EDITOR’S COMMENTS
NEWS Hot Stories
04 – Swissport insists ‘no problems’ with bags at Gatwick this weekend; Royal claims new ships will change perceptions; agents complain of unwanted brochures; Sabre seeks buyer for
lastminute.com; Monarch review ‘puts 1,000 jobs at risk’
News Digest
08 – Tui unveils Connect system; Carrick agent wins American Idol; Abta reveals convention speakers; SeaWorld plans bigger tanks; UK inbound record; Hurtigruten hires
Special Report
10 – Hays IG unveils new website and marketing to promote agents
Big Interview 13 – Andrew Strong, Saga, and Liz Hingley, Destinology
NEWS YOU CAN USE Add-ons
Product News 15 – Cunard cancels two sailings
Operator News 16 – Pullmantur signs Fred Holidays
Cruise News
18 – Shearings expands river range 20 – Carnival plans live webinars
Destinations News 22 – Bath courts Chinese visitors
53 – How to tailor the whole holiday for families with young kids JOBS AND CLASSIFIED
57 – Vacancies and business services TRAVELWEEKLY BUSINESS
News
62 – Wimbleton joins cruise firm 63 – Travel Convention preview 64 – ‘Golden age for big data’
Cover Star Amy Watkins of Midcounties Co-op Travel, Halesowen. Photos: Steve Hockstein. Clothes: Saks Off 5th at The Outlets at Orange, California
ALL ABOUT YOU
Letters 25 – Monarch; Thomson; Cook
Comment 26 – John de Vial: Regulation value
All For You 30 – Win a VIP night out in London
Readers’ Lives 36 – Cover Star Amy Watkins
Mystery Shopper 38 – No winner in Kidderminster
DESTINATIONS Theme Parks & Attractions
41 – Sneak preview of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley in Universal Orlando 47 – We try Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 50 – Ratatouille, Disneyland Paris
LUCY Editor-in-chief HUXLEY
Big data can’t beat an agent’s instinct
you’ll know the sector loves a good bandwagon to jump on. The latest is ‘big data’, the true meaning and significance of which is the subject of much fevered debate among the self-appointed online technocrati. As with many buzzwords, you might conclude it covers anything from mere common business sense to something so complex that it needs a small army of boffins to implement. So it’s good to see Abta’s Travel Convention next month will
I
offer firms more useful insight into what PwC calls ‘a second age of enlightenment’ (back page). Let’s face it, what firm wouldn’t want to have more useful
data about its customers? Is there any marketing manager who doesn’t want to zero in on exactly the right customers, with exactly the right offers at exactly the right time? Proper analysis of this data using sophisticated computer
systems is opening this up as a genuine opportunity. But I’d throw in a word of caution. Apple’s Steve Jobs
famously never did any consumer research before coming up with the iPod. So, don’t fall into the trap of thinking an algorithm is the answer to all your prayers, or forget that travel is one of those industries in which instinct and experience are still hugely valuable. Our Travel Weekly readers are real people, each of whom possesses their own data-processing capabilities more sophisticated than any man-made machine. And they actually talk to clients, listen and respond. Long may that continue.
lucy.huxley@
travelweekly.co.uk WHAT LUCY DID THISWEEK 1
2 3
Had a great trip to Virgin Holidays to see Lee Haslett, Sam Otter and Sarah Barton – and Mark Anderson in the toilets (...on a poster, dressed as ‘The Godfather’)!
Had a good chat with John Wimbleton, formerly of Tui, on becoming chairman of Cruising Excursions
Spent three days flat on my back again (careful!) because of my dodgy ruptured disc
21 August 2014 —
travelweekly.co.uk • 3
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