Holiday News - Archive 2004

Independent travellers pick Spain

Good news for the Spanish tourist industry — UK visitor numbers went up by 10% to 16 million last year.

The bad news for the package holiday sector is that more and more Brits travelled to Spain independently. Latest figures from the Spanish Tourist Office show that the numbers of UK package holidaymakers to Spain fell by almost 4% while the number of independent travellers increased by 30%.

The percentage of holidaymakers on package deals was down to just over half, while independent travellers represented 47% of arrivals.

The spurt in independent travel to Spain is attributed to the growth of no-frills airlines and increasing public confidence in self-booked travel. It's also thought more people were taking short breaks to Spain using budget airlines in addition to their main summer or winter holiday. Package or DIY, four of the top five destinations during the February half-term holiday were in Spain and the Canary Islands.

Parents prefer fines to high season travel costs

The new law under which parents could be fined for taking their children on holiday during term time might not be as effective as the government hopes.

Almost one fifth of parents would prefer to pay the £100 fine than pay extra to travel in high season, according to a Teletext survey.

Head teachers can now fine parents who take their children out of school without permission, but some 18% of respondents to the survey said they would not change their holiday arrangements. If these views were reflected across the country, parents in England would be fined £68 million in one year alone.

Pupils are allowed to take up to 10 days off school for holidays, as long as they have the school's permission, but the survey revealed that one fifth of parents are already ignoring the regulation.

Some 40% of respondents said it would be cheaper to pay the fine and travel off-season, rather than travel during peak times, while nearly three quarters said peak-period prices were too expensive. Significantly, 40% think a family holiday is "just as important as a week or two at school", while 43% believe that going on holiday "provides a more enriching experience than the classroom".

Live like a celeb in Caribbean villas

A holiday home once owned by Liz Taylor is one of the celeb villas being handled by Caribbean Dreams, which is expanding its portfolio of 800 properties at the luxury end of the market.

Cirrhosis-on-the-Sea (named after the Capri house owned by Errol Flynn and David Niven) is a four-bedroom beach-front villa in Mammee Bay, Jamaica. Celeb guests have included The Rolling Stones and singer Will Smith, but non-celebs can stay there too. Prices for parties of one to eight range from £315 to £472 a night. Oscar Hammerstein's Jamaican home — Highland House at Montego Bay — can also be rented.

Other celeb properties available through Caribbean Dreams are Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island, and Cove Springs House at Alleyne's Bay, Barbados. Sir Elton John, Sting and Rod Stewart have stayed at Cove Springs, the location of the BBC's The Bachelor reality show.

One of the island's most luxurious homes, the 10-bedroom Cove Springs has its own beach and cinema and costs from £20,780 a week.

Security service eyes up properties

A new security service being offered by a property management company lets owners keep an eye — literally &mdash on their holiday homes in Britain and Europe.

Using discreet cameras, sensors and computers, the Domus system sends an alert within ten seconds of a break-in or false alarm and transmits pictures of the property to the company's 24/7 monitoring centre and to the owner's PC. Monitoring staff can even speak to the intruders, telling them that they are being watched and that the police have been informed.

It sounds Big Brotherish but the service might interest holiday home owners with unoccupied properties in remote areas. Domus says its service — which also detects flooding and turns heating on and off by remote control — limits the amount of time burglars spend in the victim's house, pinpoints the precise time of the burglary and provides photographic evidence for the police.

As an extra security measure, UK technicians install the equipment in overseas properties — which prevents misuse of local knowledge.

Costs for equipment and installation start at £2,459.

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Shorts

Manchester moves 'em

Is there anything — terrorism, delays, cramped seats, rotten food, drunk passengers, excessively cheerful cabin staff — that can make British holidaymakers think twice about flying abroad? Seemingly not if business at Manchester airport is any guide.

It carried a record 20 million passengers in 11 months of the 2003-4 financial year — quite an achievementgiven that it took 33 years, from 1938 to 1971, for Manchester to pass the 20 million milestone.

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Travel Talk

"If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel."

Will Kommen

"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money."

Susan Heller

"The alternative to a vacation is to stay home and tip every third person you see."

Unknown

"Venice — the only place where you can get sea-sick crossing the street."

Unknown

"I have just been all around the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it."

Thomas Beecham

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