Travolution@TTA London
So here we are today at the Travel Trust Association annual conference in London’s Hilton Metropole Hotel on Edgware Road.
TTA director Todd Carpenter has opened the day’s proceedings with a rather gloomy assessment of the year – “worse sales in memory” – because of a lack of business following the World Cup in Germany and the alleged plot to bomb US-bound aircraft in August.
This is a situation that was obviously completely unforeseen and TTA members have been at the forefront, with others, of a woeful year.
Carpenter’s plan this morning is not dwell on things out of the control of the members, but to focus his ire those outside of the organisation.
ABTA, predictably, has come in for a reasonable kicking about its role over the bonding issue.
But even worse than the dreaded ABTA, according to Carpenter, is the government and it’s recently announced increase in air passenger duty.
He raises an interesting point: if the new level comes into play on the first 1 February, airlines could be saddled with finding the increased APD for those passengers that booked their trip prior to that date.
He estimates this could be in the region of £90 million. And the airlines are hardly awash with extra money.
Interesting times…
Travolution is making a speech here at the TTA on blogging and its importance for travel businesses. We hope to bamboozle some of the delegates a little by putting this post into a slide for the presentation, to illustrate how dynamic and quick live blogging can be.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
5 comments:
Interesting! I'm looking forward to hear more about the TTA conference, and what the response was to blogging by travel companies. Keep up the great work Travo! :-)
I am not sure that bamboozle is the right word more like "bedazzled"! Thanks for the great presentation and hopefully a lot more members will be blogging soon!
Great conference, It was very informative and confirmed I am joining the right association. Looking to becoming a TTA member very soon. APNA Travel
Great conference, It was very informative and confirmed I am joining the right association. Looking to becoming a TTA member very soon. APNA Travel
We were a little disappointed that our presentation on Select World Travel's blog was cut short by the conference administrators, and a 10 minute allocated slot to allow questions was just not enough time plus a very slow broadband connection didn't help.
If anyone has doubts about the benefits of blogging for their travel business, we recently featured SABAH and Touchdown holidays as part f a showcase for our forthcoming Holiday Show.
Today we have received the following e-mail.
Dear Select World Travel, I've read some great reviews of your trips and hoped you might be able to help us plan and execute a visit to Borneo and it's several outstanding islands for marine life viewing. We are experienced and avid snorkelers and the islands of Mabul, Kapalia, Sipadan(maybe) and Lankayan seem to be best for snorkelling. If you have other suggestions we are open to ideas! We also would like a recommendation as to the time of year to come or best water conditions. I look forward to hearing from you and sending more details once we make contact.
At the TTA conference we didn't have a chance to explain that if any TTA member wanted to start their own blog we have set up a link on www.selectworld.travel on the left hand side of the navigation bar for a free 30 day trial, after that blogging can start from only $7 a month or try the many other blogging platforms as mentioned by Kevin.
Great presentation by the way Kevin.
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