Travelwise - the ITAA Blog

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Eibhlin Byrne opened Holiday World this year which ran from Friday to Sunday last.  Despite the gloomy economic environment attendance at this year’s show was very good as people of all ages came to visit the range of global experts at the show.  ITAA members exhibiting at the show declared themselves very positive about the level of interest and enquiries received.

The Lord Mayor visited the stand of ITAA President, Jim Vaughan during her tour of the Show (pictured here with Jim, colleagues from Justsplit.com and Maureen Ledwith of Holiday World)

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The closure of Bangkok airport due to political turmoil in Thailand appears to have affected relatively few Irish travellers.   However, if you are currently in Thailand and want to let the Irish authorities know you are there, the easiest thing to do is to register on-line with the Department of Foreign Affairs here.

ITAA Travel Agents and Tour Operators are watching the situation closely to make sure that the inconvenience affecting facing both business and leisure travellers is minimised.

If you are looking for the ITAA today (Friday 21st) we are at our Annual Conference in the Athlone Sheraton Hotel.    Check out our website’s news section.

We have formally written to SIPTU this morning, asking them to spell out precisely what sort of strike action they are threatening at Aer Lingus from 24 November onwards.  We are receiving many enquiries from Agents and consumers wondering whether it is safe to book flights in two weeks time and after.  We are also being asked “what about Christmas”?  These are good questions.  SIPTU does not seem to realise that by threatening blanket disruption they are driving people away to other airlines and damaging the viability of Aer Lingus in the longer term.

Irish people are making more trips to the United States than last year, according to new figures released by the Dublin Airport Authority.

There were 1.4 million transatlantic trips between Ireland and North America during the first nine months of this year, a jump of 22 per cent on the same period last year, between January and September of 2007.

Read more of this article that was published in the Irish Independent on Sunday…

Meanwhile  the Sunday Business Post stated that New York is the most popular destination for Irish visitors, and NYC Tourism forecast that 300,000 Irish people would visit the city in 2008.

Direct flights between Dublin and Moscow are proving very popular.  Formerly known as Siberian Airlines -   S7 held a well attended reception last night in Brook’s Hotel, Dublin to celebrate the early success of its  programme between Dublin and  Moscow which began in May of this year.

Paruyr Vardanyan, Representative in Ireland & Elena Muzykantova, Sales Manager Europe were there to represent S7 and gave an interesting briefing on the airlines activities and highlighted the excellent connections S7 can offer to other destinations in Russia and the wider region.  (S7 is the largest internal carrier in Russia).

ITAA President Jim Vaughan and many members of the trade attended the event.

This week over 25 ITAA travel professionals had a ship visit of Silversea’s ‘Silver Wind’ when it docked in Cobh, Cork on Monday and Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin on Tuesday.  This six star cruise vessel has capacity for just 296 guests. During the visit, staff of member companies got a great sense of how clientele would be treated on the liner.  They also met the new regional sales manager of Silversea, Jon Schofield.

Siobhan McDonald, who delivers cruise training as part of the ITAA’s Travel Professionals Skillnet was also on board  for the visit.  Siobhan has recently also participated in ship visits of RCI ‘Independent of the Sea’, Fred Olsen’s ‘Balmoral’ and will be visiting MSC shortly.    For more information about the Cruise training we offer visit our website.

Political developments in Thailand are being widely reported in the media currently.  There are very few reports of problems for visitors.  For region by region information about the situation you could keep an eye on this UK site and if you have any concerns, do talk to your travel agent.  The Department of Foreign Affairs also have useful up to date information, and useful phone numbers for some of the airports.

We have been advised that the Tour Operator, Great Escapes (not an ITAA member), which ran  weekly charters from Knock to 4 sun destinations during the summer months, has closed its doors.   As the company was licensed and bonded, consumers will be assisted with repatriation and refunds by the CAR who are issuing briefings on the up-to-date situation.    ITAA members throughout the West have already set about making alternative arrangments for customers who had future bookings with the company.