Travel Trends

Jetstar has revamped its northern Australia schedule, launching four Darwin-Manila-Tokyo flights a week, increasing weekly Darwin-Singapore services from seven to 10 and cancelling  its four times a week service connecting Darwin and Ho Chi Minh City. The changes apply from March 25.

HMAS Otway in Holbrook

Tourism started as highway trade in ancient times to service traveller's desire for food, fuel and rest.

So what happens when highways are improved and these towns bypassed?

There's a real life case study happening on the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne  right now. More …

Disturbing story out of the Maldives where the local government has just lifted a six day ban on the operation of spas after establishing they were not being used for prostitution – a claim made by the hardline Islamist opposition Adhaalath party which organised a "huge" anti-spa demonstration in the capital of Male. President Mohamed Nasheed reacted by banning spas, More …

As a former public relations flack, I love a bit of PR speak, the kind of language which only ever appears in a press release or statement. Here's a classic from Vanessa Regan of Tiger Airways. "Since resuming domestic services, customers have embraced Tiger's affordable airfares coupled with industry leading reliability." For the record, Tiger is increasing capacity out of Melbourne and Sydney from late March.

Australians are now more likely to travel long-haul than any other major tourism nation, according to research from the Canadian Tourism Commission. "With one out of every two Australians having taken a long-haul trip in the past three years or planning to do so in the next two years, Australia now leads the Global Tourism Watch markets in terms of propensity for long-haul travel." More …

You’ve got to love the endless optimism of the Gold Coast whatever you think of it as a holiday destination. All that sun, sand, surf, traffic and high-rise – suits some, alienates others. More …

Booking.com, TripAdvisor, TotalTravel, Agoda Australia and Check-in.com.au made the strongest gains in Australian web accommodation market share over the past year, according to Hitwise. Market leader Wotif.com  continued to grow share, though at a modest pace, as did leading holiday rental site Stayz, while HotelClub, Ninemsn Travel,  RatesToGo, Travelmate, Quickbeds and TakeABreak were among OTAs losing share. More …

Don't like the weather forecast? Then censor it. That's what Gold Coast Tourism boss Martin Winter would like to do. He's had a go in today's Courier Mail at the weather bureau for forecasting a wet summer, saying it's no good for tourism. More …

Travel conglomerate Thomas Cook, founded in 1841, is in crisis. The company yesterday wrote off £573m and announced plans to close up to 200 travel agencies.  The company, which has started divesting underperforming hotels, also intends selling aircraft and is investigating further cost cuts. The group sells more than 22 million holidays a year in the UK. See report in The Independent.

Expedia reports a major shift to US mobile bookings which is translating to a big increase in last minute transactions. "The booking window is changing," said Dhiren Fonseca, co-president of Expedia's Partner Services Group. "We've seen a 28% growth in sameday transactions. More …

Kantar Media estimates Expedia spent US$92m on search marketing in the United States with Google in the nine months to the end of September 2011 while fellow OTA Priceline outlaid US$67.5m over the same period. Huge money. Avis was the third travel company in the search top 20 with a US$41m spend. See AdAge report.

Many people, we’ll call them dreamers, get involved in the tourism industry because they think it’s about travel. They dream about moving up the coast and buying a motel or building some cabins – maybe even starting a Bed & Breakfast, bringing the doilies out of storage and meeting some new people. More …

HotelClub reports Thailand hotel bookings have rapidly recovered after slumping by 70% during the recent flood crisis. "Hotel volumes were not initially affected when flood waters first began," the company said. "However, once Bangkok became threatened in mid October there was a sharp decrease in hotel bookings as traveller confidence waned.   More …

Access is everything in tourism. It’s the first rule of the industry – good access can make a destination, bad access can kill it. Just look at the poor performance of Tasmania over the past couple of years, fewer flights equals less people. It’s a simple equation and the reason destinations chase airlines so hard. More …

Hamilton Island is the holiday destination most Australians searched for in 2011 followed by Hawaii, Byron Bay and the Blue Mountains, according  to Google. Then came Port Douglas,  Hayman Island, the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, New York and Las Vegas.

The joint bid by hotelier Accor and Singapore real estate giant Ascendas has been successful in securing Mirvac Group's $450m Australian hotel portfolio, according to a report in The Australian newspaper. It has beaten the only other remaining candidate, Eureka Funds Management. The report claimed Accor-Ascendas is now in exclusive due diligence with a deal expected by Christmas. Update: Transaction officially confirmed, see details.

Shares in online accommodation retailer Wotif.com have bounced after reaching a low of $3.32 last week. They are now trading at around $3.80 – an increase of 14% in a week. Update December 16: WTF now above $4.

One of Australia's biggest rebranding exercises got underway today with V Australia and Pacific Blue shedding their old names. They are now known as Virgin Australia, the brand under which the airline group's domestic arm has been operating for some time. The rebrand also includes a single, consolidated website. More …

Travel search engine Wego.com today announced it is now occupying the travel retail slot on one of Australian biggest web portals, Ninemsn. No financial details have been released. Apart from Online Travel Agents ailrines and hotels, Wego.com now also searches daily deals sites like Getaway Lounge and Living Social.