outgoing president Stephen McNally on the issue of commission.

Booking.com are introducing a loyalty programme called genius.

Consumers who make five bookings are signed up to the programme, but it was noted by the delegates that they have to be invited in as a hotelier.

One of the participants that most

delegates wanted to see did not make it. Helena Egan of Trip Advisor was victim to a delayed flight and missed the session. Des O’Mahony f Book Assist and Brian Reeves of GOPPAR Digital also participated in the session.

Two workshops tackled the issue of education and training and revenue and distribution.

The forum on building world class tourist attractions, brands and their teams was addressed by Raymond Coyle, CEO of Tayto Park and Paul Carty of Guinness Storehouse.

Paul was also presented with the President’s lifetime achievement award at the gala dinner, compered by Michael Rosney.

The IHF say 69pc of hoteliers are looking to take on additional staff over the next 12 months and 64pc of hotels and guesthouses increased staffing levels in 2015.

DIT Cathal Brugha Street campus to the Gresham may be premature. The 32-room Gresham has a large site with the footprint for 120 more rooms and has no interest in further acquisition. They did, however, take a look at the site, so is there a spot of lebensraum in north Dublin.

BOOKING.com’s hotel price index claimed Irish hotel prices rose 15pc in 2015 to €118 per night, with Dublin rates up 20pc to €129. Waterford was Ireland’s most affordable destination at €84 per night. The IHF says booking.com accounts for just 8pc of bookings in Ireland.

BELMOND appointed JP Kavanagh as GM of Belmond Grand Hibernian, the first luxury rail experience of its kind in Ireland, launching in August 2016. Kavanagh joins from Doyle Collection’s Kensington Hotel in London.

Convenor Bobby Kerr, keynote speaker Jim McGuinness and outgoing president Stephen McNally

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Transactions back 2015 was a record year for hotel acquisitons

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t is still cheaper to buy hotels than to build in Dublin.

That was one of the key figures to emerge form a discussion at the IHF conference in Killarney where the Hotel Industry Performance and Trends panel featured Tom Barrett of Savills, Sarah Duignan of STR Global and Aiden Murphy of Crowe Horwath Tom Barrett said that 2015 was a record year for transactions with sale price of €340,000 per room back up having been pruned up to €60,000 over a period of few years.

He said that development was restarting in Dublin, where there are 19,000 rooms, with 4,000 needed almost immediately.

The 12 brands operating here account for 15,000 bedrooms, about

HOTELS LOUGH RYNN commissioned PR firm Murray Consultants to put a value on the free publicity the hotel gained from the Brian O’Driscoll-Amy Huberman wedding “and it was in excess of €1m”.

DOBIQUITY showcased four apps at the IHF conference in Killarney. , a mystery shopper app, employee survey app, customer survey app and training feedback app which they say generate savings and ease quality control for hotels.

ANANTARA celebrated their 15th anniversaryand now have a portfolio of 35 luxury hotels and resorts in 11 countries around the world.

HILTON Worldwide scrapped its trial $50 anytime cancellation fee at selected hotels.

HYATT Hotels launched a new brand, the Unbound Collection by Hyatt.

Sarah Duignan speaking at IHF conference 25pc of the market. “The industry is still fragmented but is more branded than it was.”

Aiden Murphy noted that 60pc of loans given to the sector during the boom had now been written off.

Sarah Duignan noted that London and Dublin have the exact same occupancy rates at 82.1pc but the average rate is €100 euro less. She said the average rate is growing at a faster pace than occupancy.

CABRA CASTLE won venue of the Year at the Weddingsonline awards 2016.

Other award winners: McDermott Travel, Honeymoon Supplier of the Year; The Lodge at Ashford Castle, Exclusive Venue of the Year; Lough Rynn Castle, Waterside Venue of the Year; Stephen Bell of Lough Eske Castle, Venue Co-ordinator of the Year; The Red Door Country House, Restaurant Venue of the Year.

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ontiki’s Chinese new year themed launch of their 2016-7 programme at Philip Hughes’ venue Opium on Dublin’s Wexford Street had all the travel industry should desire, food, drink, music, the buzz of conversation and funny hats.

There was a short presentation on what Contiki holidays 18-35 year olds can indulge in this year.

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The new brochure offers 70 trips across the USA and Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia & New Zealand, in Contiki’s eight travel styles on trips from four to 45 days long, including Discovery Plus trips for travellers who want to see and do it all.

Picture shows Egle Godliauskaite, Donna Jeavons, Sharon Jordan, Laura Brown and Lainey Quinn at the launch.

uest speaker at last month’s Travel Counsellors Irish conference in Powerscourt was Niall Breslin (Bressie).

The Meath singer is coach on the Voice of Ireland TV show and passionate mental health campaigner.

As well as the 60 Irish-based Travel Counsellors, 55 business partners exhibited at a speed-marketing Pow Wow session.

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Delegates, including partners and spouses, also enjoyed a black-tie awards ceremony and gala dinner, where Sinead Lonergan from Westmeath was winner of the Best Newcomer Award, Picture shows Ciara MacConnell, Cathy Burke, Niall Breslin, Caitriona Kelleher, Bernie Whelan and Rachael O’Connell at the Travel Counsellors Ireland conference.

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Brittany’sIreland GM Hugh Bruton told Travel Extra’s Conor McMahon that Cork to Roscoff is already fully booked up. Pont Aven is currently in dry dock, the last ship in the fleet to be fitted with scrubbers.

Mike Berens claimed that after the €12m investment, which he likened to open heart surgery, she will be the most environmentally friendly ship sailing from Ireland.

rittany Ferries hosted the Irish media at Mulberry Gardens, where a French-style menu was served up as a piano player provided a sample of the music performed on sailings. Mike Berens, commercial director said that 2015 was the best year across all routes. Bookings are up 24pc.

Routes are filling up quickly with passengers booking early this year.

ight Irish journalists were among a group hosted by Ray Byrne of Wine Port and Tracey Coughlan at Mimozas resort near Cannes.

The resort was purchased by Byrne’s Splash group in November. The trip included a drive along the coast in vintage Fiat cars. Members of the group played the Old Course next door complete with its unique ferry ride over to play the third and back again to play the 15th.

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About 120 of the 280 apartments here are owned by Irish. The Ice House in Ballina with 32 rooms was working well with us and I thought if I can do this in Ballina why not try it in Cannes?

Picture shows Ray Byrne speaking with In the background are Mimozas resort GM Julien La Rizza, Director of marketing Tracey Coughlan and Precillia Dardour

isa McAuley of Silversea hosted travel media at Chapter One with the news that Silver Muse is to call at three Irish ports in 2017.

The new flagship of the fleet will visit Waterford, Cobh and Galway in its inaugural season in 2017, before its inaugural trans Atlantic sailing to Montreal in Canada. Silver Explorer, Silver Wind and Silver Whisper are already scheduled to visit Ireland in 2016.

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Lisa said Ireland has grown “by double digits” as a source market for Silversea in 2016.

The cruise line was looking at the prospect of direct pick-ups in Ireland, a practice it discontinued three years ago.

Silversea want to promote bespoke cruise itineraries. Picture shows Lisa McAuley commercial director of Silversea, Paul Charles of PCC and Natalie Sexton head of marketing Silversea

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line Kelly of Travel Creations, Margaret Hawkins of the Farmer's Journal and Muriel Bolger of the Senior Times, GTI hosted a group of Irish media and travel trade to showcase tour relating to the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

Four-day tours are on offer from €667pp. It was a somewhat emotional tour with some members of the party being introduced to the graves of fallen ancestors.

icture shows Judy Coughlan of Dawson Travel reading at the graveside of Willie Redmond at Locre for a group of travel agents and writers hosted by GTI on a tour of the battlefields of Flanders.

Niall O'Connor of the Irish Sun, Frank McNally of the Irish Times, Dominic Burke of Travel Centres, Jim Murty of the Irish Daily Mail (back), Shane Cullen of Killiney travel, Caro-

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ly Shannon will return to University of Limerick next year. Thousands braved the rain to attend the two day free event, which was making its return to Limerick for the first time in nine years.

“The Show was a great success. It looks like we are going to have the biggest year for foreign and domestic holidays in a decade but it’s no wonder given how bad the weather has been

here. People just seem to have had enough and just have to get away,” said Edmund Hourican, of event organisers Business Exhibitions Ltd. “Exhibitors took an lot more bookings than they had anticipated. We’ve already agreed to come back and do this on the same weekend next year. Picture shows Paulette Moran, Isabel Harrison, Maureen Ledwith and Declan Power at the event.

er Lingus, Murcia and the Spanish Tourist Board hosted 45 agents and media at one of the best supported trade events in recent times.

The event was to mobilise travel agent support behind Aer Lingus’s new 4w Murcia service. The service runs between March 27 and October 29 brining the number of weekly flights from Dublin to Murcia to ten.

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Murcia tourism’s Esther Garcia stressed the fact that Murcia hotel prices will come in 20-25pc below its better known regional alternatives.

50,000 tourist beds, 22 golf courses, four main cities and the famous Costa Calida coastline. Picture shows Ivan Beacom of Aer LIngus, Gonzalo Ceballos of Spanish Tourist Board with Manuel Fernández-Delgado and Esther Garcia from Murcia Tourism.

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safety features. A new lift in 2016-17 promised to be “a special experience” says Anita Baumgartner of Skiwelt ski area Picture shows Niall O'Connor, Jennifer Delaney, Dave Gibson, Rick O'Shea, Siobhan McGarry, Aileen Eglington, Annely Kohli, Joan Scales, Eoghan Corry, Michael Cahill, Cormac Battle, Trudi Mason and Gabriel Eder pictured in Feldewebel restaurant.

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he Soll resort in Tyrol showcased its recent developments to a group of Irish travel writers.

Soll is one of the most popular destinations for Irish skiers and this year’s developments include three new lifts: the €25m 10-seat Hartkaiserbahn, featuring a new restaurant and après ski facility, the Jochbahn , the quickest 8 seater on the mountains, and the Scherntannbahn, a six seater with child

The Colosseum in Rome joined Tourism Ireland’s Global Greening once again in 2016.

TOURISM IRELAND’S BIGGEST EVER GLOBAL GREENING FOR ST PATRICK’S DAY The annual Global Greenhe Colosseum in Rome, ing initiative has truly gone the Leaning Tower of from strength to strength, Pisa, the Sacré-Cœur with a number of new sites Basilica in Paris, the Christ taking part in 2016. These the Redeemer statue in Rio included 7 World Trade de Janeiro and Nelson’s Center at Ground Zero in Column in London were New York, the famous Big illuminated in green to celWheel on ebrate St Place de la Patrick’s Concorde Day – as in Paris, part of Mole Tourism AntonelIreland’s liana in seventh Turin (the annual architecGlobal tural symGreening bol of the initiative. city), the Tourism light rail Ireland’s system in unique Addis global Ababa (the campaign – first light which sees rail system some of in subthe world’s Saharan most Africa) and famous City Hall in attractions Tel Aviv. In and sites Brazil, five going The ‘greened’ Nelson’s Column sites were green to in London on St Patrick’s Day. mark St illuminated in green for the Patrick’s first time ever on St Day – kicks off the organiPatrick’s Day – including the sation’s €21.5 million first half promotional drive to Amazon Theatre (an opera grow overseas tourism in house in the heart of the 2016.

Amazon Rainforest).

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ow long does the ferry take from Circular Quay to Manly and other choice questions were posed by quizmaster Ricky Dunn at an agents table quiz.

The quiz was hosted by Etihad and Visit Australian the trendy Odeon venue in Harcourt Street, Dublin and featured the airline’s top Australia sellers from Club Travel, Trailfinders, Classic Re-

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sorts and other Dublin agencies.

Picture shows the Etihad team who hosted agents, Etihad team who hosted travel agents, Karen Maloney, Hiba Al Masood, Valerie Murphy and Beatrice Cosgrove.

Australian born Shannon O’Dowd was to the fore helping Ricky conduct the quiz.

o celebrate St. David’s Day, Jane Harris and Bethan Wicks of Visit Wales briefed travel journalists about ‘The Year of Adventure’ in Wales, at Chapter One, Dublin.

Jane Harris showed journalists a virtual reality headset, which allowed them to experience three adventure activities at locations in Wales, including zip lining and a deep mine tour in Llechwedd.

New attractions for 2016 introduced

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as part of The Year of Adventure include a coastal wellbeing retreat in Aberdovey, the re-launch of Cardiff Taste Tours, and star gazing in Snowdonia. Recently the night sky above Snowdonia National Park was granted ‘dark sky status’ due to its clear stargazing conditions as a result of low light pollution.

Only ten locations in the world have been awarded this title and two of these are now in Wales.

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after he returned to earth.

Don, who is a member of an exclusive club of about 575 individuals who have gone to space, says that the accessibility of former astronauts is a special feature of the Kennedy Space Centre. Two astronauts a day rotate visitor duty, from a total pool of about 200 NASA veterans.

Tickets cost around $50 for a selection of experiences and are commissionable for agents.

ormer astronaut Don Thomas, who has been to space six times, came to Dublin to help promote Kennedy Space Centre’s two new attractions: Cosmic quest and Heroes and legends which add to the growing portfolio of the Orlando site.

Two thoughts dominated his presentation: how fragile the thin blue rim of the earth looks from out there, and how heavy his limbs and body felt in the days

n Post and Shannon Heritage hosted 25 journalists at an advance preview of the €10m GPO Witness History permanent visitor attraction at the GPO Witness History visitor center in Dublin, The attraction, to commemorate the events of Easter 1916, is set to be opened March 25th by An Taoiseach, and March 29th to the public.

An Post’s Head of Corporate Com-

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munications, Anna McHugh, says the attraction is the culmination of more than five years’ planning.

Located in the GPO building on O’Connell Street, the exhibition boasts interactive elements and a large audio visual screen. Educational Manager, Anne-Marie Smith, says the exhibition will appeal to primary and secondary school children, who study the events of Easter 1916 as part of their curriculum.

ravel Centres agents were hosted

by BedsOnline and Virgin Atlantic in California and Nevada.

They tried surfing on the Baywatch beach, Santa Monica cycle tour, Joshua Tree national park, Indian Wells resort and spa and a food tour of Palm Canyon before heading off to Las Vegas.

The group led by Thomas McNally and Holly Best, took in desert tours and a spot of night life and shopping.

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Pictured at the Cosmopolitan: Lorraine Power, Harvey Travel, Sinead Hearne, Discover Travel, Lynn Dempsey, Newbridge Travel, Justin Blackwood, Bowe Travel, Karen Condon, The Travel Broker, Michelle Barron, Stein Travel, Dympna Crowley, Lee Travel, Holly Best, Virgin Atlantic, Thomas McNally, Bedsonline and John Barrett, Magic Vacations

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Moscow, Sofia, Vienna, Tel Aviv, Belgrade, Tokyo, Athens and Kiev. Christian Schindler says, “Once again Dublin has proved to be a key market within the Lufthansa network. Despite a challenging last quarter of the year the demand for our services has continued to grow proving once again that discerning travellers appreciate the way Lufthansa continues to respond to the challenges of the travel market.”

ufthansa briefed travel journalists at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin,

Christian Schindler of Lufthansa told travel journalists the Lufthansa Group airlines achieved a passenger record for Dublin in 2015. Last year 555,000 people travelled to and from Ireland, up 13.2pc on 2014. In the same year the most popular onward destinations for Lufthansa’s Dublin travellers included

page 011 22/03/2016 11:32 Page 1

Discovering South West England

Cotswolds Village, Bidbury, Gloucestershire

For more information and our new travel trade directory visit trade.visitbritain.com/southwestengland

SOUTH WEST

Page 012 postcard 22/03/2016 11:33 Page 1

APRIL 2016 PAGE 12

POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

N

ashville Convention and Visitors Corp and Grand Ole Opry hosted a Nashville event at The Liquor Rooms in Dublin.

American ambassador Kevin O’Malley and members of Dublin Visit USA Committee were among the delegates who came out in support.

Unsurprisingly music was the them of the evening and entertainment at the event included performances by

N

ewbridge Silverware’s Museum of Style Icons launched the Audrey exhibition.

The exhibition will be a permanent fixture in the Co Kildare museum celebrating Hollywood actress Audrey Hepburn including the famous Givenchy pink dress worn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a Givenchy designed silk floral print dress worn in the 1957 hit film Funny Face and a black dress with detailed

D

ublin based mobile technology company MTT Mobile Technologies which was recently acquired by Travelport, took then opportunity of the CAPA aviation conference in Powerscourt to showcase their work to visiting travel media.

Glenville Morris, Matthew Ovington, Martin Reynolds, Kathrina Gallogly, Conor Winders and Karl Fetherstonhaugh explained the technology to vis-

Nashville musicians Jim Lauderdale and Jessi Alexander (I Drive Your Truck, The Climb, Drink On It and Down Home.

A media dinner earlier in the day outlined the programme for events at the Tennessee destination.

Picture shows US Ambassador to Ireland Kevin O'Malley, Nashville songwriter Jessi Alexander, Deana Ivey of Nashville CVC and Nashville musician Jim Lauderdale.

he traditional Tourism Ireland stand at ITB Berlin was a hub of activity as usual this year, but 14 halls away another Ireland stand had appeared, in the adventure section under the auspices of Fáilte Ireland.

Shaun Quinn of Failte Ireland manned the stand to entice people to showcase Failte Ireland’s new virtual reality viewers devised by Big O media. They are designed to give the chance to remotely

T

experience 3D tours of the Wild Atlantic Way. The three chosen activities featuring in the 360 degree viewer were, horse riding in Mayo and surging with Ollie O’Flaherty off the Cliffs of Moher, chasing a wave called Aileen.

The traditional Irish party in the Irish Harp bar, regarded as the liveliest on the ITB circuit, was attended by 120 people.

beading from the 1963 movie Charade.

Other additions to the exhibition include some new pieces from Kim and Khloe Kardashian, January Jones and Christina Hendricks.

Newbridge Silverware attracts 350,000 visitors a year and is Irelands 21st most visited attraction. “Without the museum of style and icon it would be about 100,000” William Doyle says.

elebrity Cruises say the team in Tour America is the first to become fully trained up Celebrity Captains in the cruise line’s Cruising For Excellence training programme.

Picture shows Lorraine Quinn of Celebrity Cruises with Tour America’s Emma Dunne, Daniel McCluskey, Mary McKenna, Kathleen O Rourke, Alice Carrick, Rachel Ross, Erin Lynch, Tracy McLoughlin, Orla Dunne, Leslie Mar-

C

shall and Ross Waters.

Celebrity Cruises have extended the four tiered simplified approach to its agent loyalty and incentive scheme, Celebrity Rewards.

Celebrity is also awarding agents double points between now and May 3 for every 2016 European cruise that they sell on-board Celebrity Eclipse and Celebrity Reflection.

T

ter programmes in Belfast over the past five years, showcased some of its new summer services from Belfast to Lanzarote and the Algarve.

Picture shows the Topflight Team who hosted the event, Tony Collins chairman of Topflight, Tricia Mitchell, agency sales manager, Jill Russell regional sales manager and Maurice Shiels, sales manager

iting media.

MTT are developing mobile apps for a wide range of airline and technology clients. The group has developed an itinerary approach is the first to integrate flightradar into the app. It also developed contrasting apps for Singapore and for Saudia. Picture shows Fergal Kelly, Kathrina Gallogly, David Malone and Alison Bell of MTT at the aviation event in Co Wicklow.

opflight hosted the trade on at Deane’s in Belfast to highlight the Belfast to Verona route from Belfast International Airport.

The event was co-hosted by Belfast International Airport and held in Deanes in Belfast City Centre.

The tour operator, which has become the Italy specialists from the island and has expanded both its summer and win-

page 013 22/03/2016 11:34 Page 1

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agent.stenaline.ie or call reservations on 01 907 5399 Prices valid on selected days, dates and sailings, subject to availability. Deduct €53 if only one child travelling. Terms and conditions apply. Holidays sold by Stena Line Travel Group AB. Fully licensed and bonded (TA0733).

LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Brick and Knob configurations, the Minifigure, DUPLO and LEGOLAND are trademarks of the LEGO Group. ©2016 The LEGO Group.

Page 014-015 Sunway 22/03/2016 11:38 Page 1

APRIL 2016 PAGE 14

FIFTY YEARS OF SUNWAY

F

ifty years after it has founded, the core value of Sunway has not changed much.

“Sunway is all about the team,” Tanya Airey saysd. “We are in a service industry and our customer service is what we pride ourselves on both here in Ireland and abroad.”

“We regularly receive emails and letters from customers praising our representatives abroad.”

“Travel agents are very important to us and we very much appreciate their continued support.”

50 years of Sunway I

S

unway was registered on 1st April 1966. Roy Beattie took early retirement from Aer Lingus and then set up and office with Walter Greacen, who later set up Newbridge Travel.

They actually lived in the building. When I worked there, the whole ground floor was a shop.

When they started of they had just a very small shop. Behind it was kind of sitting room, kitchen, and then upstairs two bedrooms and a bathroom.

My aunt Madeleine Kilbride went in to work with him. She ran it basically. He was a real salesman. He went out and got lots of corporate accounts. It was predominantly corporate at that time. She looked after everything and she had couple of people working in the office with her.

I took over from him and went out on the road and came back with accounts. I actually enjoyed it. It was real challenge.

When I worked 80pc of the business was corporate and we had a lot of groups as well.

W

e didn’t open shops, we bought them.

We opened just one shop, in Mary Street. M ainly we would take over an existing shop. It was just

Tanya Airey, Tanya and the 1986 corporate reservations team and a flier form 1972 the way the opportunities portunity to run because arose. I suppose people Sunway was not really a would come to us and corporate name anyway. asked if you would you to We ran that separately. be interested to have a When Phillip came into look at and decide if they the company he ran Priorwere actually taken over ity Travel. I went more on rather than opening a the leisure side and we shop, Priority Travel and started to grow that.

In 2002, after we sold Gogan Travel in the late 1980s, Park Travel and Creation Travel in the 1990s, K Travel in 1997, Sunway UK in 1998, Concord Travel ‘s Baggot St shop in 1998, Walter Greacen and Roy Beattie Omni Tours in 2006, O’Mara Travel in Priority Travel to Ameri2007 and Wings Abroad can Express, we decided in 2014. that we are going to really When the recession hit concentrate on tour operwe had reached a point ating. where it was hard to justify having a number of e saw that peoshops when our core ple were really business was tour operatinterested in ing. going to Morocco beThe business that cause it was different. would be feed from our The only thing you could shops, selling our own do in winter at the time products was not enough was the Canaries unless to justify them. you went a long way.

We took over Priority We went over to World Travel and took the op- Travel Market in 1991.

W

We saw Hayes & Jarvis were selling Mombasa and place like this for Eu199 so we thought we would push something like that, something different and we sold loads of holidays for Harvey and Jarvis, so much so that we actually went over on the ferry to their office and brought back carloads of brochures.

They were doing Morocco and we saw their prices were really cheap.

We thought we could charter a flight out of Dublin. We started by using Royal Air Morocco and going via London. In our first year the Gulf War broke out that stopped business for a little while and then it came back even stronger.

We did Marrakesh and then we went to Agadir and decided to put on our first charters.

We started selling like in August or September to start out winter series from the December 19 1992. I had my first son the day before. It was an exciting time.

t was good few years before we started doing anywhere else and then become known as Sunway Morocco.

That’s all we were known for. We needed to move to the next step and do something else. That’s when we started to go mass market and did Lanzarote and Sicily and Sardinia. They were our first three.

After that, so we slowly started adding on destinations. Being tour operators we wanted to bring to people something they could not get somewhere else. Nobody was doing Sicily. Nobody was doing Sardinia.

That was our unique thing. Start with different destinations and then go into the mass market once you known. That’s what we did.

Then we picked really good accommodation in Lanzarote. We decided to give them quality accommodation basically.

Not necessarily the more luxury product but really good value. From then it is we were constantly adding on destinations.

W

e were trying to offer something unique, as all travel agencies are, good travel agencies are always trying to find something that they can sell that is different to everyone else.

When we bought Priority Travel they had South African Airlines GSA. They would do tiny bit of packaging for South Africa so we sell this opportunity, we just started a South Africa package, adding on a South Africa

brochure and went from there to all other different destinations and then we started the USA. Most of them worked.

Corsica worked for a year. In the second year, we couldn’t sell it. I think what it was, was that anybody who wanted to go went and it was really expensive product. I think there were only a small number of people who really wanted to go and would pay for it but it was really hard to get them to go again. Romania we did for two years and the Azores for two years.

We got Club Med and AmaWaterways because of O’Mara Travel. We got Trafalgar escorted tours ourselves, as we were more interested in the IT fares for packaging.

Our business is different to a travel agency.

Ours is a much riskier business. We have planes and if I the planes go out, with only x amount of people, we carry the risk.

They are buying as people ask for the seats. We have actually got the seats and it is just a much riskier business. It is really tight margin and we have a lot of seats. It is a worrying, risky business and with all the things that is going on the world.

O

ne of the things I suppose that has stood to us is that we make decisions quickly and we move on those decisions very fast.

“We don’t have to wait for people in headquarters or somewhere else.

“We can see, we can hear, and we can make the decisions that count for our customers.

Page 014-015 Sunway 22/03/2016 11:38 Page 2

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Page 016-019 Cruise 2016 22/03/2016 13:04 Page 1

APRIL 2016 PAGE 16

CRUISE EUROPE 2016

T

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

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

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

According to John Galligan the most common fears of first time cruises is that they won’t like the people on the ship, the food will be awful, there will be nothing to do, they will hate it and will be stuck out in the sea, they will get seasick and the cruise lines won’t cater for their special needs.

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

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

S

hore excursions are the reasons that the Med has become the new Caribbean. Europe has an array of interesting cities a night sailing away from each other. Unlike Caribbean (or crucially, Alaskan) shore excursions there is lots to do and in some cities up to 20 different excursions to sell to cruise clients.

Cruise companies who used to reposition their ships from the Caribbean to Alaska for summer

What your clients should know

Citybreaks on the sea

Shore excursions are the key to Med cruising

The sailout from venice, arguably the most beautiful on the Meditteranean first started to chose Eu- more capacity on the Med several huge ships at rope instead in the early and more packages to once. noughties. Then came sell, often at terrific The state of the art emcheaper trans-Atlantic prices. barkation terminals at Since 2006 the five these ports and the easy fares and the first stirrings of interest in cruise in Eu- largest cruise ships in the airport transfers made ropean countries. world were built in Eu- cruising more accessible Shore excursions are a rope and brought across than it had been before. valuable revenue earner the Atlantic to ply their Europe’s itineraries for the shipping line, for trade out of Fort Laud- cluster around the princiground handlers and for erdale. Now two of them ple cities Ajaccio, Anagents who sell ancillary are back, along with sev- cona, Argostoli, Armonia, product. Hence the num- eral of the previous gen- Barcelona, Bari, Catania, ber of cruise ships plying eration of biggest ships in Civitavecchia, Corfu, their trade on the Med has the world.

Corfù, Dubrovnik, increased rapidly.

Genoa, Goulette, Ibiza, The Irish clients who Izmir, ow the key ports Istanbul, used to (paradoxically) Kotor, of Amsterdam, Katakolon, get a Caribbean cruise Barcelona, Cit- Livorno, Mallorca, Marcheaper than a European tavecchia, Copenhagen, seille, Mykonos, Naples, one, have been watching Palma de Majorca and Palermo, Palma, Piraeus, this with interest. There is Southampton are hosts to Salerno, Santorini, Valen-

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coa, Valletta and Venice, The access points to Athens and Rome can be grimy and industrial, as can the port areas of cities like Genoa, but there are spectacular ports for entry and departure like Venice.

E

ntry level cruise for an Irish person has changed too. It used to be a small and older ship, including the ships from the likes of Fred Olsen that used to call to Dublin. Now it is more likely to be one of the biggies from Royal Caribbean, MSC, Princess or NCL. Another change is that

the Middle East is now a base so that ships such as MSC Lirica and RCCL’s Brilliance of the Seas are repositioning from Abu Dhabi and Dubai rather than across the Atlantic.

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

Page 016-019 Cruise 2016 22/03/2016 13:04 Page 2

APRIL 2016 PAGE 17

CRUISE EUROPE 2016

What your clients should know

Y

ou cannot have escaped fuss when the Quantum of the Seas launched in November.

The 4,180-passenger next-generation ship launches a new class for Royal Caribbean; its 2,090 cabins include 373 virtual balconies.

This month it will be followed by Anthem of the Seas, which is much more relevant to the Irish market because it will spend its inaugural season in England, followed

by Ovation of the Seas, which will launch later next year.

Styled by the cruise line as a giant new musical-themed "mega ship", Anthem of the Seas, shares Quantum’s reputation as the most technologically advanced cruise ship on teh water and the advanced ever to be based in Europe It will offer cruises to the Mediterranean before moving to Fort Lauderdale for the winter months.

At a cost of €170,000 per berth, Anthem of the Seas also is one of the most architecturally and technologically advanced ships ever built.

T

he only difference between Quantum and Anthem will be the Broadway show.

Anthem will have We Will Rock You as against Mamma Mia on Quantum.

Otherwise it is the

Hi-tech cruising Quantum of the Seas being conveyed to the ocean, Anthem of the Seas follows in April same bells and whistles, and do those bells ring, Quantum class “firsts at sea” include a skydiving experience and the North Star, a jewel like capsule that extends 300 feet above the ocean and over the sides of the ship to deliver 360-degree views for guests, transformative venues include the largest indoor sports and entertainment complex at sea with bumper cars, roller skating and the cruise line’s largest

and most advanced staterooms ever.

The new, larger staterooms enable innovation in design, storage and comfort including the industry’s first virtual balconies, effectively meaning the end of inside cabins.

Sales for Anthem of the Seas are the fastest seeling for a new ship on the Irish and British market, according to Ben Bouldin. Two-thirds of early bookings on An-

them of the Seas were for premium balcony and suite accommodation.

He quotes Adam Morgan when he described Royal Caribbean as a safe challenger brand. “We have to do is really put ourselves out there. We are probably the best funded challenger brand in the world and we have got to take consumers on a journey and show them that we are so much more than what we were in the past.”

G

uests who book on select holidays on the new Anthem of the Seas can enjoy gratuities and select drinks packages included into the price of their holiday.

An eight-night cruise throughout France and Spain costs from €1,599 per person (based on two people sharing an interior stateroom).

Price includes flights from Dublin, transfers,

gratuities, a select or soda drinks package per person and an eight-night cruise departing from Southampton (England), and calling at Vigo (Spain), Gijon (Spain), Bilbao (Spain), Paris (Le Havre, France), before returning to Southampton (England) for the flight home. irish travel agents will be travelling to the launch of Anghem of the seas takes place on April 2022 in Southampton.

CRUISE IN STYLE FROM DUBLIN, CORK AND SHANNON. Introducing Thomson Discovery, new for 2016.

Call In store * Free All Inclusive Upgrades: Offer valid on sailings departing between 01 October 2016 – 31 October 2016. Offer only applies to time spent onboard the ship and some exclusions may apply to the onboard package. Offer must be selected at time of booking and applies to new bookings only, is subject to availability and may be withdrawn without prior notice. For full terms and conditions please refer to the latest edition Thomson Cruises brochure. Thomson is a trading name of TUI UK Limited, a member of the TUI AG group of companies, registered in England and Wales under number 2830117 and whose registered office is at TUI Travel House, Crawley Business Quarter, Fleming Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 9Q

Page 016-019 Cruise 2016 22/03/2016 13:04 Page 3

APRIL 2016 PAGE 18

CRUISE EUROPE 2016

e

What your clients should know

Size matters MSC Meraviglia: MSC is latest to join the 5,400 passenger category of cruise ship the ships 2016.

Features include three end of the slide. Seven he move toward on top of another 4,100Quantum waterslides, the line’s neighbourhoods are fealarger and larger passenger ships is less important as Class ships to follow first, that start from the tured including the signathe 22 6launches in 2015 Quantum of the Seas and top-deck Pool and Sports ture Boardwalk and Zone and twist and turn Central Park spaces. The include river and smaller Anthem of the Seas. the f t excitemen Most down three decks into Boardwalk on Harmony the and ships specialty will reportedly feature a growth of niche cruising. spring surrounds Har- one of two pools. is will Seas slides the the of of One classic games arcade, a mony But size still matters. e next ’s Champagn a Caribbean kids-only climbing play Royal feature orhas Royal Caribbean dered two new 5,400 Oasis-class cruise ship, bowl that swirls riders area and a Starbucks passenegr Oasis class set to debut in April around as they approach cafe. Passengers will be

T

2016

CRUISE LINE UPCOMING BUILDS

■ Royal Caribbean Ovation of the Seas 4,100 pax May ■ Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas 5,400 pax May ■ Carnival Vista, 4,000 pax, March 12 ■ Regent Explorer, 738 pax ■ Holland America Koningsdam 2,660 pax March ■ AidaPrima 3,250 pax March ■ Viking Sky 944 pax Summer ■ Seabourn Encore 604 pax autumn ■ Unnamed Star Cruises, 3,360 pax ■ TUI Mein Schiff 5 2500 pax

2017

■ Viking Sky 944 pax Feb ■ Norwegian Bliss 4,200 pax Spring ■ Unnamed Princess Cruises, 3,560 pax summer ■ MSC Meraviglia 4,500 pax May 2017 ■ Unnamed MSC Seaside 5,300 pax November ■ TUI Mein Schiff 6 2500 pax ■ Silverseas Silver Muse 596 pax April

2018

■ Seabourn Ovation 604 pax spring ■ Blue Star Titanic II, 2,345 pax ■ Unnamed Royal Caribbean Oasis class 5,400 pax

summer ■ Unnamed Carnival, 3,954 pax summer ■ Unnamed Norwegian 4,260 pax summer , ■ Unnamed Crystal Exclusive class ship 1,000 ■ Celebrity Project Edge class ship 2,900 ■ TUI Mein Schiff 7 2500 pax ■ Unnamed Holland America 2,660 pax March ■ Unnamed MSC Seaside 5,300 pax May

2019

■ Unnamed Royal Caribbean Oasis class 5,400 pax spring ■ Unnamed MSC Meraviglia sister ship 4,500 pax ■ Unnamed Norwegian, 4,260 pax summer ■ Unnamed Costa 6,600 pax ■ Unnamed Crystal Exclusive class ship 1,000 ■ TUI Mein Schiff 8 2500 pax ■ Unnamed Saga 540 pax ■ Carnival Corp nine cruise ships 2019-22

2020

■ Unnamed Celebrity Cruises Project Edge class ship 2,900 pax ■ Unnamed Costa, 6,600 pax ■ Unnamed China Xiamen, 2,000 pax ■ Unnamed Virgin Xiamen, 2,800 pax

offered a choice of two Dynamic Dining option. At 227,000 gross tons, Harmony will weigh 1,718 tons more than the current record-holder..

While the details for Hamrony were being finalised, construction on Royal Caribbean's fourth Oasis-class ship officially began with a steel cutting at the STX France shipyard in Saint-Nazaire.

ight large ships were delivered in 2007, four in 2008, eight in 2009, six in 2010, six in 2011 seven in 2012, six in 2013 and four each in in 201 and 2015.

Royal Caribbean will base all three of its Oasisclass cruise ships in Florida in 2016.

That same summer Anthem of the Seas will sail its first summer season out of Cape Liberty, visiting Bermuda. Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas will sail alternate seven-night Western and Eastern Caribbean itineraries out of Port Everglades. In autumn 2016 Harmony of the

E

Seas, which launches April 2016, will not sail Caribbean itineraries to begin with, but will replace Oasis of the Seas in Port Everglades in autumn 2016 when Oasis of the Seas moves to its new winter homeport of Port Canaveral.

Features on Norwegian Escape, to launch in November, include two restaurants from celebrity chef Jose Garces, a craft beer hall from Miamibased craft brewery Wynwood and two new Broadway shows -- After Midnight and Million Dollar Quartet. International gourmet dishes will be available in Food Republic, located in former cabin space, now an extended Waterfront on Deck 8. Norwegian’s first swine bar will be the Cellars, a Michael Mondavi Family Wine Bar. Caribbean The (35.5pc) will lead global cruise ship capacity in 2015, followed by .the Mediterranean (19.5pc), Baltic (10.6pc), Asia (6pc), Australia (6pc), Alaska (4.6pc) S America (2.6pc) and other markets (15pc).

Page 016-019 Cruise 2016 22/03/2016 13:04 Page 4

APRIL 2016 PAGE 19

CRUISE EUROPE 2016

What your clients should know

A

report by David O’Grady’s etravel.ie says that Irish people book premium cruises at a greater rate than budget cruises.

The report says 58pc of their cruise sales are for four-star ships and 35pc are for five-star ships.

The report estimates 35,000 passengers from Ireland are expected to cruise this year, up 20pc since 2014 and 42pc of Irish cruisers are now under 40. The average price paid in 2015 for a fly cruise package was €1,476 in 2015 versus €1,383 in 2014 and stateroom sales breakdown to approximately 65pc balconies, 28pc inside and 7pc ocean view. So far in 2016 the trend seems to be upwardly mobile to the 5 and 6 star luxury liners like Celebrity, Silversea, Cunard and Crystal Cruises.

Extra Extra More expensive dining options

F Norweigain are leading the way in charging extra for dining options They say cruise sales “Cruise ships are often are up as much as 46pc referred to as floating hofor some agents. tels and in some cases David O’Grady says: they are more like float“The world has changed. ing cities. You can choose Tastes have changed. the massive ships like “Modern luxury is airy Royal Caribbean’s Harspaces with all the right, mony of the Seas which tasteful details, restau- can carry almost 8000 rants where the design is passengers and crew, or a just as important as the smaller intimate river cuisine, intuitive service cruises which carry less with a keen eye for detail, than one hundred passenand doing as much or as gers. little as you choose.

M S KON I NG S DAM

or the first time on a major cruise ship, pay restaurants will outnumber free ones on the new Norwegian Escape.

There are still eight restaurants with complimentary dining, including Taste and O’Sheehan’s (the ex CEO’s name still adorns the Irish pub), but there are ten premium restaurants.

Some of the premium restaurants will introduce a la carte pricing.

When the controversial 18pc charge was raised at the press conference it was stridently defended

by Chief Operating Offi-

cer for Norwegian Brand Andy Stuart as being below the average service charge in NCL’s main market, the USA. He explained that the decision to raise the daily service charges twice in one season was part of the change in perspective brought by new management and said that the move to a la carte dining and premium restaurants was enabling NCL to bring more choice to customers.

“The move to al a carte is a great one,” Stuart said, “it is what people it is used to. Not everyone will have an appetizer, main course and a dessert

and wants a cover charge.”

“If people feel more comfortable with certainty and a cover charge we have “ “We have introduced a range of dining packages, you can buy a three night , four night, five night, six night, seven night dining package.”

“We are offering more choices to our guests rather than less choice and we are offering a better experience across these venues. This ship represents a n ext step in the evolution of the product, bringing more choice, more freedom, more flexibility.”

7-nights from €799pp Your chance to sell the newest ship of any major cruise line to sail in Europe in 2016 – five star ms Koningsdam.

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105189 ITITS - April 16 - DPS.qxp_105189 ITITS - April 16 - DPS 21/03/2016 15:52 Page 1

Presented by

Venue

The Ballsbridge Hotel [Formerly Jurys Hotel]

Pembroke Road | Dublin D04 D687

Date and time

Thursday April 7 2.00pm – 7.00pm th

Visit

To pre-register for fast track entry and the BBQ and to find out more about the event log on to: www.irishtravelindustrytradeshow.com

Sponsors:

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The Lunch

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List of exhibitors waiting to welcome you include: A2B Transfers

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Shannon Airport

Aer Lingus

Costa Calida - Region De Murcia

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Spanish Tourism Board

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Air Canada/Air Canada Rouge Air Transat

Algarve Tourism Bureau

Amadeus Marketing Ireland

Ambasciatori Place Hotel Fiuggi Italy ANA - All Nippon Airways Andalucia Tourist Board APG Ireland

ASL Airlines France

ASM - Airline Sales & Marketing

ATTS Travel Representation Solutions Austrian Airlines

Barcelo Hotels & Resorts Bedsonline SLU Betabeds Blue Air

Blue & Green Hotels Algarve BookaBed

Brussels Airlines Canary Islands

Cascais Tourist Board Catalan Tourist Board Celebrity Cruises Contiki Holidays

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portugal ad.qxp_105189 ITITS - April 16 - DPS 21/03/2016 15:48 Page 2

The Portuguese Tourist Board invite Travel Agents and Tour Operators to meet

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Page 022-023 Alentejo 23/03/2016 09:04 Page 1

APRIL 2016 PAGE 22

DESTINATION PORTUGAL

B

eyond the vibes are ubiquitous cork trees, like mother hens, spreading their wings over the land below.

Occasionally you will see the famous black pigs rooting underneath for acorns.

Delicious pork, delicious wine, and the sound of the cork coming from the bottle.

F

ood and wine is what Alentejo does best. Alentejo does not really buy into the jargon of food, it just cooks and bakes and serves the good stuff up with lashings of olive oil and garlic.

The previous generation never thought of putting this on the tourism menu because it was so natural to them.

The kitchens here are so integrated into the culture they are almost nervous of drawing attention to themselves.

The province does not have a single Michelin Star restaurant (the Algarve has six), which says more about the star system than Alentejo.

There are no television celebrity chefs wandering around putting their brands onto Showcase pop culture food outlets.

Instead there are thousands of places serving up fresh produce from their own gardens and not making a song and dance about it. In the iconic O Fialho Restaurant in Evora the menu is functional and plain (fried mushrooms in olive oil and garlic, or grilled black porc with rosemary and mashed apples), each

serving a work of art, old school cooking, slow and intimate.

I asked in Evora if there was a McDonald's.

They said yes but nobody was quite sure where it was, out of town on a distant roundabout, where it should be.

And they opened another bottle of their great wine.

U

nder the dictatorship Alentejo was to be the bread basket of Portugal.

Oddly enough the production of wine was not on the Salazar agenda.

It took the efforts of a few pioneers to get the industry going. The tasting room in Evora shows what happened next. with the150 native grape types and varieties like Alicante Bouschet that have become associated with the region. Portugal is a country of blends, one of the wines I tasted had 12 in a single label. The more ambitious of the winemakers now vie with the Duoro for the title of Portugal’s finest.

The 270 producers in the commission and another 30 outside produce 2,000 labels and nowadays 44.7pc of wine produced in Portugal is from Alentejo.

The reputation of a wine is not something for a magazine article. It is to tested and tasted and Alentejo has worked out a sophisticated distribution network in Ireland.

The best wines are from the small producers and Evora wine commission tasting room recognises this.

Each week the com-

PLACES TO SEE

■ Almendres Cromlech) Guadalupe ■ Évora UNESCO heritage city ■ Pão de Rala Bakery, Évora ■ Monsaraz walled town ■ São Pedro do Corval pottery village ■ Herdade do Esporão historic winery ■ Coastal walks at Cabo Sardão ■ Porto das Barcas fishing village ■ Porto Covo ■ Troia Design Hotel

Eoghan Corry in Portugalʼs culinary treasure, Alentejo Cork trees overlook winter vines at Herdade da Malhadinha mission picks three different wineries and offer tourists and guests a free tasting. To visit vineyards costs a little more, 15-20 for a flight of wine in the Californian tradition of charging for the taste.

The conversation is free, and when you meet authentic producers, not factory cellar door mar-

PLACES TO STAY ■ Imany Country House www.Imany.pt/index.php?lang=en ■ M'AR De AR, Evora www.mardearhotels.com ■ Herdade da Malhadinha www.malhadinhanova.pt ■ Herdade do Touril www.touril.pt/en/herdade-dotouril.html ■ Naturate https://naturarte.pt/

keting people, talking about a product they love and make themselves, you have something that can not be imitated easily.

A

ll this wine needs to be have something to seal it into a bottle. One of the regions most interesting stops was the cork production facility outside of Evora.

The cork harvest from trees that pocker the landscape are gathered here and made into traditional cork which does what traditional cork has been doing since Roman times, and seals in the flavours

of wine.

In the shop they sell €27 cork hats and dozens of other cork products.

In the era of exit through the gift shop this is one gift shop will actually qualifies as an attraction in itself.

A

lentejo was saved by poverty. During the 1960s there was no money to invest and rebuild in gaudy cement .

During the revolutionary 1970s after the estates were taken the confidence of the estate owners was so shaken that

they, too, were slow to invest.

Hence it is a surprise when you come across across any big hotels such as the Troia Design Hotel on the southern shore of Setubal estuary, or the rambling tied-vine of Herdade do Esporão, the biggest vineyard in the country.

The rest of the province is a haven for rural boutique hotels, the ones that other countries can only dream about hoping to create.

My room numbers from a four day stay were all in the single digits or

■ Eoghan Corry travelled to Alentejo as a guest of Alentejo Tourism and VisitPortugal www.visitportugal.co ■ Aer Lingus fly daily to Lisbon year round, For best fares see aerlingus.com

Page 022-023 Alentejo 23/03/2016 09:04 Page 2

APRIL 2016 PAGE 23

DESTINATION PORTUGAL

Chapel of the bones in San Francisco monastery in Evora close: room seven at Imaly country house hotel, unnamed room in Herdade da Malhadinha , three in Herdade do Touril and ten in Naturarte.

When you go to stay in a province or region and come home with that single digit experience, that has to be very special indeed.

A

lentejo has seen a revolution of another kind, 40 years after the dictatorship fell.

Great highways connect all of this sprawling and empty province’s towns.

Or, if they are not already connectors you have the stop-go traffic systems such as those around Beja to indicate

that they soon will be.

When you turn off the great highways, the old dirt roads are still there, awful as ever, rattling your teeth and the springs of the rental car.

A visit to the Almendres Cromlech) Guadalupe, one of the wonders of ancient megalithic Europe, is a tooth rattling experience. You can almost hear the an-

cients in your ears murmuring in agreement that this is as it should be.

When the apparatchiks of world tourism collectively decided as one that food is the new landscape for international tourists, that authenticity and personality are the new currency, Alentejo must smile as it watches countries with no culinary tradition try to steal its kitchen utensils.

C

Clockwise: Ercília Zambujo from Pão de Rala convent bakery, including ʻkisses from a nunʼ, the 1556 fountain at Evora, tour guide Libanio Murteira Reis at the mis-named temple of Diana, Eoghan Corry with cork wood

oolest place to visit is the Capela dos Ossos (church of the bones) in Evora’s San Francisco monastery. built entirely from the bones of about 5,000 people.

There are seven of these churches in the Alentejo region. This is not the biggest but it is the one that most tourists arrive to see.

The point was to allow the faithful to contemplate death as they prayed and an old graveyard was used to supply the raw

materials. The warning at the entrance reads: Nós ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos (“we bones that here are, for yours await").

Some of the skulls are tiny, childlike, peering with empty eyes on those who have come to gape, because gaping the new prayer.

As a contemplation on mortality, it wins bones down.

It is more spiritual than weird or eerie, or maybe that is just what bones and skulls in an ecclesiastical setting have taught us to feel.

I

s Alentejo the new Tuscany, as the marketeers claim?

The Tuscany of 40 years ago was an invention. It made its way firstly into the literature of ex-pat restored houses and then into the movies.

After that there is no turning back.

Alentejo does not need to be invented. The red

tile roofs, like the Tuscany of Hollywood, have existed here forever. The narrow streeted villages, white houses and blue tiled churches are to be found everywhere.

In an industry where authenticity is rare and fake is celebrated, tourism could do worse than go back to the heart of one of the most authentic tourist products in the world.

Is Alentejo too big to be a region at all? It is a collection of personalities and landscapes and culinary products that cannot easily be lumped onto one table.

Each village has its own almond sweet cake.

Each monastery and convent seem to bake something heavenly.

Do they all belong in the same brand at all?

Only several visits can tell. Alentejo deserves to be visited early and often and savoured like a slow lunch washed down with stunning wine..

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Page 024-025 Battlefields 23/03/2016 09:01 Page 1

APRIL 2016 PAGE 24

DESTINATION FLANDERS

M

ud and chalk.

That is how the world came to an end and hundreds of thousands perished.

It is only when you get the feel of it under your shoes that you realise what the millions of reluctant conscripts went through in that bloody summer of 100 years ago at the frontline of a family spat between two quarreling cousins, the King of England and the Kaiser of Germany.

A family squabble that killed eight million people.

Grave matters

T

he bloodiest of the killing fields of World War I were confined to two very small areas.

Two salients, each about 30,000 acres, marked where armies managed a small bulge in the other’s territory existed in Verdun and Ypres.

Frenchmen fell by their tens of thousands at the first, men from England and their colonies at the second.

The fronts here barely moved over the four year history of the war. Here, in the lines of the Roger Waters song, as the gernal sat, the lines on the map moved from side to side..

This was where the worst of the butchery played out. Just after the last of the fallen had fallen the spin began.

Commemorating them became part of the spin.

Eoghan Corry on the fields of Flanders Trench supports surviving from the Battle of the Somme A hundred years later it is chilling and almost ghoulish how commemorating the dead of that war has been turned into a new battle by some, a renewed fountain of triumphalism and nationalism. And, whisper the word, imperialism.

T

he pageantry and bugle playing and wreath laying at the Menin Gate every night excludes the soldiers who fought on the other side, and, oddly, most of those who fought on the same side.

It is a Britons-only event. One of the last surviving veterans of the

First World War lived until 113 and only came to visit very late in his life. On his first night here, Harry Patch visited the German cemetery with Germany’s last survivor Erich Kästner.

At Menin he insisted on dedicating the ceremony to the fallen Germans on the other side as well. It was the first time anyone had thought of doing so.

T

he Irish memorials, erected in the torrid time when the country was being partitioned, also fall into their identification packages.

The Munsters were

Clockwise British and German graveyards, Willie Redmondʼs grave at Locre, the enormous crater at Ploegsteert. Right: Ulster memorial

commemorated in the most dignified of the memorials in Ypres, a Celtic cross donated by the people of Cork who reminded readers they were the capital of Munster.

Other landmarks carry Irish names, the Connacht cemetery and the Birr road, a highway that leads to hellfire cross outside Ypres. Hellfire got its name because it was a target of intense shelling through the history of the battles here.

The Ulster Memorial was more declamatory, the larger a replica of Helen's Tower Clandeboye, and its companion with four emblazoned battles commemorated on the plinth, none of them with anything to do with the First World War. Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne is the mantra of this monument, a line from the Sash My Father Wore, and a message to visitors that might as well say Catholics need not apply (the Ulster called the salient the Pope’s nose).

An Armagh Catholic on the trip with us com-

mented: “it's as if we never existed. And they wonder why Northern Catholics do not wear the poppy.”

Not far away the Irish Peace Park was put together in the wave of optimism that came from the 1990s peace process, a round tower with the door halfway up the front caused some puzzlement among the Belgians who were involved in erecting it, and when the attention span had moved on, left to maintain it.

In one of those ironic peace outcomes the Imperial War Graves commission were the ones who nowadays get to mow the lawn.

Connacht is gloriously misspelled, on one of the memorials here. When you're putting up a memorial in stone, grammar should be important. The Ulsters abuse the redundant apostrophe, the Munster Memorial studiously get it right.

difficult it must have been to fight here.

The chalky clay of the Somme doesn't go away.

When you try to clean it off, it actually multiplies as if it has been breeding on your shoe and goes everywhere.

After two or three site visits you are now haunted by this stuff. Dig in for four years in a damp trench, it must have beyond what one could imagine.

Further up to another salient there was another problem with the clingy marlish mud. Animals, carriages, men disappeared into it.

In the museum at Passchendaele there is an artwork of hands grasping upwards towards the sky, one man's commentary on how awful being caught in the mud must have been.

With the mud and the chalk, the clean fields from which the armies have practised their rifle rounds of machine-gun rounds seems redundant.

They were not trained for mud or chalk.

A

nd in Passchendaele the most depressing, most beautiful cemetery of them all, the burial site at Langemarck of 35,000 Germans shaded by oak trees.

The Germans who died here were allocated the least land after the war.

Unlike the English who allocated government money, and still do, to commemorating socalled military heroics as

W

hen you lift your shoes out of the clinging soil that you realise how

Eoghan Corry was hosted by GTI relating to the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. Ypres based four-day tours of the WW1 battlefields of Flanders and the Somme are on offer from €667pp. Telephone +353 1 843 4734

Page 024-025 Battlefields 23/03/2016 09:02 Page 2

APRIL 2016 PAGE 25

DESTINATION FLANDERS

Tour guide Simon Louagie at the Francis Ledwidge monument Boezinghe

Clockwise: Memorial to the 16th Irish Division, Wytschaete, tricolour at Passchendaele Museum, Somme trenches and Munster memorial,Ypres part of a culture that recruits and sends more conscripts, this time economic conscripts, to battlefields in countries they have invaded around the world, there was little money to maintain these graves.

There are no “countless white crosses standing mute in the sand.” There

are just dark graves, in some cases carrying tens of thousands, under the oak trees, something terrible and beautiful at the same time.

A

surprise for those who trundle through a handful of the 130 cemeteries which carry the English

war dead, and the colonials under English commands, about 72,000 of the bodies were never found.

The paybook was used to identify the dead, not for commemorative purposes but so that their shilling a day could be stopped (and the 12/6 sent to the separas at

home, £50,000 as being given out to the women of Dublin whose husbands were at the front at the time of then1916 Rising).

The average soldier was 5’3 tall. Three square meals a day meant many of them outgrew their uniforms.

They were gathered up and sent to the provost’s office, two large trucks putting them into pillowcases and putting them into the back of the truck, blood running from the pillows.

Today the remains of the dead and the debris of war float occasionally to the topsoil and are likely to surface any time a farmer ploughs a field.

Lumps of shrapnel are pushed aside wherever there is a clearing. This is counted among the most polluted land on Earth.Every day three pieces of unexploded ordnance are found and have to be rendered safe. Of 2bn shells fired, a quarter did not explode and 60,000 are still in the region.

Each year some people doing the job are killed, 600 have died since 1945.

Occasionally the car will explode and vanish into thin air as if they were a 19-year-old from Belfast or Athy sent off on George V’s family business.

The English put up poignant crosses, laid out in parade ground order, with “known only to God,” but when you see the scale of the conflict and the killing you wonder how does even God keep track.

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Page 026-027 Afloat 22/03/2016 13:08 Page 1

APRIL 2016 PAGE 26

AFLOAT UNIWORLD are to launch the 128-

Port ambitions

passenger SS Joie de Vivre on the Seine in March 2017.

PRINCESS Cruises debuted its Cook My Catch culinary experience which allows guests to cook their catch of the day.

NORWEGIAN

Cruise Line announced changes to the entertainment onboard Norwegian Escape and Norwegian Getaway.

‘For the Record: The Brat Pack’ show will be in the Escape Theatre from April 16, while the Escape cinema will be showing Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Million Dollar Quartet will move from Escape and reopen on Getaway on May 15.

AIDA Cruises took delivery of new flagship AIDAprima and announced an additional short cruise to start from Hamburg Apr 25.

MSC Cruises announced a partnership with pan-Asian chef Roy Yamaguchi.

CELEBRITY Cruises launched its 2016-17 luxury cruises worldwide brochure featuring 282 destinations in 76 countries with new ports of call including Monte Carlo, Sète in France, Aomori and Hiroshima in Japan as well as 30 double overnight stays.

CLIA Arnold Donald, Adam Goldstein and Larry Pimentel were announced as keynote speakers at the 2016 CLIA Conference in Southampton.

OVATION of the Seas completed its conveyance from Meyer Werftshipyard in Papenburg down the river backwards to get to the North Sea.

NORWEGIAN Cruise Line changed departure times of Norwegian Escape from Miami to 19:00 hours making cruise possible without prior overnight stay.

REGENT Serena Melani from Tuscany has been appointed the first female captain of Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

AMAWaterways’ AmaStella completed her maiden voyage.

ROYAL Caribbean unveiled its On Sale Now incentive available until May 2 and 2017 preview brochure for Irish holidaymakers.

2017 itineraries include: Independence of the Seas new Northern Europe sailings including new port Rotterdam, Jewel of the Seas new Western Med sailings from Rome, Vision of the Seas sailings from Amsterdam and a new Western Europe sailing Explorer of the Seas sailings and Radiance of the Seas new sevennight sallings including Alaska. On Sale Now savings offer up to €1,200 off suites and up to €600 off other staterooms.

DISNEY Cruises entered into a memorandum of agreement with the Meyer Werft shipyard in Germany to deliver two new 1,250 stateroom ships. The schedule calls for the new ships to be completed in 2021 and 2023.

NORWEGIAN

Cruise Line relaunched a revamped website.

Dublin plans cruise terminal to meet massive growth Dublin Port has ambitions to construct a cruise terminal.

D

ublin Port Company launched a new Cruise Tourism Development and Marketing agency, Cruise Dublin.

The group noted that plans to promote Dublin as a homeport will require more five star hotel supply in the city.Dublin has ambitions to become a home port for cruise ships like Southampton, on the completion of the development plan for the port.

The port’s head of corporate communications. Pat Ward said that the port would be able to accommodate two cruise ships of 330 metres as well as other 220 metre ships at the same time when redevelopment is completed at the end of a five-year plan.

The port could be ready for the 2020 cruises stop on the question of a terminal to rival the house in Southampton, Amsterdam or Barcelona, Ward said.

But he warned that it could not be justified until report had a greater turnover of cruise ships.

He said the Port Authority were looking at mixed development which would encompass a hotel and exhibi-

tion space to complement the Conference Centre.

These areas could then be used as a terminal when required with full security scanning facilities and checkin area.

He said that over the last two years the cruise industry has shown that it has huge interest in Dublin as a cruise home port.”

The two crucial factors are connectivity from the airport and ease of transfer to the port. Dublin is now one of the most connected airports to North America in Europe. It has more connectivity than any airport in Europe’s largest cruise market, Germany, for instance. And with the tunnel, the port is now just 15 minutes from the airport.”

He said historically Dublin port could only handle ships of 300m length. This changed in the last year when Harbourmaster David Bingham went to the maritime school in Cobh to advise major cruise lines on bow to manoeuvre Dublin Port on a simulator.

Dignam showed that larger cruise ships could be reversed into position.

Hence the arrival in 2015 of the 330m MSC Splendida.

This year 121 cruise ships will call compared with 93 last year. Last year 137,000 passengers arrived, a figure which would creep up towards 200,000 in 2016.

Last July 23 four cruise ships arrived simultaneously in town bringing 30,000 passengers into the city.

He said that the redevelopment of the port will see Alexandra Basin transformed and 120 metres on the north wall extension lopped off to create a turning space the larger cruise ships. Ships wil be able to berth as far upriver as East Link Bridge, adding a new dimension to the cityscape.

Cruise Dublin exhibited at the world’s leading cruise business convention, the Seatrade Cruise Global Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Cruise Dublin will also meet with Cruise Europe to finalise plans for the Cruise Europe Conference in Dublin in 2016. The three day event will host 200 delegates from leading cruise destinations throughout Europe and

35,972 IRISH TOOK CRUISES IN 2015

C

LIA said aggregated Irish cruise numbers were up 14pc to 35,972 in 2015, of which 21,475 (60pc) chose the Mediterranean and 22pc the Caribbean.

River cruise numbers

were up 8pc. The average length of a cruise was 10.6 nights (rates have fluctuated between 9.7 and 11.1 nights in the last ten years), average cruising age fell by three years to 55.2 years having increased by 2.7

years over the previous decade and 3.4 years in the previous four years.

CLIA says travel agents earn an average 10pc in commission from a typical booking, so for a couple at an average price of €1,827

will earn a travel agent €365. England was overtaken by Germany as Europe’s main cruise market in 2014 and the gap is widening despite a 9pc increase inc cruise bookings in England n 2015.

Page 026-027 Afloat 22/03/2016 13:08 Page 2

APRIL 2016 PAGE 27

AFLOAT

Stena’s first year I

n its first year the Stena Superfast X has transported 375,000 passengers, 95,000 cars and 83,000 freight units between Holyhead and Dublin.

The Superfast X has the ability to carry up to 1,200 passengers. It offers 2km of lane space for both passenger and freight traffic.

Stena Line Group operates 22 ferry routes in Scandinavia, around Great Britain and Ireland and to the Baltic countries, connecting 10 countries with 34 vessels and employs 5,500 people.

Passengers consumed 57,000 cups of tea and 20,000 Irish breakfasts in Superfast X’s first year of Ferry Godmother, Kathryn Thomas joins senior master captain Richard Davies at Dublin Port on the bridge of Stena Superfast X. operation.

HARMONY COMPLETES SEA TRIALS

R

oyal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas has been undergoing sea trials in advance of the ship’s launch on May 20.

The ship needed six tugs to get out of the STX France shipyard in SaintNazaire, the ship's captain, along with three pilots, then guided Harmony of

CMV Cruise & Maritime Voyages, an old favourite among Irish cruisers, will add P&O Cruises Australia's Pacific Pearl to its fleet in 2017.

SEABOURN Encore floated out at the Fincantieri shipyard in Marghera, Italy.

BALI Celebrity Solstice, Celebrity Millenium and Radiance of the Seas have all dropped Bali from some itineraries cancelled visits to Bali due to what is says is an “increased risk of terrorist attack.”

REGENT Seven Seas Explorer will provide bath amenities from Guerlain.

AIDA Actress Emma Schweiger will christen AIDAprima, the new flagship of AIDA Cruises, as part of the 827th Hamburg port anniversary on May 7.

FRED OLSEN, one of the few cruise lines which pick up customers in Ireland, says its four-strong fleet of Balmoral, Braemar, Boudicca and Black Watch will visit 220 destinations in 70 countries in 2017-8, plus 118 areas of scenic cruising. Itineraries go on sale on Friday, March 18.

IRISH CONTINENTAL rethe Seas into open water.

According to ship captain Gus An- ported passenger numbers were up 2pc to dersen, the sea trials will tests its en- 1,675,800 from 1,643,300. Car numbers carried were up 5pc to 400,900 from 381,800. gines and turning ability.

Booking your summer holiday in France is child’s play when you travel with Irish Ferries. For a deposit of just €100 you can book your preferred sailing times and dates, travelling from either Dublin or Rosslare. Get the ball rolling on a fantastic French holiday.

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THE FLYING COLUMN

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

CARTRAWLER was appointed exclusive ground transportation provider to Emirates.

EDREAMS London’s Advertising Standards Authority found that eDreams advertising on Google was “misleading” consumers and breached the CAP code. Ryanair issued an exulatory statement.

LA Sarah Toal (20) from Beaumont Dublin was the winner of the Aer Lingus competition to Star in your own LA Story, run in partnership with TV3. Aer Lingus is offering a lead in fare of €299 each-way to celebrate the new 4w service which starts May 4.

CITYJET was named official airline of Kinsale rugby sevens.

DUBLIN Airport was rated number one in its size category for customer service by Airports Council International.

AMERICA’s big three carriers applied for Cuba flights.

ENGLAND’s Civil Aviation Authority warned that a surge in air-rage incidents in the past few weeks could force an end to the sale of alcohol on flights.

IAA is testing remote tower centre for Shannon and Cork (at Dublin),

JET2 announced additional summer flights from Belfast to Ibiza.

TURKISH Airlines announced a billion dollar level profit level for the first time in its history.

BA British Airways launched their new hypnotherapy channel, England’s first hypnotherapy sessions in the air.

BRAY The Red Arrows are coming to Bray aviation show.

FINNAIR will turn Runway 2 at Helsinki Airport into a catwalk for A Match Made in HEL fashion show.

AWAS appointed David Siegel as chief executive. He will join in April.

IAG appointed Javier Sánchez-Prieto as chairman and CEO of Vueling.

5-MILE HIGH CLUB? A survey

by Jetcost claimed that one fifth of cabin crew have joined the mile-high club.

AIRBUS patented an adjustable bench to give obese passengers more room on aircraft.

AWAS added Brussels Airlines to its customer list with an agreed lease placement of one A330-300.

AVOLON appointed Wui Jin Woon as MD of capital markets APAC, based in Singapore.

LIVERPOOL Aer Lingus Regional will take over the Dublin-Liverpool route from Monday May 2 with frequency increased to 4 departures a day (3 on a Saturday).

Simarif Bassi is pictured showcasing the new, wider business class seats,

Emirates ups ante

Business Class moves on in J class game of thrones

E

mirates gave a sneak preview at ITB Berlin of their business class product to be installed on their B777’s and other aircraft as they come in for refurb.

The Dubai based airline also demonstrated their first class suite (the word suite seems to have been adopted enthusiastically by the aviation world) and their A380 bar.

The fully-flat seat is slightly wider, and features a larger TV screen, expanded personal meal table, improved

Travel Extra’s editor tries the seat lighting options and redesigned pri-

vacy panels, literature pockets, foot rests and show stowage areas.

It will be fitted onto Emirates’ 170th B777 aircraft, which is due to be delivered in November.

Cabin configuration will remain 23-2, and the total number of business class seats on the B777 will also remain at 42, with pitch of 72”, touchscreen controller to go fully flat, a 23” screen and mini-bar.

Seats also come with an ergonomically designed headrest,

DUBLIN AIRPORT 5TH FASTEST GROWERS

D

ublin airport recorded its busiest January ever with a 17pc increase in passenger numbers as 1.7 million travelled that month Passenger growth is

set to continue through the year with 13 new routes/services still to commence in 2016, Dublin airport MD Vincent Harrison says.

Dublin airport is now the fifth fastest growing airport in Europe.

Dublin now offers direct flights to over 170 destinations in 38 countries on four continents. This extensive choice of direct destinations and frequency of services has also helped to boost passenger numbers.

Vincent Harrison

RYANAIR EYES PARIS CDG SLOTS

R

yanair have applied for slots at Paris CDG airport, having long said that the three major airports that they would not apply for were Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Heathrow.

On previous occasions

Michael O’Leary said one of the main reasons they would not apply for Europe’s three biggest airports was that a 25-minute turnaround would not be achievable there.

“We have Beauvais. Are we interested in CDG? Yes we ware interested in hav-

ing both. We want to get enough of the right slots. while there are some slots available at CDG we want to make sure they are the right slots.

We have learnt from the experience we have in places like Zaventem and Gatwick to know can we

do the 25 minute turnaround? Can we get enough slots? Do we have enough aircraft? Is it the right place to go at the right time and in the right way,.”

“If you are going to do Paris you would want a sizeable enough offering to begin with.”

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THE FLYING COLUMN

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

The 2017 question Standfirst goes here

A

er Lingus's next tranche of trans-Atlantic routes would be announced in July.

Speaking to Travel Extra in the margins of the CAPA aviation conference in Co Wicklow, Stephen Kavanagh CEO said things have gone very well in 2015.

He said 2017 routes would be finalised as a business plan is drawn in Q2. He said that they would be working with Dublin Airport on capacity and infrastructure issues.

Aer Lingus will have five extra trans-Atlantic aircraft in Q2 2017 versus Q2 2016, putting pressure on the USA departure gates particularly in the 10am to 12pm peak morning period.

The use of the 300 gates (toehold Pier B, which used to serve trans-Atlantic before T2) for a wide-bodied aircraft is an option by Dublin Airport, which will host 23 long haul

FOYNES will host a reunion of 350 former workers and associates of Pan American World Airways from USA, Singapore, Europe, South America, Guam, Hawaii and Canada on April 12th-15th. Foynes was the first European Airport to which Pan Am began operating commercial transatlantic services on July 9th 1939 when the ‘Yankee Clipper’ arrived. Attendees will also their old Pan Am uniforms during the three-day reunion. Guests include Edward Trippe, son of Pan Am founder Juan Terry Trippe.

UNITED say Dublin-Newark will operate double daily once more May 26 to Nov 19.

AER LINGUS extended the Gold Circle programme to June 30th. The new Aer Club programme will now begin in July 2016.

RYANAIR announced 91pc of 42,000 flights in February arrived on-time with one complaint per 1,000 customers and less than 1 bag complaint per 1,000 customers. Over 99pc of all complaints answered within 7 days.

Stephen Kavanagh speaking at CAPA in Co Wicklow

AER LINGUS won the title of best

services a day in summer 2016.

US CBP has provided extra resources to pre-clear the extra services and Dublin now has a two shift CNP operation for the first time.

It has become the first offshore

short haul airline at the 2016 Guardian and Observer Travel Awards at the National Museum of Scotland.

CBP station centralise pre-clearance.

Passengers who have been issued with chits at the form-filling station can use automated passport machines before approaching the immigration officer.

NEW! Air Canada rouge non-stop service

Dublin to Vancouver 3 TIMES WEEKLY COMMENCING 10 TH JUNE ‘16

Flights conveniently timed to connect with Air Canada’s extensive network serving 60 Canadian and 52 US destinations.

For more information please contact us at 01 6793958 or aircanada@premair.ie

CITYJET was named official partner of the FAI.

Page 028-032 Flying 22/03/2016 12:43 Page 3

APRIL 2016 PAGE 30

THE FLYING COLUMN AER LINGUS will operate an A330300 on Dublin-Orlando, providing an additional 3,000 seats from May to August.

SWISSPORT is recruiting 200 customer service agents, ramp handling agents, flight operations, security and aircraft appearance personnel at Dublin airport, in addition to the recruitment of 1000 personnel in Belfast.

Swissport says its ground handling business at Dublin Airport has seen growth of 23% in 2015 and expects growth of 10pc in 2016.

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

Is the game over?

RYANAIR reported 89pc of 45,000 flights in January arriving on-time in a month of despite French ATC delays and weather diversions. Ryanair is open a base at Bucharest with 3 aircraft and new daily routes to Athens and double daily to Timisoara in competition with Wizz.

PIA The operational name of Pakistan International Airlines has been changed to Pakistan Airways in an apparent bid to take PIA out from the list of national assets.

ROLLING Luggage opened their store selling fashion and accessories at The Loop in T1.

MH370 Investigators hunting for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 are reportedly ready to officially blame a rogue pilot (though not necessarily the captain) for the disaster if the plane is not found in the current search zone.

AIR CANADA expects about 90pc of capacity growth to come from international markets this year, about a third from new routes.

AMERICAN Airlines filed a lawsuit to end its contract with its in-flight Internet provider Gogo because of Wi-Fi speeds on its planes.

GOLD COAST Airport's Dublin born chief operating officer, Marion Charlton reports that Gold Coast Airport in Queensland, Australia, recorded its largest ever monthly passenger count at 600,000, triggering an airport upgrade that will effectively double the size of the terminal, adding new wide-bodied aircraft stands and four new airbridges. Gold Coast Airport currently services around 6m passengers per year, forecast to grow to 16.3m passengers in 2031.

AMERICAN is to introduce pre-flight meals with full tableside service in its First Class Flagship Lounges beginning in JFK, Dallas Fort Worth, LAX and Miami.

FRAPORT and Lufthansa Group won the Air Transport World “Eco-company Partnership of the Year” award.

AIR TRANSAT is changing the economy-class menu on its transatlantic flights.

AIRBUS predicts that in the next 20 years, India will require over 1,600 new passenger and freighter aircraft to meet growth in demand.

Panel discussion involving Antonio Gomes de Menezes PrivatAir, Chief Executive Officer, David O'Flanagan Boxever, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Johnny Thorsen SAP Mobile Services, Senior Director, Value Services, Andrew Stothert Brand Vista, CEO, Martin Sedlacky airBaltic, Chief Operating Officer and Patrick Byrne CityJet, Chairman at the CAPA Airlines in Transition conference in Powerscourt, Co Wicklow, March 10 2016

CAPA conference holds out little hope for legacy

C

APA aviation conference is likely to return to the Wicklow mountains next year, according to CEO Peter Harrison.

There was no Willie Walsh or Alan Joyce this year, but the aviation conference brought some heavy hitters among 180 delegates to Powerscourt, with all the major airline groups and alliances sending a speaker, and 130 sitting down to the gala dinner on Thursday night.

There CEOs had a mild debate on the issue of CEO salaries, avoiding the fireworks of previous gala dinner debates (some more animated moderation might have helped move things along).

In the midst of a debate about whether legacy airlines should purchase low cost rivals, Stephen McNamara produced one of the gems of the conference when he said: maybe

legacy airlines should work to make themselves more attractive to the LCCS (Ryanair's current valuation exceeds IAG, Air France and Lufthansa put together).

Buzz word of the conference might be the wide girth constituency cited in a discussion on airline seats, which means that passengers are getting fat.

The conference agenda was transformed by the plummeting price of fuel, the weight of landing gear and age of aircraft are not visible at all on the agenda.

Kevin Toland of Dublin Airport cited Ireland's aviation tradition in his opening remarks to the conference SUN founder Geoffrey Lipman: said the December-2015 Paris Agreement is one of the most significant developments in the history of aviation Stephen Kavanaugh said loyalty

was "essential to sustainability""must give customers a reason to stay" Riccardo Boin from McKinsey & Co says full service carriers will continue to lose the short haul market to low cost carriers.

AirBaltic COO Martin Sedlacky, said there is still demand for premium products in the European short-haul market.

Sedlacky said full service carriers face issues in communicating their additional value to customers. Mr Sedlacky said carriers which offer a better product will have higher costs, but should be able to justify a price premium.

Peter Harbison caused some controversy when he said he finds it easier to book flights through OTAs than through airline websites

AER LINGUS WINS RED WINE BUSINESS AWARD

A

er Lingus won a silver award in the Business Class Red category at the Business Traveller's Cellars in the Sky Awards 2015.

The airline won for the Saint-Joseph “Les Challeys” 2013, Delas Frères from the Rhône Valley in France.

Charles Metcalfe, cochairman of the International Wine Challenge,

presented the Silver award to Enda Kavanagh, Product Manager, Aer Lingus, at the Hilton London Bankside.

Singapore Airlines was the evening’s biggest winner, taking the coveted Gold Medal for Best Overall Wine Cellar. It also took the top spot in the Best First Class Cellar and Best Business Class Sparkling categories, tied with Philippine Airlines.

Two airlines won two Gold Medals, EVA Air for Best Business Class Cellar and Best Business Class Red, and Jetstar for Best Business Class White and Best Business Class Fortified/Dessert. Mike Rutter of Aer Lingus commented: we worked with food consultant Hugo Arnold to develop an entirely new Business Class menu to showcase the best of Irish produce. We invested a lot

Charles Metcalfe and Enda Kavanagh, of time into matching the wines to the food we serve.

By winning the Silver medal for our red wine, it’s reassuring to know we are hitting the right note.”

Travel Extra endorses the award after extensive research.

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THE FLYING COLUMN

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare IAA A move by the IAA last month increased airspace capacity increasing the amount of Irish airspace where 5 nautical mile separation between aircraft is allowed by an additional 120,000 km squared, approximately one quarter of total Irish Airspace, because of more advanced radar systems leading to additional savings of up to 10Kg of fuel and 30Kg of C02 per flight. This airspace previously required that aircraft were provided with 10nm separation. Over 300,000 aircraft transited Irish airspace in 2015. The IAA are to co-operate with Skyguide on Aeronautical Data Management Services.

Michael O’Leary, Alexandre de Juniac, Carolyn McCall, Violeta Bulc, EU Commissioner for Transport, Thomas Reynaert, Willie Walsh and Carsten Spohr pictured at the launch of A4E: the new European airline association at Schipol in January

A Famous Five

Europe needs to look after what it can control

N

o prizes for guessing what is first on the agenda of A4E: the new European airline association, an action plan to avoid disruptions during ATC strikes.

Willie Walsh set out the programme: Europe does not need to worry about the bulk carriers and the commission does not need to worry about the bulk carriers.

The commission need to worry about issues that can be controlled so what does it control?, “It controls a single European channel, and we have a very inefficient air traffic environment to Europe. It is estimated that you know we burn about 12pc more fuel and generate 12% more CO2 than we need to because of ATC .

“Forget about the Middle East carriers. We will compete with them and we do compete with them. This idea that you need to you know the Europe need to worry about, is a complete nonsense.

“The EU does need to be trans-

formed, I am pro EU, always have been but my experience of dealing with the commission is that they love talking about issues that they can’t control.

“When it comes to talking about issues that they do control, they get uncomfortable because they are not effective.”

“EU is pretty loose in relation to that, you know, You have got a situation, where Delta effectively own and control Virgin. There is no way that would pass the test if they were to reverse. In the US, they wouldn’t tolerate it I am in an industry that has these ridiculous rules of ownership control.

I don’t understand why there are there, I always argued for them to be abolished, it is not going to happen.

The US is not going to liberalise so you know the EU can talk about it, but it is not going to make any difference “The beauty of this new airline association that we created is that we are going to focus solely on issues that we can agree on., We are saying

forget about talking about the bulk carriers.

“We don’t have a common position on that between Lufthansa, Air France and ourselves so we are not going to try and get a common position.

“I am not going to waste time in energy talking about that. What we are going to do, we are going to stand in front of the commission and say: you can sort out ATC. Sort it out.

“We had a meeting with the transport commissioner Violeta Bulc a couple of months ago. It was Michael O’Leary, myself, Carolyn McCall and Carsten Spohr of Lufthansa. Alexandre de Juniac couldn’t attend and you know they made the traditional comments, please help us to help you and O’Leary said, we are going to help you.

“We are going to give you all the help you want. We are going to help you in areas that you can control it and stop wasting time talking about everything you cannot control.”

THREE STATE AIRPORTS GROW

F

or the first time in over 12 months Ireland’s three State airports recorded growth in the same month.

Dublin Airport recorded robust growth of 12.2pc in February.

Shannon and Cork grew by 9.9pc and 8.7pc.

Most significant pair growth was for SchipholDublin (up 70.3pc), followed by Dublin-Birmingham (up 42.7pc), Manchester-

Dublin (up 27.8pc) and London/Gatwick – Dublin (up 15.8pc). Total traffic handled by the IAA increased by 10.3pc in February 2016. En route traffic grew 7.7pc and North Atlantic Europe-North Amer-

ica Communications flights grew 8.8pc.

There were 21,035 en route traffic movements and 30,309 North Atlantic Communications flights during February 2016.

AIR TRANSAT offered a connecting flight via Toronto to Calgary April to October with promotional pricing until March 24. Air Transat operate Dublin to Toronto 4w and Dublin to Montreal weekly between April and October and already announced new connecting flights between Toronto and Vancouver .

AMERICAN Airlines converting its entire B777 fleet to a ten-across 3-4-3 layout in economy class (what Fortune recently billed as Economy Minus) to create two different economy classes across its fleet, is in the second half of 2016.

UNITED are set to downgrade their economy class cabins adopting tighter 3-4-3 seating on some B777s. United will retire its jumbo jets by 2018.

QATAR confirmed Doha-Auckland, the world’s longest commercial flight, among 14 new destinations across Europe, Africa and Asia.

A319 EI-EPR Airbus A319-111 made its last service for Aer Lingus on London Gatwick to Dublin and was ferried to Ostrava for painting into Vueling Airlines colours.

EVA Air unveiled a new website and increased long haul baggage allowances to 30kg in Economy Class, 35kg in Premium Economy and 40kg in Business.

QATAR Qatar Airways completed the first phase of its New Distribution Capability pilot with Farelogix.

FLY Leasing approved a $30m share repurchase programme and reported Q4 2015 et income of $27.7m, with total revenues up 16pc to $139m. The lessor reported its portfolio reached 80 aircraft as of December 31 2015, on lease to 44 lessees in 28 countries. FLY Leasing expects to sell 14 more aircraft in Q1 2016.

ETIHAD Flight College expanded its fleet of trainer aircraft with the deliver of two Extra EA 330 LT aircraft.

AER LINGUS Regional launched its 6w Shannon to Edinburgh service on Tuesday with fares from €30 one-way. Aer Lingus Regional launched new year round services to Southampton and Leeds Bradford from Cork.

Stobart Air, which now operate 10 services from Cork Airport, aims to carry an additional 60,000 passenger through Cork this year.

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THE FLYING COLUMN

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

DUBLIN Airport have projected late May possible early June opening for their new lounge past US pre-clearance on Pier 4. First look at the new lounge end of Pier 4, with a concierge on entry, private VIP area and luxury shower rooms.

IAG's planned capacity growth in 2016 is 9.4pc for Aer Lingus, 14.5pc for Vueling, 6.2pc for Iberia and 2.9pc for BA. ASLAviation Group’s four European airlines and two support companies joined the European Regions Airline Association.

DUBLIN Airport handled 370,000 arriving and departing passengers over St Patrick’s Day weekend.

CORK-BOSTON US President Barack Obama told Taoiseach Enda Kenny that there is no political impediment to Norwegian International Airways commencing flights from Cork to Boston later this year

COOPANS Alliance were one of five winners of the first edition of the Single European Sky Awards in Madrid for their ATM system. Coopans was established in 2006 by the IAA with partners LFV and Naviair, with Austro Control joining in 2010.

TURKISH Airlines invited submissions to its Delightful Stories series on the official website, delightfulstories.com

RYANAIR launched a new product, a customised Boeing 737-700 for private charter with 60 business class, reclining, leather seats,

Automatic tray return at Dublin airport

Dublin tray time

Automatic return will speed up security screening

D

ublin airport installed 15 new automatic tray return system machines in the T1 passenger security screening area.

The development is part of a €15 million investment to modernise the

a 48” seat pitch, a 2x2 configuration.AIR-

CITYJET aims to be the wet lease operator of choice for larger airlines in Europe. The airline’s first CRJ-900 has been delivered for wet-lease to SAS while two Sukhoi SSJ-100s in painting,

RYANAIR IN BELFAST There were some surprises as Ryanair launched their winter schedule from their new base at Belfast International, going head to head with EasyJet with seven new routes to Alicante, Berlin, Krakow, Lanzarote, Malaga, Milan and Tenerife, and Gatwick increased to five daily.

IAG Group traffic in February was up 15.8pc measured in Revenue Passenger Kilometres.

Capacity rose 14pc. British Airways its to fly form Stansted from this summer, its fourth London airport. Aer Lingus’s RPK was 846 and ASK 1,168.

DUBLIN airport is sponsoring a threeday Hackathon at DCU’s Alpha Innovation Campus on April 15-17.

RYANAIR February traffic was up 28pc to 7.4m customers, load factor up an impressive four points to 93.

tion space so that up to four people can load trays comfortably at the same time.

Earlier trials of the new system have shown faster passenger processing times while complementing security compliance procedures.

The CBP option

PORTR same day and on-demand service that delivers bags between London airports and any London address (hotels, offices, residential, inter-airport) is now operational in all Heathrow terminals, so inbound and outbound passengers can travel bag free to/from the airport.

Departures Floor and Security Screening area.

The new ATRS machines are six metres longer than the previous machines. This additional length includes a parallel loading area at the start of the lane giving extra prepara-

Ethiopian considers introducing CBP

T

ewolde GebreMariam, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines says that Ethiopian may revisit its decision not to use pre-clearance, at Dublin airport.

He said the Dublin to Addis Adaba service had performed but the Dublin to Los Angeles leg of the journey was weaker than expected.

“It is highly seasonal, and has been challenging in the winter months. “He said that Ethiopian had expected passengers travelling from Addis to Los Angeles to remain on the aircraft but TSA had asked them to disembark passengers for security screening.

“The nature of our passengers that we carry from Africa is they have many bags, and it would be time consuming to take the bags for customs inspection and reload them.

“Although we assumed in the beginning that the passengers we carried from Addis to Los Angeles would remain on the aircraft, now TSA requires us to take them off and then screen and reboard. That has not

incoming chair of Wings Club Europe James Meyler introducing Tewolde Gebremariam been well received by passengers..

“Maybe pre-clearance is what we need to consider in the future.

During the course of his speech he pointed out that within a ten hour flight radius from Addis there are 6bn people. The airline has 76 aircraft in service and 52 on order He said the market share of African

airlines versus non African airlines is 20-80.

Ethiopian will not consider picking up passengers on any of its other tours but is proud of its presence in Dublin. “There were three Ethiopian airliners in Dublin when I arrived this morning.”

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DESTINATION ENGLAND

V

irtually every bar, every hotel, every street in Liverpool claims some connection, however small, to the local tourist trade’s biggest asset, The Beatles.

Their legacy has helped establish Liverpool in each of its main markets —and across different generations, especially now that their hits are available to stream on Spotify and other services.

But the tourist board is keen to show us that there is more to Liverpool than just the sound of the sixties.

Albert Dock is a great starting point for visitors to the city. Located on the city’s waterfront near Pier Head, it is home to a host of attractions, many of which are free to enter, as well as restaurants and bars.

It is easy to spend an afternoon simply doing a loop of the dock.

M

y first stop is Tate Liverpool, where the Constellations display joins together the stars of the contemporary art world.

You’ll find Grayson Perry alongside Paul Cézanne; Marcel Duchamp paired with Jasper Jones.

The exhibition spans multiple decades and movements, but it is possible to complete in less than an hour, so you can still get your cultural fix if you are tight for time.

There are also regular lectures and activities in the museum, many of which cater for children and families.

Next door, the Museum of Liverpool documents the city’s social history, while the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum tell the story of the city’s trading history.

The Beatles Story charts the rise and demise of the aforementioned Fab Four through a series of elaborate replica dis-

Liverly

Conor McMahon follows the music to Liverpool Albert Dock at night plays and genuine memorabilia.

The tour is narrated by Julia Baird, John Lennon’s half sister, with snippets of interviews from key voices from The Beatles’s history.

Visitors can peep through the music shop where the boys bought their first instruments — and left producer Brian Epstein to pay off the £200 debt, the equivalent of thousands of pounds in today’s currency.

They’ll see George Harrison’s first guitar and John Lennon’s glasses, bent at the nose after he through them to the floor during a heated argument with Yoko Ono. They can stand on a recreated Mathew Street, where the band played the famous Cavern Club 212 times.

D

isappointingly, the “real” Cavern Club is in fact a replica itself. The original structure was foolishly demolished, meaning there are now two Caverns that both profess to be the first.

While you are down by the dockside, you should take the ferry on the Mersey. Dickens used to do when his visited the North “for the air”.

The current livery was designed by Peter Blake, the co-creator of The Beatles’ famous Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band album cover.

Back in the city centre, there are lots of opportunities to shop, especially in the enormous Liverpool ONE district, where the nightlife is legendary.

The aspirational market would enjoy a girlie or lads weekend away in the district, which is home to the Roja Pinchos bar, one of the city’s hippest drinking spots.

Liverpool is small enough to navigate by foot, so if you are looking to repent after a night out, you can take a walking tour to the city’s two cathedrals.

The enormous Cathedral Church of Christ, Britain’s largest, is magnificent with its high gothic arches.

There is a beautiful neon sculpture by Tracey Emin arced over the

Great West Window, and the Lady Chapel offers solitude to the footsore traveller.

There are a host of interesting sites nearby that Beatles fans should check out, including the famous Philharmonic pub and Ye Cracke bar on Rice Street. Both were often frequented by the band, who used to sit near the ladies’ toilets to catch sneak peeks of women in the various states of un-

dress.

D

own the road, the Metropolitan Cathedral is the Catholic Archidiocese’s mother church — but it looks more like the mothership.

It reminds this writer of a spacecraft that Arthur C Clarke would have dreamt up for one of his science fiction novels — an interpretation of what

the future would look like from a 1970s perspective.

The interior, on the other hand, is beautiful, with circular seating and marble grey floors. Visitors can slowly wander around the nave and explore the vast collection of sculptures and iconographies.

No trip to Liverpool would be complete without a visit to the Scouser’s holy ground at Anfield.

The stadium tour is worth taking, even if you’re not a fan — although it might be a bit of a stretch to expect an Everton supporter to enjoy it.

Tour groups must now to stick together — the week before, a wandering tourist triggered a security alert by veering away from his group. You’ll never walk alone indeed.

We’re told that there is a 20 year waiting list for season tickets, and thousands of punters are left ticketless at every home game. That’s why the club is building extra seats and corporate boxes, which cost £80,000 a year.

The 1989 Hillsborough disaster isn’t far from mind. Unsurprisingly, there is no reporter from The Sun on this press trip.

Even the Irish edition is boycotted.

Clockwise: The Paisey gate at Anfield, cityscape through the arvch and ferry across the Mersey.

■ Conor McMahon travelled to Liverpool as a guest of Aer Lingus and Visit Liverpool. He stayed at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. Aer Lingus flies Dublin to John Lennon International Airport 15w with fares from €19.99 one way.

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GLOBAL VILLAGE TIGS calendar for 2016 has been published: Thursday April 21: Druid’s Glen (President’s Prize): Sponsor: Etihad Thursday May 26: Mount Juliet and overnight: Sponsor: Turkish Airlines Wednesday June 15: Luttrelstown: Sponsor: Travel Corporation. Tuesday September 6: Killeen Castle (Captain’s Prize): Sponsor: Travelport Thursday October 20: The Castle (AGM): Sponsor: Travel Extra. The opening vent of the season at Portmarnock was a team event won by Niall McDonnell, Gillian Lowry, Clem Walshe and Peter O’Hanlon.

Inside the Travel Business

River conference

ITAA annual conference may be hosted by Uniworld

SENTENCE SUSPENDED A three-year sentence for Con Murphy, formerly of United Travel, was suspended by Judge Pat McCartan after his family repaid to the Children to Lapland appeal the €18,643 that he had lodged to a personal account.

SURPLUS The ITAA’s final board meeting of Martin Skelly’s presidency showed a €45,000 surplus, showing that the finances of the Association have been turned around in four years by about €100,000 from a €50,000 deficit.

TOUR America and Kennedy Space and Visitors Centre combined with Dublin's Q102 to give a child the chance to win a visit to Florida from astronaut Don Thomas..

CELEBRITY

Cruises say the team in Tour America is the first to be fully trained up Celebrity Captains in their Cruising For Excellence training programme. Celebrity Cruises extended the four tiered simplified approach to its agent loyalty and incentive scheme, Celebrity Rewards. Celebrity Cruises is awarding agents double points between now and May 3 for every 2016 European cruise that they sell on-board Celebrity Eclipse and Celebrity Reflection.

COSMOS

Tours & Cruises and luxury river cruise line, Avalon Waterways has broadened the trade sales strategy to include the north of Ireland. Kelly Calver has been appointed Trade Sales Manager for the South of England.

AMADEUS

and Virgin Australia extended a partnership to distribute airline’s full content.

WENDY

Wu Tours trade incentive: Book a tour flying with Emirates before March 31 to be in with a chance of winning one of three Debenhams/House of Fraser vouchers.

Cassidy Travel opened a new travel shop located in the ILAC Centre. The design of their ninth shop is based on their very successful TravelShops concept in the Pavilions Swords and Liffey Valley Shopping Centres in the Dublin suburbs. The new TravelShop team will be managed by Janis Coulter who has many years of experience in the travel industry and has joined Cassidy Travel from Falcon Holidays. Cassidy Travel ILAC Telephone number is 01 9695550.

CABFORCE

announced an integrated taxi and transfer partnership with Hogg Robinson Group.

Uniworld’s river queen

T

he 2016 ITAA Conference may be hosted by Uniworld on a river cruise ship.

While other options considered by the ITAA Board include Oporto and Prague, Uniworld are the most likely conference hosts. Options include Burgundy when the conference could be hold on board the 159-passenger SS Catherine and Porto with guests on board the 118-passenger Queen Isabel., The largest of the Uniworld ships can hold 202 passengers. Most vessels sit in the 156-passenger or 130passenger class are more suited to the conference, which had 130 delegates last year and was confined to 100 delegates, including suppliers, for the 2014 pre-launch cruise on board Quantum of the Seas.

The ITAA conference was decoupled from the AGM of the travel agents association in 2008 when the MSC Poesia hosted the conference on a sailing from Southampton to Cork.

The conference first went overseas

when it was hosted by the Spanish Tourist Board in Benalmadena in 1996, followed by the Algarve in 1999. The conference was last held in Ireland at the Heritage Hotel in Portlaoise in 2009.

ITAA CONFERENCE VENUES 1976 Killarney 1977 Killarney 1978 Wexford 1979 Tralee 1980 Ennis 1981 Limerick 1982 Limerick 1983 Limerick 1984 Waterford 1985 Cork 1986 Wexford 1987 Limerick 1988 Killarney

1989 Killarney 1990 Killarney 1991 Limerick 1992 Limerick 1993 Killarney 1994 Tralee 1995 Killarney 1996 Benalmadena 1997 Ennis 1998 Killarney 1999 Algarve 2000 Tralee 2001 Galway

2002 Newcastle 2003 Killarney 2004 Citywest 2005 Citywest 2006 Santry 2008 MSC Poesia 2009 Portlaoise 2010 Malaga 2011 Seville 2012 Istanbul 2013 Granada 2014 Quantum 2015 Jerez

TRAVEL INDUSTRY SHOW MOVES

T

he Irish Travel Industry Trade Show, now in it's secondyear, will take place at a new venus, the Ballsbridge Hotel on April 7th 2016.

Last year’s event was held in Citywest but after consultation with exhibitors the location was

moved closer to the city centre.

The event incorporates the Travelsavers and Worldchoice management meetings in the morning.

The Spanish Tourist Office will sponsor a lunch for 150 agency staff which will end fifteen minutes be-

fore the Show opens.

The Trade Show commences at 2pm, the ITAA AGM takes place at 3pm, followed by a barbecue at 7pm.

Up to 180 travel agency proprietors, managers and frontline staff are expected to attend.

Over the coming weeks ITAA staff and Board Members will visit Travel Agents throughout the country to inform and encourage them to attend, and ITAA newsletters and morning media updates will promote the Show.

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APRIL 2016 PAGE 35

Inside the Travel Business

GLOBAL VILLAGE

Donegal president Cormac Meehan unopposed for president of ITAA

“I grew up in an ormac owner-driven busiMeehan ness - people did f r o m not book or travel Bundoran is the with Aer Lingus or new president Joe Walsh Tours of the Irish they booked and Travel Agents travelled with Cormac Meehan Association, as Sean Meehan, my the only nominee he will be elected unopposed at the late Father.

“He was an Auctioneer.

April 7 AGM at the BallsPeople were forced to emibridge Hotel, Dublin 4. to succeed Martin Skelly as grate at that time to make a living and survive, he was president of the ITAA. Cormac is currently a charged with selling their board member of the ITAA houses or land. They did and would become the first not know where to buy a ship or travel ticket to the to be based in Ulster Leinster has provided 14 USA. John Mullaney and presidents to the associa- the late, Jim Gannon in tion, Munster three and Sligo, both Shipping Connacht one, although Agents, persuaded my late past presidents Andy Father to get into the travel McKenna and Eugene business. He got his IATA Magee were both born in license in 1958.

“I took over the business Ulster. in 1987 after my Father's

C

sudden death, I resigned a third level lecturing position, moved home and got married to my wife Maureen and 29 years we are still in Bundoran, the surfing capital of Western Europe, in a very local, personalised and attentive business serving a local and highly discerning market segment.

“They rely on our knowledge, judgement, expertise and advice that has been built up over 60 years.

“The travel business was and is a very personal business and I can assure you, it is in my blood. My ancestors on my late Mother's, the McKeons nee Gordon's, side owned Corballis House at Dublin Airport.”

ITAA PRESIDENTS 1970 Michael Kelly 1972 Louis Byrne 1974 Con Neenan 1978 Andrew McKenna 1980 Michael Kelly 1982 Michael Doorley 1984 Jim Loftus 1986 Con Horgan 1988 Eugene Magee 1990 Tony Brazil 1992 Jim Sharkey 1994 Gerry Benson

1996 PJ Brennan 1998 Gerry Benson 2000 Fergus Kilkelly 2002 Tony Brazil 2004 Michael Doorley 2006 James Malone 2008 Jim Vaughan 2010 Pat Dawson 2012 Clare Dunne 2014 Martin Skelly 2016 Cormac Meehan

SKILLNET After 2,300 training days and 2,500 customers, 900 in the past year, the Travel Industry Skillnet programme came to an end. In the absence of support via the Travel Professionals Skillnet, ISME Skillnet will be treating all members of ITAA, ITOA, ITOF and CTTC to preferred rates for training.

Should agents have any specific requirements that they would like addressed, Liz Carroll is the Network Manager at ISME Skillnet and is available at liz@isme.ie or at 01 6622755.

Fionnuala Carter said: “It has been wonderful to work in such an energetic industry and I have very much enjoyed engaging and collaborating with all that participated.”

CRUISESFORYOU Pamela Brownlee of Flyaway Travel in Ballina launched her new cruise brand Cruisesforyou with a programme of events that included a live broadcast between 11am and 1pm on Mid West radio.

ON THE GOTours a tour operator specialising in locally led group tours and tailor-made holidays to worldwide destinations unveiled a selection of new tours across Eastern Europe, following a surge in demand from customers.

TRAVEL DEPARTMENT bookings show the three most popular months for travel are March, May and April. Spain and Portugal are performing very strong, as are Iceland and Italy.

WENDY WU Tours is celebrating its first year in Ireland by offering €150pp off full price tours booked by close of business January 31. Call 0818 776 380. New products on the Irish market for 2016 include the launch of Discovery Tours packages and the Exclusive Collection, and new tours in South America and South Africa.

TOPFLIGHT expanded their summer holiday programme to include a luxury holiday selection to the Algarve. They hosted the trade on at Deane’s in Belfast to highlight the Belfast to Verona route from Belfast International Airport and their new summer destinations of Lanzarote and the Algarve.

Gordon Wilson being photographed in Powerscourt with the Travelport celebratory150th airline cake.

Will Lingus sign?

Travelport now has 152 rich content airlines

T

ravelport celebrated the fact that 152 airlines have now signed up for the tech company’s flagship product Rich Content and Branding, launched three years ago at the CAPA Aviation Summit in Wicklow.

Travelport CEO Gordon Wilson said: Once you have a critical mass which we definitely now have other airlines other airlines feel hey, I need to be in here. Ryanair (but not yet Aer

Lngus) have signed up for Rich Content which allows airlines display their full range of products for sale in the RCB channel in line with how they sell on their own websites.

Speaking to Travel Extra in the margins of the event, Gordon said: we are an ecosystem which is co-dependent, ourselves and the travel agents.

The move to mobile has meant consumers want more in their own hands to be empowered which is why we have made the investment in MTT

and additional content. That is not anti travel agent, that is pro travel agent, because it enables them to get into that channel because they could never afford to get into that channel on any scale on their own.

While Ryanair were one of the first to sign up after the launch customer, Easyjet, one airline that has not signed up is Aer Lingus. Talks are ongoing and Travelport is hopeful of a deal soon.

JOHN GREHAN is joining The Travel Corporation in a supporting role to promote Insight Vacations and Uniworld River Cruise products.

LOWCOST holidays said its booking app has been downloaded 40,000 times.

BRITISH Airways is offering free Upgrade to First Class on certain flights booked

by March 11 for travel by April 16 .

AVIOS appointed Eileen McGuinness as head of market for Ireland.

CSO figures show overseas trips made by Irish residents during Oct-Dec 2015 rose by 5.9pc to 1,544,800.

ADVANTAGE the English consortium is talking to Irish agents in a bid to expand the 800-member consortium.

€

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APRIL 2016 PAGE 36

WINDOW SEAT Last month in numbers 7.4m Number of passengers carried by Ryanair in February, up 28pc on February 2015.

35,972 Number of Irish passengers who took a cruise in 2015, according to CLIA.

21,475 Number of Irish passengers who took a Mediterranean cruise in 2015, according to CLIA. €365 Average commission earned by a travel

agent, according to CLIA, from booking a couple at an average price of €1,827.

93 Ryanair load factor for February, up four points on February 2014.

55.2 Average age of an Irish cruise passenger, according to CLIA. 41 Number of French air traffic control strikes since 2009.

A COLD NORTH SEA SHUFFLE

W

ords fail the North Sea us how To Blass ends his book. Which begs the question, what is the pint of writing a book about it if that is the case?

But that is being a bit unfair on himself. He does a good job of conjuring up a grey and dour body of water, “the Cooling Marshes, Whalebone Marshes, Cliffe Marshes, Fobbing Marshes, Allhallows Marshes, Lee Marshes”.

We learn some background that is slow to present itself to the traveller how the Dutch name their dykes so that the closest to the sea are wakende (waking) dykes; the next are slapende (sleeping), “and in the

The Naked Shore: Of the North Sea

by Tom Blass (Bloomsbury) event that these both fail only a dromende (dreaming) dyke stands between the sea and oblivion.”

Another tale (can this be true?) is that herring was once so important to life that it became name for money: Baltic herring were called easterlings in England. This eventually became a “sterling,” as tithes and taxes were paid with it.

He writes of “a flock of golden plover moved in from the sea, flying low with the sound of rustling skirts” And he describes a part of East

Anglia as “a quiet mecca for sailors who enjoy poking and nuzzling at its estuaries, the Stour, the Twizzle, the Deben and the Ore.” The fishermen and those who made their living from the sea are being replaced by less interesting retired people. It is as much a loss for the reader as for the author. And contributes to a loss of structure for the book. I am not sure where the opening trip on a cargo boat ends.

And another thing, regional accents is ALWAYS patronising. It is not just an Irish thing.

Monument Valley and Bryce Canyon from Angel’s Landing, two of Utah’s five national parks

Busman’s holiday: Tom Britton

Every month we ask a leading travel professional to write about their personal holiday experience. This month: Tom Britton, owner of Marble City Travel.

F

or my favourite holiday, I am about to do it.Again.

Last year I went from Los

Angeles to Mojave (see Virgin Galactic), Edwards Air Force Base, Victorville, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Monument Valley, Bryce, Zion, Canyonlands, Park City (Utah), Wyoming, Bon-

neville Salt Flats, Red Rock Desert, San Francisco, Yosemite, Carmel, CA 1 and I finished in "Walley World (yes it exists) Six Flags Magic Mountain just outside Los Angeles.

This year I am flying into Los Angeles with Ethiopian, straight up to Santa Barbara, CA 1 to Carmel, across to Yosemite two nights glamping, then on to Sequoia National Park for two nights, back to Death Valley one night, across to Paige so I can take in Antelope

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

T

hose at the receiving end of government travel warnings often have justified reason to complain.

Governments play the five levels of travel alert like a melodeon, ramping them up and scaling them down often on such an arbitrary basis that one might suspect they are being used for training purposes. The American airport alert is so callous as to be comical, if it was not so serious.

Travel advisories are not just abstract things for the communities, always in the developing world. who depend on visitors spreading largesse and other favours among their communities.

A strict travel advisory can mean that travel insurance is invalidates.

There can be a difference of three levels between travel advisories from different governments, with those furthest away often coming up with most pessimistic analysis.

An incident in Africa or Asia will usually get a quicker and more damaging reaction than one in Europe or the USA. A killing in mexico and a killing in Michigan will cause government and state officials to react differently.

It is important that our advice on visiting Turkey remains sane and sensible in these difficult times, if only to prove to the tourism industry that bombs in Paris are not less lethal than those in Istanbul.

Canyon, Bryce and Zion, Arches National Park and I'm doing a skydive from 15,000 feet over Grand Staircase Escalante.

You would never guess I'm afraid of heights. I then go back to Vegas and home.

Between now and then I have run the Washington DC marathon on March 12th. I am going to do some fund raising soon on behalf of the travel trade Funday.

IN YOUR NEXT TRAVEL EXTRA: Available to Travel Agents or online April 18 2016

AUSTRALIA ISSUE 12 Apostles and the Great Ocean Road THEME PARK TRENDS

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APRIL 2016 PAGE 37

MEETING PLACE

rTravel Department, Lo Claire Docherty of the of e nn Du san and Clare raine Kenny of Ask Su r Lingus/Murcia event Ae the at Travel Broker

Angie De Loach-Mora les, of Kennedy Space Centre with Veronica Flo od and Liz Wright of Tour America at the Ke nnedy SC event

vel/Globe Hotels and Jeff Collins of Best4Tra r Travel at the Murcia/Ae Erica O'Reilly of King tel Ho an Lingus event in the De

Carmel Aylward and Ch ris Corcoran King Travel at the Murcia/Aer Lingu s event in the Dean Ho tel in Dublin,

at ger Barrett from Dublin Bernie Whelan and Ro the in ce en fer con d Irelan the Travel Counsellors cklow Wi in tel ho rt ou rsc we Po

Out and about with the Travel Trade

Gonzalo Ceballos of Spanish Tourist Board and Donna Armstrong of Bowe Travel, Jac queline Spain of JK Travel, Jud Ivan Beacom of Aer LIngus at the Aer y Coughlan of Dawson Tra vel and Bernadette Grace Lingus/Murcia event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin of Roscrea Travel,

Amanda O'Brien, Wendy McCartney and Margaret Campbell of American Holidays at the launch of Contiki’s 2016-7 programme

rcan Holidays, Lisa Fitzge Dee Burdock of Ameri nSu m ry McCormack fro ald from SHGI and Ma ace Centre event Sp y ed way at the Kenn

Barbara White of HRI and Rachel Wyse of Sky, who will be judging the lady's fashion prize at Fairyhouse on Easter Monday,

Sharon Jordan, Zarya b Malik and Lainey Qu inn at the launch of Contik i’s 2016-7 programme in Opium, Dublin,

N Down mayor, Alan Graham, Sandra Corkin and new Oasis Travel Bangor branch Jill McBurney, Heather Mitchell, Lynn Jamison, Nicola Ferris, Melanie Harper and Deborah Stewart.

Philip Airey of Sunway and Alan Lynch of Travel Escapes at the Aer Lingus/Murcia event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin

Olga Montiel and Asen sio Martinez of Sureste In- Steve Wiliams of the Gresham Hotel and Alec coming at the Murcia/Ae r Lingus event in the Gibson of DIT en route to Paris to deliver a modDean Hotel ule of an MBA programme,

Des ay and Dea Abbott of Mary Denton of Sunw in nt eve s gu Lin r /Ae rcia Abbott Travel at the Mu the Dean Hotel in Dublin

Kathryn McDonnell of Spanish Tourist Board and Joe Balfe of Budget Sc hool Groups at the Ae r Lingus/Murcia event in the Dean Hotel

Go l director of Click and Peter Cullen commercia Lin r /Ae rcia Mu the at ham and Lorraine Cunning Hote gus event in the Dean

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APRIL 2016 PAGE 38

MEETING PLACE

Out and about with the Travel Trade

n Centres, Judy Coughla Rachel Mulligan and Tatiana Soukhanova of Sky- Kathryn McDonnell of Spanish Tou rist Board and Dominic Burke of Travel ea scr Ro Philip Airey of Sunway of Bernie Grace tours at the launch of Contiki’s 2016-7 proat the Aer Lingus/Murc of Dawson Travel and ia ers nd eve Fla nt in I in the Dean Hotel in Dublin d by GT gramme in Opium, Dublin, Travel who were hoste

Margaret Cronin, Bertie Cunningham and Ange la Dillon at the Skal functio n at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Stillorgan

Bernie Burke of Travel Centres and Paula Donaghy of Aer LIngus at the Murcia/Aer Lingus event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin

ing rlow celebrates becom Claire Docherty of the Travel Department and Susan Hegarty from Ca at n ela Wh e rni Be h wit lor Niamh Shortt of Club Travel/HRG at the Aer Linsel un Co vel Tra a Gold ckIrish Conference in Wi s gus/Murcia event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin lor sel un Co vel Tra the

Esther Garcia of Murcia Tourism and Richard Cullen of Killiney Travel at the Aer Lingus/Murc ia event in the Dean Hotel

bate Travel, Ciara David O'Hagan of Dona of vl and Shane Coburn Tra Mooney of Freedom nt eve i ntik launch Co Donabate Travel at the

Deirdra O'Hare of Clu b Travel, Mary Dargan of Atlas/Gohop and Paul Kelly of Cassidy Travel at the Murcia/Aer Lingus event in the Dean Hotel

Darach Culligan of Darach Culligan Travel and Olga Montiel of Sureste incoming at the Murcia/Aer Lingus event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin

's Wright of Visit Scotalnd Fiona Hanna and Geri the at ed tur pic o, Jag d, representatives in Irelan s Radisson Blu St Helen

Fidelma Brady and Mandy Walsh share a laugh Travel and former astroCiara Foley of Platnium e with new Head of Sales Mike Graham at the ntr Ce ace Sp y ed nn Ke naut Don Thomas at the Travel Counsellors Ireland conference. ce, en sid Re the in nt eve

Jim Vaughan of Justsp lit, Alan Lynch of Travel Escapes, Mary Denton of Sunway and John Ga lligan of John Galligan Travel at the Murcia eve nt

Dea Abbott, Niall McDo nnell of Classic Collec tion, Lee Osborne of Bo okabed and David O'H agan of Donabate Travel at the Murcia event

prize winner Elaine Massey of Killiney Travel, Sharon Jordan of TTC Richard Cullen, Lisa Warren and Shane Cullen of Killiney Travel,

t and DoSomething Differen Graham Hennessy of y ed nn Ke the at ca eri r Am Mary McKenna of Tou the Residence, Space Centre event in

Page 037 pics 22/03/2016 12:00 Page 3

APRIL 2016 PAGE 39

MEETING PLACE

Out and about with the Travel Trade

go a Haltmeyer of Clickand Kathryn McDonnell of the Spanish Tourist Board, Ciara Foley, Paula Cross and Justine Jill Grehan and Bettin Cross of tel Ho an De Platinum travel at the the in nt eve s Esther Garcia of Murcia Tourism and Ana gu Lin launch of Contiki’s 2016 at the Murcia/Aer -7 pro gra mm e in Opium, Lizarraga of the Spanish Tourist Board in Dublin

New board of Dublin Sk al club for 2016-7: Aid an Doyle, Douglas Jordan, Angela Dillon, Sam Wi lson, Joe Collins, Darag h O'Neill, Margaret Cronin and Michael By rne

Fairyhouse launch in O'Hea PR team at the d O'Hea, Ruth Marnell an House, Dublin: Roisin Eimear Morris,

Bill Morrison, Cairbre Hallym and Brian Garla nd at the Skal function at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Stillorgan,

Agents hosted on Riviera Travel on board MS Jane Austen: Grainne Dunne of Riviera, Paula Cross of Platinum Travel, Moyra O’Donoghue of Roscrea Travel, Lisa Warren of Killiney Travel, Karen Byrne of Best4Travel, Catherine Myler of Newbridge Travel and Stephen Sands of Riviera

ry y space centre and Ma Philip Britton of Kenned ace Sp y ca at the Kenned McKenna of Tour Ameri ence sid Re the Centre event in

Erica O’ Reilly, Gill O Sullivan and Carmel Aylward of King Travel at the Murcia/Aer Lingus event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin

Carol Anne O'Neill of Wo rldchoice and Jeff Collins of Best4Travel /Globe Hotels at the Mu rcia/Aer Lingus event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin

Mary Dargan of Atlas/Gohop and Grainne Caffrey of Lowcostbeds at the Aer Lingus/Murcia event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin

Derek Keogh MD of GTI, Andrew Daines of Visit Sandra Liutkiene and CityJet crew member Flanders and Catherine Bookle of GTI in the er gg Bru ul Pa d an ett Hodn Sayed Kahil with Olan Havle Maan restaurant, Bruges, of Kinsale 7's

Clare Dunne of Travel Broker, Esther Garcia of Murcia Tourism and Ge rry Bergin of Budget School & Group Tours at the Murcia event

Asensio Martinez of Sureste Incoming, Matt Corcoran of King Travel and Olga Montiel of Sureste incoming at the Aer Lingus/Murcia event

oncorde and Claire Barry Walsh of JET/C LinDepartment at the Aer Docherty of the Travel blin Dean Hotel in Du gus/Murcia event in the

Frank Carey, Matt Gilsen an and Paddy Derivan at the Skal function at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Stillorgan,

ders rah Williams of Trailfin Cathal Teague and Sa in e mm gra pro -7 16 i’s 20 at the launch of Contik Opium, Dublin,

Holiday World_Layout 1 19/02/2016 10:43 Page 1

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Date for your diary:

YOUR TRADE DAY Friday 27th January, 2017 VENUE

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Please contact Maureen Ledwith, Sales Director t: + 353 (0)1 291 3700 | e: maureen@bizex.ie or Paulette Moran | t: + 353 (0)1 291 3702 e: paulette@bizex.ie

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