When Sue and Roger Humphris arrived in Beechworth a dozen years ago to run their first business together, it was just them, the kids and a sprawling 10 acre caravan park in the Victorian high country.

Leading Australian travel business Concierge Travel Group has been bought by UK based corporate & event travel company Reed & Mackay. The sale includes the following brands: Concierge Business Travel, Concierge Traveller, Alquemie, Elegant Resorts & Villas, Freighter Expeditions.

Queenstown, New Zealand’s leading international holiday destination, had the highest hotel room rates in Oceania through 2018, displacing perennial front-runner Sydney, which is still strong but adjusting to the competitive impact of numerous new properties.

Across the world there’s been crazy weather these past few weeks. But in the Swiss and French Alps it has been business as usual this winter. Snow, sunshine, alpine sport and spectacular scenery. I took these shots while travelling in Verbier and Chamonix, two of the world’s iconic mountain towns, in the second half of January. Get there of you can. And now, unfortunately, it’s back to work…

Hospitality has a multitude of moving parts but is, at its heart, a deceptively simple business, says Peter Bacon, GM of Bannisters Port Stephens.

“If you get the basics of hospitality right then everything flows from there.” More …

Lawyers are supposed to protect the reputations of their clients, not trash them. But it looks like someone forget to tell the highly-paid legal eagles representing Expedia in Australia, who’ve inadvertently done a hatchet job on the credibility of once-iconic Australian subsidiary Wotif.com. More …

Captain Cook Cruises has launched AHOY, Australia’s first ‘ferry hailing’  app.  The first on-demand route started yesterday and covers Elizabeth Bay to Garden Island and Circular Quay in Sydney for a cost of $7.50, much cheaper than a cab, Uber or water taxi. 

“Like popular ride sharing services, AHOY allows customers to locate their ferry, hail a ride and then track the ferries journey and time until it arrives, More …

Blanket claims by low cost carrier Jetstar  that “some fares were not refundable, and that consumers could only get a refund if they purchased a more expensive fare” may cost the airline $1.95 million. More …

Ovolo Hotels is spending $5 million on its (relatively) new Canberra property, Ovolo Nishi, building 17 new rooms and revitalising the Monster Bar + Kitchen.

The new wing, designed by by Luchetti Krelle, will be finished by mid-2019. The fast-growing company is based in Hong Kong and has six Ovolo properties in Australia with more to come. More …

Demographer Bernard Salt says the future is looking good for Australia’s holiday parks as the two most populous age groups – the Millennials and Baby Boomers – move into the sector’s sweet spot, albeit with very different intentions.

For the Millennials, it’s a family and mortgage thing.

“Millennials will be the fastest-rising demographic over the next 10 years,” says Salt. Nothing new in that but this time around they will be people in their 30s and 40s with kids. More …

Tourism Australia (TA) predicts almost 8000 new hotel rooms will open in Australia next year following a bullish 2018 during which 56 new properties offering 6000 rooms opened around the country. More …

It’s a huge day in the ever-evolving Hunter Valley with wine industry legend James Halliday opening the brand new tasting rooms and restaurant at Brokenwood, a winery he founded in the early 1970s with fellow Sydney solicitors Tony Albert and John Beeston.

Almost 50 years on, Halliday is the sole survivor of the original trio and, at 80, remains incredibly productive, unchallenged as Australia’s leading wine writer. More …

Trivago’s credibility has taken a  huge hit after the travel search giant admitted running misleading television advertisements and breaking two sections of Australian consumer law – actions that could be punished with fines of up to $10 million. More …

Things have changed – dramatically – at Jayride since the online travel marketplace for airport transfers raised $9.5 million and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in late January.

But you wouldn’t know it talking with co-founder and Managing Director Rod Bishop, who remains as steady, calm and phlegmatic as ever.

“I’m just one of the team,” he says. More …

One in three Australians is using voice search tools such as Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon) and Google Assistant when researching travel, according to the Travelport 2018 Global Digital Traveller Survey.  Of the respondents, 17% said voice had the greatest influence when travelling. More …

It’s been a long , wet winter but the sun may finally be shining on the grass roots of WA tourism.

Sarah Corbitt, GM at Summerstar Tourist Parks, Western Australia’s largest holiday park operator with 10 properties around the state, is looking forward to a bumper peak season. More …

It’s no wonder that customer loyalty is a primary goal of smart hospitality industry operators. Consider the evidence. Acquiring a new customer is five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one, according to the Harvard Business Review, while a study by Frederick Reichheld shows that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase business profits by 25%. More …

eNett was the star performer in the recent Travelport third quarter results, increasing third quarter revenue 58% to $US86 million. The Melbourne-based payments company, founded by Anthony Hynes and now majority owned by Travelport, was singled out for praise by Gordon Wilson, the company’s CEO and President.  More …

The Melbourne Cup is done, and won, and summer’s almost here. As temperatures rise, holiday park operators around Australia are working frantically to prepare for the holiday hordes who will descend over the Christmas break, six weeks when normal life ends and it’s time to work, work and work some more.  RMS Cloud has spoken with some of Australia’s leading holiday park operators to find out how the peak summer season is shaping up. Here’s what they had to say. More …

Most of Australia’s hotel markets are in good shape due to consistent underlying demand across the nation – except for Western Australia – resulting in an average occupancy rate of 76% and an increase in Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) of 2.9% for the year to June 30, according to the latest Accommodation Industry Monitor from STR. More …

SiteMinder has appointed Sankar Narayan as its first CEO. Narayan is currently Chief Operating Officer of cloud accounting company Xero and will join SiteMinder in January.  More …

NRMA has continued its aggressive acquisition spree, buying Fantasea Cruising as  part of the motoring  membership group’s strategy “to become Australia’s largest provider of transport and tourism services”.

Fantasea follows the NRMA’s purchase of Manly Fast Ferries last year and triples its Sydney Harbour fleet, adding 10 ferries and 10 water taxis. More …

Qantas revenue for  the first quarter for the FY18 has hit a record high of $4.41 billion, an increase of 6.3% over the same period last year, despite rising fuel costs. The airline’s CEO Alan Joyce attributed the result to increased passenger revenue (higher fares) and capacity discipline. This also reflected in the value of forward bookings, which is up 8%. Domestic was the revenue growth engine at +6.8% while international was up 4%. See Qantas results release.

Flight Centre shares have come back to earth, falling 10% yesterday due to revelations that its Australian leisure division has under-performed following a devastating ABC report on its staff culture and payment system. FLT shares are now trading around $46, 33% down on their August 20 high of $69.36. See SMH report.

More …

Just six weeks after Sydney pub baron Justin Hemmes was quoted as a potential buyer of Sydney Seaplanes, hotel mogul Dr Jerry Schwartz has swooped and invested in the business. More …

Cruise tourism contributed almost $5 billion to the Australian economy in the 17/18 financial year, according to a new combined report from  industry groups CLIA Australasia and the Australian Cruise Association. The report claimed 1236 “ship visits” led to 3.5 million passenger and crew visit days, raising $2.3 billion in direct economic output and $2.5 billion in indirect and induced output. More …

Queenstown’s landmark The Rees Hotel has been sold to Pioneer Capital and will be the cornerstone of a boutique accommodation group targeting high-end leisure visitors to the South Island of New Zealand. More …