Derek Jones

I imagine organising royal honeymoons used to be quite straightforward.    A quick chat with Ma’am and the Royal Yacht would be given a swift polish and sent to a reasonably nice location to wait for the happy couple; Charles and Diana joined the yacht in Gibraltar and cruised the Med for a week before flying back to Scotland and Balmoral; Andrew and Sarah headed for the Azores and then sailed the Atlantic for five days. What now though for Wills and Kate?   Grandma’am has long since sold off the family ferry to pay off the tax man, leaving the young couple with something of a dilemma.   I can imagine them walking arm in arm into their local travel agent (Thomas Cook in Windsor I guess) and running through their requirements with the consultant: Somewhere nice and hot, not too ostentatious, good beach, connecting rooms (for the butler), British pub nearby.   No need to worry about the flight, we have our own plane. Maybe Will has seen Jamie Redknapp kicking...

Many of you will be familiar with the social networking site WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?).   It provides potential travellers with the opportunity to find out more about their next destination from people who have already visited. All very nice, but the one feature on WAYN that I can’t get enough of is the plain map of the world which automatically colours in all the countries you’ve been to. It’s great; I spent ages inputting all of my travel history thinking I would put Michael Palin in the shade but when I looked back at the map it was nearly all still plain white.   The trip to see Mickey Mouse back in 1999 had thankfully shaded in the whole of North America for me, and Australia last year made a big mark, but the Kenyan safari had only filled in a tiny proportion of Africa, the rest of which, apart from Egypt and Morocco , remained stubbornly blank. Time to think about this tactically; three visits to Hong Kong had made no discernable mark on the map but ...

In between starting my career in travel in 1988 and the morning of Thursday 15 April 2010 there were nearly 6,000 working days during which the potential threat of volcanic ash in UK airspace was specifically not mentioned.   I’ve attended countless contingency planning meetings where all manner of possible incidents have been discussed and prepared for.   Earthquakes, hurricanes, flu pandemics, terrorist incidents – you name it, we had a plan for it.   But the volcanic ash cloud scenario somehow never made an appearance. Eyjafjallajokull was travel's worst nightmare; an unpredictable natural event capable of completely paralyzing the UK travel industry and causing continuing disruption for weeks if not months.   But we had no warning that such an event was possible and consequently no contingency plan in place to respond.   All of which is a bit of a worry really. If we've been so badly caught out this time you have to wonder what other threats lu...

There are two very different reasons why I admire TIPTO.   Reason one: it's a great organisation bringing together the very best specialist tour operators and suppliers, and presenting their products to the independent agent community.   Reason two: it's right up there with the best acronyms in the travel industry.   TIPTO!   It's hard to imagine that name being conceived in a meeting room.   If you ask me, there was almost certainly alcohol involved and though I can't be sure, I suspect there were more women than men in the office (or pub) on that particular day.   The name TIPTO is just so light and dainty.   If it had been left to blokes it would have been called BIGTO or TONAIL or something. Fair play to TIPTO though; this is crowded market for acronyms so standing out is no easy feat. The travel business is in love with abbreviations; from the short ones like BA, to the big ones like CIMTIG; unpronounceable ones like PSARA, (which incident...

A new word has entered the English language; the ‘staycation’ is now officially recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary.   What nonsense! For those of you who might have missed it, according to Wikipedia a ‘staycation’ is ‘a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes or takes day trips from their home to local attractions’.   In other words, it’s what you do in your week off when you can’t afford a holiday. In the same way that brunch is both breakfast and lunch, a ‘staycation’ is supposed to be both a stay (at home) and a vacation.   I have a few issues with this not least the fact that nobody this side of the Atlantic ever goes on a vacation anyway.   Everybody knows that the correct local term is holiday, so in fact the proper word for a holiday at home should be a ‘homoliday’ – a home holiday.   Say it out loud, ‘Homoliday’.   This is a much more satisfying word. Now that we have a better word for it, ...

Mary Portas ‘Queen of Shops’ does not come across to the casual observer as someone who is often stuck for words, but after a barnstorming presentation in Madrid at last week’s Advantage Conference she was brought to a standstill by the very first question from the audience. For seasoned travel conference attendees the question was as familiar as the houses they live in: ‘How can travel agents stop customers from taking their advice then just walking away and booking on the internet?’    Good old Mary stood stock still in the scariest pair of open-toed wedge platform shoes I’ve ever seen and in a single word gave the most honest – and shortest - answer I’ve ever heard on a conference stage - ‘Dunno!’   To be fair to Mary I imagine she thought she was going to be asked how we should transform the travel agent experience, but she had over-estimated her audience.   Such questions are for other high street retailers – in travel it seems it’s just about the price....

How many brands are you really loyal to?   When the time comes to replace your car is it automatically another Ford, another BMW or another VW you choose?   When you head off for your weekly shop is it a regular visit to the same Tesco, or ASDA or Waitrose? And when it’s time to book your holiday is it Thomson, Thomas Cook or your local independent you turn to for advice and help? Loyalty is funny concept.   In my experience there are precious few things that people are categorically and consistently loyal to; sports teams, political parties, religions, family and country.   After that it seems to me it’s mostly all about convenience, habit and laziness.   I’m exceptionally loyal to the post office shop in my village for the sole reason that it’s a two minute walk from my front door.   When I do a big shop I know that ASDA is a little bit nearer than Tesco and probably cheaper, but I’m just in the habit of shopping at Tesco - it’s familiar and I know w...