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New US tours from Tailor Made Travel


TAILOR Made Travel's new 2013 USA brochure features a range of new products, hotels and destinations. A new self-drive from San Francisco to


Los Angeles takes in the charmingly quaint towns, rugged cliffs and breathtaking beaches of the coastline; while new hotels in the lush wine country regions of Napa Valley and Sonoma in California will suit those keen to sample the local wineries. A new ‘epic’ self-drive takes in the outdoors states of Utah, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho to combines mountain peaks, wildlife, lakes and national parks. www.tailor-made.co.uk


Recognition for New Orleans


NEW Orleans, Louisiana, has been voted “America’s Favourite City” by the readers of Leisure and Travel Magazine. In the annual ‘America’s Favourite Cities’


survey, 35 metropolitan areas of the USA were evaluated against criteria that make an impression on travellers including accommodation choices, best museums, flea markets, microbrews, friendly locals. New Orleans scored in the top five in more than half of them.


The fine dining, architecture, music


scene, gay-friendliness and people- watching were New Orleans’ strongest categories including wild weekends, antiques and cafes. Jody Hanson, Director of the UK office for


New Orleans CVB and Louisiana Office of Tourism said: “New Orleans has been garnering a great deal of recognition. At World Travel Market last year it won a World Tourism Award for the extraordinary success of rebirth post-Katrina and the DeepWater Horizon oil spill.” www.travelandleisure.com/americas-favorite- cities/2012


Butterbeer the best!


UNIVERSAL Orlando Resort has sold its five-millionth serving of Butterbeer, the popular beverage sold within the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. To mark the moment, reached less than


three years after the opening of the attraction, a thousand guests were given complimentary Butterbeers (pictured).


Butterbeer – the non-alcoholic recipe is


secret but the taste is reminiscent of shortbread and butterscotch – appears as a favourite drink in the Harry Potter tales. Served cold or frozen, it is one of several experience in the park 'authentic' to the books and films. Guests to Wizarding World of Harry


Potter can also soar above Hogwarts with the fictional character himself. www.universalorlando.co.uk


Access upped for Key West


AIR access to Key West, Florida's southernmost tip of the USA, has been expanded with new flights from Washington, D.C. and New York City. The new services, operated by Delta Airlines and U.S. Airways, join existing flights and services from Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines from destinations across the South including Orlando, Tampa, Miami and Atlanta – all hubs served from the UK and Europe. Non-stop U.S. Airways flights between


Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport and Key West International Airport are being offered daily until January 5 2013, and then on a Saturday-only basis through April 2013. Delta Airlines is running non-stop flights


between New York’s LaGuardia Airport and the island city on each Saturday from March 2 through April 6 2013. www.fla-keys.co.uk


www.sellinglonghaul.com • January 2013 39


LET'S START THE YEAR AS WE MEAN TO CARRY ON


If the Mayans got their maths wrong you will be reading this during the early days of 2013, when your hopes and aspirations for the new year, not to mention your gym membership, are hopefully still intact. January is a bittersweet month for


the travel industry. Ripe with promise, succulent with sales and positively bursting with potential. But so often it is the very stuff we use as the motivation for booking a holiday that makes all those Hogmanay fireworks and drunken dances a distant memory. I refer, of course, to the Jedward of the Apocalypse – our terrible weather and these never-ending Challenging Economic Times. As if getting British consumers to


part with their hard-earned cash wasn’t challenging enough post-Christmas, there’s nothing more likely to distract them than the sight of snowflakes and gritted roads (if you're lucky). So I want to use this column, on


behalf of the Visit USA Committee, to urge all of you to deny the naysayers and to stick to whatever resolutions you’ve made to make 2013 a year to remember. Let’s not allow whatever Mother Nature or Dave n’ George throw our way to distract us from the fact that we’re in the business of selling dreams – and nowhere like the USA makes those dreams a reality. So whether it is a world-leading


theme park, a city vibrant with incredible nightlife, shopping and museums, a breathtaking national park or the kind of excursion of which memories are made that is your way of life, let’s start the year as we mean to go on: positively. PHIL BLOOMFIELD Head of PR Virgin Holidays


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