Apologies for the silence around here in recent weeks. It’s been a busy summer and time has not really been on my side as far as Travel Shorthand has been concerned. However, things should get back to normal in September.

Amidst the chaos, I have been able to catch a few episodes of The Secret Tourist which is the BBC’s latest attempt to scare the crap out of anyone going on holiday this summer.

If you took this programme too seriously you wouldn’t venture out of your hotel room for fear of getting ripped off by the taxi driver and then conned by the restaurant or shop or whoever you may visit. Except you shouldn’t stay in your hotel because you’ll probably catch something off the pool or your bed. And don’t even think about doing anything active.

I don’t really have a problem with the tremendously earnest Carole Machin finding everything so alarming. The section of the show that is slightly more problematic is the undercover family that visits an underperforming hotel. The researchers look for a poorly rated hotel on Trip Advisor and send a family over to look for all the bad bits and unsurprisingly they find it to be an underperforming hotel.

Which is all fine, but why show this in July and August? It’s hardly prime booking season and anyone who has a stay booked at one of the featured hotels is going to find it hard to switch to anything else. I’m sure a few tour operators have received calls from worried travellers as a result of this section, but this far into the season they will be limited in what they can do.

Tackling a poor hotel in early to mid season is also unlikely to yield much in the way of results. The underperforming staff will all be firmly entrenched for the season and the hapless manager will blunder his way through to the end. At least it shows what the operations staff of tour operators are up against when they try to get hotels to make improvements.

And this is the interesting thing about the show; although The Secret Tourist is hardly a good thing for the UK travel industry, it does go easy on it. The programme goes straight to the source and refrains from naming any tour operators that sell the hotels featured.

Previous BBC consumer looks at travel such as That’s Life and Watchdog would have hauled some hapless tour operator into the studio to ask why a hotel it features is so poor. Now the focus is on the people running the hotels, which is how it should be.

Unfortunately, the programme highlights how little some of these hotels care and if a tour operator cuts them from their programme they’re generally confident that they’ll find another one to take the rooms. That’s how it works in such a price-driven market. But with so many bargain tour operators going to the wall at the moment it might not be so easy.

Many words have been written already about The Times paywall and there’s no point in trying to look at the implications for the media when people like David Hepworth do it so well. But what are the implications for travel sections?

At least Hepworth coughed up his pound to take a look at what they had to offer. I took one look from a travel point of view and thought “you want me to pay £1 for that?” There’s little in the way of trailers or anything to tempt you into the travel section. On a Sunday, the online edition at least tells you what is in the travel section, during the week, it doesn’t even do that.

The Times may argue that if you buy the paper edition you cannot see what is inside. But if I buy the paper edition of the Times I will generally spend a fair amount of time reading it. Online, like many people, I’ll spend twenty minutes here or there and it’s a snack not a feast. For me to pay for the snack I want to know what I’m going to get.

Does the travel section of a newspaper appear online as well as the rest of the paper? I’m not sure. I have spoken before about the relationship travel editors have with travel companies and although, in my experience, most travel companies are more interested in the print edition, there’s no denying that the online copy provides greater longevity for a piece and is useful if people are searching for something specific.

However, travel pieces, particularly in The Times, can be quite long and I’ll only generally read them if they are writing about a destination, or by someone that is of interest to me. So why doesn’t The Times offer more of a preview of its online content? I really don’t know, if you do please let me know. As it stands, I’m not tempted to pay only to find stories about cruises, or other areas of travel that are of little interest to me.

I wish The Times all the best, I really hope it works for the sake of journalists everywhere. But blindly expecting everyone to  pay seems slightly arrogant to me. I’m afraid that if they want me to pay to access the travel section they’re going to have to  sell it to me and they’re just not doing that at the moment.

If there is one job where the returns seem to be forever diminishing, it’s that of the travel rep. Not only is the role tougher than ever, it is just as miserably paid and add to that the remote possibility of finding yourself in court and you have to ask yourself why anyone would bother.

Predominantly, there are two reasons why the likes of Thomas Cook and Tui still have plenty of applicants for their seasonal roles; people want a good time or they want to escape from something (dull job, failed relationship, parents). Companies can only really play on one of these when recruiting, and the challenge is how to attract people who want the lifestyle, but are willing to put a shift in.

Unsurprisingly, it is hard to find any companies who advertise what they pay their staff. The wages have always been low, but in the past there were always ways to improve them. When I started my first ski season the stories of scams were legendary. I was told of one rep who, amongst other things, retrieved the old lift passes at the end of each week and spent Friday nights breaking the seals and replacing the photos with Saturday’s arrivals. He then used the £30K he’d made at the end of the season to buy a house. Whether this is true or not, there’s no denying most supervisors were happy to turn a blind eye as long as targets were met.

You could always tell how honest your predecessor was when you visited suppliers at the start of the season and they would give you a nod and a wink. These days (nearly) all that has been put paid to by technology and tighter auditing. Everyone is working more “professionally” these days, and this can be seen in the job titles. Staff are called Customer Service Executives or Resort Managers and it does seem a lot of the fun has been taken from the role.

There’s now more properties covered by fewer staff and an emphasis on more sales for smaller returns. Times are tougher all round and it’s less common these days to see reps get the free drinks in bars that were ubiquitous not so long ago. Add to that a weaker pound and the “beer money” doesn’t get you as much beer as it used to.

In terms of the role, travellers are so much more savvy these days that it’s inevitable that sales and problem solving take more prominence than assistance. In many cases people will be able to consult their iphone just as easily as get an answer from a rep.

It’s easy to sound like an old man saying “it’s not like it was in my day” and I would struggle to recommend it to anyone as something to do, but there will still be a long queue of people willing to take the plunge.

Photo by Vlokkie

Prior to the general election, ABTA produced a manifesto of measures it would like to see any incoming government introduce. One of these was to have a dedicated tourism minister who could oversee the entire industry, inbound and outbound. There were also calls for tourism to be moved from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport to something more relevant.

In the days after the election, the signs were promising, John Penrose was made Minister for Tourism and much was made in the announcement of his qualifications for the role (he has a seaside constituency). However, any hopes that things may have improved have been dashed with the news that the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO) has been refused a meeting with Penrose. Not even a “I’m busy, at the moment”,  but a “we’re just not interested”. Plus ça change.

AITO is an organisation that represents 140 small businesses. The reasons they were given for their snub were that Penrose is not just responsible for tourism, but also gambling, heritage, architecture, the lottery and the royal parks and that ‘Penrose predominantly deals inbound and domestic tourism, as there is limited scope for promoting outbound tourism.’

It’s disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, that this government seems to have as much time for travel and tourism as the last one. The comment about ‘promoting outbound tourism’ is particularly disappointing. Nobody involved in the outbound sector expects the government to promote outbound tourism, but there are many issues to discuss that should be of interest to the government. Worryingly for the outbound sector, if Penrose’s remit doesn’t cover outbound, whose does?

Tourism is too important to the UK to be given to someone who also has architecture, gambling and other odds and sods dumped on him. The taxpayer contributes a sizable sum via VisitBritain, and for many taxpayers a holiday is their most significant annual purchase.  The last government was hopeless where tourism was concerned, the signs aren’t promising that this one will be any better.

Bordeaux Airport has always struck me as one of the more civilised airports in Europe – sleek design, spacious, generally queue-free, free wi-fi and (until recently) free parking if you are meeting passengers. However, this has all changed for those using any “low-cost” carriers.

Over the last few months a very hastily assembled hangar has appeared alongside the sleek steel and glass of Halls A & B. The unfortunately named “billi” (short for Bordeaux Illico) is the new terminal for passengers using Ryanair, easyJet and their ilk. Almost totally obscured from vie by the ramp from departures, its almost as if Bordeaux are ashamed of their new creation.

Billi opened last Wednesday without warning or fanfare. You could fit one hundred billis into Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and it was built for approximately one-thousandth of the cost (5.5MEuros). But it was  never built to impress. It’s almost as though those in charge at Bordeaux are saying “you’re not paying as much for your flights, the shed in the corner’s for you”. But is this the best way to treat its customers?

So what do you get at billi? Unsurprisingly, there’s shops, but not much else. Retail takes up 20% of the overall floor space, compared with only 5% at Terminal 5, which is hardly retail-free. What this means is that if you’re going to want a seat while you wait for your departure, you’re likely to be out of luck. I guess the idea is that you don’t sit down, you shop.

Bordeaux are clearly conscious that the LGV is coming in 2016, which will cut Bordeaux-Paris by train to a mere two hours. Envisioning a reduction of flights on its busiest route, the airport is looking to attract more no-frills airlines, but is offering a no-frills airport the solution. The likes of easyJet and Ryanair probably won’t care and they’ll be pleased that the new airport has been designed with a quick turnaround in mind. I’m just not so sure passengers will be pleased about being downgraded to the airport equivalent of a shoe box.

A horrible design with a horrible name, but at least it serves its purpose. The age of austerity has come to Europe’s airports.

Today The Times ran a “debate” on whether parents should leave kids in clubs on holiday or not. Inevitably, it all centred on whether you’re a good parent or a bad one for leaving your loved ones in a club. Sure, there are parents that hardly see their kids on a daily basis and then go on holiday and do their utmost to see them even less. But there are also many parents that just want their kids to have a good time. But what about the clubs? Here are a few things I gleamed from working with tour operators with kids’ clubs:

1. The standard of your holiday kids’ club will never be as high as the standard at the nursery your child/children goes to at home. That doesn’t mean the standards aren’t high enough.
2. Kids’ clubs run by tour operators are generally better than those run by hotels. This is because tour operators see kids’ clubs as leading to sales, hotels see them as somewhere to stick the kids.
3. It’s also related to the quality of the childcare staff from the UK.
4. You can count the number of hotels that run really great kids’ clubs on one hand.
5. Nobody makes any money from running kids’ clubs. You make money from the holidays they sell. You may pay your staff £70 a week but when you add up all your costs at the end of the summer, you’re lucky if you break even on the clubs themselves.
6. Everyone struggles to run clubs for under-4s. The variations in ages you get throughout the season invariably means at some stage a 6-month old will be with a 3 year-old, which is a nightmare for everyone.
7. When you interview children’s club staff and they arrive at the interview with their mother and/or a collection of their artwork, it’s oddly reassuring, whereas for any other position you would instantly dismiss the applicant as a freak.
8. When interviewing kids’ club staff you may think they may be rubbish with adults, but great with kids, but how they communicate with parents is almost more important.
9. For your under-3s, you don’t want many kids in the club, but for your over-3s you do. Yet very few parents ask how many children are already booked into the clubs when they book the holidays.
10. A lot of kids’ club staff turn up to work with raging hangovers and 3 hours sleep. But how many accidents are there? I’m not sure if this is reassuring, or not

Photo by foreversoul

Thomas Cook reps Richard Carson and Nicola Gibson have finally been found not guilty of manslaughter over the deaths of two British children at a hotel in Corfu.

The verdict brings to an end an horrific ordeal for Richard and Nicola and we can only hope that they can get back to living their lives with a semblance of normality. I wish them all the best for the future.

I originally started this piece using the word congratulations, but the word doesn’t seem appropriate to use where two small children tragically died. My thoughts are with the parents of the children and although nothing will ever bring back their children, I hope they feel justice has been done with four people being found guilty. However, I have always maintained that Richard and Nicola should never have been put through the ordeal of a trial and it should never have been allowed to get this far.

Hotel manager Georgios Chrysikopoulos, head of the hotel technical department Petros Stoyiannos, and hotel electrician Christos Louvros were each sentenced to seven years. Civil engineer Dimitrios Xidias was given two years on probation.

Hopefully this sends out the message that the people responsible for the health and safety at a property are those responsible for running it on a day-to-day basis. To hold tour operators ultimately responsible for safety at properties they have little or no control over has always struck me as absurd. This verdict should reaffirm to hoteliers that health and safety is their responsibility and they need to work more closely with operators to ensure their properties are as safe as possible.

In this instance common sense has prevailed. Let’s hope nothing like this ever happens again.

If the number of people coming to this site by searching for variations of Greece+tourism+crisis+economic troubles is anything to go by, there is a certain amount of concern amongst tourists about the troubles affecting Greece.

So what are the implications for tourism of the $147bn bailout that has been agreed? Over at TTG, Sunvil director Dudley der Parthog paints a very optimistic picture, which is understandable given how much Sunvil has invested in Greek tourism.

Is he right to be so optimistic? He is dismissive of the civil unrest (it’s just in the big cities) and unworried about the threat of strikes (we’ve seen it all before) despite the threats coming from Greek unions. “It’s a disaster! The government has crossed the line. We can’t live this way,” said Despina Spanou, member of public sector union ADEDY’s board. “We will fight these measures with all our might, because this is a battle for survival.”

But what of the austerity measures themselves? Unfortunately for tourists an increase on their already steep VAT to 23% and a tax increase of 10% on cigarettes, fuel and alcohol will mean your beer at the poolside bar this summer is unlikely to be any cheaper. Searching for a bright side for tourists and tour operators it’s hard to see much beyond the inevitable drop in domestic tourists leading to keener pricing  for tourists in general.

Der Parthog even suggested the country could benefit in the same way that Iceland saw a boom in visitor numbers after it went bankrupt in 2008. This is very unlikely, as Iceland benefited from its devaluation, making it much more affordable.

It’s true that Greece’s problems are currently weakening the Euro, but its drop in value will benefit Greece’s tourism competitors as much, if not more, than Greece itself. With the daily churn of negative stories about Greece and the general tarnishing of its image, it’s hard to be see anything other than a fairly bleak outlook for Greek tourism.

Photo by Aster-oid

There are some striking figures in this article about inbound Chinese tourism in Australia.

“Last year, we had more than 350,000 Chinese visitors. On average they stay in Australia for 55 nights. This market is worth $2.8 billion for the Australian tourism industry and it continues to grow.”

Assuming the figures don’t include those Chinese who go to Australia and end up working in The Desi Dragon restaurant in Brisbane, a 55 night average stay is quite incredible, as is the figure that each visitor is worth $8,000 to the Australian economy. The potential for growth must also be huge as 350,000 visitors represents a mere 0.00027% of the Chinese population.

Given these figures, it’s understandable that the Australian government is investing an additional $4m in attracting Chinese visitors. This is a small figure in comparison to the huge income generated by Chinese tourists, yet it is interesting to see how the Australians will use this money.

“…..focussing on product quality and accreditation, building a skilled and innovative workforce, investing in infrastructure….”

No mention of web strategies, social media campaigns or competitions, just getting the product right. The potential for growth of inbound Chinese tourism is huge for every country, yet you fear that if £4m were invested in the UK in attracting Chinese tourists, the first £1m would be swallowed up by mood boards, project management and information architecture.

photo by Martin de Witte

The prolonged trial of Thomas Cook reps Nicola Gibson and Richard Carson appears to be coming to an end with a verdict expected to arrive as early as tomorrow. As the BBC reported, today featured each defendant’s lawyer trying to shift any blame away from their clients.

There were some interesting comments from District Attorney Maria Tataki who said “I firmly believe that a tour operator like Thomas Cook should have conducted a more thorough check. It doesn’t suffice to say that you trust the owners of the hotel, that you trust the managers of the hotel. No. It’s not enough.“

Really? It’s not enough to expect a hotel to be safe? You can’t trust the manager of the hotel? A hotel needs an external check from a tour operator in order to be safe? What about hotels that don’t use tour operators?

Her comments appear to have been prompted by the revelation that when Carson asked the hotel manager if there was gas in any rooms he was told (and Thomas Cook say they have it in writing) that there wasn’t any. According to Tataki, Carson should not have taken the hotel manager at his word, but should have investigated further.

The fact that the hotelier apparently (knowingly or not) lied to Carson highlights the disdain that many hoteliers have for tour operator health and safety checks and their lack of cooperation. Despite this, as someone who was a rep for many years, if any hotel manager had told me there was no gas in the hotel I would have probably believed them.

Ms Tataki then said: “I can’t understand why the person who fills in a questionnaire, a person coming from a country with vast experience in issues of gas and many more victims because of gas problems, I can’t understand why they couldn’t have shown more personal attention to the facts, not only to what the manager of the hotel said. What was the meaning of the check after all?”

What has the nationality of Carson and Gibson got to do with anything? Just because more UK homes have gas boilers than Greek homes doesn’t make us all Corgi-registered technicians. If the Greeks find gas something totally alien to them they shouldn’t use it.

The trial highlights the problem facing the industry – just who is responsible for the safety of a hotel? The travel industry has changed radically over recent years and a tour operator’s liability is now looking increasingly anachronistic. When a hotel receives bookings from so many different sources, whether it be directly or via bed banks, why should clients of tour operators have different safety requirements? Surely health and safety should be universal and the same for all clients of the hotel?

If the verdict goes against Thomas Cook, would it really benefit the consumer? Very few people book with tour operators for health and safety reasons, so although tour operators would possibly beef up their health and safety even further, rogue hoteliers could see it as more justification for abdicating their own responsibility.