industry comment


LESLEY WRIGHT International sales & marketing manager, Travel Indochina


“We've noticed an increased demand from consumers looking to explore more than one country on a single journey and our new 'Indochina Cross-Border' section caters to this perfectly. Offering a multitude of choice and value for money, our cross-border journeys ensure customers experience the highlights of more than one country on what may be their only visit to this part of the world. It's important to us that they return home having met the locals, experienced the culture and savoured the cuisine." (See Indochina, page 30)


FIONA LANE Regional Manager UK, Ireland and Scandinavia, Seychelles Tourist Board


“The Seychelles is benefitting from a fresh momentum in the UK, showing a 24% growth in tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2011. " We are the only mid-oceanic granitic


islands in the world and the only place you can find the sexy coconut, the ‘coco de mer’. It is this diversity – fascinating landscapes, people, history, heritage and culture – we are conveying in our marketing this year. And in order to help you better understand how to sell the Seychelles, the Tourist Office has launched an online Seychelles Training Programme with Travel Uni. See you there!" (See Seychelles, page 56)


STEVE HARTRIDGE EDITOR


welcome T


TO SELLING LONG HAUL


he travel industry breathed a collective sigh of relief when it saw the fine details of the Chancellor’s Budget last month, but there were few reasons for exultation. True, there will


be no further increase in aviation tax this year, with the planned APD rise frozen until next April, but equally there was no restructuring of an arbitrary and illogical banding system which sees flights to the Caribbean taxed at a higher rate than considerably longer ones to the West Coast of the USA. The Chancellor has said he


will review the obvious structural flaws in aviation taxation but significant reform is required right now. Unchanged is the fact that Britain still has the highest air taxation of all European and G20 countries. All the time this remains in place – and it will get worse next year – it will hurt destinations by pricing out many consumers who, until recently, could afford an annual long haul holiday. Those who remember the 1970s will know that back then long haul


travel was mostly the preserve of the wealthy. Some operators are predicting that, without significant reform to air industry taxes, we are once again heading for a situation where long-distance travel will be out of the reach of what, until not so very long ago, we called the middle classes (see In Person interview on page 45).


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