p11 wtm nov14 12/11/08 20:55 Page 11
ttglive.com
wtm 2008 news
World Travel Market • November 10-13 • ExCeL, London
In brief
NEW PLAYER.
■ Egypt unfazed by crunch or XL’s collapse
Neither the economic crisis nor the absence of
Aldi moves into travel
XL Airways will dampen Egypt’s growth as a top
UK holiday destination, its tourist board claimed.
XL was one of the main carriers to Egypt until it
went bust in September. Amr El Ezabi, chairman
with On Holiday Group
of the Egyptian Tourist Authority, said capacity
had now been absorbed by other carriers.
Lee Hayhurst.
■ Croatia seeks a more upmarket image ALDI, the budget supermarket that has seen
Croatia’s Ministry of Tourism plans to transform sales grow by more than a quarter during the
the country into a high-quality destination. Its current downturn, is to break into travel.
government has partly financed the construction The retailer has teamed up with On Holiday
of 300 small hotels, while the number of four-star Group and Eurotours International to source The move is not the first time Aldi has ven-
hotels in the country has doubled in the past year. good-value hotel deals for an online venture that tured into travel. It is already number two in the
will be launched in January. Austrian market through its tie-up with Eurotours
■ Montenegro board to open London office A new website,
alditravel.co.uk, will feature and sells travel in Germany and Scandinavia.
Montenegro’s tourist board is increasing its 150 of the best deals. The best six will also be Steve Endacott, On Holiday Group chief
support for travel agents in the UK by opening featured in an in-store leaflet in its 440 stores executive, was at WTM this week negotiating
a London office next year and setting up an that will push people to book online. deals with hoteliers for the launch.
e-learning programme. Aldi said the venture will introduce its brand He said the reaction had been positive, adding
of targeted buying of product to the UK travel that the venture was bringing a new approach to
■ Four Seasons to give Grenada a boost in 2010 industry. Hoteliers are expected to use it product buying in the travel sector.
A Four Seasons hotel being built on Grenada tactically to fill slow periods. “We can create unique prices and unique
will be an important promotional tool for the Sarah Butler, Aldi buying group director, said: deals. Our expectation is hoteliers will be
island. William Joseph, tourism director at the “We are taking our buying concept to holidays. banging our door down saying we have a gap to
Grenada Board of Tourism, said: “It is important “We may only sell a lawn mower once a year, fill, please help me fill it,” he said.
for marketing purposes to have a recognisable but when we sell it we want it to be the best Aldi Travel will not be Atol-bonded but will use
brand on the island.” The property opens in 2010. product at the best price. It will be focused and Rock’s supplier failure insurance, which Endacott
everything we sell will be hand-selected by Aldi.” said offered a better guarantee than Atol.
■ Bruce Parry-inspired Amazonian tours
The eight member countries of the Amazon
Cooperation Treaty Organisation (Acto) hope to
VIDEO REVIEWS.
combine two or more countries in cross-border
itineraries. Acto co-ordinator Donald Sinclair said
Bruce Parry’s BBC Amazon programme portrayed
Hotelly mixes price with ratings
perfectly the way in which different countries
share the “lifeblood” of the Amazon river. A NEW holiday search erties to which Hotelly links.
Hotelly.com’s test site
website will enable holiday- Next year, user ratings of re-
■ Advantage tie-up with Online Travel Training makers to choose hotels and tailers will be added.
Advantage has signed up to a new white-label the agents and operators A trade focus group of
training system developed by Online Travel selling them, based on cus- advertisers, including Trav-
Training, which will power the consortium’s The tomer ratings for the qual- elzest, On Holiday Group,
Edge training programme from early next year. ity of service they receive. Hays Travel and The Co-op-
Hotelly.com is currently erative Travel, was due to
ttglive.com
For the latest news, reviews and comment in testing, but is due to meet yesterday.
from the travel industry, visit
ttglive.com
launch a dynamic packaging Hotelly will make money
feature created for it by On via “cost per action”, such
DESTINATIONS
Holiday Group in January. as when a user clicks on a
The site was set up by link or calls a call centre,
Over 200 countries Rategain and claims to be and banner advertising.
and regions were the first website offering searches based on price Vishal Jain, Rategain product head, said:
represented at and customer reviews at the same time. “People rely more and more on what others say,
WTM this year Users can narrow their search based on written whether it’s in written or video format, which is
reviews as well as 220,000 video ratings of prop- extremely powerful.”
14.11.2008 11
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64