Lost luggage – is a solution in the bag?

High-tech tracking devices attached to suitcases could solve the problem of lost luggage.
British Airways aims to scrap the familiar black and white paper tags – often read inaccurately by computers – in favour of tiny radio transmitters which could be tracked anywhere in the world.

“One of the challenges in this industry is bags,” said Rod Eddington, BA’s out-going chief executive and chairman of a strategy committee set up to develop the technology.

“When a bag goes missing, how do you make sure that it is reunited with its owner as soon as possible? The latest technology is a little chip which can be identified far more reliably that the barcodes we’ve used traditionally,” he said.

The transmitters might also be useful in combating terrorism, helping staff to check the origin of suspicious items.

Each lost bag costs airlines approximately £55. In the first three months of 2005, 1.08 million cases went missing across Europe – equivalent to 14 per 1,000 passengers.

British Airways lost 18 per 1,000, ranking 22nd out of 25 among the Association of European Airlines – which could be why they are keen to fix the problem.

Ryanair lost just one case per thousand, but rivals point out that it doesn’t offer connections – often when bags are lost – and its passengers carry less luggage.

Trials of baggage chips are underway on flights between the Netherlands and France, and the US Transportation Security Authority is working on a feasibility study with United Airlines.

First Luggage has launched a budget service delivering suitcases to European destinations from £59. www.flymycase.com

Brits buy in the sun

The number of Britons owning homes abroad soared by 20 per cent to 257,000 in the year 2003-4, according to the Office for National Statistics(ONS).

Spain is the most popular location for buyers, followed by France and the United States. The total value of foreign property owned by UK families is now £23 billion, double the figure recorded in 2000.

The ONS figures, however, could be a significantunderestimate. While they put British ownership of second homes in Spain at 62,000 (followed by France at 47,000), the Spanish Agency of Holiday Homes says it is at least 450,000, adding that the discrepancy could be result of the fact that in the UK there is no legal requirement to report foreign propertypurchases.

Monarch keeps it in the family

Passengers on Monarch Scheduled’s maiden flight from Birmingham International airport were welcomed on board by the carrier’s first mother-and-daughter cabin crew.

Rosemary Lovsey-Barton, 51, and her daughter Jessica, 19, both from Sutton Coldfield, joined the airline during the winter.

Monarch flies from Birmingham to Malaga, Tenerife, Alicante and Faro.

Morocco plans big villa drive to lure tourists to Med beaches

Whether Morocco’s new holiday villas will resemble this masterpiece of Arabic design remains to be seen. It’s one of more than 200 photographs celebrating the Villas and Courtyard Houses of Morocco. Writer Corinne Verner and photographers Cecile Treal and Jean-Michel Ruiz have gone behind the austere façades of palaces and grand houses to reveal the colours and craftwork within. Thames & Hudson, £24.95.

Thousands of villas and apartments are to be built in Morocco to tempt holidaymakers to its Mediterranean beaches.

One of the first developments will be the Saidia resort, north of Oujda. It will have more than 3,000 villas and apartments, three golf courses and a marina – and should be completed in 2008.

Morocco’s National Tourism director in the UK and Ireland, Ali El Kasmi, says care is being taken to minimise the ecological impact of the resorts – golf courses will take treated water from the sea instead of using local supplies, for example. “We see this as complementing our traditional product. The resorts are being kept in the Moroccan way and Moroccan character,” he said.

Officials hope to double tourist numbers to ten million over the next five years, which worries Justin Francis, managing director of Responsible Travel: “If things go wrong, you can’t just flick back the switch,” he says.

Paris in the picture (pic)

Two new photo-books from teNeues celebrate the City of Light. The chic interior of a furniture store on Rue d’Assas (bottom right) is in Llorenc Bonet’s Cool Shops Paris (£9.95) – a visual guide which leads shopaholics around the city’s most stylish boutiques and stores. A giant poster (top right) hangs from a store-front in the chic Passy quarter, from Tina and Horst Herzig’s Paris (£25), one of 144 colour photographs capturing the magic of Europe’s most visited capital.