Sri Lanka in style

Lying some thirty kilometres off the coast of southern India, Sri Lanka is an island bursting with life, colour and energy, steeped in history and full of temples and ancient sculpture. So if you want to get there quickly you will be pleased to know that SriLankan Airlines are the only scheduled airline flying a direct route from London Heathrow to both Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

You may also be pleased to learn that while spending that time in the air you won’t feel cramped, because the A340, A330 and A320 aircraft are fitted with superbly luxurious spacious seats where you will be able to stretch out and certainly feel like your holiday has started. You won’t be bored in-flight either because the aircraft have the latest in-flight entertainment with eighteen video channels, seat-back television, twenty-two audio channels and sixteen video games in all seats. One of the video channels is Air Show, a cabin video information system that gives flight-related information and a view of where the aircraft is flying using forward and downward cameras, so you can see where you are going right from your seat. Business Class passengers will even have an on-demand movie library with over 30 titles on request.

And when you arrive in Sri Lanka you can luxuriate on white sandy beaches, enjoy the beauty of the lush greenery, marvel at the biodiversity of the island, explore ancient sites and temples, experience traditional dance, appreciate beautiful arts and crafts, get your health into shape with ayurvedic treatments, and generally enjoy a well-deserved holiday on an island that has so much to offer.

It's bargain time for long-haul

Having been on more long-haul flights between the UK and Japan than I can either remember or care to remember, I’ve always said that if I go back to Japan I’ll try the Trans-Siberian Railway. But an article by Isabel Choat in The Guardian, Time to Pack Your Sarong, caused me to think again. It seems like now is the time to book a long-haul flight to that destination you’ve always been dreaming of, as the major tour operators are reporting that long-haul flights and holidays have dropped dramatically.

At the moment you can pick up return flights to Australia for just under £500, whereas last year it would have been nearer a whopping thousand quid. You can get a return fare to New York for around £200, a return to Bangkok for about £360, and a return to Johannesburg will only cost you something in the region of £500.

It seems like the recession has caused people to cut back on things like long-haul travel, with the result that, supply and demand being what they are, prices have really fallen.

Likewise, now is the time to grab that long-haul package deal, so if you have been thinking about a beach holiday in Goa, or on a sunny Thai island, then now could be just the right time to venture a little further afield. With holidaymakers from the UK avoiding countries that use the euro, you might find that that a longer journey will take you somewhere where your money will go a lot further, with prices in a lot of long-haul destinations such as India and Thailand being significantly cheaper than prices in the UK. There are many faraway destinations where you will find that your pound will really go a long way, not just in terms of eating out and nightlife, but also in terms of clothing, souvenirs and other great bargains. Frequently with long haul, the main cost of the trip goes on the flight, with costs when you are actually there being remarkably low.

So if you can afford an escape at the moment, going long-haul can turn up some great deals.

Let's hear it for the package holiday!

A few years ago a lot of travel pundits wondered if the package holiday was finally on the way out. With the advent of sites that allow you to book hotels directly yourself online, and the arrival of low cost flights with companies such as Ryanair and Easyjet it looked as if the death knell was finally being rung for the humble package holiday, which always had been badly maligned in some quarters. But it looks like the recent economic downturn has put the package holiday firmly back on the agenda, with adventure holidays and independent travel in a bit of a decline since the credit crunch.

In particular, the high street travel agents are reporting an increase in bookings for all-inclusive packages. Once thought to be a bit of a luxury, people are now catching onto the idea that an all-inclusive break has the benefit of fixing much of your costs in advance, making it much easier to stay within budget. Conversely, there has been a fall in demand for self catering holidays as the supermarkets in the resorts are proving to be a tad on the expensive side for British holidaymakers due to the falling pound. The sudden demand for all inclusive deals goes part of the way to explaining why the demand for cruises has remained steady despite the downturn.

Also, a reason why holidaymakers may be returning in force to the attractions of the package holiday is the financial security that it offers. If you buy a package holiday you are covered in the event of failure, such as XL of last October. If you book a flight directly you are not, as many Zoom customers found to their cost.

UK travellers are now less inclined to visit countries using the euro, such as Spain, Portugal and Greece, and are now more likely to visit countries such as Turkey and Egypt, where the pound will go further. Last year ABTA reported that bookings to Turkey were up by 32 per cent, and to Egypt were up by 38 per cent. Tour operators report a similar trend again this year.

But today’s package holiday tourist is perhaps a more savvy traveller than package holidaymakers of the bygone era of the sixties and seventies, as epitomised in “Carry On Abroad”, (1972). Today the internet has led to a much better informed travelling public who are no longer relying on brochures, their high street travel agent, or library books to inform them about where they are going. Travellers can now get up-to-the minute information online, with sites such as Trip Advisor and Holidays Uncovered giving people far more informed choices about the resorts, hotels, and what to expect.

So if you are considering jet-setting off this summer, a package holiday could be just the ticket.

Ljubljana: An abundance of events

In Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, culture and entertainment are something of a way of life. Each year the city hosts around 10.000 events. Throughout the year, Ljubljana and its surrounding areas host a number of well-established international festivals.

This year will see an abundance of attractive events taking place in Ljubljana. From March to middle of July the Viva Mexico festival will present audiences Mexican culture through a large exhibition on the latest archaeological finds from western Mexico entitled Eternal Life and and accompanying a programme of theatre performances, concerts, film screenings, literary evenings, lectures and other events.

The Killers, one of the world's most popular rock bands, will visit Ljubljana on 7th June as part of their European tour promoting their third album, Day & Age. The Queen of Pop, Madonna, will make an appearance in Ljubljana in August as part of her much talked-about concert tour "Sticky & Sweet" on 20th of August.

The Ljubljana Festival, traditionally held in the summer, presents a wide programme of events featuring highly regarded artists of various disciplines from around the world. Each year, it includes from 70 to 80 events attended by an audience of around 80,000 people from Slovenia and abroad. The Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts taking place for the 28th time in September is the world's biggest and one of the most renowned events of the kind.

Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport, Slovenia's main airport, is located in Brnik, 26 kilometres from Ljubljana. It serves scheduled and charter flights to and from most of European capitals. Cheap flights to Slovenia are offered by the budget airline Easyjet, from London Stansted. Ljubljana is also close to several other airports served by various budget airlines such as Klagenfurt, Trieste, Venice or Rijeka.

Check out what's going on in Ljubljana on its official website at http://www.visitljubljana.si/.

Despite the gloom, Ryanair sees good times ahead

Amid all the economic pessimism of a credit crunch that has now turned into a worldwide recession, and a week that has seen airports close due to heavy snow, it is heartening to hear that Europe’s biggest discount airline, Ryanair are regarding 2009 with optimism. Ryanair have raised their profit forecast for 2009 due to the falling price of oil and believe that their net income over the following year will total somewhere between 50 million euros and 80 million euros, meaning that the Dublin-based company will break even this year.

“Ryanair is going to emerge from the current downturn in the industry within an even stronger position,” said John Mattimoe, analyst at Merrion Capital in Dublin, “It’s the only company that’s committed to growing and it will be able to use it’s strengths.”

The International Air Transport Association has predicted that passenger volumes will fall by 3 percent in 2009 due to the global recession, and that airlines worldwide will most likely have combined losses of some $2.5 billion, but Ryanair is hoping to counteract this falling demand for air travel by attracting passengers with its temptingly low fares.

In times of recession and cut back, some of the first industries to be hit are those offering goods and services that are generally regarded as non-essential, so one might expect some reduction in the demand for holidays. However my contacts in the travel industry say that they have not noticed any significant decline in demand yet. It may well be that the one thing people do need in difficult times is a holiday to blow the cobwebs away, and companies offering budget travel and holidays could be the ones to do well in periods when people are looking to save money. Not only that, but business travellers may well be looking to the cheaper airlines to get them where they want to be.

2009 could well be rosy for the budget travel industry in general.

Flying To Malta?

ConciergeMalta is a privately owned site managed by an experienced Concierge who currently works in one of the leading 5 Star Hotels on the Island.

Using his experience in dealing with clients, James Gauci Borda has decide to now offer his knowledge of things to do and see in Malta to a much wider audience through this website.

ConciergeMalta basically offers the quality of concierge service you would expect from a hotel but online instead, providing vast experience for all your travel needs in Malta.

The story of the season: flight cancelled for safety reasons - shock, horror

So that’s the Festive Season over with, snow is on its way, and it’s time to think of holidays. Happy New Year!

The big aviation story over the Christmas period was all about a group of children on their way to see Santa at Rovaniemi in northern Finland just before Christmas. Rovaniemi is in that part of northern Finland that forms part of Lapland, though any self-respecting Sami will tell you that the word Lapp is pejorative and that the area, that spans northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and part of Russia, is in fact Sameland. But I digress.

The big story of the day was that these children, their families, parents, grandparents, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, had gone to Manchester Airport at the crack of dawn in a state of excitement to see Father Christmas, who purportedly resides in Sameland, despite the fact of his origins being those of St Nicholas of Myra in Turkey. Well anyway, after some waiting around it turned out that the flight was cancelled, as the pilot was concerned that the weather conditions at Rovaniemi would not be conducive to a safe landing.

When the story the was taken up by the media you could not turn on the TV, go to a newspaper’s website, or turn on the radio without being regaled with a tale of woe about how cruelly disappointed these dear children were, with the newsreel being repeatedly re-played, with airport scenes of distraught parents - so distraught in fact that the police had to be called in before they attacked staff members. Oddly, it was the parents that appeared to be terribly upset, while the children appeared stoic.

In all the drama, it didn’t seem to occur to any of the journos, parents and the like, that it is better to be disappointed and alive, than on your way to see Santa and risking a tricky landing.

Pilots have to make loads of decisions about safety, and it is important that airlines put safety above all else, something that the grown-ups who were weeping and wailing at the airport, and the media frenzy that followed them, might remember.