Famous cruise line, Cunard, has now announced that its ships will no longer sail under the British flag.

The company’s three ships, (Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria ad Queen Elizabeth) are set to be registered in Bermuda, so that weddings can take place on board the ships. This is against the UK law. Because the ships have been registered in Bermuda, the ships will also no longer have ‘Southampton’ painted across them; instead this will be replaced by Bermuda’s capital, ‘Hamilton’.

It is being questioned about whether the cruise line can even call its self ‘British’ anymore, the company is led by an American giant and does not have one ship now registered in the UK.

The company believes it will be able to generate more revenue by cashing in on the lucrative weddings at sea market as appose to its normal UK cruises.

Wedding’s on ships are not allowed under the UK law, as the UK law states that a wedding must occur in a publically accessible place.

But there is some debate about whether weddings at sea are the real reason behind the change of flag. Britain’s new Equality Act 2010 means that workers from EU countries employed on British-ships must be paid wages equal to those of British citizens, therefore un-registering it’s ships with the UK, means that un-fair EU wages can still be paid.

‘It’s not about weddings, it’s about bottom line.’

Cunards Queen Mary 2 in the Bahamas

Picture courtesy of Tom Mascardo

In 2010, holidaymakers were left confused due to the collapse of major travel companies such as ‘Goldtrail,’ ‘XL’, and ‘Kiss Flights.

The ‘Red Flag Alert’ report, that the economic downturn is ruining holiday bookings and enhancing the risk of failure within travel and tourism operators.

A new report claims that the huge drop in people booking holidays will shortly lead to a new wave of company failure. The report has revealed that the number of businesses affected by this financial downturn has rose by a massive 49% in the last year. The report stresses the amount of companies under pressure exclaiming that the amount of struggling companies have risen by 3 per cent year on year and have risen by 29% in just the last three months alone.

‘Consumers are reining in their spending. Sectors reliant on discretionary spending are bearing the brunt.’

One business specialist claimed: “The months leading up to Christmas could either make or break high street names.”

The awareness over the extent of travel companies struggles came as famous tourism company, Thomas Cook announced that they had just taken a new short-term loan with its banks for due to its seasonal low points coming up in the next couple of months. The loan comes after three profit warnings throughout the year and the departure of the companies’ chief executive, which is believed to have caused an 80% drop in share price.

Cancelled flights

Picture courtesy of comedy_nose

Although cruising is becoming increasingly popular, many Brits still think it’s too posh for them and only for the wealthy. Research uncovered that that Britons who have never cruised before worry about how much it costs and whether they will actually like been at sea.

travelsupermarket.com, carried out the survey and found that 58 per cent of people believed cruises were too expensive, however now there is huge a wide range available that you can easily find cheap cruises if you are restricted to a tight budget.

Meanwhile 36 per cent were concerned the ships would be like ‘floating holiday camps’ which for larger vessels such as Royal Caribbean’s Oasis fleet might feel like a holiday city many smaller cruises try to make it feel like you’re on a bespoke holiday.

15 per cent of people asked believed cruises were only for ‘posh people’, however many cruises ships cater for all sorts of need and while some lines like Cunard offer cruise holidays like they were in the cruising heyday, they try to make everyone welcome, posh or not.

People who had been on a cruise holiday were also asked to take part in the survey and the researchers found that opinion then changed once they had experience ‘been at sea’. With Nine out of ten cruisers stating that they would recommend the holiday to a friend and two-thirds said the great food was one of their favourite parts of the experience.

It seems though that one of the draws for cruising is the ability to multiple destinations but only having to pack once. Plus a lot noted that it was nice waking up in a new place every day.
Other results found by the survey include 60 per cent of 18 to 35-year-olds who had been on a cruise said they were surprised at how much fun they had. Showing it’s not just for the oldies.

To help travellers who haven’t got their sea legs yet, some cruise companies are not offering ‘taster’ cruises of around three days to get you accustomed to it all and decide whether or not it is for you.

Travel expert from travelsupermarket.com, Bob Atkinson, said: “What this research has found is that many of us still hold outdated misconceptions on cruising. These days cruise holidays no longer need to be expensive, long haul journeys. Cruise holidays are becoming increasingly affordable so if you shop around for the best deal and book as early as possible, you could bag yourself a real bargain.”

The research was conducted to mark the beginning of the fourth annual National Cruise Week, which runs until September 25.

When marking their gender on passports Australian citizens can now choose between male, female or indeterminate. This means that Transgender people can pick whether they are male or female if their choice is supported by a doctor and those who are intersex (biologically not entirely male or female can now mark their sex as X rather than being forced to choose male or female.

Previous to this decision, those applying for Australian passports could only alter their sex on their passport if they had, had surgery. Many countries still follow this rule however any nation under the International Civil Aviation Organization’s authority is eligible to introduce category ‘x’ option on their passports. In the UK you can change the sex on your passport without having a sex change operation as long as you provide evidence that you are permanently living in a new gender role.

One of the reasons for changing the choice on Australians passports was highlighted by Australian Senator Louise Pratt and she said that the change was needed for people who have trouble when going abroad because their appearance does not match their gender. Senator Pratt’s partner was born female and now lives as a man. There is also support for the changes from Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd who said the change would ‘make life easier’.

Senator Louise Pratt said: “’X’ is really quite important, because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one sex or the other at birth. ’It’s a really important recognition of people’s human rights that if they choose to have their sex as ‘indeterminate’, they can.”

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s foreign minister, said: “This amendment makes life easier and significantly reduces the administrative burden for sex and gender diverse people who want a passport that reflects their gender and physical appearance.”

The reforms were negotiated with the Australian Government by Peter Hyndal, on behalf of human rights advocacy group A Gender Agenda; he explained that the new guidelines were in line with more flexible approaches to gender in U.S. and British passports. He also said: “It’s amazingly positive,’ he said. ‘It’s the biggest single piece of law reform related to transgender and intersex issues at a commonwealth level ever in this country – mind-blowing.”

Liverpool has a rich maritime history, the port city over the years has seen hundreds of thousands of ships sail in and out of its Princes Dock and this week the city is celebrating its Mersey River Festival which lasts for six days and celebrates he city’s great maritime heritage. Liverpool is also known as a stop off for cruise holidays, so it’s no surprise that the Queen Elizabeth cruise liner was there to open the celebrations.

Cunard has a long history with the city and the closing festival will also be marked by Cunard’s flagship vessel, the Queen Mary 2. In the 1840’s Samuel Cunard started the shipping line, the company’s headquarters were in the city until they moved in the 1960’s to Southampton. You can still see their original headquarters the Cunard Building is one of the ‘Three Graces’ of the city along with the Royal Liver Building and the Port of Liverpool Building.

Currently Liverpool are trying to remove a restriction preventing the city from being a turnaround port, at the moment cruises cannot start or stop there, and the terminal is only used as a port of call. Cunard and other cruise companies may be persuaded back to the historic city and the Princess Dock if Liverpool is successful which could bring in much needed tourism, jobs and money to the city.

In the future it may be possible to keep tabs on your luggage after two IT companies have developed new technology that is able to track your baggage with a mobile phone and social media. The two companies IT firm Amadeus and airline technology company SITA joined forces to create this new technology which will be very handy for travellers.

The technology could be with us as early as next year and would put an end to the fear many travellers have about losing their luggage on holiday. The new technology uses a sophisticated tagging method and will use travellers own handheld devices to track luggage from the minute a bag is checked in to when it arrives on the conveyor belt at the other end.

According to Amadeus the partnership aims to reduce the loss or delayed arrival of suitcases, in 2010 29 million cases were lost around the world the company will be launching the luggage tracker in 54 airports worldwide. At the moment SITA’s BagMessage system is used by air carriers and airports globally however in the near future the service is expected to be rolled out to enable passengers to personally keep a close track on their luggage.

A SITA Airport Solutions spokesman said: “In the future, passengers will get real-time updates on their luggage when SITA’s technology is used.”

Many travellers fear that their luggage will be lost when they travel in fact a survey by JD Power found that over 34 per cent of passengers had experienced baggage issues on recent flights and 37 per cent of travellers said they would like to use their mobile phone to receive real-time baggage arrival updates.

Lost luggage is also a continuing problem for airlines and airports, many are working on streamlining the collection experience, some airlines such as KLM and Qantas have implemented baggage-drop schemes in which passengers can tag and drop their own baggage. The first airport in the world, to introduce a computer to deal with lost luggage enquiries instead of a human was Bermuda’s LF Wade International airport.

A £0.75billion savings target for 2012 has been outlined by IATA, using self-service baggage tagging and the development of baggage tracking solutions to achieve it.

When it comes to the best place to live in the world, Vancouver has held the top spot for the past ten years, easily unchallenged however this year the Canadian city has been knocked from its top spot by Melbourne, Australia, in the twice-annual list produced by the Economist’s Intelligence Unit. Unfortunately this year Vancouver which is known for its ‘spectacular natural beauty and relaxed West Coast way of life’ has to make do with third after the Austrian city of Vienna took second place.

Melbourne which is the second most populated city in Australia scored well on transport and education which put in in the top spot, out of 140 cities which are ranked of factors such as stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure, which bodes well for those lucky enough to live in this ‘top’ city.

It’s thought that a couple of things resulted in the loss of the number one spot for Vancouver including increased congestion throughout the city, however after the list was compiled Vancouver also suffered from widespread rioting in June which could affect its place on the list in future.

Unfortunately it wasn’t a good show for European cities, only two featured in the top ten; Vienna, in second spot, and Helsinki, Finland, in seventh place. For the UK London didn’t fair that well landing in 56th place, with the capital been let down by the perceived threat of terrorism and the rates of violent and petty crime and it could get worse for us in the future thanks to the recent riots in London. New York was also another city to suffer from the perceived threat of terrorism and the rates of violent and petty crime coming in in 53rd.

The Top Ten List

1. Melbourne, Australia 97.5
2. Vienna, Austria 97.4
3. Vancouver, Canada 97.3
4. Toronto, Canada 97.2
5. Calgary, Canada 96.6
6. Sydney, Australia 96.1
7. Helsinki, Finland 96
8. Perth, Australia 95.9
9. Adelaide, Australia 95.9
10. Auckland, New Zealand 95.7

At the bottom of the list sits Dhaka, Bangladesh at 139th and Zimbabwe in 140th!

There is a crackdown in Bulgaria on ‘alcohol tourism’ offered by tour operators to stop people binge drinking. Holiday companies will be black listed if they are found to be breaking the rules and encouraging travellers to drink copious amounts of alcohol. Hoteliers have said they would boycott certain companies that are aimed at encouraging people to drink large amounts by taking advantage of cheap alcohol prices in the Eastern European country.

Although the Bulgarian Tourist Chamber has denied the existence of organised alcohol tourism and that tour organisation do not offer alcohol tourism there is evidence to dispute this. British, German and Scandinavian companies who allegedly offer drinking tours as one of their advertised activities will be hit by the ban.

Action is being taken after several holidaymakers have fallen to their deaths from balconies after drinking sessions in the popular resort of Sunny Beach. Not only that the locals are also fed up by the behaviour of visitors after drunken British holidaymakers were featured in several local documentaries focussing on their behaviour and alcohol consumption on holiday.

Bulgarian Hotel Association member Vesselin Nalbantov said: ‘There should be tougher penalties and a clear message that this won’t be tolerated.’ Local representatives of major tour operators like Thomas Cook and TUI are backing the initiative according to 24 Chasa a Bulgarian newspaper.

A spokesman for the Bulgarian Tourist Chamber suggested the hotels are speaking out to counter bad publicity created by the negative holiday documentaries which have aired in the last few weeks. The ban follows similar measures taken by hotels in Turkey not to deal with holiday companies from Sweden who offer booze holidays with cheap drinks.

This year its reported that nearly 6.6 million holidaymakers have visited resorts in the Black Sea region and the summer 2011 season is expected to be Bulgaria’s best ever in terms of tourist numbers, a 14 per cent increase in visitors compared to the same time last year.

Travelodge, the budget hotel chain, who are normally known for their cheap city accommodation are looking to expand their reach to the countryside. The company has announced plans to open 37 new hotels that will this time be in the countryside, as they focus on expanding into areas near the UK’s 15 national parks.

Currently Travelodge have 475 hotels across the UK, Ireland and Spain and they are now looking to invest £135million to expand into the countryside, to cater for people looking for affordable accommodation in the countryside. They also are looking at increasing the number of hotels to 1,100 hotels and 100,000 rooms by 2025. Plus as part of this new development drive the company is undertaking, Travelodge has recently exchanged contracts on a hotel in Glossop in the Peak District.

The company which launched in the UK in 1985 are looking to secure sites in locations near to national beauty spots such as Aviemore in the Cairngorms, Betws-y-Coed in Snowdonia, Grasmere in the Lake District and Minehead in Exmoor.

According to Chief executive Guy Parsons many more Britons are holidaying in the UK now rather than abroad in a bid to reduce costs in this difficult climate, he said: “Traditionally, Britons have opted for a coastal or city break but as more Britons explore the UK they are rediscovering new holiday hotspots and, as a result, we have seen a significant surge in rural breaks.”

The company have seen an increase in visitors to the small number of rural hotels they currently have, these include: Barnstaple in Exmoor, Porthmadog in Snowdonia, Cockermouth in the Lake District and Scarborough in the North Yorkshire Moors.

The company’s new hotels will vary in size depending on location and will be anything from 30 bedrooms to over 100 bedrooms and it’s expected that the expiation will create more than 500 jobs across the UK.

Malaysia Airlines has banned babies and toddlers from being seated in the first-class sections of its jets. The airline also plans to enforce this to more of its aircrafts if the rule is successful.

Tengku Azmil , Malaysia Airlines CEO, says that the rule is being enforced due to complaints from first-class passengers about crying infants.

Azmil explained to an Australian Business Travel reporter via Twitter that the first-class passengers complain as they “spend money on 1st class and can’t sleep due to crying infants.”

The business traveller noted that Malaysia Airlines’ 747-400s fly long-haul routes between Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, London and Amsterdam. As the A380s, the airline expects to take delivery of its first one next June, according Bernama (the Malaysian news agency.)Azmil told Bernama that the A380 will be the “best Malaysia Airlines would have on its fleet.”

The business traveller explains Malaysian Airlines will configure its A380s “with 508 seats , which is 50 more than Qantas and second only to Lufthansa and Air France in maxing out the super-jumbo’s capacity.”