INSIDE THIS


WEEK Contents


NEWS Hot Stories


InteleTravel gains Abta membership; EasyJet Holidays board is ‘Tui mark II’; Jet2holidays ad promotes indie agents; Dublin port plan deemed a ‘disaster’; Balearics booze law ‘will hit family market’


Special Report


10 Talk Back 17


News You Can Use 19 Comment 30


Mystery Shopper


44 Destinations 53


NEWS YOU CAN USE Product Leger, Warner Leisure, Saga


Operator Just You, Travelsphere, GIC Cruise Royal, Carnival, CroisiEurope Destination PortAventura, Thailand


19


20 22 24


Aviation Air Transat, Thomas Cook, Jet2 26


FRONTLINE Comment Debbie Marshall: Back Britain 30


Readers’ Lives Harry Wales, Viceroy Mystery Shopper Bristol: solo holiday


DESTINATIONS


Mature Travel 8 of the Best: Walking holidays


46 Upselling: Upgrades, add-ons, excursions 53 WIN!


Indian Ocean Sri Lanka: Gandys duo reveal hotspots 58 Maldives: Indian Ocean escape via Muscat 65


A trip to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida for four people page 40


BUSINESS Travolution Breakfast Social media


WHAT


LUCY DID THIS WEEK


Mar 21 70 Boeing 737 Max ‘grounded for months’ 72 1


2 3


37 44


Lucy Huxley Editor-in-chief @Lucy_Huxley


Hosted the first 2019 Travel Weekly Business Breakfast with Miles Morgan Travel, Celebrity Cruises, Jet2holidays and Icelolly.com.


Spent a wonderful evening at Rosemary Shrager’s ‘Chef’s Table’ with Cruise Select agents who’d won a Princess competition.


Dyed, plaited and crimped my daughter’s hair for “funky hairstyle day” at her school in aid of Comic Relief.


21 March 2019travelweekly.co.uk3 Round-up


‘Small agencies gain from social media’ 08 Over-50s turn to UK breaks; Abta event 10


Face to Face


James Ferrara, InteleTravel Talk Back


Staysure, recruitment, Abta, seat scam 12 17 04


travel was identified as one of the biggest threats to established UK agents. In a panel I moderated, Alistair Rowland, group


A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Changing face of travel A


general manager for specialist retail at The Midcounties Co-operative and Abta board member, warned that allowing such firms to gain legitimacy would be a “dangerous scenario”. Roll on five months and one of the largest of these firms


– InteleTravel – has been granted Abta membership two years after it first applied (pages 4 and 12). The news will undoubtedly ruffle feathers among agents


who warn that such companies fail to offer sufficient consumer protection and create sales forces that lack the expertise to properly serve their customers. However, Abta insists InteleTravel has met strict criteria


around its code of conduct and has focused heavily on training for its 1,800 UK agents. In the US, schemes derided as “card mills” caused a


furore when they emerged in the 1990s, blurring lines between established agents and newcomers. But InteleTravel will point to the fact it is now an


accepted and respected member of the US travel trade. Abta says there is a long history of disruption in the UK industry and many of its larger members with homeworking divisions already recruit people with no travel experience – just not at the scale of InteleTravel. But it is clearly anticipating scrutiny of its decision by posting the rationale for its approval on its website. One thing is for sure. The decision won’t be the end of the debate.


t last year’s Travel Convention, the rise of US companies offering quick and easy routes into selling


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