Those of you that know me are probably aware by now that I am off to the US of A next week (27th June), minus the wife and children (woo) for a week to go storm chasing! When I say storms I am talking about supercell type storms that produce severe thunderstorms and more importantly TORNADOS! Everyone has a list of things they want to do before they peg it and for quite some time – probably about the time the movie Twister came out, I have wanted to experience/see a tornado up close and personal (i.e. at least a quarter of a mile away).
A couple of months ago I found an online company selling spaces on tours set up specifically to chase storms. As luck would have it there was a single space left on a tour that fell into a small window I was free in June/July. Having gained permission from the wife, who laughed at me and said I was mad, I booked the space that was left and a return flight to match.
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Storm Chasing, Travel
I have just had to close one of my credit cards for the most obscure reason… I have used it too much. Ok it’s worse than that, much worse. I have used it too much and made to many payments to it. MBNA who ‘did’ look after my Virgin Atlantic American Express, have told me that I have broken the terms and conditions by using my card too much.
When they approached me last year I told them that I was in the habit of clearing my balance each month – saves interest, so based on this the advisor recommended the Virgin Atlantic Black Card. It has a higher interest rate an annual fee of £115. The benefit being that I would receive 2 virgin miles for every pound I spend, or 4 miles for each pound when I use the card to buy Virgin Atlantic flights. Being a regular flyer with Virgin it meant I could add miles monthly to my Flying Club membership. These ‘miles’ can ultimately be used to book Virgin flights with ala Air Miles.
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Personal, Travel
It has been announced this week that Kiss Flights, the controversial charter flight-only operator which seemly rose from the ashes of the XL collapse, has been sold - before it has even operated a single flight. Founded in the later part of 2008, Kiss pitched themselves into the hole in the market that XL Airways left behind in September 2008. With a very identical but much reduced route plan, it was hoped that Kiss would help agents sell destinations that XL serviced before its demise.
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News, Travel
When I first started out in travel I worked in various call centres, selling on a commission only basis. i.e. No salary, so if you didn’t sell anything you didn’t earn anything. Fortunately I had a knack for selling so I was able to make decent money.
Now when you spend all day answering the phone you quickly get to know what a customer’s standard answer or question is going to be and if they are ‘playing the game’, which is ringing around and trying to get you to undercut the last guy in order to save themselves a few quid. This ‘game’ wasn’t something I got into as they were generally wasting my time, after all, usually they would do is ring the next number in their list and get a competitor to undercut you. As all travel agents were selling from the same system we all had pretty much the same base price.
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Travel
As the value of the pound against the euro continues to crumble holidaymakers in the UK are looking to non-euro destinations for cheaper holidays. So if you have a travel website or are thinking of building one in 2009 then you need to be thinking Turkey & Egypt. Both are outside the euro and pose excellent value for those looking to save money whilst abroad.
Given the choice, I personally would go for Turkey, only because Egypt’s flight program is a bit lighter since XL Airways went bust. There are other airlines stepping in to the fil the gap, however I am sure that many are waiting to see how the travel industry fairs in the traditional January early booking period.
If you havent’ already, don’t forget to check out sunshine’s awesome affiliate area.
Internet, Travel
I had planned to post this yesterday and ran out of time and I have now been pipped to the post by Travolution. Here it is anyway:
- sunshine.co.uk will become the largest, purely online travel agent selling cheap holidays to the masses.
- Despite the state of the economy people will still go on holiday, however they will spend less, resulting in good volumes but lower turnover when based on, year on year sales.
- Non web based travel companies will launched websites in a bid to widen their reach and web savvy companies will spend more time and money investing in Search Engine Optimisation and online bookable websites and they will spend less on PPC.
- Agents will look at widening their product range selling more ancillaries and destinations they wouldn’t normally deal with.
- A swathe of travel agents not willing to adapt to the changing market will close. This includes high street agents who still think the Internet is a fad! Yes they do exist.
- Ryanair to go bust – well we can hope can’t we!
2009 is going to be a challenging year for everybody in travel regardless of how ‘good’ you are but even more so for those are slow to respond to the ever price conscious consumer.
Travel
As you can probably appreciate with the current economic climate the travel press is full of doom and gloom. Experts are predicting that over 50 airlines will have failed this year along with countless tour operators and travel agents.
One article however jumped out at me whilst reading an issue of Travel Bulletin the other day. In a time where we – travel companies - should be worrying about adapting to the market, lowering our overheads and streamlining our business, you don’t expect to read that retail travel agents have far bigger things to worry about. Their backs! Read more…
Travel
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