Travel extra January 2016

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R WEDDINGS ABROAD WHAT TO WATCH YOU LINGUS T/A NEWARK THE SURPRISE RYANAIR MARKET SHARE PLAYER ER P Travel Centres in Lyrath Egyptian Tragedy Norwegian Escape PA

e d a r T

IRELAND'S PREMIER SOURCE OF TRAVEL INFORMATION

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DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016

VOLUME 20 NUMBER 1

Getting married abroad: where to send your clients and the hurdles they face before they make it down the aisle

Bridal Wave

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Page 003 News 10/11/2015 11:19 Page 1

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 3

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NEWS

Egyptian tragedy

F

Knock on price rises for Canary Island and Turkey

alcon Holidays and red Sea Holidays are monitoring the situation in Egypt as aviation and government authorities in Western countries react to the loss of a Metrojet A321 carrying 220 passengers in Sinai.

Sunway report that there has been no impact on bookings to Morocco.

Winter prices in the Canary Island and Turkey have risen sharply as a result of the effective shutdown of Egypt’s tourist industry.

This month should have seen the launch of a $68m global PR campaign in 27 global markets promoting Egypt as a holiday destinations.

Instead the campaign has been shelved and the launch event cancelled.

Tourism makes up 14.8pc of Egypt’s economy and 12pc of workers work in tourism. Egyptian visitor arrivals have fallen from 14.7m in 2010 to 9.9m in 2014.

Revenues peaked at $12.8bn in 2008 but in 2015 is unlikely to exceed $7bn. Irina Tiurina of the Russia Travel Industry Union says tour oper-

€2.55bn on trips out of Ireland in the first half of the year, an increase of 6pc on the previous year. The number of trips, at 3.3m, was up 8pc.

Demand for overseas holiday trips was up 18pc to 1.8m, with corresponding expenditure up 14pc to €1.55bn.

PHILADELPHIA

Camel and armed guard in Egypt

ators are suffering colossal losses as they cannot sell Egypt any more and because they have to invest financially in alternatives like Turkey.

Egyptian inbound tourism fell 60pc after the Luxor massacre in 1997 and has been hit by the bomb on a tourist

CYPRUS The Med’s sunniest MALAYSIA Penang and DOM REP Long (11 hour)

but easy one stop access through Paris and a great resort infrastructure makes this one of our best one stop winter alternatives.

will be no restrictions on tourist movements and that tourist resorts are unlikely to be significantly affected by the state of emergency declared on Wednesday following the arrest of the Vice President on October 24. The DFA advised Irish citizens travelling in the area to take extra care, follow the advice of local authorities and avoid any large gatherings, protests or rallies. Caution should be exercised on Male Island where political protests have been ongoing and there is a possibility of civil arrest.

IRISH residents spent an estimated

Langkawi are the beach options with great sights and shopping in KL.

MOROCCO Bookings are

unaffected by regional issues for both Sunway and Ryanair. The corniche has transformed Agadir, now cleaner and less hassle and the road journey between Marrakech and Agadir transformed

became the first World Heritage City in the USA, receiving the designation through a vote taken by the XIII World Congress of the Organisation of World Heritage Cities in Arequipa, Peru. The organisation has admitted 790 world heritage cities, led by Italy with 27, Spain with 19, Mexico with 12 and France and Germany with 11 each.

NYC & Company unveiled its new “unlock NYC” campaign to inspire and stimulate winter travel to New York City.

bus in Sinai last year and the mistaken bombing of a convoy of Mexican tourists by government forces earlier this year.

Turkish Airlines continues to offer one stop connections to Sharm El Sheikh.

FORWARDKEYS, which monitors

THAILAND

top London attractions when travelling by train from Stansted Airport.

FIVE WINTER ALTERNATIVES

winter island is probably not warm enough for all tastes. Ryanair have Larnaca in their sights with a new Brussels route, Dublin next?

MALDIVES tourism says that there

Guaranteed sun, great food, great prices, friendly people. Pattaya, Phuket, Ko Samui, Phi Phi and the obligatory shoping stop in Bangkok are the desalinations of choice. If only it was closer, 14 hours with a European or Middle east stop is the big disadvantage.

Oslo has direct flights, why not Dublin?

future travel patterns by analysing 14m reservation transactions each day said Europe’s international long-haul arrivals from January to September were up 5.1pc and issued bookings for future travel up 4.8pc to year end.

STANSTED promoted 2for1 offers on BIG BUS Tours launched new operations in Rome.

SEAWORLD Orlando increased its

admission price by $2 to €99 for general admission and $94 for children under ten.

DREAMWORKS was greenlit for a $800m theme park in Mexico’s Riviera Maya.

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JANUARY 2016 PAGE 4

CONTENTS

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 eanna@travelextra.ie Marie Carberry marie@travelextra.ie Carmel Higgins carmel@travelextra.ie Cauvery Madhavan cauvery@travelextra.ie Sean Mannion sean@grafacai.ie Catherine Murphy cathmurph@yahoo.com

Travel Extra takes no responsibility for errors and omissions.

Origination: Typeform

Printer: W&G Baird Limited Greystone Press Caulside Drive Antrim BT41 2RS

www.travelextra.ie

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

A

12 Escorted Tours: More than a coach 16 Tanzania: African odyssey 18 Iceland: Fire and ice 22 Weddings: Behind the veil 26 Afloat: Explorer arrives

28 Flying: Newark surprise 33 TIGS: Travel Extra golf day 34 Global Village Inside the travel industry 44 Window seat: Our columnists 45 Pictures: Out and about

Selling weddings

round 4,000 Irish couples look abroad each year for their wedding arrangements. With an average cost of €8,000, a third of the €23,000 average they can spend on a wedding at home, it keeps costs down for the couple. It is also big business for the trade, with an average of 25 people attending a wedding abroad it means there is €50m worth of business out there for those selling flights, transfers and accommodation, not to mention a slice of the €32m spend on wedding packages.

There is commission to be made from wedding packages. Guest accommodation and travel, pre wedding and post wedding and guest activities, reconnaissance visits by the couple in advance and Wedmoons.

BUDGET It is all

about budget. Within a few minutes of sitting down with your client you should have established how much they are willing to spend.

How many guests? Four star or five star? The average costs of a four star wedding abroad is €8,000 for the reception and for seven nights for bride and groom, but it can mount after that. If in doubt, sell from the top down. Your customers will soon tell you if that is not their budget.

KNOW your stuff.

Make sure your knowledge of the legals and documentation required is up to date. In France you have to be resident for 40 days, in Barbados you can arrive on the day of your wedding.

Wedding couple in Bologna, Italy is the most popular wedding venue abroad

MAKE it easy for

the couple so you will get the bookings. Packages and odd-ons are easier to sell. Most packages include photography, ceremony, flowers, music, video editing and planning support. The extras can include cakes, more time on or off site for couple and guests, and transport.

CHANGE their

thinking. Some brides are too cautious, they do not realise that five star luxury is only a few euro more. Pitch the romantic the sense of fairytale wedding created by an exotic venue and climate. Couples are looking for something different. Point out that getting married abroad invariably means less family politics, a more intimate ceremony and guaranteed weather.

quiries are for Malta, followed by Cyprus and Croatia. Sunway says their most popular destinations are Egypt, the Caribbean, Las Vegas, New York and Mauritius. Generally weddings would be on a civil basis. Sunway’s Vegas product is very popular and very easy to organise. Couples get assistance with paper work and marriage registry.

GET local expertise

or outside help. It is worth it. Selling a wedding can be a high maintenance operation. The trade refers to controlling brides as Bridezilla, the ones who have high demands and tend to come back with complaints. In 80pc of cases the bride does all the planning but when the groom does the arrangements, the wish list can be even more taxing.

SWITCH SELL: VENUE hire can

Introduce destinations they never even thought about. Concorde’s biggest number of en-

change the cost of the wedding dramatically.

Some hotels don’t charge extra for venue

hire, depending the number who are coming.

For instance they won’t charge for 60 guests, they will for 20 guests.

STRESS the value

when wine is included.

Menus start at €15 but watch for the extras that come with €45-€50 menus, many Mediterranean hotels will provide beer and wine with the menu, with only spirits costing extra. Planning an Irish wedding that could be a distinct advantage. Even if you do pay for wine, €5 a bottle is one third what they pay in Ireland.

CONFRONT

the negatives, that family may be unable to travel through old age or health (point out the convenience of direct flight destinations such as Malta), family traditions, the extra planning, the fact that couples feel it is too difficult and feel no control and wouldn’t know where to start. It is the agent’s job to brush over those obstacles and se-

cure the knowledge and contacts on the ground to reassure the couple.

Tempt them to talk and show evidence of your previous bookings through photos, videos and testimonials. Use social media and offer a clear uncomplicated package in your online material.

CRUISE Mention

it is possible for captains to perform legal wedding ceremonies at sea sailing through international waters or on board a docked cruises ship in many venues. Cruise can offer the best value weddings and a ready made honeymoon.

STAY in touch. Even if they don’t take a wedding package they may go on honeymoon with you. The point of contact is valuable. Of the 25,000 wedding a year in Ireland, 75pc of couples say they considered going abroad to go abroad and 48pc say they requested quotes.

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HOTELS

JLL reported that Dublin needs 3,000 new hotel rooms to satisfy demand, with just 300 in the pipeline by year end 2016 on an inventory of 19,000 rooms. It reported occupancy levels of 84pc (up 4.6pc) and rates €127 (up 17pc).

Le Grand Prix Monaco tops price league again

K CLUB in Straffan won Golf resort of the year on the back of news it will stage next year’s Irish Open from May 19-22. William Hastings gave an emotional speech as he received the lifetime achievement award.

NATIONAL

Hospitality Awards awarded Ashford Castle the Best Overall Hotel at an event in Dublin’s InterContinental Hotel.

See full list of 27 winners here.

MANOR HOUSE Eamonn Gille-

spie is new GM of the four-star Manor House Country Hotel in Co Fermanagh. Louise McClean of the Clarion Hotel Liffey Valley won the Business Woman of the Year, Employee Category, at the Network Ireland Awards.

SANDYMOUNT

Hotel, Dublin won the Green Hospitality Responsible Travel & Tourism Member of the Year award in a ceremony at The Marker Hotel in Dublin.

EFQM Five hotels were honoured at the EFQM Excellence Awards ceremony was held recently in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Northwood, Dublin: Lake Hotel Killarney with a EFQM 5 Star Excellence Award, Crowne Plaza Dundalk and the Pembroke Kilkenny, while Skylon Dublin and the Westport Woods Westport were both accredited at ‘Committed to Excellence’ level FOUR SEASONS

group introduced free Wi-Fi for all guests and visitors.

INTERCONTINENTAL Dublin

completed phase one of its €5m refurbishment.

It donated the used carpets in the meetings rooms, worth €30,000, to the Tiglin Rehab Programme for Addition in Wicklow.

AMAZON which in April moved beyond selling deeply discounted hotel rooms into a more well-rounded hotel-booking business, abruptly shut down its Amazon Destinations service entirely with no warning.

HASTINGS Hotels announced a £1m

JURYS INNJason Carruthers has been appointed as Managing Director of Jurys Inn.

investment in the five star Culloden Estate

IHF

conference takes place in the Gleneagle Killarney on Feb 29-March 1 2015.

HARD ROCK announced that Hard Rock Tenerife is to open October 2016.

STR Elizabeth Winkle of STR Global said HOTELS.COM said Chinese visi-

predicted two more years of growth in Europe. tors were the highest spenders on hotel rooms in Ireland for the first six months of 2015, up 27 YOY to €161 per room per night. Indian visitors spent an average €143 per night, US and Mexican visitors spent €137 and Singapore visitors spent €133. Visitors from Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan and Finland spent between €122 and €132.

HOSTELWORD IPOed at €245m.

Monaco: achieved the third highest monthly average recorded in 2015, it already reached €451 in May onaco is back at the top of hotel prices on the major search en- now cheaper than Galway and St petersburg has the cheapest prices on the European hotel price gines and OTA’s.

Russian hotel prices continue to the chart, below Sofia for the first charts this autumn.

The principality which passed plummet from regular top ten fin- time and down from an average of €451 in may went over €300 in ished three years ago to mid chart. €140 in June.

Trivago’s price index which monitors Average hotel prices in Moscow are

M

€316 Monaco

EUROPEAN HOTEL PRICE INDEX: OCTOBER €175 €148 €127 €113 €98 €86 Munich

Oslo

Hamburg

Prague

€261

€173

€146

€126

€109

Venice

Barcelona

Nice

Marseilles

Budapest Galway Lubjana Tralee Wexford

Waterford

€85

€260

€171

Cologne Madrid

€122

€108

Geneva

Florence

€140

Liverpool

Istanbul

€256

€167

€121

€107

London

Copenhagen Manchester

Brighton Frankfurt

€96

Krakow

€137

Cork Sevilla

Kenmare

Malaga Moscow

Belgrade

Helsinki

€103

€93

€77

€116

Kinsale

Dingle Dresden Kiev Kilkenny Porto

Warsaw

Sofia

€240

Limerick

€81 €78

Milan

€163

€209

Rome

€135

Killarney

€101

Berne

€161

Vienna

€115

€194

Stockholm

€132

Sligo

Lyon

€100

Paris

€158

€114

Derry

€92

€183

Dublin

Belfast Brussels

€99

Westport

€60

Amsterdam

€153

Athens Berlin

€91

St Petersburg

€128

SPA OPENING IS NEXT STEP FOR ASHFORD Edinburgh

T

he Spa at Ashford Castle, described

by GM Niall Rochford as: “the final piece in the puzzle of the phenomenal restoration and renovation that Ashford Castle has undergone” will be run by spa manager Michelle Ryan with Toni Tollman.

Lisbon

Toni is daughter of Red Carnation President Beatrice Tollman.

Offerings include a Voya Seaweed Hot Stone Massage, Detox Herbal Bag Massage, and an Elemis Aroma Stone Therapy treatment A new bronze conser-

Valencia

vatory, designed by French architect Phillipe Bonino, houses an indoor resistance pool with views across Lough Corrib. A Tree of Life mural

by South African ceramic mosaic artist Jane Du Rand, extends long a wall of the pool area.

Athlone

€75 Bucharest

€66

source:

Niall Rochford, Ashford GM

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HAS IT ALL

Email: uk@godominicanrepublic.com Visit: www.godominicanrepublic.com Study: go-dominicanrepublic.eu

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JANUARY 2016 PAGE 8

POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

isit USA hosted the travel trade in Belfast, bringing key agents together to thank them for their support for the direct Belfast-Newark service, Dublin services and connecting flights over Britain.

The group dined in Shu Restaurant on the Lisburn Road and attendees included the USA Honorary Consul in Belfast, Jenny Cordell.

Ciara’s two year term as chair of Visit

V

USA is up and the AGM and agents appreciation night takes place on November 26. Visit USA Ireland is 25 years old this year and now has 80 members, up from the low of 27 three years ago Holly Best of Virgin Atlantic cohosted the event and Doreen McKenzie on ABTA in the north spoke on behalf of the travel trade.

Picture shows Ciara Foley speaking to agents at the event.

sabel Oliveira of Tourism Malaysia hosted the trade at the Gibson Hotel for a presentation and workshop.

While Malaysia gets more visitors than Thailand internationally, they lag considerably behind Thailand in the Irish market with 11,476 visitors in 2014, down 18.5pc on the previous year. Thailand gets more than four times as many visitors.

The average spend by Irish holiday makers is among the highest of any in-

I

ternational visitors, average stay by Irish holiday makers is eight nights and 40pc of Irish visitors go to Kula Lumpur, followed by penang, with Sabah and Sarawak bringing up the read.

Picture shows Ambassador Dato Syed Sultan Idris, Isabel Oliveira of Malaysian Tourism and Ishak Ismail Senior Deputy Director of European Division of Malaysia Tourism.

I

trade at the event. Picture shows: Esra and Murat Balandi, ITAA President Martin Skelly and Miriam Skelly, Ann Marie Dalton and Patrick McKinney at the Turkish Open at MaxxRoyal Belek.

Turkish operates double daily from Dublin to Istanbul and operates scheduled services to 280 destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, making it the fourth-largest carrier in the world by number of destinations.

t was a big month for Turkish Airlines with the European Cup in rugby added to their extensive sponsorship portfolio.

Ilker Ayci, Chairman of Turkish Airlines attended an event at the Stoop in Twickenham during WTM where the three year agreement was announced. It until the end of the 2017/18 season.

Turkish sponsor the Turkish Open at Belek and hosted members of the Irish

our America celebrates 20 years in business this year. Mary McKenna circulated a message.

As I look back at 20 years of business, 2015 has been our best year in terms of turnover, we have over 50pc repeat business, we have the best staff in the industry, and a fantastic culture in our organisation.

Twenty years of business has made me think what is most important, and

T

what I have learnt is that staff come first, then customers and relationships and partnerships.

You can buy in the rest. Keep growing and learning, and fail fast.

There is no place for ego or complacency. Respect everyone, be kind and fair and what is vital is that you love what you do, the day you wake up and don't want to go work, find another job, life is too short.

H

parture points.

Two ships Discovery (formerly Royal’s Splendour of the Seas) and Majesty in Palma, and Spirit wil be based in Malaga. Thomson also cruise from Corfu and Dubrovnik.

Picture shows Falcon/Thomson team Chris Hackney, Carol O'Connor, Helen Caron, Antoinette Young, Chris Logan and Charlotte Brenner who hosted the travel trade in Dean Hotel Dublin.

elen Caron, formerly Director for TUI/Thomson/Falcon Holidays in Ireland, returned in her new role as MD of Thomson Cruise to announce details of the groups reinvented cruise programme.

Describing her spending spree on three cruise ships as “the biggest credit card binge she had ever engaged in,” she said that Thomson will have ships home ported at some of the favourite Irish de-

L

oop Head Peninsula Heritage Trail won the best cultural heritage attraction at the World Responsible Travel Awards at WTM. The citation read: For years few people knew about one of its most stunning peninsulas: Loop Head in County Clare. However, that all changed after local community-led Loop Head Tourism Network created the Loop Head Heritage Trail in 2014. Making

this a fine example of local people taking ownership of their heritage and, in so doing, setting a new, shiny emerald onto Ireland's tourism map. Dearbhail Standún and Charlie Troy’s Cnoc Suain also made the shortlist of three. Connemara Wild Escapes from Letterfrack was short listed in the people and culture category. Picture shows Cillian Murphy, Fiona Monaghan, and Brian Coakley, with the award.

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The welcome bubbly awaits.

Find out more at virginatlantic.com.

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POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

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ick Newman of China Southern Airlines came to Dublin to announce a sales and marketing office within their Ireland head office.

He is pictured with Paul Weir.

He promised fares to Australia via Heathrow or Paris and Guangzhou of under €800 to Sydney return, less than the market price by €100: “For us the key way into markets is through price point. We are coming with

A

merican Airlines, Philadelphia and Atlantic City hosted seven key Travel Agency partners.

The agents flew business class on the Airbus A330 direct to Philadelphia where they were met by Greg Evans and Sonia Sehgal from American Airlines.

The group attended a Concert performance by Madonna.

Picture shows Greg Evans of Philadelphia and Atlantic City, Terese

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lan Lynch of Cruisescapes hosted travel agents on board the Fred Olsen cruise ship Boudicca in Cork.

Kate Wooldridge of Fred Olsen said “the ships have had more face lifts than any woman of their age.”

Fred Olsen is one of the few cruise lines that offers direct pick ups in Ireland, including cruises to Canada on board Boudicca in May and September

low prices and we have the new Dreamliner from London, A380 from Amsterdam, hopefully with the lowest prices and best airplanes we should be able to entice customers to fly China Southern.”

China Southern has increased from 400 to 600 aircraft in the past two years and is now the fourth largest airline in the world. Paul Weir, Head of APG in Ireland, has taken on a team of Chinese nationals, adding to the international expertise of this growing business.

Balzereit of Big Bus Company, Martin Hannigan of American Holidays Dublin, Sonia Sehgal of American Airlines, Kathy Cashe of Sunway, Angela Taylor of Oasis Travel, Peter Tully of Trailfinders, Roisin Carbery of Topflight, Sharon Morgan of Travel Counsellors and Jenny McIlroy of American Holidays Belfast Sightseeing in Philly on the Big Bus.

2016 (embark Killybegs, disembark Belfast).

Norwegian fjords and German Waterways on board Boudicca on July 23rd (embark and disembark Belfast), an Old and New England crusie (embark Southampton with flight included in price and disembark Ringaskiddy), and an Emerald Isle Cruise commencing on May 31st (embark Belfast and disembark Dublin).

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he Northern Ireland Travel Awards have a legendary status as a social event that does not look like it is running out of steam at 6am, but it is much more than that.

This year’s event produced what may be the sweetest acceptance speech ever, a short “love is all that matters” from Brian Surgenor who was awarded the Roll of Honour award, while probably the happiest winner was Drew Stewart

I

f you think you have heard it before, you have. Dublin’s Breath of Fresh Air campaign, launched last month, is a reprise of a campaign that was first, ahem, aired, in the aftermath of the smoking ban in 2004.

This time round it is designed for visitors. Orla Carroll who is fronting up the “breath of fresh air” brand, asked guests at the launch in Croke Park to visualise the impact of the slogan on people

S

unway will operate a weekly charter to Fuerteventura in summer 2016.

Sunway’s team of Tanya Airey, Mary Denton, Deirdre Sweeny and Anita Kelly joined Arminda De Leon of Fuerteventura Tourism to publicise the programme alongside Gonzalo Ceballos and Kathryn McDonnell of the Spanish Tourist Board in hosting the Irish Travel Trade at John Wyer‘s Forest Avenue

of Classic Collection from Sussex.

Clubworld Travel Lurgan won the agency of the year for the third time in 24 years.

Scott Parker of Feherty Travel in Bangor won the agent award. Both were decided by mystery shoppers, after an original shortlist drawn up after votes from the travelling public.

Picture shows Jonathan Adair of NITN welcoming guests to the event.

emerging from London Underground.

The new campaign is designed to counter Dublin’s image among visitors as a grey dismal place with not enough to do.

It has taken a while to reinvent Dublin, and the process is not complete.

The strategy is coordinated by the Grow Dublin Tourism Alliance which published its Collective Strategy for Growth to 2020 last year.

restaurant in Dublin. A holiday in the Atlantis five star resort was drawn at the event. Arminda De Leon reminded the trade that Fuerteventura has 150 kilometres of beach and described it was the beach of the Canaries, Picture shows Arminda De Leon, Gonzalo Ceballos and Tanya Airey. Aer Lingus have dropped their weekly flight next summer, but Ryanair will fly 3w to Fuerteventura.

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JANUARY 2016 PAGE 11

POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAVEL SCENE

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ill the ITAA conference in Jerez lead to direct flights from Dublin to Jerez?

Gonzalo Ceballos, Director of the Spanish Tourist Board in Dublin, with Maria Dolores Varo Malia Vice President of Tourism for Cadiz region and Francisco Javier Fernandez Minister for Tourism for Andalucia, speaking at a Press Conference where the minister responded to a question from Travel Extra:

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ravel Extra editor Eoghan Corry won the Business Travel News Journalist of the year award at the BTJA’s in London.

He was also shortlisted for the editor of the year of award.

Eoghan said: “To become the first Irish journalist to win against such esteemed international opposition at the Business Travel Journalism Awards is a humbling and extremely gratifying ex-

B

ookings to Cuba from Ireland have increased by 300pc in advance of the anticipated arrival of American tourists, and Eamon Flanagan and Gordon Penney took the opportunity to host Irish agents in Varadera and Havana to help drive further sales.

The agents road-tested the Air Canada App for in flight entertainment on their flight through Toronto.

“We are working to get new routes to different airports for Jerez, not only Malaga which is the biggest, but from other Andalusian airports to Ireland.

Cork, Dublin and Shannon will be a priority for us.”

Currently Jerz is accessible from Malaga, which is a two and a half hour transfer, Sevilla which is ninety minutes away and Faro in Portugal which is two hours away.

2016 HOLIDAYS NOW ON SALE!

perience. It was particularly satisfying that the judges made their selections without knowing who they were selecting and the decision was unanimous in my favour. I hope I will be followed on to the podium by other Irish travel and business journalists in coming years.”

Picture shows Adam Austin,of award sponsors Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Eoghan Corry and the MC for the event Steph McGovern of the BBC.

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Picture shows travel agents on the Cubatravel/Air Canada fam trip to Cuba: Gordon Penney of Cubatravel, Eamon Flanagan of Air Canada Ireland, Laura O'Callaghan of Bernard Hayes Travel Cork, Sarah Brady of Barters Travel Cork, Ciara Sweeney of Corrib Travel Galway, Darren Hutchinson of Strand Travel Waterford and James Malone of Rathgar Travel Dublin.

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Book online now at agent.stenaline.ie or call us on 01 907 5399 *€50 or 10% of the cost of your holiday whichever is the greater if booking either a Flexi or Premium ferry fare as part of the holiday.

If booking an economy fare, the full amount of the ferry crossing is also due at the time of booking in addition to the €50/10%. Holidays sold by Stena Line Travel Group AB (TA0733). Terms and conditions apply.

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JANUARY 2016 PAGE 12

ESCORTED TOURS 2015-16

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lients don’t always know where to start when it comes to travel — that’s where a savvy and secure tour operator comes in.

When it comes to visas, insurance and all that boring stuff, which can make or break a holiday, they need expert guidance.

Travelling on an escorted tour is ALWAYS more affordable than travelling on your own: Escorted tour operators book hotel rooms in bulk, passing the savings on to your clients.

They also have the buying power to get the best value in guided sightseeing, meals and local transportation, such as motorcoach, train or ferry travel from one city to another.

It costs much less than if your client arranged the same services themselves.

On an escorted tour, much of the sightseeing is included. That means participants do not have to pay for each museum visit or activity separately; it is all included in the price of your tour.

While the days may be filled with included sightseeing, or transferring via motorcoach from one overnight neighbourhood to another, participants will also have some free time to spend however they like, optional excursions (for additional fees), relaxing at the hotel, sitting at a sidewalk and writing postcards, or exploring the area on their own.

Escorted tours are the only holiday type that really get you into a destination.

A coach and more than four The escorted Tours business offers more to do and decen margins

Stop in the Joshua Tree National Park

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big selling point is that people like to travel with like-minded passengers on an escorted tour, they compare notes on sightseeing, share travel tips and get to know one an-

other over included meals.

They can also enjoy the peace of mind that comes with travelling in a group.

Escorted tours are normally conducted by a tour director who takes care of all services from beginning to end of the tour.

Unlike cruise ships, escorted tours allow travellers to get immersed in a destination and get to stay in towns that are otherwise deserted once it gets dark (an example is Venice at night).

O

n an escorted tour, a knowledgeable tour director will lead the escorted tour group along every step of your holiday. They will take you to the main sights, but sometimes off the beaten track to somewhere you

would never have visited on your own.

They will be well versed in the local language and culture, which is especially important if you are travelling in a foreign country.

They react well to the group and participate so-

cially and share unique insights and anecdotes.

Participants will learn about the history, geography and current events of each region you visit.

Many parts of Europe, for all the recent American-style customerfriendly improvements,

Page 012-015 Escorted Tours 10/11/2015 11:39 Page 2

European & Worldwide Escorted tours 2016 • Escorted Tours by air • Fully Bonded • Price Promise - No Surcharge Guarantee • Excellent Tour Managers • Typically four star standard • Much more included - no selling of extra excursions on holiday • No discounting • Agent friendly • Full on-line booking capability

PARIS 4 days from €469pp - Selected departures March to November 2016

CLASSICAL SPAIN 7 days from €779pp - Selected departures April to November 2016

BRUGES 4 days from €459pp - Selected departures March to November 2016

BERLIN, DRESDEN, MEISSEN & COLDITZ 5 days from €659pp - Selected departures May to September 2016

SOUTH AFRICA 16 days from €2,449pp - Selected departures January to November 2016

JAPAN - LAND OF THE RISING SUN 13 days from €4,269pp - Selected departures March to October 2016

CALIFORNIA & THE GOLDEN WEST 15 days from €2,949pp - Selected departures March to October 2016

GRAND TOUR OF CHINA 17 days from €4,099pp - Selected departures March to August 2016

Plus many more destinations

For a brochure, to check availability or to book:

Call: 01 905 6300 Visit: www.rivieratravel.ie Holiday organised by and subject to the booking conditions of Riviera Travel, Chase House, City Junction Business Park, Malahide Road, Northern Cross, Dublin D17 AK63. Fully licensed and bonded by CAR (T.O. 257). Per person prices based on two sharing a twin room. Single rooms available at a supplement. Additional entrance costs may apply. Images used in conjunction with Riviera Travel.

Page 012-015 Escorted Tours 10/11/2015 11:39 Page 3

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 14

ESCORTED TOURS 2015-16 still don’t yield up some of its attractions easily.

Anyone who has ever turned up at a museum or art gallery to find a “closed” sign on the door will know that.

T

he market is growing and changing.

As with land based holiday destinations and tour operators they are beginning to see cruise ships as their biggest competition.

Escorted tour operators in the Irish market include: ■ Colette Vacations ■ Contiki Holidays – youth market ■ Cosmos ■ Exodus ■ Explore ■ G Adventures (youth market) ■ Globus ■ GTI ■ Insight Vacations ■ PAB ■ Riviera ■ Trafalgar tours ■ Travel Department

T

here is a difference in terms of what is offered between brands who are targeting the traditional escorted tour clients and the youth market.

The perception of es-

Coaches at Ephesus in Turkey corted tours is beginning to change amongst the younger generation, with the likes of Contiki and G Adventures becoming stronger in the Irish market place.

Both companies offer escorted group travel to the youth market, with Contiki specifically targeting young travellers between 18-35 only while G Adventures also caters for older more adventurous traveller and families also.

Escorted travel is the perfect way for young

solo individuals to travel who are seeking the company of like-minded people and, of course, the security of travelling in an organised group.

In some cases young travellers will look to their travel agent for advice on solo travelling and they are presented with group holiday travel, such as Contiki.

Due to the nature of it being a youth product one can expect the product offering to be different to that of Insight Vacations, Trafalgar, Travel Depart-

Left: Abnother beautful day in the Alps and (right) Death Valley USA

ment who would be more appealing to more mature age categories. Contiki’s trips tend to be more high energy (with plenty of outdoor activities on offer), sociable and geared towards making friends.

Accommodation on offer ranges from camping to hostels and hotels.

There are plenty of room share options, so this eliminates single room supplements, and of course younger travellers tend to have less problems with sharing rooms

than more mature travellers.

Travel Department are the brand leader out of Ireland, having made a huge success out of the so-called grey market.

CIE Tours International and Brendan Vacations are also Irish connected although they offer tours worldwide.

Globus, Cosmos, Contiki, Insight, Riviera Travel, Trafalgar, Collette Vacations, GTI, Explore and Exodus are all big international brands. Contiki targets the younger

traveller, up to age 35.

Globus and Trafalgar operate around the same price points while Cosmos is a less expensive Globus brand.

Intrepid and Imaginative Traveller target smaller and younger groups. Explore and Exodus have loyal travellers who have stuck with them, often since the companies were founded in the 1980s. Their demographic seems to have grown older with the companies.

Page 012-015 Escorted Tours 10/11/2015 11:39 Page 4

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 15

ESCORTED TOURS 2015-16

I

nsight Vacations are a little more upmarket from the others. Insight is the only operator that offers 40-seater coaches, others tend to have 52 seats. Insight purchases brand new top of the range coaches and reconfigures them to 40seater coaches thus offering business class legroom.

All coaches have free Wi-Fi and charge points for phones and iPads.

Each coach is in operation for only five years.

They say their premium status is justified by the hotels, food inclusions, VIP entries to sites, more inclusions and seat pitch. They sit at the 4/5 star level.

Insight say their hotels are hand-picked in the more desirable locations.

“On city tours the hotels are always in the city centre and not in the sub-

urbs,” Sharon Jordan says. “Insight’s signature hotels which are included on most tours are distinctive properties, for example the Kolbe in Rome, a luxury converted 15th century convent within walking distance of the Roman Forum.”

The GTI tem in Ireland is headed up by Derek Keogh.

Their refreshed itineraries for 2015 include China and Tibet Vietnam and Cambodia, South America and Cuba and a series of Battlefield Tours from WW1, WW2 DDay, Berlin: WW2 & The Cold War and a secrets of The Third Reich tour.

R

iviera Travel staff undergo resortbased annual training and build knowledge so they can advise about the holiday based on their own experience.

Stop in the Nevada desert Their tour managers have a tradition of long service, 16 of them now for over 20 years and that staff are selected for organisational ability, knowledge and are multilingual.

Riviera say that since

their inception 29 years ago, they’ve never levied a surcharge – even when currency, fuel and more recently tax movements were excessive.

Escorted tours are available on every continent in the world, from

budget to luxury, leisurely to fast-paced. They range anywhere from six to 34 days.

Then there’s the Mauiva Air Cruise – using private airports to hop from city to city by air.

An example is six days (five nights) takes you from New York, Niagara, Toronto and Washington DC or seven days (six nights) from LA, San Francisco, Yosemite, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

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Page 016 Iceland 11/11/2015 15:42 Page 1

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 16

DESTINATION ICELAND

P

eople cannot get enough of Iceland, The name makes people smile. Getting there is easier than ever before with the low-cost airline Wow entering a market that had been dominated by charters.

It makes the short twoday break viable and possible. Like any country that is two thirds the size of Ireland, two days will not suffice but will give you enough of a taste to whet the appetite to return.

Icelandic tourism works in a pretty simple circus. Within a couple of hours of Reykjavik you will have a selection of geological wonders, beaches, waterfalls and historic sites that will linger long in the memory.

Goldfuss, the golden waterfall is the signature attraction on the liquid side, but, this being Iceland there is plenty of fire as well.

O

ne of the most curious sights is the exhaustive geyser, called gesysir, which gave its name to all geysers around the world.

“It needs resuscitation” our guide Sverrir Ragnallson told us. Thankfully such resuscitation,

Iceland where the continental plates collide

The crack in Iceland Iceland gets a new direct flight from Dublin

which is to be achieved through detergents and foam has been banned.

There are lots of places to wander where the steam issues forth and the earth bubbles.

For the most famous and newest of all, you don't have to go far from the airport. The blue Lagoon came about as a re-

sult of the construction of a power station in the 1990s. Iceland’s Disneyland, Sverrir Ragnallson commented with a wry Icelandic smile.

S

teamy thermal water and snowflakes is a combination you will never forget, no matter how far and how often your travel: .

Despite what the geysers and waterfalls might claim, Iceland’s signature attraction is the Blue Lagoon, a giant steam bath that is so close to the airport (13 kilometres) you could pop in after checkin.

The pool is a newcomer even in a landscape as fragile as Iceland’s. It emerged during the construction of a geothermal power station in 1976. Modern changing rooms were built at the entrance in 1992 and have been upgraded since to cope with the growing Lagoon squad.

■ WOW air’s new direct service from Dublin to Keflavik operates on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from June 2. Flight time is 2 hours and 20 mins.

You can see why they come. When you plod your piggies into the silicon in waste-deep water it is impressive a bath as you will have anywhere.

No self-respecting world traveller nowadays can return on the two and a half hour Wow Air flight to Dublin without the photograph of themselves immersed in the warm water with the steam rising and, if you want the full effect, a few icicles as a distant backdrop.

D

riving home the message of the personality of Iceland is the big task facing the country over the next 10 years. It is more than lava streams, beautiful waterfalls and ancient parliamentary sites.

The food movement in Reykjavik is one of the signs of how the product has evolved.

Perhaps the best restaurant in town is Kos. It is famous for its cocktails, but I preferred a Viking beer to wash down my arctic char starter and my

surf and surf main course..

Back in the 1970s said Rúna Magnúsdóttir, my companion at the restaurant, when the family went to eat out they claimed the only place in town that had food.

It was the Hotel Marina, the restaurant was like a canteen and we all had frozen fish more meatballs. When you are asked for a burger you got a meatball between two buns.

Nowadays Reykjavik food, in common with the revival of Scandinavian culinary excellence, prides itself on its offering. andering home in the dark it is hard not to be impressed with the comfortable, familial safe ambience of the midnight city.

They tell me that the police force in Reykjavik have only killed one miscreant in its entire history and that happened two years ago.

It sent a shock through the system. Visitors from the USA must wonder how it happened at all .

Eight years ago, says Inga Hlin Palsdottir of Icelandic tourism, the image of Iceland was all about the landscape. We had to remind our markets that people lived in Iceland too.

First the scenery, then the people. Thet’s something to blow steam about.

W

Goldfuss, Pingvellir pond, bathing in the Blue Lagoon, and northern lights

page 017 10/11/2015 14:35 Page 1

NEW VENUE

EXHIBITOR PROFILE

UL Arena University of Limerick Limerick Ireland t: +353 (0)61 213 582 www.universityarena.com

• Adventure Travel • Airlines • Airports • Caravans & Motorhomes • International Camping Sites • Car Rental Companies • Coach Tours • Cruise Companies • Ferries • Golf • Escorted Tours • Health Tourism • Home Holidays • Hotels • National and Regional Tourist Organisations • Overseas Property • Weddings & Honeymoons • Over 55’s Holidays • Rail Holidays • Theme & Leisure Parks • Travel Agents/Tour Operators • Travel Related Services • Tourist Attractions • Travel Accessories

DATE AND TIMES Saturday February 20 12.00pm - 5.30pm Sunday February 21 12.00pm - 5.30pm

CONTACTS Maureen Ledwith - Sales Director t: +353 (0)1 291 3700 f: +353 (0)1 295 7417 e: maureen@bizex.ie Paulette Moran - Sales Manager t: +353 (0)1 291 3702 f: +353 (0)1 295 7417 e: paulette@bizex.ie

ORGANISERS Business Exhibitions Limited 59 Rathfarnham Road Dublin D6W AK70, Ireland t: +353 (0)1 295 7418 f: +353 (0)1 297 7417

www.flyshannonholidayshow.ie

Page 018 tanzania 11/11/2015 15:07 Page 1

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 18

DESTINATION TANZANIA

B

utterfly is a tree hugger. A coconut tree hugger.

Using only a piece of rope for grip, he wraps his arms and legs around the trunk, and scoots his way to the top, 90 feet off the ground.

He is like a rockstar mounting the stage.

“Hello!” he cries to his audience below, with more sass than Zanzibar’s estranged son, Freddie Mercury.

When he reaches the peak, he performs a couple of daredevil tricks, just to make sure he’s got your attention, and when all eyes are on Butterfly, he launches into his rendition of the Swahili pop song, ‘Jambo Bwana’.

He shimmies his way back down as he sings.

“Zanzibar’s got talent,” one of our American companions says. Indeed.

B

utterfly is the star of the Kizimbani Plantation, where visitors are introduced to the plants that gave Zanzibar the nickname, the Spice Island. Cocoa, lemongrass, ginger; the smells in the humid forest are magnificent.

It’s the sort of experience you can’t bottle, although they did try to turn it into a range of fragrances and soaps.

On the far side of Masingini Forest is the island’s main city, Stone Town. It is a bustling marketplace with street sellers on every corner

Entranzed Conor McMahon is in Tanzania

Serengeti zebra crossing flogging t-shirts, knick knacks and CDs. Some of them follow us on our walking tour, making their pitch as we pass through the streets.

T

he constant invitation to haggle can be irritating, and some visitors might find it a little overwhelming, especially if the seller puts on a particularly emotional performance.

Luckily, we have two Middle Easterns with us to teach the art of bartering.

First of all, the items are always overpriced, so if you are looking to make a starting bid, at least halve the price the merchant offers and work from there.

The sellers are happy to let you handle the items beforehand, so inspect them to get a feel

for what you’re buying.

Stand your ground; don’t pay a shilling more than you think it’s worth, even if the seller insists you will put him out of business next year; you won’t. And make sure you both agree on the final offer before parting with your money to avoid any disputes.

Sometimes it is best not to think of these situations as a hassle, but as a bit of fun. It certainly gives your boring old souvenirs more of an edge if you’ve had to argue for them.

E

ven in the capital, everything runs on “Tanzania time”.

A good Swahili phrase to bear in mind is pole, pole— slowly, slowly — because the traffic is always hideous.

Hakuna matata will be

THINGS TO DO PLACES TO SEE

■ In Zanzibar, the all inclusive Mélia resort is ideal for couples. The rooms are fresh, and include a semi-outdoor shower, and the private villas are impressive. The food is good, but not does not live up to the overall experience. That being said, there is a fantastic floating bar where you can enjoy sushi and cocktails.

■ If you are staying in Dar Es Salaam, your best bet is the Ramada resort.

The next best option is Hotel White Sands.

■ Never sell Dar Es Salaam as a beach destination; the water is polluted even though the resorts insist that it is safe to swim in the sea.

■ Sopa Lodges in Ngorongoro are old, but still offer plenty of comfort.

They also boast the best views of the crater.

■ Pack a jumper if you are staying in the crater. It gets very cool in the evenings, especially because you are at a higher altitude.

■ Mosquitos are rife in the crater.

Give yourself peace of mind and take your anti-malarial medication.

■ When you are on safari, be sure to charge your camera batteries and bring a back up. There is a lot to see, and your long lens or zoom will double-up as binoculars.

your mantra; as the Disney song says, it means no worries.

From Dar Es Salaam, we take a domestic flight to Arusha, where we set on a four-hour drive through the desert to Ngorongoro Crater.

The highway was built by the recently elected Tanzanian president, Magufuli, when he was works minister; his road projects earned him the nickname the Bulldozer.

The roadway is smooth, so we glide through the landscape, passing villages and marketplaces. We pass the coffee fields and Mount Meru, the introductory climb for novices who have set their sights on Kilimanjaro.

Maasai boys line the road, whooping at tour buses. They wear black cloaks and white headdress after taking part in a maturity ceremony and know that foreigners would like to take a photograph. It is safe to stop, but you must be respectful and ask for permission before taking their picture.

You will be expected to pay as well — they strike our jeep with rungu sticks when one of the passengers takes a sneaky photo without permission or payment.

You should not pay any more than 500 shillings for the privilege and make it clear exactly who you are paying, especially if you meet a group of boys.

We stop for lunch in the Mto Wa Mbu district, home to 120 tribes and 24,000 people. The name, unnervingly, translates as River of the Mosquitos.

We are told that Tanzania is home to 30 species of banana, available yearround. The banana is used to make a range of foods and drinks: curry, soup, beer.

The delicious meal energises us for a game drive in Lake Manyara National Park, where baboons are in abundance.

Blue monkeys, zebras and elephants also make an appearance.

Pole, pole is also an phrase for a safari; the experience is all about slowly scanning the landscape in search for hidden creatures.

I

t’s not just about the big animals. There are all kinds of interesting life worth looking out for; birds, insects, and flora.

We could only go so slowly though, because we were under pressure to get to the Ngorongoro Crater gate before it closes at 6pm.

Our driver and guide Crispin puts the boot down, but we are still too late.

We arrive at 6.15pm.

By that stage, the park rangers have lowered the barrier and are pointing to their imaginary wristwatches, indicating that it is hyena time.

After thirty minutes of negotiation, they let us in.

We are reminded that the park belongs to the animals, so we have to keep the windows closed until we reach our resort.

“Anything can happen,” Crispin says ominously. And so we set out on an unscheduled — and illegal — nighttime sa-

fari.

Sadly, our safari in the dark is largely uneventful.

We don’t encounter any big cats looking for prey, but we do catch a glimpse of a buffalo, a hyena and an enormous porcupine.

We stay at Sopa Lodges, which provides visitors with a nightwatchman to protect them from hidden predators. It is a gentle reminder that, although you are experiencing luxury, you are in the wild.

One of the perks of staying inside the crater is that you can start your safari early.

We set out at 6am, and start the morning with Thomson’s gazelles, ostriches and a herd of wildebeest.

N

gorongoro doesn’t have as many animals as the Serengeti, but the it is still a thrill.

We watch the drama unfold as a herd of naughty jackals tease the mooching lionesses as they guard a buffalo’s carcass.

We spot hippos lounging in the water, giraffes on the horizon and an amusing warthog couple.

Two of the Big Five made an appearance; a lion and an elephant stand near each other, setting up a perfect photo op for the long lenses.

We have lunch at Lake Magadi where we compare pictures and soak up as much of the landscape while we can.

It is not until long afterwards — when you are repeating the stories for the hundredth time and remembering the sights, the sounds and the smells — that you fully realise what you have experienced. And is for memories like this that we travel in the first place.

■ Conor McMahon travelled to Dar Es Salam on Turkish Airlines, he was hosted at SITE Travel Exhibition by the Tanzanian Tourist Board

THE CHILD-MINDER USED TO SEE MY CHILDREN MORE THAN I DID – NOT ANYMORE! Read more in our storybook

OUR STORY, YOUR JOURNEY

0818 332003 www.travelcounsellors.ie | careers@travelcounsellors.ie

page 020-021 10/11/2015 11:41 Page 1

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Friday 22nd January, 2016 VISIT

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EXHIBIT

Please contact Maureen Ledwith | 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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WEDDINGS & HONEYMOONS SPECIAL

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or richer or for poorer, the number of people getting married is not going to decline.

A total of 25,000 tie the knot each year, and according to research company Mintel, one in five couples are doing so abroad.

The prospect of spending the happiest day of their lives in a draughty church tempts couples to sunnier climes, but the fact that getting married abroad is just a third of the cost of getting married at home is even more appealing.

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he cost of a wedding abroad has risen and now costs just over €8,000.

This is still attractive compared with as an average €23,000 for an Irish-based ceremony.

This figure, importantly, does not include guest accommodation or flights.

Not that people want to go abroad for a cheap wedding. Nobody wants a cheap wedding. They still want a fairytale wedding and a happily every after. They want something special.

Wedding planners are increasing in number and expertise in the details of the wedding. The travel trade has the expertise to add the flights, transfers and accommodation, as well as taking over the hassle of dealing with the tricky business of the details of the wedding ceremony itself.

The average wedding

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Bouquet list Preparing the big day abroad involves 25 people, so it is good business for the travel trade.

It enables the agent having a long term relationship with the customer.

Most of the serious discussion takes place between a year and two years ahead of the event.

Your clients are more needy than the average and a degree of counselling is helpful.

If you make it easy, you will get the bookings.

The packages available include photography, the ceremony itself, flowers, music wedding planning support, extras like cake and transport.

When they are thinking of getting married tempt them to talk. Use photos and videos in selling the product. Cite testimonials.

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eddings are well-suited for promotion on social media: 90pc of brides now research their wedding online. Offline as well as online, networking is huge. Every wedding guest is a potential customer or source of advice to another couple.

Communicate a clear package with a package price they can get their head around. If you don’t have a precise package to offer them the planning process gets stalled.

Once they have a package they can add on to that.

The commission from wedding packages is important but there are other commissionable elements, guest accommodation and travel, pre wedding and post wedding activities, and guest activities, reconnaissance

visits in advance, and wedmoons.

Many consider getting married abroad: 75pc of couples say they looked at getting married away from home, and 48pc say they requested quotes.

Even if they do not choose to get married abroad, many of these will be interested in using the travel trade for their honeymoon.

The overall resistance to the idea is declining, and the destination choice is expanding. They are not just interested in sun destinations, winter destinations feature too.

Point out that a wedding abroad has guaranteed weather, is more intimate and that there tends to be less family politics.

The couple really gets to know who their true friends are when they ask

them to risk losing their luggage and patience on a low-cost airline flight.

The cost of flights, hotel accommodation and the fact that there is no Barry’s Tea available may deter a few of the older, more distant relatives — which in some circumstances, might be an advantage.

The cons of a wedding abroad tend to be that a family member is unable to travel due to health, family traditions, it is too difficult, they feel they have no control, they wouldn’t know where to start, and it takes a lot more planning.

These fears are wellfounded; a surprising number of things may be beyond their control when they get married abroad.

AN €82m BUSINESS AND GROWING

our thousand Irish a year now choose to say “I do” on foreign soil.

Getting married abroad is big business. Weddings are a €32m business, not including flights and accommodation. With an average of 25 people travelling for 4,000 Irish weddings abroad the business is worth €82m.

Several of the travel industry’s big names produce dedicated brochures for the “cupid market”, as its called in the trade.

The general idea is to first choose the destination, and the hotel that offers the most attractive wedding package, and then check the full details of the holiday (including prices) in the

main brochure.

Charges for the wedding itself vary widely. In fact, in many cases, the ceremony and paperwork are thrown in free if the couple stays for a week or more.

That’s because wily companies are really interested in what they will spend on the honeymoon (understandably, as we all tend to

splash out here).

As well as the tempting brochures, most have a team of matrimonial experts to advise on the legal logistics and run through the options available at different hotels.

he timing of the wedding, for example, often depends on the availability of a registrar (or similar), and therefore can often be confirmed only on arrival; the couple’s request for a particular time will be noted, but often no more.

Also note that most registrars, especially in the Caribbean, only work Monday to Friday, so they often won't be able to have the traditional Saturday wedding.

Ireland’s favourite wedding abroad destination is Italy, followed by Malta.

Italy’s Tuscany and Sorrento offer gorgeous backdrops to the special day. You can get married and have your papal audience on Wednesday in Rome, which a lot of couples still do.

Malta is popular because it is English-speaking, there is no residency requirement, it has an attractive climate, direct flights and is groaning with churches.

Spain and France are next, with Cyprus, New York and Austria also in the hunt.

Florida, the Caribbean, Croatia, Prague, Greece and Turkey are all growing. Thomas Cook would bet that Cyprus and Lanzarote (Playa Blanca) are popular with their Irish customers.

Vegas is regarded as glitzy (rather than quickie) and relatively free of bureaucracy with some gorgeous honeymoon landscapes in the vicinity.

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outh Africa, St Lucia, Mauritius or Antigua (the most popular venues) can cost a lot less than at home, while Greece and Cyprus have a huge range of accommodation and getting married there is far less bureaucratic than other short haul destinations

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WEDDINGS & HONEYMOONS SPECIAL such as France and Spain.

The Caribbean remains one of the most popular long haul locations. A lot of European countries do not allow a beach wedding. In the Caribbean it has become the norm.

Over the past few years Mauritius, Sri Lanka and the Seychelles have been growing.

More unusual locations are now being chosen away from the beach, such as Lapland and Iceland.

Organising an overseas wedding can involve a lot of bureaucracy, and not all countries perform wedding ceremonies that are legally recognised here.

It is the couple’s responsibility to provide their operator with all the documentation, such as passports and birth certificates.

Be certain to address the document question early — at least three months before the date — and remember that they will often need to obtain local documents on arrival.

There will almost certainly be a fee for these.

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et the documents wrong at any stage of the hrudle race in this area and they won't be getting married, whatever their destination.

Marry in St Lucia, for example, and the couple could need as many as nine different documents, more if either party has been divorced.

Getting the wedding of your dreams is enabled by good planning.

Requirements vary from country to country, but are broadly similar.

For a church ceremony, several months' notice is often necessary. Civil weddings can usually be arranged at shorter notice.

Civil ceremonies are much easier to arrange than church weddings, but pretty much anything is possible if the couple

is to take place.

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has the patience and determination.

For most countries, the ground handler or wedding planner will require passport, original birth certificate, letters of freedom and proof of divorce or annulment, and a sworn affidavit, obtainable in Ireland, stating that both parties free to marry.

Stress that clients should follow the ground handler instructions, not those of the couple’s solicitor, who may claim that certain documents are not required in certain situations.

There may also be a certain length of time that the couple must reside in the country before a wedding can take place. Most

famously, in France they have to be resident for least forty days prior to the ceremony.

France demands a syphilis certificate (issued by a doctor practicing in France certifying that you have been examined “en vue de mariage”) and a certificate of celibacy (stating that you are indeed single or divorced and are legally able to marry).

According to French law, the Banns must be published at the mairie of the commune in which you will be married 10 days before the civil marriage takes place. You must prove residency for 30 days and a ten day stay after the ceremony.

Spanish authorities

may take 30 to 45 days to approve a marriage application. Policies and procedures vary from region to region.

Spanish law appears to permit foreigners who are not Spanish legal residents to marry in Spain.

The different autonomous communities in Spain, however, interpret this law differently.

Outside Madrid, it may be required that one party be a citizen or resident of Spain.

In Italy, persons wishing to be married must appear with two witnesses and make a declaration of their intention to marry before the Ufficiale di Stato Civile (Civil Registrar) of the city or town where the marriage

ollowing the declaration it is usually necessary for banns, or marriage announcement, to be posted at the local comune (city hall) for two consecutive Sundays before the marriage occurs if one of the parties is Italian or if the Irish citizen is a resident of Italy.

Banns can be waived by the Ufficiale di Stato Civile if neither party to the marriage is Italian and neither is residing in Italy.

Local authorities require the presence of a translator if neither party speaks Italian.

Many couples get round this by having a small marriage ceremony in Ireland followed by a larger confirmation ceremony abroad.

Topflight have some enticing villa complexes in Tuscany, which also have churches on site.

They say their most popular places are Malcesine in Lake Garda ( and Scaliageri Castle), Sirmione, and of course Sorrento and Positano.

The bureaucracy of France, Italy and Spain has meant that the tiny island of Malta (you can fit two and half Maltas into Ireland’s smallest county, Louth) has been advancing rapidly up the aisle as the wedding destination of choice for hundreds of Irish couples each year.

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alta has earned a steadily growing market share because of its easy bureaucracy residency stipulation of just three days, the close relationship between civil ceremony and church wedding, and the preponderance of churches and good hotels which offer a dazzling array of wedding options.

There are nearly 400 churches in Malta, one at every turn of the road, three times as many churches as pubs, the

Irish eye will quickly gather. The most prominent building along the landscape is the parish church.

It has close cultural, economic and religious connections with Ireland: One of the oldest traditional wedding venue hotels, the Phoenician, is Irish-owned.

More importantly, a wedding in Malta will cost an average of €4,500, compared with the average of €23,000 at home. Plates for the wedding meal can come in at €15 with some good options at €30.

There are over 300 restaurants as well and everybody has decided to chase the wedding business. A couple can get married in a vineyard (Ta Mena Estate in Gozo), a historic palace (Palazzo Parisio, Naxxar) or even underwater (a Chinese couple did it at the Azure Window in Dwejra, an impressive natural arch standing some twenty metres high).

Keep a weather eye on those local church charges, which can mount very quickly. In Malta the average “donation” required by the church is €500.

In contrast to France and Spain’s long ‘residency’ stipulation, Greece, Austria, the Czech Republic and Italy are all becoming feasible choices.

Now you can get married anywhere in Austria and all the locals speak English. Austria offers some romantic settings such as Zell am See. In summer you can get married on Lake Zell. In winter. they have the wonderful Sissi church right at 2,000 metres on top of the mountain.

Bad Gastein has Gruner Baum hotel in the Hohe Tauern National Park – with its own church. St. Johann and Westendorf have also had Irish weddings.

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pain, France and Italy will all need someone to translate documents which adds expense and bureaucratic hurdles.

There are no residency requirements for getting married in Thailand; however the required paperwork will normally take at least two working days to complete before the marriage can be registered.

Most Caribbean islands stipulate that couples must have been resident at least 24 hours before the wedding, though on Barbados couples may marry on the day that they arrive. On St Lucia, they must have been on the island for at least two working days in advance.

In Mexico, blood tests for HIV are compulsory.

Turkey is big news too.

This is an example of how booking a Turkish wedding works with Sunway: A travel agent rings with an enquiry for the end of August for 20 adults and 10 children.

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he licensing office in Las Vegas does not look very romantic: a square yellow slop-box of a building, plonked in the limbolands around the original Fremont Street city.

It stays open 16 of the 24 hours, so customers who arrive for a 4am wedding (as Britney Spears did) will need to be there by

Church weddings abroad with civil weddings at home are increasingly popular First, Sunway check that the date the couple want is free with resort (as they only do one wedding a day on either Thursday or Friday).

Sunway go back to the agent and confirm the date is available and give them a rough idea of costs.

Sunway also give them a link so they can see the costs for everything.

The cost for a wedding reception for 20+10 is €1,300, including a four course meal, wedding cake, table and chair dec-

midnight.

Getting your license costs $55.

They don’t ask questions. There are no blood tests, no checks, no demands for divorce papers or proof that your bride isn’t your cousin.

The marriage still isn’t legal until you go to a minister and get it stamped by a licensed minister — and that’s where the

orations and live music.

The cost of arranging the civil marriage is €1,500. This is mandatory and includes arranging medicals and blood tests, obtaining necessary permission for the Turkish authorities, services of an official registrar, translation of documents, notary services and collection of documents etc.

Then of course you have optional extras, like flowers, video, photos, hair and makeup, which depends on a persons

budget: ■ Flowers €400 ■ Video €300 ■ Photos €400 ■ Hair & make-up €100 So in total for this wedding, the cost is €2,800 + €1,200 for optional extras.

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nce Sunway provide the agent with the initial information and availability, the client (not the agent) is then told to contact our wedding planner in resort and they deal di-

rectly with each other.

Sunway and the agent stay out of the wedding reception details.

Sunway only arrange weddings in conjunction with their programme, so this gives the added advantage of offering fantastic group rates for the bride and grooms family wanting to travel.

Sunway forwards sample wedding itineraries for each destination to the clients, this gives them an idea of the cost of a Wedding aboard and the link for what is required for

LAS VEGAS UNVEILED

fun begins.

Vegas will offer any wedding experience you can think of.

They do 112,000 marriages a year, churning them like slot machines plays, theming and retheming the event so that virtually every wedding angle you can think of has already been requested: At Excalibur they will supply a wizard to marry you.

At the Las Vegas Hilton you can get married on the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise.

At the Venetian they have a wedding gondola where you can speak softly

love while an AllAmerican gondolier sings O Solo Mio. At Treasure Island they will do a completely over the top Viva Las Vegas marriage ceremony.

You can buy a Weddings to Go package which will bring you out to the Grand Canyon or the Red River canyon to make your vows against spectacular desert landscapes.

You can get married at the top of the Stratosphere, the tallest building east of the Rockies. If you want to go higher you can do it on a hot air balloon.

There are lots of drive through wed-

ding chapels where you don’t have to get out of the car.

And they will have every sort of chapel you can think of too. Big chapels, small c h a p e l s , labyrinthine buildings kitted out with a dozen chapels of various sizes, chapels that look like 1950s American diners, like forests and like caves.

They all offer a similar style standard product with live internet broadcasts, flowers, photos, and occasionally champagne and occasionally cake – city health regulators are

more fussy than wedding license departments.

An average of $330 will get you the flowers and video session. Some of the wedding providers will package your hotel and reception for you, getting over the local oddities like the all-present tipping culture.

And you can have Elvis impersonators perform the ceremony. The most lookalike of the lookalike Elvises to be licensed as a minister, has retired.

But you can always have a ‘short back and sides’ version.

Weddings aboard is also forwarded to the client.

The bride and groom are put in direct contact with the wedding co-ordinator once they decide to go ahead with their wedding aboard, and flights and accommodation are held until their wedding is confirmed.

Hair, makeup and the cost of the preparations have to be identified in advance.

The cake will generally be a plain one-tier sponge, unless stated.

Red carpets can be the biggest variable expense.

The price could turn out to be €200 as easily as it could be €100 with no discernible difference between the two, Couples may also be at the mercy of local florists for the bouquet. More importantly, they may not even be able to choose the precise location of their wedding: some hotels have one spot, and one spot only, where they allow ceremonies.

Standards and reliability of photography and videos can vary: facilities and equipment abroad, especially on smaller and more remote islands, are often poor, and in the Caribbean and elsewhere DVD formats are USfriendly and will not work in Irish machines (though they can be converted).

It may also come as something of a shock for the bride to discover that hairdressing and other grooming required for the big day may be hard to

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WEDDINGS & HONEYMOONS SPECIAL come by or a long way from a hotel — and that standards may not be what she is used to.

Couples should be wary of ‘free weddings’ tacked on to the cost of a honeymoon package.

These can sometimes translate into a swift exchange of vows witnessed by gawking hotel guests with inexpensive cake and sweet fizzy wine. he simplest approach is to buy an add-on to their holiday from a tour oper-

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ator that has a specialist wedding department. The cost is determined by location and exotic extras.

Options such as mariachi bands, helicopter rides and Balinese dancers send the price rocketing.

Before choosing a hotel, check the number of weddings it carries out.

Some resorts stage so many that newlyweds can find themselves sharing their special day with rather more people than they had intended. Couples who decide not to bring any relatives may

enjoy the camaraderie.

But those who want to avoid the risk of a ceremony conducted as the next party is lined up on the lawn would be well advised to select a hotel where weddings are not the main trade.

Watch out for the day pass feint. Friends who wish to stay in a less expensive hotel nearby may well have to buy a ‘day pass’ to the happy couple's hotel for the ceremony.

Take care, too, for many resorts are ‘cou-

ples-only’ and children are not welcome. Some companies offer discounts for friends, especially if there are 20 or more in the party.

Some hotels may not be able to offer a postwedding reception at all, creating further complications.

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here are other potential downsides.

In the most popular locations, brides in billowing white and over-hot grooms can find themselves caught in a

traffic jam of twosomes waiting their turn at the wedding bower.

As a rule, a wedding package includes sorting out the legal administration, organising the bouquet, buttonholes, cake and a champagne reception.

Weddings abroad can be insured, although this is intended to supplement rather than replace travel insurance. Similarly, a ceremony overseas and a reception at home can be covered under one policy Blue Insurances’ Wed-

ding Insurance starting from €39.99, covering cancellation and rearrangement, failure of suppliers, rings, gifts, bridal attire, personal liability and personal accident.

Making one member of the agency team a wedding specialist is a wise move for anyone who operates in this field.

THE RISING TIDE OF OCEAN WEDDINGS

eddings at sea are usually held in one of the main public rooms or in the ship’s own chapel, if it has one. Some ships also have small deck areas that can be set aside for al-fresco ceremonies.

Weddings onboard cruises in the Caribbean are legally recognised by the Bahamas Marriage Act. The act allows for marriages in international waters, which is defined as outside the 12 mile limit of the territorial waters of any nation. The actual location of the ship when the marriage takes place is then recorded in the Marriage Record book of the Bahamas.

With the re-registration of Celebrity Cruises’ seven ships in Malta, it is now possible for captains to perform legal wedding ceremonies at sea sailing through international waters. In accordance with Maltese law, couples should allow for at least eight weeks landbased lead time in order to process the required legal documents.

Princess Cruises was the first cruise line to offer ship-based weddings conducted by the captain and it has since been followed by other lines including Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises.

Couples booking 12 or more staterooms on a Royal Caribbean Interna-

tional sailing receive a complimentary ‘Romance at Sea’ nuptial package, inclusive of the ceremony performed by the captain, photography and other extras.

As most meals on cruise ships are included in the price, the couple and their wedding party don’t need to pay pay extra for the traditional wedding breakfast, unless they opt for a speciality restaurant which carries a fee.

Royal Caribbean has wedding chapels on some of its fleet, but couples can also opt to say their vows at onboard attractions which, on its larger ships, include a surf simulator, rock-

climbing wall and an on-board ice rink.

With ceremonies starting at approximately €1,500, they are considerably less than land-based alternatives.

All weddings performed onboard the ship must be in conjunction with a cruise.

Upmarket specialist line Paul Gauguin, which cruises in the South Pacific, features a special ceremony that includes a Polynesian blessing while tall ship line Star Clippers will organise a sunset blessing for honeymooners aboard one of its masted sailing yachts, conducted by the captain and attended by uniformed crew.

Princess Cruises offers live “wedding cams” which allow absent parties to virtually attend the ceremony as live pictures can be beamed from the ship’s chapel and are accessible via its website.

Thomas Cook Cruise Ireland offer a Weddings at Sea package with Cunard.

They can also marry on board a docked Celebrity Cruises ship in the following ports: Aruba, Baltimore, Barbados, Catalina Island, Cozumel, Fort Lauderdale, Cabo San Lucas, Civitavecchia (Rome), Grand Cayman, Hawaii, Juneau, Ketchikan, Key West, Livorno (Florence), Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey, New York, Jamaica, San Diego, San Francisco, Santorini, Seattle, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, San Juan, Tampa and Vancouver.

General packages include the services of a local marriage official, a bottle of champagne, wedding cake, floral arrangements and a wedding certificate.

Other cruise lines are not licensed to carry out seafaring weddings but can perform ceremonies when the ship is in port, either on-board the ship or ashore.

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AFLOAT

STENA Explorer made its final journey

on the Irish sea as she made her way to new owners and based in Turkey. Since her first sailing in April 1996, she carried 15m passengers, 3m cars and 550,000 freight units on almost 29,000 sailings between Ireland and Britain. The ship’s last commercial journey on the Irish Sea was in September 2014.

THOMSON Cruises is to homeport

Thomson Discovery, currently sailing as Royal Caribbean's Splendour of the Seas, in Barbados for the winter 16/17 season after spending the summer sailing from Palma. Currently sailing as Royal Caribbean International’s Splendour of the Seas, the ship will be based in Palma for summer 2016 following a re-branding and refurbishment programme. The latest addition to the Thomson fleet will have a capacity of 1,830 (double occupancy) across 915 cabins, and 40pc with balconies. Thomson Majesty will explore the Western Mediterranean from Palma. Thomson Spirit will homeport in Malaga. Thomson Dream will be based in Corfu with four itineraries sailing to Mykonos, Santorini and new port of Syros.

SILVERSEA Cruises' new 596 passenger Silver Muse will have eight restaurants, two more than Silver Spirit when it launches in April, 34 silver suites, a Silver Muse news service by email. and will serve as its flagship.

MSC’s new match loyalty programme, originally due to be launched Monday, has been delayed by a month. Silversea Cruises’ flagship begins sailing in April 2017.

MSC Cruises rolled out status match for

Irish customers, offering to match existing programme’s points to the equivalent MSC Voyagers Club points.

HARMONY OF THE SEAS entertainment will be Grease and Columbus, The Musical. Jamie Oliver’s franchise that debuted on Quantum of the Seas, will replace Giovanni's Table on Harmony of the Seas which debuts spring 2016 with seven-night Mediterranean cruises out of Barcelona before repositioning to Fort Lauderdale.

CRYSTAL River Cruises, river cruise division of luxury line Crystal Cruises, has placed orders for four new river ships to launch in 2017 and purchased an existing riverboat, which will be refurbished for July 2016, a year earlier than planned.

NCL added premium charges to lobster ($19.99), surf and turf ($24.99) and prime rib ($14.99) on the main dining room menu. NCL is to extend a la carte pricing at speciality restaurants to other ships in the fleet.

Norwegian Escape makes its Miami debut on Monday. Fat Cats Jazz & Blues Club will replace the Grammy Experience music venue onboard Norwegian Getaway

PRINCESS Cruises is offering guests three free, original romance stories on Amazon’s Kindle Love Stories during their cruise.

The short stories are written by Carolyn Brown, Heather Burch and Barbara Longley, inspired by their cruises to the Caribbean.

Helen Skelton, Louie Spence, Niamh Shields (from Dungarvan), Lewis Nunn and Sarah Vince the so called Escape team, with NCL's new Norwegian escape in Southampton.

A great Escape

NCL’s giant heads for Miami after Europe launch

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CL’s new 4,248 passenger Norwegian Escape, the fifth largest ship on the ocean, has arrived in Miami after launch events in Hamburg and Southampton.

NCL hosted Irish travel trade alongside the paying passengers on a pre-launch cruise out of Southampton. Agents were accommodated overnight and given tours of the

ship’s facilities.

Not everything worked, as happens on pre-launch cruises. The dining arrangements came close to breaking down altogether and cards stopped working in the early hours of the morning when many of the Irish guests were only getting into their stride.

Stressed staff, reacting badly to the

pressure, created a bad impression in some quarters.

The mix of paying passengers and trade guests meant that a credit was loaded into the cards of the trade guests, which quickly evaporated when the impact of taxes and an 18pc service charge was added on to the beverage and food bills.

NORWEGIAN ESCAPE: THE AGENTS’ VIEW and was also very private. The suite itself had everyPOLLY BOND (Tour America): The ship is thing you could wish for with individual bedroom and

well decked out huge ship with an abundance of bars and restaurants to choose from (16 restaurants). I loved the range of tastes in food they cater for. TI really liked "The Waterfront" concept which is like sitting on a long pier and looking out to sea. Having dined in Cagney's Steakhouse, we were taken aback with a such a fabulous menu, but with every individual item having a charge.

This seems a concerning change of concept to cruising, where normally for such a restaurant you would expect a reasonable cover charge instead. A fully chargeable restaurant may be quite a shock to seasoned cruiser.

However the steaks were amazing. Outdoor facilities looked very good for both adults and children offering a full Aquapark with amazing slides, zip lining and the chance to walk the plank. I stayed in a very comfortable balcony stateroom on the ninth deck. It was all fitted out very well, although decor fairly similar to other balcony cabins I have stayed in with other cruise lines. I loved the shower. We are used to very cramped bathroom areas, but the shower unit itself was very spacious. I had the opportunity to visit one of the suites on board positioned at the end of the ship. It had a huge double balcony with, what seemed to be the best view on board

living area and two bathrooms. However, it did seem a little cramped and think a more open plan design would have felt more comfortable.

TOM BRITTON (Marble City Travel): Nor-

wegian's progression through mainstream cruising has intensified in the last number of years beginning with Norwegian EPIC. Norwegian's most recent and largest ship is "Norwegian Escape". Escape has allowed Norwegian to place an emphasis under each cruise section, adding the oceanfront boardwalk concept to the eateries.

Norwegian are already strong on food, from buffet to fine dining, and are giving the flavour of moving into the "premium" cruise category. Entertainment will appear to a mass audience, two Tony Award winning musicals along with Brat Pack to sing along to In addition to the normal bars etc. Kids., well, Norwegian are strong here too, and the new waterparks are fun - we've tested them. We can only imagine the fun in the sun.

Overall Escape is an excellent ship and we are excited to see it placed in the Caribbean, and thrilled to see the upping of Norwegians tempo and standards (not that they were weak, but they've moved up the ladder).

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AFLOAT

ROYAL Caribbean's new Harmony of the Seas and P&O Cruises' Ventura will feature at CLIA's 2016 Cruise Conference in Southampton May 18-20 2016.

CELEBRITY Cruises team distributed

toolkits to agents across Ireland offering selling tips and information on how to earn more Celebrity Rewards points.

Water slides on board Norwegian Escape

A la carte shock

QUANTUM CLASS RCL ordered a fifth Quantum Class ship to be delivered autumn 2020. Highlights of the Quantum-class include industry-leading Internet, virtual sky diving, the North Star glass capsule pod; the three-deck-high Two70 lounge and theatre and the Seaplex sports and entertainment complex with bumper cars, roller skating and a circus school. The third Quantum class ship, Ovation of the Seas, which launches in April is designed for the Chinese market. The fourth is due in 2019.

OASIS CLASS The keel was laid for Royal Caribbean's fourth 5,200 passenger Oasis-class ship at the STX shipyard in St. Nazaire. During the ceremony, a 1,000-tonblock was lifted into the building dock and and wants a cover charge.”

“If people feel more comfortable newly minted coins were placed under the with certainty and a cover charge we keel. The as yet unnamed ship is scheduled to launch in spring 2018. have “

Norwegian Escape moves to expensive dining option

F

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 Officer for Norwe-

gian 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

“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.”

NORWEGIAN ESCAPE: THE AGENTS’ VIEW and adults alike will love the waterslides they were very DAWN CONWAY (Sunway): The ship is cool A little too chilly for been in Southampton but I can bright and colourful and makes a great first impression.

Boarding was quick and efficient and we went straight to our Balcony Cabin. The décor was sleek and modern.

All over the ship there were interactive pads for you to see different activities going on and for you to book in various restaurants and shows, this was really handy.

There were plenty of free activities on-board including sky rails over the ship and a waterpark. I ate in the Margaritaville restaurant for lunch, this is included at no extra charge and is waiter service including loads of burgers and lots of Mexican dishes. The food and service was great and for the evening there was a really long wait for the main restaurant so we ate in O'Sheehan's, Norwegian's no-fee, pub-style restaurant, again simple but great menu for a light meal, this is open after dark if you feel peckish later on. Drinks I thought were expensive with a glass of wine at approx. $12 dollars each, so I would definitely recommend to get the drinks package if possible. Norwegian normally have a campaign offering this FREE, so a definite selling point to save a few pennies. I just wish I had longer on-board to experience it for longer.

NIKI STANFORD (ClickandGo): The Spice H20 will be fantastic when the ship is in the Caribbean.

It has a very chilled vibe during the daytime and I bet it will be the place to be when the sun goes down. Kids

imagine that in the Caribbean it will be such a great atmosphere. I did love the Sports Complex area the three storey ropes course was really good fun and very exciting So there is lots to keep everyone busy for the days at sea

DEIRDRE SWEENY (Sunway):: I was one of the lucky guests that was afforded a penthouse haven suite. It was awesome, a beautiful large bathroom with bvlgari, toiletries, nespresso, coffee machine, floor to ceiling windows with a wrap around balcony overlooking the water at the back of the ship. There was full butler and concierge service, a separate haven lounge pool and dining room. Views from the dining room were fab. I ate in the Manhattan restaurant, which was superb. I particularly like the lay out of the ship. Each corner had a different feel to it. The water slides were huge as I watched it from Margaritiville, sipping a margarita (what else?). I thought it ideal for families. The H20 adult area was wonderful. It was so chic and relaxed. This is where you would find me for seven days.

I loved the ship. It is very arty, new chic and has some very nice touches. As with all NCL ships the staff, food and service were to a top level. The only complaint was the visit was too short.

COSTA Crociere officially launched Carnival Maritime, the digital support unit for Costa Crociere, Costa Asia and AIDA Cruises.

NCL's affiliation with Nickelodeon will be replaced by a partnership with The Kings Foundation at the end of this year.

DISNEY Cruise Line lowered its com-

REGENT Seven Seas Explorer floated

mission from 16 to 10pc on re-bookings .

out at Fincantieri's shipyard in Genoa, in advance of its launch in July 2016.

AZAMARA The 686-passenger Azamara Journey plans a 102-day journey from Sydney's Opera House to London's Tower Bridge in 2018.

P&O The 2,000 passenger Dawn Princess is to switch brands in May 2017 and become the P&O Cruises Pacific Explorer. Princess Cruises is to introduce a gastropub on Crown Princess called the Salty Dog.

EMPRESS of the Seas is to return to

Royal Caribbean after seven years with sister line Pullmantur. Pullmantur is undergoing a restructuring and will not be able to use the ship.

NORWEGIAN Epic re-entered serv-

ice last month after a three-week dry dock to be fitted with entertainment, dining and technical updates. Fat Cats bar has been renamed the Cavern Club complete with Liverpool themed furniture and"Priscilla Queen of the Desert" replaces the long-running Blue Man Group.

LIBERTY of the Seas is undergoing a makeover that will see it fitted with 26 panoramic ocean view staterooms, new dining options and a boomerang slide called Tidal Wave.

€

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RYANAIR 737 There was widespread coverage of Michael O’Leary’s arrival from Seattle on the first Ryanair 737. He said there was a strong likelihood he'll do another share buyback to increase the value of the airline’s shares, and that Ryanair expects to be operating one in every four European shorthaul flights within the next eight to 10 years.

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

DUBLIN RUNWAY While the de-

bate about the parallel runway warms up, Dublin Airport invited tenders for a €60m upgrade of its existing runway and other infrastructure elements, with the runway improvements expected to be completed within two years.

MICHAEL O’LEARY told the

Institute of Directors: "If I'm to support one of Ireland’s biggest loss-making cattle breeding operations, and of Ireland's biggest loss-making national stud horse operation, I need everyone in this room to fly Ryanair", and “We have the best customer service of any airline in Europe. I will accept we had a very narrow definition of customer services for the first 25 years of our existence, it principally consisted of we will give you the lowest fare, we wont; lose your bag, we promise not to cancel the flight, now go into your lane, sit down, we are not interested.” O'Leary told the British Irish Chamber of Commerce, “tourism is one of the main reasons behind Ireland's economic recovery.” And he was in good form in Rome last month telling journalists Gulf airlines were not rich enough to buy Ryanair.

EUROPE Airpost

CEO Jean-François Dominiak is to extend the service from Dublin to Halifax in Nova Scotia next summer from July to mid-October 2016, three and a half months, instead of two months for the 2015 season. He said that while the service is a niche leisure market they are anticipating non leisure business. The passenger split is 25pc Dublin and 75pc Paris, where the flight originates and finishes, satisfaction ratings on the route were 97pc, Europe Airpost may increase frequency.

NEWQUAY airport is to drop the £5

passenger departure charge. Aer Lingus Regional's Dublin-Newquay route is likely to return for summer 2016.

ANCILLIARY According the Car-

Trawler Yearbook of Ancillary Revenue, ancillary revenue was $38.1bn for 2014, up 20.9pc.

RYANAIR launched a new route to

AER LINGUS According to IAG’s

Vigo.

results, Aer Lingus ASK is expected to increase by 4.7pc in Q4 and by 5.1pc for the year 2015. British Airways’ cash position was €3,615m, Iberia €1,058m, Vueling €904m, Aer Lingus €958m and the remaining IAG companies €251m, report and presentation.

AWAS acquired three A320-200s from ALAFCO on lease to Turkish Airlines.

Rendering of Cityjet’s new superjet

Cityjet’s Superjet Pat Byrne goes to Moscow for new aircraft order

C

ityJet will take delivery of 15 Superjet SSJ100 aircraft, four in 2016 (Feb or Mar, May or June, July and August) and 11 in 2017 at the rate of one a month.

In a deal described as a "preliminary agreement", and "much more" than a letter of intent, Cityjet took options on an additional ten aircraft.

The SSJ 100 seats 98 passengers five abreast, a generous 32” seat pitch, a wider seat and a more over-

head bin space than competitors.

Engines are by Snecma and avionics by Thales in France, wheels by Goodrich, auxiliary power unit by Honeywell in the USA and interiors

by Pininfarina in Italy.

The aircraft achieved European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification in February 2012.

Falko will own the aircraft and lease them to CityJet. CityJet owns just two of its Avros,

and intends releasing two RJ85s in 2016 and one a month throughout 2017, Pat Byrne said: “We may still see a few carried through into 2018, but the RJ85 will be gone completely in the first quarter of 2018. We intend introducing the SSJ100 on charter activity in 2016 and will place it on our London City route network in 2017.

We believe our customers will love this jet.

4AM IS THE NEW 5AM AT DUBLIN

D

ublin Airport’s slot report confirms s perceptible drift towards earlier morning activity.

At Dublin, 4am has become the new 5am. Aer Lingus services to Bordeaux are scheduled only Dec 15 to Jan 4 and there will be no services to Toulouse.

BA is reducing frequencies to Heathrow and increasing London City.

Norwegian decided against using its slots for Helsinki.

Dublin airport has brought forward the security shift times to 4am in a bid to beat the early morning gridlock at the airport.

The slot allocations at Dublin Airport for the winter season have been released. These show 12.1m seats offered, a 13.1pc in-

Dublin faces its busiest ever winter crease to last winter’s actual operation.

Ryanair has the largest allocation with 5.4m seats (up 19pc over last year actual), Aer Lingus (including Regional) is 2nd with 4.4m (up 10pc), followed

by BA with 424,000 (up 9pc), Emirates 220,000 (no change), Lufthansa 197,000 (up 22pc), CityJet 158,000 (down 5.5pc), Flybe 151,000 (down 37pc), Etihad 137,000

(down 24pc), Air France 135,500 (down 5pc) and SAS 109,000 (up 15pc).

Delta with 88,500 (up 23pc) overtakes United 77,100 (up 4pc) and American 54,700 (up 1.5pc on US Airways with which it has merged). Air Canada has cut its capacity by 20pc to 26,500. Ethiopian’s allocation is 70,200 seats.

While airport numbers are up 15pc this year and are on course for 24.9m, a

disproportionate increase has impacted on the early morning flights with the 15 machines in Terminal 1 under particular pressure.

Security staff who arrived for work found that queues had already formed Queues at Terminal 2, which is used by Aer Lingus and long haul operators, have also intensified as the airport deals with extra demand for flights to meet the long haul wave out of Heathrow.

The situation is expected to be eased by the introduction of automatic tray return, two were used on trial last year.

Queue times for security at Dublin airport are regulated and kick in if they extend beyond 45 minutes.

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Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 29

THE FLYING COLUMN

STROLLERS In what may be a rev-

olutionary move for families, Dublin Airport is trialling a courtesy stroller service for passengers departing with young children via Pier 1 in Terminal 1.

DUBLIN Airport anticipates a 13pc increase in capacity this winter, with 16 extra winter routes and 1.5m extra seats. The Airport saw a record 2.3m in October up 16pc, Europe was up 15pc to 1.1m, cross channel up 18pc to 830,000, Transatlantic up 16pc to 231,000, Middle East/N Africa up15pc to 65,000 and domestic up 31pc to 8,000.

CLUJ Romanian airline Blue Air is to

launch twice weekly flights from Dublin to Cluj next summer.

Michelle Thompson, Willie Walsh, Alex White, Paschal Donohoe, Stephen Kavanagh and Catherine Connelly celebrate three new Aer Lingus routes to the USA

EWR we go again Aer Lingus Newark inks indicates United tie-in

H

aving initially promised two new trans-Atlantic routes for 2016 from Dublin by Aer Lingus, the former national flag carrier delivered three: Two of them to start after the summer season, pre-

NEW ROUTES

■ LAX 5w (from May 4, lead in fare €329 one way), ■ Hartford Bradley daily (from Sept 28, lead in fare €319 one way) ■ Newark daily (from Sept 1, lead in fare €309 one way).

sumably because Aer Lingus has accessed two A330s on the IAG supply chain.

The new services are not quite the boom Paschal Donohoe, Willie Walsh and Stephen Kavanagh would have us believe. Newark’s gain is JFK’s loss and Washington’s A330 has been transferred to LAX. ■ The Dublin-Washington 4w A330 is transferred to Dublin-LAX and replaced by a B757.

■ The early morning Dublin-JFK B757 is transferred to Dublin-Washington.

■ Orlando goes from 3w to 2w to boost LAX. ■ Shannon to Boston has been reduced, from the Omni Air B767 to Air Contractors B757.

Willie Walsh's oft-repeated plan for Aer Lingus is to fill it with connecting passengers from provincial England and Europe that would otherwise go through BA’s hub, Heathrow, turning Dublin into Heathrow's third runway.

The daily Newark service goes up against a twice daily service by United, a partner airline (at least in

pre-IAG days) starting in autumn?

United feeds as many passengers (15pc) into Aer Lingus’s trans-Atlantic network as Jetblue.

When Aer Lingus launched Dublin to Dulles, United reacted by launching a Dublin-Chicago service of their own.

Aer Lingus anticipates the arrival of two A330s in autumn 2015. Until then there is minimal change in seats to North America, because Shannon-Boston has been reduced capacity might even be BELOW 2015 capacity.

SHANNON The resumption of the Stobart service from Shannon to Edinburgh was speculated by Limerick based media.

AER LINGUS Robert Boyle, Rachel Izzard, Mike Rutter and Fergus Wilson were appointed to the board of Aer LIngus.

AUSTRIAN regional airline InterSky has applied for, insolvency. The grounding affects 150 jobs. German investor Intro Aviation (investor in Cityjet) had said it wanted to sell Intersky last September.

WOW announced flights from Keflavik to LA and San Francisco next year, with the possibility of low cost connections from Dublin.

ASCEND Aero issued a Guide to 490 Aerospace Conferences & Events as a way to plan your marketing spend or plan your research trips. See here to add events.

AER LINGUS is to bring back

Dublin-Bologna 2w for summer 2106, June 4 to Sept 27.

RYANAIR Ryanair will move from Ciampino to Fiumicino after this winter. over the prescribed limit.

BUDGET for State Airports in the Budget for 2016 is €193m, compared to €162.6m in 2015, funded by daa/SAA and not by the Exchequer. The provision for regional airports is €3.8m, up €300,000 on 2015.

For more information please contact us at +353-1-679-3958 or at aircanada@premair.ie

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JANUARY 2016 PAGE 30

THE FLYING COLUMN

WOW Air lead-in fares from Ireland to Ice-

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

land were pegged from €69 each way and trans Atlantic flights from Dublin to Boston from €139 each-way.

LUXAIR announced a sixth flight per

week from Dublin to Luxembourg for winter 2015/16 with prices from €149 return.

ANA airline rolled out the Boeing Dreamliner 787-9 R2-D2 livery at a Star Wars convention in California.

LEE Travel and Stein Travel are to operate a shared charter from Cork to Menorca June to Sept using Cityjet.

ETIHAD and its equity partner airlines

increased funds raised from their unique platform financing translation to $700m.

AADVANTAGE members can earn

Waiting for flights at the T1 passenger area in Dublin airport

Winter warfares

double miles when flying with American Airlines or Japan Airlines between North America and Asia before December 15.

BA and Vueling expanded their codeshare

routes to include 30 BA flights to Spain and Italy from London Heathrow and London BA launched a Club Europe discount scheme. BA and Westjet extended their codeshare deal.

BA's first of 18 refurbished B747s between London Heathrow and New York JFK. Double Miles & More members will receive 1,000 miles for the first night of their stay at Best Western instead of the standard 500 miles, up to a maximum of three stays.

ETIHAD Guest members can earn triple miles for business flights and quadruple miles in first on Etihad, Air Berlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Alitalia and Jet Airways until December 15.

RYANAIR have dropped two routes Shannon to Poitiers and Nice and cut frequency on three routes to Memmingen, Manchester and Paris for Summer 2016.

BRUSSELS Airlines from March 27th from Belfast City Airport to the EU capital will reopen links to Brussels Airport .

BA is adding a daily Gatwick to JFK B777 flight on May 1. BA now has 22 trans-Atlantic flights; of interest is the fact that Austin is 70pc inbound traffic to London.

THE LOOP at Dublin Airport won Airport Retailer of the Year at the Frontier Awards in Cannes, see winners here. If airport traffic grew by 6.2pc and global duty free and tax free airport sales were down 2.1pc, this effectively means that the important indicator of sales per passenger dropped by 6.7pc This must be a major industry concern,” TFWA president Erik Juul-Mortensen told delegates to the airport retail conference.

AER LINGUS re-commenced opera-

TONY TYLER told the IATA World Passenger Symposium in Hamburg that airlines will carry 3.5bln passengers in 2015 and the figure will double in 20 years. tions between Dublin and Liverpool.

Extra capacity should lead to lower average fares

O

n the back of CSO figures showing the first real growth in outbound travel from Ireland this summer, up 8pc, consumers will enjoy a head to head between the major Irish airlines on many winter routes over the coming months.

Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels nd Madrid are likely to be the destinations that benefit from unexpected extra capacity over the winter, with Aer Lingus services to Liverpool also driving down prices to north-west England.

'London, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome and Milan are on the Ryanair list, "says CEO Michael O'Leary.

Barcelona will also see an 8pc capacity increase from Dublin with Aer Lingus next summer.

The move on Amsterdam was a first tentative step into KLM’s hub by Ryanair. Ryanair CCO David O’Brien told Travel Extra: “Amsterdam is unashamedly designed to serve the KLM network. We have no fear of going against KLM on price but we want to be sure that, if we are going in

to one of the most expensive airports in Europe, we don’t go in with our eyes closed.” “ Schiphol is reportedly a reluctant suitor for Ryanair and O’Brien felt the airport might be tempted to “mess them around”.

Amsterdam will be Ryanair’s second major European hub airport after Madrid and the airline does not expect ANY Ryanair customers to connect into the AF/KLM network

FURTHER T/A PLANS FOR LINGUS

AG CEO Willie Walsh says Aer Lingus will add one or two transAtlantic routes a year and concentrate on places which have a large Irish diaspora.

He says Dublin Airport needs more capacity to cope with demand during peak hours.

"There is space at times during the day but the airport is full during peak hours, which leads to delays and congestion. We would be very much in favour of a parallel runway, we think it is inevitable.

The operators are all in favour of the extra infrastructure as long as it is

cost-effective. We would also encourage the airport to look at utilising existing facilities as much as possible."

Forbes magazine recently commented: For decades Aer Lingus has languished in the middle of the pack of the world’s large air carriers, better

known for low prices and getting people to Ireland than quality or destinations beyond the Emerald Isle.

That is changing fast. Earlier this year, Aer Lingus starting rolling out a new and greatly upgraded business class cabin product.

N

event December 17, when it will outline its plans for 2016.

US airlines pay about 38pc in taxes, some of the highest in industry, and it has long been a fighting ground with Congress as airlines point out that they are treated, in government tax and fee terms, like the alcohol or tobacco industries even though airlines

are a major driver of GDP. By comparison, Wolfe points out that other highquality industrial companies, like Caterpillar, only pay 27pc.

Wolfe suggests Deltas could set up a non-US subsidiary to house its international equity interests and JVs, and maybe some other business such as its MRO operation.

Tax rates in Ireland are less than in the Netherlands but Delta’s operation in the Netherlands is vastly larger than in Ireland This would lead to the creation of “Delta Amsterdam, a foreign subsidiary based in the Netherlands where the corporate tax rate is 25pc,” Wolfe states.

I

DELTA CONSIDERS OFF-SHORE

ew York-based Wolfe Research suggests Delta Air Lines could potentially set up a non-US subsidiary (most likely in Amsterdam) for international operations and joint ventures to reduce its tax liability. Delta declined to comment on the report.

Delta is scheduled to hold its investor day on

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Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 31

THE FLYING COLUMN

PROFITS There was just one loss

maker (Tiger in Singapore) among the 21 airlines and airline groups who reported Q3 results this week. Lufthansa Group’s nine-month 2015 net profit was up 262.7pc to €1.75bn.

American Airlines Group profit was up 79.8pc to $1.69bn. United third-quarter net profit was up 74.6pc to $1.61bn. Air France-KLM Group’s profit rose to €898m despite a pilots strike. IAG profit was up 39.3pc to €883m.

Southwest earned net income of $584m. JetBlue profit was $198m. Finnair Group doubled their net profit to €39m. Norwegian doubled pre-tax profit and ordered 19 Boeing 787-9s, plus 10 options.

FALCON Holidays are to operate a weekly Tuesday charter from Knock to Salou from June-Aug 2016.

MULTITRIP.com reported a 25pc jump in Travel Disruption Cover with airlines cancelling flights as Mount Rinjani Volcano erupted in Bali.

LOUNGE Construction work has started on the new premium lounge on the gate side of US CBP at Dublin airport.

Robin Kiely, Michael O'Leary and Kenny Jacobs: Always Getting Better is here to stay.

Fares and shares

R

Irish airline leads market in five main markets

yanair’s average fare rose by just over a euro to a record €56 over the past six months.

The group announced profits were up 37pc and raised the passenger target from 104m to 105m. Guidance is now €1,175-€1,225m.

Ryanair October traffic grew 15pc to 9.68m customers, load factor was up 5 points to 94pc.

Ryanair are to ground fewer aircraft this winter, around 40 out of their fleet of 300, largely driven by maintenance.

The current winter programme has 119 new routes, with capacity increases of 50pc in Germany, 17pc in

Spain and Poland, 13pc in Ireland, 12pc in England and 11pc in Belgium and Italy.

Germany is the target of much of the coming expansion. Ryanair wish to challenge the dominance of Lufthansa and British Airways in the London market – who between them control 77pc of weekly seats on their Heathrow services – as well as Aer Lingus and Lufthansa to Dublin.

Both would be operated with a high frequency competing service in the same mould as its recent successful shift in strategic direction.

Kenny Jacobs said: “We are talking to everyone (in Germany) except

Frankfurt. Southern Germany is particularly interesting. I could envisage Munich as a destination rather than a base for example. Much like Brussels [Charleroi and Zaventem] and Rome [Fiumicino and Ciampino] we feel that Munich could work alongside our existing operations at Memmingen.”

Ryanair has highest market share in five countries, Ireland 48pc, Poland 29pc, Italy 26pc, Belgium 26pc, and Spain 18pc. It is second in Portugal 21pc, England 17pc (after easyJet)), Morocco 12pc, and is third in France 7pc and in Germany 5pc.

RYANAIR: NO TURNING BACK ON AGB

T

here is, apparently, no going back for Ryanair. Michael O’Leary says that He said Ryanair's Always Getting Better programme will not end; it has become an ethos. He said the frequent flyer type is fading, replaced by younger demographic expecting value

and transactional benefits.

Kenny Jacobs said many businesses get bogged down in never-ending change programmes with too much analysis and consultants' reports and along the way they lose their focus and more of their customers.

In certain months Amer-

ican visitors are the third largest group visiting Ryanair’s website, Kenny Jacobs said as he explained why an American website had been opened by the airline. Jacobs told the World Low Cost Airline Congress that connectivity between Ryanair and long-haul operators is "a very interest-

ing product that is waiting to happen."

He said Ryanair's Always Getting Better programme will not end; it has become an ethos.

He said the frequent flyer type is fading, replaced by younger demographic expecting value and transactional benefits.

GOLD COAST Airport parent com-

pany, Queensland Airports Limited appointed Killiney born Marion Charlton to the role of Chief Operating Officer of Gold Coast airport.

BA Keith Williams will retire as chairman

and chief executive of British Airways in April 2016.

IAG converted two A330-300 and two

A330-200 options into firm orders for Aer Lingus (for delivery in 2016) and Iberia (for delivery between 2017 and 2018..

QATAR Airways took delivery of two B787 Dreamliners.

TURKISH Airlines was named partner of the European Rugby Champions Cup and Challenge Cup.

MALAYSIA Airlines partnered with Kaligo.com, offering miles to members of the Enrich frequent flyer programme.

DUBLIN FOOD HALL The

food hall at Dublin airport Terminal 1 opened last monthly, completing a €50m upgrade of shopping and eating facilities.

DELAYS The European Court of Justice ruled airlines must pay compensation and can no longer claim exemption on delay compensation problems caused during, or due to a lack of, aircraft maintenance or extraordinary circumstances (full text of judgement here). England’s Civil Aviation Authority singled out

RYANAIR with “enforcement steps leading to court action” in the row over the contractual two-year time limit that the airline imposes on passengers in its terms and conditions (other airlines have the same policy).

AER LINGUS appears to be dropping its Dublin to Copenhagen next summer.

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AEGEAN Airlines, which is part of Star

Aviation with Gerry O’Hare

Alliance, will operate Dublin to Athens 2w June 20 to September 19 on Mondays and Saturdays at 23.15.

ETIHAD has adjusted its plans for Dublin to Abu Dhabi to increase to double daily A330200 from June 15 to September 15 and returning to single daily using a B777-300ER.

AER LINGUS and British Airways

have jointly applied to the US DoT for reciprocal blanket codesharing. This was approved for Air France/Alitalia, Austrian/Lufthansa, Aer BA/Iberia and Aer Lingus/Spanair in 2010 for the Washington-Madrid service..

RYANAIR announced six new routes from Manchester for summer 2016 to Bratislava (3 pw), Bremen (2 pw), Brindisi (2 pw) , Carcassonne (3 pw), Limoges (4 pw) and Malta (3 pw) and increased frequencies on other 10 routes, including 6 daily to Dublin.

Ryanair announced its first flights from Newquay Airport 2w to Alicante and Frankfurt Hahn. Ryanair will open a new base at Ibiza (No. 76), from March 2016.

CITYJET will operate from London

TURKISH Airlines launched new flights City Airport to both Avignon and Toulon.

to Maputo (Mozambique), increasing its flight destinations to Africa to 45 and its first flight to Miami, 8th destination in the United States.

CARTRAWLER’s The Airline Manual for Merchandising was released as a free 13-page report. To download the report, please click this link.

FLYBE announced a Get More ticket

scheme allowing passenger change their flights for free on the original day of travel, Flybe celebrated its first anniversary at London City.

SAA South African Airways opened a new domestic lounge for international passengers FLY Leasing acquired a B777-200LRF in a sale and 12-year leaseback transaction.

E-CIGARETTES The US depart-

ment of transportation has banned passengers and flight crew from placing e-cigarettes in checked bags.

AIR FRANCE introduced latest long haul cabin products to five additional B777200 routes.

QATAR Airways announced an expansion of its codeshare partnership with JetBlue.

Airbus filed a patent for foldable wings on large aircraft.

JET2 is testing a “tamper-free” bag for duty free alcohol that is sealed to deter passengers from consuming the goods on board.

GOOGLE Scott Friesen of Google told the World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London that travellers make 32.5 visits to 10.3 websites in 4.2 categories before they click "Book" for travel.

AIRBUS unveiled TAM’s A350 livery.

FLY Leasing acquired a B777-200LRF.

Aengus Kelly announcing an order for 122 A350’s, AerCap are the largest owners of aircraft in the world

We aim to lease

Ireland’s aviation leasing industry under the spotlight

I

reland’s aviation leasing industry, and its recent audit as the safest regulators in Europe by EAE, are under the spotlight following the certification of EI-ETJ. It follows the establishment of an enquiry into what caused the loss of the hull of Airbus 321 EI-ETJ, leased from Aengus Kelly’s AerCap, and its 220 passengers.

The crash (and the question whether it was a technical failure or an act of war) has implications for five countries and the work of 47 investigators, 29 from Egypt, seven from Russia, six from France, three from Ireland and two from Germany,

alongside eleven accident advisors, ten from Airbus. The Irish trio flew to Cairo from Baldonnel on an aircraft provided by the Irish Air Corps.

AerCap is the global leader in aircraft leasing with approximately 1,300 owned or managed aircraft and 470 on order aircraft in its portfolio and its sees itself as the corporate successor to GPA. AerCap serves over 200 customers in 90 countries and Airbus’ largest customer (945 aircraft).

Aengus Kelly says the transfer of its commercial centre from Los Angeles to Dublin over the past year created over 100 new highly skilled jobs

and that it intends to continue growing its operations in Dublin and Shannon.

Through its people, suppliers and providers of technical support it contribute over $100 m to the Irish economy each year, contributing to 400 firms. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam with offices in Dublin, Los Angeles, Shannon, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Singapore, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Seattle and Toulouse. The CEO sees it as an Irish company with global ambition and global reach, EI-ETJ was inherited from ILFC which is now part of AerCap

CARGO CONCERNS RAISED IN DUBLIN

T

he IATA International Aviation Security Conference held in Dublin last month presaged events in Sinai.

Several speakers claimed that the international aviations community really need to bring aviation security from the protocols of 9-11 in aviation security and bring it up to 2015 and beyond that to

2015, “We are watching people and frisking people above the cargo bay,” Oliver McGee from New York said. “We have been ignoring what happens in the cargo hold.”

“We need a more military operation for commercial flights.

Where is the screening of staff and to what stan-

dard? Who is in the cargo bay. What access do they have.”

“An aircraft is a flying bomb, it is controlled. We are putting ignition devices inside the cargo bay beside the fuel source.

The mindset of 9-11 has to go. Technology changed and militants are getting smarter.”

Matthew Finn of Aug-

mentiq said that the issue of workers such as baggage handlers reaching airside without being screened or subjected to adequate security checks had to be addressed.

“There needs to be an international response in terms of how everybody working in the aviation environment is vetted.”

Page 033 TE golf day Oct 22 2015 10/11/2015 11:49 Page 1

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 33

TRAVEL EXTRA GOLF DAY 2015

Gerry Headon, overall winner with Gerry O’Hare and Maureen Ledwith of Travel Extra

Dermot Merrigan, Paulette Moran, Tanya Airey

Front 9 winner Paul Dawson

Category 3 winner Lorcan Lynch

Front 9 winner Miriam Skelly

A kiss for Tanya Airey, new TIGS captain, from Philip Airey while Miriam Skelly and Martin Skelly, incoming Tigs vice captain look on

Headon’s heights Eleventh Travel Extra golf day brings out the sun

T

wo new Travel Extra golf champions, Gerry Headon playing off 21 with a great score of 39 points and Emer Farrell, playing off 19 with 37 points, triumphed at the eleventh edition of the Travel Extra TIGS golf event at the Castle in Rathfarnham.

The AGM of TIGS was an opportunity to reflect on one of the most spectacularly successful years in TIGS history. Tanya Airey is the new TIGS Captain and Peter O’Hanlon the new President of TIGS. Martin Skelly is the new Vice Captain to Membership has grown from 70

three years ago to 160 and 45 golfers took to the course for the event.

Gents Winner Gerry Headon (21) 39 points (-1); Ladies Winner Emer Farrell (19) 37 points (-1); Category 1 Niall McDonnell 37 pts Tanya Airey 26 pts Category 2 Brian Garland 33 pts Joanne Burgess 29 pts Category 3 Lorcan Lynch 34 pts Front 9 Paul Dawson 16 pts C/B Miriam Skelly 16 pts Back 9 John Spollen 19 pts C/B Marian Benton 14 pts Longest Drive Paul Sexton Gillian Lowry

Nearest the Pin Dermot Merrigan, Gillian Lowry Guest Keara McAndrew 26 pts Previous winners gents: 2005 Tom Mulcahy 2006 Jimmy Lennox 2007 Bruce Crehan 2008-9 Jimmy Lennox, 2010 Con Horgan 2011-2 Louis O’Toole 2013 Martin Dempsey 2014 Tom Coade 2015 Gerry Headon Previous winners ladies: 2008 Audrey Headon 2009 Niamh Byrne 2010 Lorraine Cunningham 2011 Rachel Treanor 2012 Ann Byrne 2013 Mary Stillman 2013 Tanya Airey 2015 Emer Farrell

Gerry Headon, Maureen Ledwith, Tanya Airey

Niall McDonnell Category 1 winner

Guest prize winner Keara McAndrew with Maria Sinnott of Travel Extra and Tanya Airey

Gillian Lowry with Paulette Moran of Travel Extra and Tanya Airey

Travel Extra team: Eoghan Corry, Edmund Hourican, Maureen Ledwith, Conor McMahon, Anne Cadwallader and Gerry O’Hare

Refreshments at the tenh: Cristina Sirbu serves up a platter to Louis O'Toole, Joe Tully and Graham Aldren

Brian Garland category 2 winner

Longest Drive winner Paul Sexton

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JANUARY 2016 PAGE 34

GLOBAL VILLAGE

VOTING has opened for the Irish Travel

Inside the Travel Business

Industry Awards. Agents are asked to vote early. A key feature of the Awards programme is the series of ITAA Member Awards to be judged by a panel of judges, chaired by Tom Lonergan, and presented at a Gala Banquet in the Round Room at The Mansion House on Thursday January 21 2016.

TRAVELPORT A year after its

launch, Travelport Rich Content and Branding offers 120 network airlines and low cost carriers, more than 50pc of total air segment volumes, including Lufthansa, SWISS, easyJet, Ryanair, Delta, United, Singapore Airlines, Air Canada, Air China and Kenya Airways. Ninety airlines are now live in the system, ready for travel agencies to search, sell and book, with more airlines making their additional branded content available each week.

CUBA Gordon Penney of Cuba Travel hosted consumers at an event organised by Atlas Travel.

Red Sea Holidays launched their winter schedule to Sharm El Sheikh using seats on the Falcon Holidays charter.

QANTAS appointed Bryan Arnicar as

GSA for Ireland. Hazel Young, who has managed the relationships with the Irish market for the last nine years will continue in her role at Qantas as Sales Manager Leisure for Britain.

ITAA President Martin Skelly is to make a presentation to European travel agent association heads. Former president Clare Dunne is to make a presentation on Dynamic Packaging in Poland.

WENDY WU tours launched their new Irish brochure and updated wendywutours.ie.

To celebrate, they are offering a €50 One4all voucher for every booking made before the end of November.

GERMANY Aran Brazil of the Irish Sun won the GNTO Writers’ Award 2015. Visitors from Ireland are up 7.6pc in 2015.

AMADEUS updated their Amadeus Automation Suite and will be extending it beyond pilot customer, Scottish agency Barrhead Travel, Developed specifically for the Irish and British markets, they say it offers reduced operational costs, greater productivity and improved services.

RORY McDYER Travel Ltd ceased trading, some months after the sad death of the proprietor. Existing bookings are handled by Clare Dunne’s The Travel Broker.

BEST4TRAVEL are opening a

booth at Northside Shopping Centre on November 19, staffed by Karen Byrne, Siobhan Campion and Dave Toolin among others. This brings to seven the number of Best4travel outlets at shopping centres.

INDIA won the bid to host SKÅL Interna-

KINSALE based travel writer Isabel Conway won best European feature at the British Guild of Travel Writers annual awards tional Congress in Hyderabad in 2017.

Dominic Burke speaking at Travel Centres conference

Centres forward

Move to Lyrath for 76-member agent consortium

T

ravel Centres hosts its agents at a later-than-usual annual conference in the Lyrath Kilkenny on December 3-5.

Speakers lined up for the two-day weekend conference include: ■ Gavin Fox, foxmarketing.ie — ‘How to practice disruptive marketing’ ■ Hugh Jones, Sytorus — ‘Data Protection - four good reasons to be compliant’ Carole Smyth, Synneo — ‘Building your online business’ ■ Dermot O’Brien, Dermot O’Brien & Associates — ‘Vat and Travel — The challenges’ ■ Ben Bouldin, two-country director of Sales Ireland and Britain for Royal Caribbean — ‘It’s worth the

effort’.

The conference will feature virtual reality experiences with Virgin Atlantic; selfie competitions; ‘martinis and manicures’ hour with MSC Cruises; jazz music during the gala dinner, the announcement of the winner of Celebrity Cruise’s cocktail invention competition; some great spot prizes (and may even some bigger ones as well!), annual fundraising raffle for Travel Fun day’s assorted charities .

Newcomers among the 45 suppliers include: ■ Abu Dhabi Tourist Board ■ ASL Airlines France ■ Dublin Airport Travel Services ■ Ethiopian Airlines

NCL TARGETS IRISH AGENTS

euro in CL plans GBP and to grow that affects in Ireour system, land to build on a we can’t trategy of selling take the their cruises at a pricing in net rate to tour GBP. We operators. don’t necSpeaking to Francie Riley essarily Travel Extra at the prelaunch cruise of Norwegian want to create a separate Escape, Francis Riley, VP pricing programme.”

“We have a pricing pro& General Manager International said that “We have gramme in Europe but that plans for Ireland and it is does not connect into GBP one of our target markets “ pricing. It is a complex and “We are trying to figure we know we have a probout how we do that. At the lem.”

“The solution is to take moment we have pricing in

N

■ Expedia TAAP ■ Group & Pay ■ Toulouse/Midi-Pyrenees Tourism ■ Virgin Atlantic ■ Westjet Dominic Burke of Travel Centres said “we should take stock of where our industry is at present; the challenges that face us as we move forward and whether or not we, as travel agents, are doing enough to move with the times and engage with our customers.”

The gala dinner on the Saturday night will be celebrating the music of the 1980’s, and the film ‘Back to the Future’

flexipricing off the GBP prices and have a commonality of price for the Irish and British markets. Otherwise we end up discriminating against Ireland or against Britain and we have all of our travel partners up in arms against us because some of them are selling in both euro and GBP. “ “In the meantime we have been building our business with tour operators.”

“We give them a net rate and they bundle that with air with land arrangements and creating a fly cruise

package.”

“We know we are paying catch up to our competitors but we have a man based in Ireland now. We have a fantastic product. We just need to tell more people.

We do not go out and try customers to book direct.”

“We are agnostic to price channel. In Britain 90pc of our business is through the trade. It is even higher in Ireland. When customers rebook on board it goes back to the last agent on the record. Our sales people follow up with a call to the agent.”

Page 034-035 Agent 11/11/2015 14:00 Page 2

€

Inside the Travel Business

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 35

GLOBAL VILLAGE

Oporto is among three venues beifg considered for the 2016 ITAA conference

Conference option T

ITAA weighs up three destinations for 2016

he ITAA is looking at three options as they select their venue for their annual conference in

2016.

The Portuguese Tourist Board are among the contenders to bring the conference back to a country which last hosted the ITAA conference in

the Algarve in 1999 and the ITOF conference in 2006.

Prague si also contending to host the conference, securing its place as a citybreak favourite for the Irish.

A rivercruise company is also seeking to host the conference, which has been afloat twice before, on aboard

MSC Poesia in 2008 and Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas in 2014.

The most recent conference in jerez was attended by 65 agents and 35 suppliers.

DONEGAL CANDIDATE FOR ITAA ITAA PRESIDENTS

and would become undoran the first to be Travel based in Ulster Agent Leinster has Cormac Meeprovided 14 presihan is among dents to the associthe likely candiMunster dates to succeed Cormac Meehan ation, three and Connacht Martin Skelly as president of the ITAA one, although past presiwhen the election comes dents Andy McKenna and Eugene Magee were both round in April.

Comrac is currently a born in Ulster. board memebr of the ITAA

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

asters or militant attacks strike the destination.

"Due to the changes in the travel market and the increasing trend towards online travel bookings there is an urgent need to modernize and adapt the old directive which dates back to 1990," said rapporteur, Birgit Collin-Langen.

"With this revised legislation, the rights of travellers in Europe are strengthened overall. New booking models are now included within its scope and travellers are informed comprehensively of their rights. We have also managed to take into account the economic interests of

the industry – operators, travel agencies or hotels," she added.

Package travel rules will cover two types of contract: package deals (prearranged by the tour organiser or customised by the traveller) and a new way of travel booking, called linked travel arrangements, where consumers are guided, for example, once they have booked a flight, to book additional services through a targeted online link.

Parliament ensured that these "click-through" deals where the traveller's name, payment details and e-mail address are transferred be-

B

E

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

PACKAGE LAWS EXTENDED

uropean Parliament MEPs adapted the new package travel

rules.

Package holidays, consisting of a flight, hotel or car-hire and purchased online for an all-in price or through linked web pages, will get the same protection as packages bought in travel agencies under rules voted by MEPs. It also secured the right for travellers to cancel a package-deal contract and get their money back if the price of the package rises by more than 8pc (the Commission had proposed 10pc) or if "unavoidable" events such as natural dis-

tween traders and a second contract is concluded within 24 hours after the first service was booked, will be considered as a package deal.

Before holidaymakers enter into any contractual commitments, organisers and retailers must make it clear that they are buying a package and inform them of their rights and who is responsible if something goes wrong, says the text Parliament added the obligation for the organiser to give travellers approximate departure and return times and an indication of the nature of any possible extra costs.

BRAND USA said 4,650 users on the Ireland and Britain site passed its online training programme since the 2013 launch of the programme of 10 Brand USA badges, which encompass popular holiday experiences available in the United States, such as Coastal Escapes, Winter Sports, Luxury and Great Outdoors, Las Vegas, Santa Monica, Portland, Denver, Utah, Kentucky, Lake Tahoe and, most recently, Philadelphia. Brand USA began to introduce a new consumer website address, VisitTheUSA.com.

CAR The Commission of Aviation Regula-

tion issued two new travel agent licenses have been issued to Essex based Chadwell Travel and York based Superbreak Mini-Holidays .

Travel agent licences not renewed include Canvas Holidays Ltd, Carrier Ltd, Destination Partners Ltd, Lastminute Network and Sakura Shamrock Consultants. Three tour operator were not renewed Affinion International Travel, Fred Olsen Cruise Lines TravelPlan, a division of Abbey Travel.

SKILLNET Travel Professionals Skillnet Excel training at New Horizons, Strand St Great, Dublin 1: Level 1, December 3, 9.15am5pm from €110pp. Level 2, December 11, 9.15am-5pm from €110pp. Level 3, December 16, 9.15am-5pm from €110pp. Other training: Tools for travel retail managers, ITAA, Westmoreland St, Dublin 2, November 11, 9.30am5pm. Closing Techniques training, ITAA, Westmoreland St, Dublin 2, November 19, 9.30am-5pm from €120.

SRI LANKAN Airlines

launched a social media competition for agents at WTM

SWITZERLAND Corinne Genoud, two country director for Switzerland Tourism Ireland and Britain, hosted the trade at Fade Street Social this week. Sara Roloff of the Swiss TB said it was interesting to touch base with the Irish market again and to get more information on trends, ideas and the needs of the Irish. SWISS has introduced new flights Dublin-Geneva and a new group-booking tool.

TRAVEL AGENTS report that nationwide bookings are up 20pc on the equivalent period in 2016. They are expressing concern about airline prices in 2016, where key routes like Malaga and Barcelona are already seeing steep increases.

TRAVEL AGENTS expressed their frustration with the Aer Lingus website, and say they are finding it more difficult to use than its predecessor.

TRAVEL DEPARTMENT

long haul holidays for 2016 will include a 28night holiday to Australia and New Zealand.

ITAA formally announced the new city centre location for the Irish Travel Industry Trade Show 2016, the Ballsbridge Hotel (Formerly Jury’s Hotel) on April 7 2016.

CSO

figures shows trips by Irish residents were up 3.5pc, but still 10pc below the level in 2008 Q3.

€ €

€

Page 036 window seat 11/11/2015 13:58 Page 1

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 36

WINDOW SEAT

Last month in numbers

i€1.2bn Profit guidance anoucned by Ryanair after H1 results.

1.1bn Number of appointments at World Travel 939,232 Number of people emplyed by the Market in London

4,248 Number of passengers on Norwegian crusie industry, according to CLIA

€56 Average Ryanair fare 10 Number of NCL ships that wil be refurbished

Escape when it is at full capacity

8 Number of minutes in which Ireland’s stand at in the coming months as the fleet is refitted

World Travel market sold out

THEROUX TURNS TO THE SOUTH

P

aul Theroux turns hisattentions back to the country in which he lives, in this escapade into the southern states, to North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.

It is the part of America that is most laden with character and the fun starts when he tries to delve beneath the cliches of hospitality, food, music. He visits places where the legacy of segregation can still be felt, where blacks and whites still worship in different churches, and where poverty defines community.

He remarks that some of the places he visits remind him more of Africa than America .

Paul Theroux’s Deep South, Photographs by Steve McCurry Hamish Hamilton

The communites, he says, show you how they have been abandoned by their own governments, how they have been left behind by education and politics. “It’s in the small towns you see the effects of poverty and of the outsourcing of US manufacturing.”

He notes that the people in the south are very approachable, unlike the north and the south-west. “The people in these small US towns are often living in spectacular rural

landscapes but they seem like classic examples of peasants. You don’t think of the US as having a peasant society but it does.”

History hangs heavy on the landscape he visits, captured by photographer Steve McCurry. He footsteps some of the literary heroes of the south like Faulkner, and strays into the politics of the N-word. Could it be that the world’s most famously misanthropic travel writer has fallen in love with people at last?

Busman’s holiday: Peter O’Hanlon

Peter’s picks: Obersteinberg in the Berner Oberland and La Viborrilla Beach (El Embarcadero) in Benalmádena

Every month we ask a leading travel professional to write about their personal holiday experience. This month: Peter O’Hanlon of Travelfinders

I

t is very apt for me to compile a Busman’s holiday because my career on travel started on a bus. It was an amazing experience, as a European tour guide for Funtrek for five years, catering for 55 enthusiastic travellers, all of them in the 18-30 category.

We went as far as Istanbul on some of our trips and every journey was an adventure. I once came up with the slogan “an empty bus is a happy bus.”

My favourite question from one of the clients was: “if I don’t eat my breakfast do you think I’ll be hungry by lunchtime.” You get the picture.

It is hard to pick a favourite from all

the places I visited but I do have a winter favourite. I worked as a ski guide on the Bernese Oberland. It started on a high (pun intended).

My good friend Carmel O’Reilly brought me to the top of the Lauterbrunnen on my very first day. She pointed down the hill and indicated the only way home.

I had never skied before, but that day I did the triple polka, the toe loop, the salchow, the lutz, the axel and the triple jump and I can safely say that I have never eaten as much snow. I rolled down the hill with the laughter of Carmel

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

T

here is a lot of information on them there boarding passes. Throw one away your boarding pass and you could be opening yourself up to hackers, identity thieves or even stalkers.

Brian Krebs, a former Washington Post reporter who writes the influential Krebs on Security, was moved to action when a reader saw a picture of a Lufthansa boarding pass that a friend had posted to Facebook.

The reader was able to scan the pass’s barcode and uncover a trove of personal information.

It revealed not only the friend’s name and frequent flyer number, but also his flight record locator, which could be used on the Lufthansa website to view future bookings from the Star Alliance.

The reader could now change his friend’s seats and even cancel flights. Amid the furore that followed Slate magazine summed it

up best with a story headlined: “Why You Should Eat Your Airplane Boarding Pass Once You Take Your Seat.”

Airlines say the information is not much more than what someone sees by simply looking at your boarding pass, sans barcode scanner.”

What that really means is that the paper boarding pass should be destroyed. Don’t just bin it, shred it.

O’Reilly echoing in my snow-caked ears. I learned a lot that day.

In recent years, I spend my holidays in Benalmadena with my family, close t two of my favourite golf courses Torrequebrada and Santana. I love the place and especially the walk from Benalmadena along the coast to Torremolinos.

There are great restaurants: two of my favourites are La Perla on Calle Ibiza, and La Paladoro on Calle Maestra Ayala.

I am now working in travelfinders, which feeds the RTE Aertel and rte.ie, and I ensure there are no more empty buses, planes or ships out there.

IN YOUR NEXT TRAVEL EXTRA: Available to Travel Agents or online January 19 2016

HOLIDAY WORLD ISSUE All the fun of the fair at the RDS THE MAJOR TRENDS

Page 037-039 pics 10/11/2015 12:39 Page 2

Out and about with the Travel Trade

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 37

MEETING PLACE

ne can Holidays and Lorai Mary Denton of Sunway and Lee Osborne of Dee Burdock of Ameri Ire ern ises at the North Bookabed at the Lanzarote Event in Hot Stove Quinn of Celebrity Cru wcastle, Co Down Restaurant in Dublin, Ne in s ard aw ws Ne land Travel

John Bergin of Skytours and Olwen Mckinney of Amadeus at the North ern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down

Pat Reede and Barry Jackson of United Airline s at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down,

Tatiana Soukhanova of Skytours, Kathryn McDonnell of the Spanish Tourist Board and John Bergin of Skytours at the Lanzarote Event

ith of tabed and Shirley Sm John McKibben of Ge vel Tra d the Northern Irelan Professional Travel at , wn astle, Co Do News awards in Newc

ice, Mary King of Travel Catherine Grennell Whyte of ATTS and Vincent Don Sheaer of Worldcho ern Skytours at the North Harrison of Dublin Airport Authority at the Northsavers, John Bergin of ards aw ws ern Ireland Travel News awards Ireland Travel Ne

Jenny Kilbride of Kayak ing.Ie and Sean Hend rick of Destination Dublin at the launch of the ne w brand and â&#x201A;Ź1m interna tional campaign for Du blin

Helena Crowley of Be rnard Hayes Travel, Ce line Kenny of Cruisescape s and Jeanette Taylor of Sunway Holidays at the Cruisescapes event

non Heritage and BrenJoanne Pollard of Shan il at the launch of the dan Johnson of Irish Ra new brand for Dublin

Darach Culligan of Da rach Culligan Travel an d Martin Penrose of Navan Travel ITAA President at the Sunway Fuerteve ntura event in Dublin

Deborah Heddles and Ciaran Coakley of AmeriCentres and Mary Denminick Burke of Travel Do can Holidays at the Northern Ireland Travel News ay Fuerteventura of Sunway at the Sunw ton awards in Newcastle, Co Down event in Dublin,

Bernie Burke of Travel Centres and Grainne Caffery of Lowcostbeds at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down,

Ray Scully of Crystal Holidays and John Devereux of Amrican Holidays at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down

Clare Dunne of Travel Broker and Kathryn Mc Donnell of the Spanish Touist Board at the Su nway Fuerteventura eve nt in Dublin,

dy n Spollen of John Cassi John Cassidy and Joh in nt eve ra ntu eve Fuert Travel at the Sunway blin Du

Page 037-039 pics 10/11/2015 12:39 Page 3

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 38

MEETING PLACE

Out and about with the Travel Trade

ila Chrlie Brown, Pamela tels/Best4travel and Le Arminda De Leon of Fuerteventura Tourism, Brownlee at Flyaway Jeff Collins of Globe Ho Hot in t en Tra Ev e vel and Lee Osborne rot nza La the Tanya Airey of Sunway and Kathryn McDonnell at n lco of Bookabed at the Fa of be Ca Mc blin, TB Touist Board at Sunway Fuerteventura event Northern Ireland Travel News awards Stove Restaurant in Du

Dave Thomas and Ca itriona Toner of American Airlines with Greg Evan s of Philadelphia and Brendan Mallon of WT C

siness Exhibition, Jackie Maureen Ledwith of Bu of od and Caitriona Toner Herssens of Travelmo s ard aw ws Ne vel Tra NI American Airlines at the

Christin Donnelly and Jonathan Adair at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newc astle, Co Down

ntravel and Héctor Ferná John Grehan of Best4 e rot nza La or Gerente dez Manchado. Direct e Event rot nza La the at Tourism

Hilary Mahon of Sunw ay, Richard Cullen of Killiney travel and Fiona Kelly of Sky tours at the Sunway Fuerteventura event in Dublin,

Gonzalo Ceballos director of the Spanish Tourist Board in Dublin and Philip Airey of Sunwa at the Lanzarote Event in Hot Stove Restaurant

y Tours and Yvonne Rachel Mulligan of Sk the oe Travel in Gorey at O’Donohoe of O’Donoh event in Dublin, Sunway Fuerteventura

Tanya Airey of Sunway Jackie Lynam of Fáilte Ireland, Ann Kilcoyne of and Héctor Fernández Glasnevin, Jane Alger and Liz Cuddy of Destina- Manchado. of Lanzarote Tourism at the Lantion Dublin at the launch of the new Dublin brand zarote Event

John Hurley of Dublin Airport Authority and Carol Anne O'Neill of Ryanair at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down,

Niki Stanford of Bettina Haltmeyer and vel Market in London Clickandgo at World Tra

Dervla O'Neill of Epic Clyde Carroll of Dublin Town, Brendan Flynn of Ireland, Adam Keeley Best We stern and Sarah Keho Destination Dublin and Eoghan O'Mara Walsh of e of Celtic Group Hostels at World Travel Ma ITIC at the launch of the new brand for Dublin rket in London

Michael Yohannes of Ethiopian Airlines and Joanne Burgess of Premair at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down

of choice, Darach Culligan Don Shearer of World n Joh of n olle Sp n and Joh Darach Culligan Travel t en Ev e rot Lanza Cassidy Travel at the

Page 037-039 pics 10/11/2015 12:39 Page 4

Out and about with the Travel Trade

JANUARY 2016 PAGE 39

MEETING PLACE

ard the Spanish Touist Bo Kathryn McDonnell of ay ay at the Sunw and Anita Kelly of Sunw blin Du in nt eve ra Fuerteventu

Niall McDonnell of Re d Sea Holidays and Joh n bergin of Skytours at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newc astle, Co Down

vel Centres and Fiona Dominick Burke of Tra erteventura event in Lally at the Sunway Fu Dublin

Joe Tully of Joe Tully Tra vel and Des Abbott of Des Abbott Travel at the Lanzarote Event in Ho t Stove Restaurant in Du blin,

gus and Tanya Airey of John Keogh of Aer LIn Fuerteventura event in Sunway at the Sunway Dublin,

John Donohoe of the International Bar and An ne Tyrrell of Strolling Throu gh Ulysses at the launch of the new brand for Du blin

Clare Dunne of Travelbroker and Mary Downes of Cassidy Travel at the Lanzarote Event in Hot Stove Restaurant in Dublin

Carol Anne O'Neill of Ry anair and Rebecca Ke lly of MSC at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down,

Paul Hackett of Clickandgo and Jim Vaughan of Justsplit at the Lanzarote Event in Hot Stove Restaurant in Dublin

ht lle Anderson of Topflig Neal Collins and Miche urant sta Re ve Sto t Ho in t at the Lanzarote Even in Dublin

Keith Chuter of British Airways and Volker Lorenz Paula Muño z of Lanzarote Tourism and Richard of Amadeus at the Northern Ireland Travel News Cullen of Kil liney Travel at the Lanza rote Event awards in Newcastle, Co Down,

Dara Hanratty of Dublin Airport Authority and Lisa Buckley of Ryanair at the Northern Ireland Travel News awards in Newcastle, Co Down

e Myler of Newbridge Mary Lee and Catherin at raghty of Cavan Travel Travel with Siobhan Ge ra event in Dublin the Sunway Fuerteventu

Helen McDaid of Fáilte Ireland and Robert Hogan of Destination Dublin at the launch of the new brand and €1m international campaign for

Philip Airey of Sunway and Don Shearer forme rly of Worldchoice at the Sunway Fuerteventura event in Dublin

Godfrey Lydon and Vanessa Holohan of Club Travel at the Lanzarote Event in Hot Stove Restaurant in Dublin

di cube and Murat Balan Peter Friedrich of Travel vel Tra d lan Ire ern rth No of Turkish Airlines at the astle, Co Down wc Ne in s ard aw ws Ne

page 040 10/11/2015 12:20 Page 1

Lifestyle & Living for the over 50’s

e g a l l i V

TITANIC EXHIBITION CENTRE TITANIC QUARTER - BELFAST BT3 9EP

15th/17th January 2016

The Belfast Telegraph 50+Village will be staged

alongside the highly successful Holiday World Show, entering its 24th year and firmly established as one of the BIGGEST and BEST attended public exhibitions in Northern Ireland

• • • • • •

Featuring:

Fashion & Beauty Food & Drink Genealogy Government Information Services Health & Wellbeing Holidays & Travel

• • • •

Home & Garden Hotels & Spas Personal Finance & Law Retirement Villages & Resorts • Technology

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

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

• As a group they are more likely to have substantial assets, cash and the time to enjoy life.

Whilst they are less likely to have any mortgages, school fees and 9 to 5 jobs.

To exhibit please contact

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

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