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Victoria Falls Airport opens

The $ 150 million Victoria Falls Airport was officially inaugurated by Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe on Friday, Nov. 18.

The completely revamped airport now has a capacity to handle over 1.5 million passengers per year, according to Annajulia Hungwe, public relations and communications manager for the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe, and will be able to accommodate the world’s largest aircraft. Hungwe added the airport had been built so that it could be expanded to accommodate rising tourist numbers if necessary.

Facilities at the new international terminal include 14 check-in counters, nine boarding gates, three baggage carousels, a dozen shops, two restaurants, 28 aircraft parking bays and parking facilities for 400 vehicles.

Tour operators in the region said they expect the new airport to have a positive impact on tourism to the region. “Increased and new access will drive the tourism sector’s growth with arrivals from additional source markets,” Africa Albida Tourism chief executive Ross Kennedy said in a statement.

Kennedy added he met with many tour operators, media and airlines at World Travel Market in London earlier this month and saw great interest in the opening of the airport. “Zimbabwe remains a hot destination on the schedules of many tour operators across the globe,” Kennedy said.

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Thomson trials virtual assistant tool for holiday bookings

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Leading holiday brand Thomson is offering its customers an innovative way to find inspiration for their holidays by trialling a travel search tool leveraging IBM's Watson technology.

In an industry first, customers will be able to interact via a simple chat interface to get responses in real-time, resulting in helpful suggestions of great holiday destinations or exciting holiday experiences.

Thomson is trialling the new tool with customers following recent research showing 77 per cent of people thought a virtual agent would be useful when searching for a holiday.

The experimental service is in beta and will continue to be developed using machine learning and customer feedback to improve responses.

The tool enables a simple and personalised search using natural language, a very different way of finding the ideal holiday when compared to the usual checkbox and filtering of e-commerce sites.

The conversation tool, with added personality, is designed to make the search experience more enjoyable and easier for customers.

The Watson technology behind it is designed to learn from every customer interaction, to become smarter over time and provide ever more accurate responses. 

Jeremy Osborne, director of strategic innovation, TUI UK&I said: "We wanted to test whether a conversational search experience would resonate with our customers as a new, fun and easy way to find their ideal holiday.

"By leveraging IBM's Watson technology, we are raising the bar in the travel industry. We are delivering an interactive service experiment to our customers that offers holiday inspiration ideas and personalised search results based on customer interests.

"We are excited to learn how customers react and interact, what they get out of the experience and how it compares to the current way of shortlisting holiday options."

The news comes as Thomson announced earlier in the year plans to revolutionise the way they inspire customers to book holidays in store and online.

By 2020 the holiday brand plans to phase out brochures, to provide a digital experience at every customer touch point and will be investing in more personalised, inspirational content for customers.

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Ryanair severs ties with momondo over breach of contract

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Ryanair has revoked a licencing agreement with momondo following what the airline terms a "breach of contract".

Ryanair had granted a non-exclusive licence to momondo to display its fares for price comparison purposes, one of a number of travel websites including SkyScanner, Hipmunk and Dohop licenced to do so.

However, Ryanair revoked its licence after momondo displayed links to unauthorised "screenscraper" websites including Opodo and CheapOair, which unlawfully mis-sell Ryanair's fares, in clear breach of the licence agreement.

Ryanair has been engaged in several legal cases across Europe against screenscraper websites such as Opodo and eDreams to prevent consumers from being subjected to extra charges and to ensure Ryanair has appropriate contact details to communicate with its customers.

Many of these websites continue to cause problems for Ryanair customers and/or fail/refuse to pass on vital information to both customers and Ryanair regarding issues such as flight changes, web check-in, special needs assistance and contact details, which has resulted in missed flights and repeated problems for customers.

Ryanair spokesman Robin Kiely said: "As momondo was in clear breach of the terms of our contract by actively linking to screenscraper websites, we have revoked its licence in an effort to prevent any more customers being misled.

"It's important to note that Ryanair has no commercial agreement whatsoever with Opodo or CheapOair, who continue to engage in unauthorised screenscraping."

Ryanair has commenced legal proceedings in the Irish High Court against both Google and eDreams to stop them misleading consumers by advertising non-existent Ryanair fares via the eDreams website and Google search adverts, practices which are prohibited by Irish consumer legislation.

Commenting on the decision, Pia Vemmelund, managing director of momondo, explained: "Our primary purpose has always been to show the lowest available price to provide our users with transparency.

"Therefore, we won't compromise on that transparency by taking out specific travel agencies from our search results just because an airline like Ryanair tells us to.

"That would be against our principles.

"We can confirm that we no longer have a license agreement with Ryanair, but we cannot confirm a breach of contract or that we agreed to exclusively show Ryanair prices through Ryanair's website only.

"So, we continue to show Ryanair flights when these are sold through travel agencies, and we're happy to continue to show our users the lowest prices and offer transparency."

In March, the UK Advertising Standards Authority found that eDreams' and Opodo's advertising on Google was "misleading" consumers and breached the CAP code, while the UK CAA this month forced eDreams and Opodo to change their Google adwords practices, website appearance and headline prices, following submissions by Ryanair.

Reacting to today's news, an eDreams ODIGEO spokesperson said: "Ryanair are trying desperately, but failing, to stand in the way of the millions of people using online travel agent sites like ours, to get the best deal and the most convenient combination of flights possible.

"Ryanair are threatened by the fact that close to half of our customers book a combination of flights which cannot be booked on any single airline website.

"This bullying behaviour – trying to force sites to remove the best deals possible – is risking consumers losing out."

eDreams ODIGEO argues Ryanair will soon be undergoing a CAA investigation into 'unfair charges', and face the threat of a class action lawsuit from over 5,000 unhappy consumers on the same issue.

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Ctrip acquires Skyscanner in £1.4bn deal

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Ctrip.com International has signed a definitive agreement with the majority shareholders of Skyscanner under which the Chinese company will take control of the company.

The terms of the acquisition value Skyscanner at approximately £1.4 billion.

Skyscanner's current management team will continue to manage Skyscanner's operations independently as part of the Ctrip group.

"Skyscanner is one of the largest travel search platforms in the world," said James Jianzhang Liang, co-founder and executive chairman of Ctrip.

"We are excited to welcome Skyscanner into the Ctrip group.

"Ctrip and Skyscanner share the same passion and dedication in providing travellers around the world with better services.

"This acquisition will strengthen long-term growth drivers for both companies.

"Skyscanner will complement our positioning at a global scale and Ctrip will leverage our experience, technology and booking capabilities to Skyscanner's."

The boards of directors of the company and Skyscanner have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by the end of 2016.

"Ctrip is the clear market leader in China and a company we can learn a huge amount from," said Gareth Williams, co-founder, Skyscanner.

"Today's news takes Skyscanner one step closer to our goal of making travel search as simple as possible for travellers around the world.

"Ctrip and Skyscanner share a common view – that organising travel has a long way to go to being solved.

"To do so requires powerful technology and a traveller-first approach.

"In taking the next step to achieving our goal, Skyscanner will remain operationally independent and our growing global team will continue to innovate and deliver the products travellers know and love.

"It's an exciting time for our business, our partners and the travellers who use us."

Take a look below as Skyscanner chief executive Gareth Williams comments on the news:

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HRS retools booking system and reveals new brand in major overhaul

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HRS has overhauled its booking system to offer customers better prices and room availability on every search.

This news means that HRS now compares the rates and availability offered by hotel partners in its own database with those offered by selected affiliated sales partners, including Expedia Affiliate Network.

HRS also showcased its new branding for the corporate travel sector for the first time at the GBTA Conference. 

With Multisource, customers will receive the best available rates on each booking and have access to an extended portfolio.

Preliminary tests indicate that HRS can improve room availability for customers by ten per cent on average and generate savings of up to eleven per cent.

In addition, customers will benefit from greater added value for the same price on approximately every fifth booking – this may be a better room category or the inclusion of additional benefits.

Customers will continue to experience the same quality and usability, because the comparison will be based solely on results with identical features, and unlike with pure metasearch engines, the customer will not leave the HRS environment at any point.

Customers will also still receive the HRS support and continue to use the familiar booking steps.

"For customers, price remains the most important booking criterion.

"In addition, business travellers, in particular, want to book their hotel rooms quickly and with ease – without time-consuming price comparisons or redirection to unknown providers", said HRS chief executive, Tobias Ragge.

HRS has, for a long time, enjoyed direct links with the booking systems of major chains. Furthermore, HRS also collaborates with all Global Distribution Systems and numerous global and local distribution partners.

Multisource represents a systematic expansion of the collaboration with selected distribution partners in the interests of the customer.

The service is the first of a series of innovations with which HRS will support corporates and business travellers even better in the coming months.

HRS plans to gradually convert the entire global hotel portfolio to the new booking procedure.

New brand presence

HRS has continually expanded its range of end-to-end solutions along the entire value chain, in every aspect of hotel booking – from purchasing, rate negotiation and booking on all channels, through to the meetings and events sector and continuous analysis and optimisation of the hotel programme.

The brand re-launch, with its new logo, underlines this evolution of HRS' service offering to corporate customers.

It supports travel managers in their efforts to communicate the holistic benefits of HRS in the managed travel sector.

"HRS has always been a pioneer in the business travel sector.

"We recognised very early on that companies are not just concerned with the number of hotels in the portfolio – they are looking for holistic end-to-end services that offer real added value. Managed travel is a completely different environment to the consumer sector and HRS has offered much more than just a quick way to book an overnight stay for a long time.

"With our new brand presence, we are now looking to make this difference visually clear," added Ragge.

HRS will be adopting the new logo immediately worldwide to represent the brand in the corporate travel sector.

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Previous videos (+ more info I forgot to mention below!)
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I wish I hadn’t forgot to mention this! But to be honest I made this video in a slight rush because it’s been so long since I uploaded The way I began to build confidence leaving home was to to go the shops on my own, just shops that were a minute or two away from my home. Nothing too far. I’d often go times during the day when I knew there would be less people around. I did that whenever I felt able to, and it was still scary, but eventually being outside becomes a bit more normal. I still don’t like it though haha I pretty much ALWAYS wear headphones when I go to the shops or post office alone, even if I don’t listen to music. I know that’s a bit odd, but for some reason it’s still comforting. In the winter wearing a big coat with a hood is great, because I feel like I’m hiding but it’s socially acceptable :p Also if I have signal I’ll browse Instagram or Twitter as I walk to distract me. Hope this helped!

Other tips I forgot, or didn’t word well enough to leave them in:
– Keep in touch with someone back at home. I text my mum or Alex.
– You can ask for a certain seat if you need to. My friend Laura’s new video has a great example http://bit.ly/2gBzlu4
– Try to enjoy and appreciate the scenery out the window. I love seeing new places, fields or architecture, so it sounds simple but looking out the window when I’m on public transport really helps me relax.
(I’ll keep adding more when I think of/remember them)

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Fathom cruises going away, but brand remains for excursions

Fathom’s only ship, the Adonia, will be returned to the P&O Cruises fleet in June 2017. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst

Fathom, the one-ship cruise line created by Carnival Corp. in 2015 to offer social-impact cruises, will become a shoreside-only experience in mid-2017, a Carnival spokesman said.

The brand’s only ship, the Adonia, will be returned to the P&O Cruises fleet in June 2017.

The company noted that the Fathom experience had been expanded recently to other brands calling at the Carnival-owned Amber Cove port on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.

Seven of Carnival Corp.’s 10 brands visit Amber Cove. Besides Fathom, they are Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Costa Cruises, Aida Cruises and P&O Cruises (UK). 

After starting cruises to the Dominican Republic in April 2016, Fathom in May became the first ship to take passengers on regularly scheduled cruises between the U.S and Cuba in more than 50 years.

Roger Frizzell, Carnival Corp.'s chief information officer, said, “We plan to continue sailing to Cuba for many years to come based on the success of our first cruises to the country, which have proven extremely successful.”

With the Adonia returning to P&O, one option would be for Carnival Corp. to substitute a ship from one of its other brands, such as Carnival Cruise Line, as the designated carrier to Cuba.

Frizzell said Carnival Corp. has requested approval from Cuba to sail there with other brands, beginning in June 2017.

The Cuba cruises differ from Fathom’s social-impact cruises to the Dominican Republic because they must conform to the “people-to-people” travel rules that govern American travel to Cuba. Although liberalized under the Obama administration, the rules still require tourism activities to fit into one of 12 categories that promote the exchange of experiences, such as educational, cultural or charitable activities.

Fathom was the first new brand created by Carnival Corp. since the 1990s that was not part of a joint venture with another company. Its social-impact mission, spearheaded by Fathom president Tara Russell and supported by Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald, was intended to capitalize on an interest in voluntourism.

However, demand for Fathom’s Cuba cruises outstripped demand for the Dominican Republic sailings, as reflected in the prices. Weeklong Cuba cruises start at about $ 1,800 per person on Fathom, while cruises of equal length to the Dominican Republic have sold for as little as $ 199.

Frizzell said Carnival hopes to expand the Fathom experience to other markets in the future.

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