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Archives for December 2008

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Ryanair is the most expensive airline for onboard food and drinks: survey

Some no-frills airlines are charging almost half the cost of a ticket for a basic meal aboard their flights.

Which? Holiday, which looked at five no-frills airlines and the prices they charge for five food and drink products onboard their aircraft in October 2008 - a meat sandwich, tub of Pringles crisps, bottle of water, cup of coffee and bottle of red wine, said its findings show some discrepancies in the prices that the airlines charge, with Ryanair being the most expensive for every item on the list. The Irish airline charges £2.50 for a bottle of water and £2.50 for a cup of coffee while a small bottle of red wine costs £5.00. Bmibaby, Easyjet, Flybe, Monarch and Ryanair were surveyed for the same.

A sandwich, small tub of crisps and small bottle of red wine can add more than £10 to the price of a single ticket – increasing to over £20 for a return trip. In some instances this can amount to half the price of the actual airline ticket, according to Which? Holiday.

The best value for money was Bmibaby who generally offered the cheapest price on all products, charging just 80p for a bottle of water and £1.80 for a cup of coffee. There was more than £5 difference between all the products on the Ryanair flight compared with Bmibaby.

Which? Holiday editor Lorna Cowan said: "If you do need to buy food at the airport then opt for high street retailers in the departure lounge – or even bring your own. This could save you money especially if you have to feed a family."

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No plans for merger with Jetstar: AirAsia X CEO

AirAsia has stated that it isn't planning any merger with the budget carrier of Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd.

Azran Osman-Rani, CEO, AirAsia X "scotched the report and said that the airline was not in talks with the Australian carrier", reported smh.com.au.

"I think it's completely pie in the sky," Osman-Rani reportedly said. "It's the first time I have heard about it. We are just busy on our own plans … growing [the business]."

A recent report in Malaysia's The Star newspaper, citing an unnamed source, said Jetstar and AirAsia were in merger talks, possibly involving a share swap, to cope with the slowing worldwide demand for air travel. The report had indicated that the talks are still in preliminary stages and it is learnt that AirAsia's boss Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes and Qantas new chief executive officer Alan Joyce have been mulling over it.

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Thomson to make its "customers feel special"

Thomson is reportedly working on a customer management drive in a bid to cut through the January price wars.

The company has plans for sending personalised brochures with highly relevant holiday recommendations based on its customer's individual preferences to its customers.

These brochures will give customers a personal recommendation on their next holiday, based on analysis from their previous holiday booking information with Thomson, according to precisionmarketing.co.uk.

The Turn of Year drive, created by WDMP, will be sent in the run up to New Year Eve.

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Kuoni to acquire Cotravel

The Kuoni Group is to acquire 100 percent shareholding in educational travel specialist Cotravel AG effective 1 January 2009.

The acquisition will further strengthen the Kuoni Group's position in the premium travel sector.

Within the Kuoni Group, Cotravel will be integrated into Strategic Business Unit Switzerland, where it will be assigned to the unit's Tour Operating activities.

Swiss-based Cotravel is a provider educational travel arrangements, primarily in the form of readers' trips offered in collaboration with top Swiss newspapers and magazines. It generated turnover of CHF 5.1 million last year. The company currently employs eight personnel, who will all be retained. The company will remain based at its present domicile near Basel. The Cotravel brand will also be retained.

The trips, which are accompanied by Swiss experts and personalities, are offered all over the world and cover a wide range of themes in the arts-and-culture, science and travel-experience fields.

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AirAsia and Jetstar initiate merger talks: media

A merger between AirAsia and the budget carrier of Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd may be in the offing.

 

A report in Malaysia's The Star newspaper, citing an unnamed source, said Jetstar and AirAsia were in merger talks, possibly involving a share swap, to cope with the slowing worldwide demand for air travel.

 

The report indicated that the talks are still in preliminary stages and it is learnt that AirAsia's boss Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes and Qantas new chief executive officer Alan Joyce have been mulling over it.

 

Fernandes told StarBiz that "we are always talking and looking at ways to strengthen AirAsia into a global brand. If there are opportunities of equals which will enhance the brand, then it is something worth considering."

 

Qantas declined to comment on reports.

 

Jetstar's Australian operation is wholly owned by Qantas but is managed separately and operates independently. Jetstar's intra-Asian operation – JetstarAsia – is a Singapore-based partnership between Qantas (49 percent), local businessmen Tony Chew (22 percent) and FF Wong (10 percent), and Temasek Holdings (19 percent).

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Costa Cruises to introduce online video FAQs in six languages

Costa Cruises is to introduce a new section - online video FAQs, providing guidance with answers to the questions most frequently asked by its customers before they go on a cruise.

The video FAQs will be available in six languages and online on all of Costa's websites worldwide by the end of December. The languages are Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

All of the video FAQs will be available in many settings using the most popular social media channels with tools like mobile video podcasts on iTunes, devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch and Nano, on YouTube (where a dedicated channel has been created) and Costa Cruises' brand new WebTV.

According to the company, the introduction of a series of video segments takes Costa Cruises' FAQs to a higher level, giving the user direct access in an innovative way to the presentation of real life situations depicting the actual Costa cruise experience. The video FAQs are arranged to enable users to find the answers they are looking for quickly and easily. In the FAQ section, users can view the video clips that go with each question, type keywords into the search engine and find their way around with the aid of the descriptions shown next to each scene. 

Costa Cruises Corporate eBusiness & Direct Sales Director Daniele Mancini said, "With the video FAQs we have turned a standard one-way textual message into an extremely attractive communication and marketing engine. Over time, this section of www.costacrociere.it – combined with the many social networking initiatives we are implementing, such as the recently introduced CostaWebTV – will become the most important area of the website, where guests will be able to find all the information they need so they can start to savour the cruise experience before they embark their chosen ship."

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Europcar and easyJet convey benefits of offsetting carbon emissions

Car rental company Europcar and easyJet have come up a special initiative to increase customers' awareness about the benefits of offsetting carbon emissions.

All customers who book their vehicle rental through easyJet.com between December 19, 2008 and January 8, 2009 will have their carbon emissions offset by the two partner companies.

For each rental reserved during that period, Europcar and easyJet will make a financial contribution to projects of ClimateCare, a leading global carbon offset provider.

The financial support will be used to fund activities to combat climate change and reduce emissions. The UK-based ClimateCare has over 50 projects across the developing world, funding low carbon technologies with social and environmental benefits.

Both Europcar and easyJet already have carbon calculators and offset programs available on their respective websites for reservations.

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IFITT gets ready for ENTER 2009

The International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT) is gearing up to conduct the 16th edition of its ENTER Conference next month.

ENTER 2009 will be held from January 28 till 30 at RAI exhibition and congress centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Being organised in cooperation with Heliview Conferences & Training, ENTER 2009 will concentrate on ICT-enabled dynamic challenges for Travel and Tourism to cover both technology and business. The conference would cover topics such as:

·          Customer centricity and inspiring consumers with ICTs
·          Social networking, Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0
·          eTourism disability and Accessible eTourism design
·          Reengineering of tourism industry 
·          Multi channel Distribution strategies
·          Travel Search and Metasearch
·          Destination web sites & Advanced destination portals
·          Location Based Services, Wireless systems and WiMAX

For more information and registration, click here: www.ifitt.org/enter

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Trust rolls out Voyager|CRS 14

Trust International has launched Voyager|CRS 14, an enhanced version of its core centralised reservation system for hotel groups.

One of the major cost saving features is the new Chain-Wide Rate Loading. It is now possible to load a rate across an entire chain in just one single step, especially useful when managing consortia and negotiated rates.

As far as the central reservation handling engine for call center agents is concerned, the new Chain and Hotel Bulletins text messages feature in the CRO reservation mask enables hotels and hotel chains to broadcast important messages related to their product to all agents using the CRO – an ideal push medium to increase most updated product knowledge, sales and up sells. New customisable search criteria in the reservation mask allow a quicker search.

Trust also shared that the data analysis tool Trust|View now features new reports on Trust's fully integrated commission handling programme, Trust|Com. The reporting will also support identifying the status of a single transaction with a new multitude of search details for such transactions. An alert mechanism in Trust|View automatically informs the hotels finance team via e-mail if commission payments are delayed or outstanding. This feature allows improved processing of commission payments with travel agencies, who will certainly appreciate quicker turnaround of their commission, leading to more loyal agency partners.

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RCI benefits from its association with SAS

Group RCI has witnessed acceleration in its exchange membership growth in key geographies, such as Europe and Mexico.

 

The company said such positive results have emerged with the usage of predictive analytics from SAS.

 

RCI, which distributes scarce-supply properties to the right customers, measures return on investment by network growth, based on matching supply with demand.

 

RCI Global Vacation Network's members own time shares they want to swap or luxury properties they want to lease. SAS enables RCI to estimate the value of swaps and rentals and forecast demand. RCI can distribute inventory more effectively, increasing member satisfaction and revenue. RCI also uses SAS to identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and to create targeted mailing lists.

 

"We see lots of interesting problems on the business side," said Jeremy TerBush, director of analytics within Revenue Management at Group RCI. "With less powerful software tools, we hit roadblocks. The SAS Business Analytics Framework equips RCI to solve any sort of business problem."

 

"People know what's happening within the network thanks to the systems, alerts and pricing tools we've built using SAS," said Sean Joseph Lowe, Senior VP Revenue Management and Analytics at RCI.

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