Normally we get it so wrong – if we’re not scoring disastrously badly in international surveys finding us the rudest, worst dressed, least respectful and worst tipping nation on earth, then the Foreign Office is giving us a ticking off: we get hospitalised in Spain, arrested in Cyprus and we’re constantly having motorbike accidents in Thailand. And enough already about how we can’t stop drinking. So I was rather pleased to read the latest survey which said thar British travellers were good at something. And that’s complaining.
According to the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) complaints by British tourists are up 15% on last year – and considering most surveys at the moment focus on things going down (the economy, the ice fields, etc) I find any upward trend quite cheering. But what’s really great is what we complain about: the loo paper isn’t folded properly, the sea is too noisy, “a passing (excited) elephant came to drink from the river and made me feel very inadequate”. My favourite is the woman at the Roxeburghe Hotel in Edinburgh who complained hotel staff had locked her in her room. Apparently she had taken the “do not disturb” sign on the back of her door rather too literally.
But Abta – and presumably the people it represents - are taking it on the chin: “We should complain more,” a spokesperson told The Times. “If you don’t complain, the tour operator doesn’t get the chance to put things right.” Hear hear.
When I was a child just being on a plane was excitement enough. Nowadays though, we aren’t satisfied playing with old sweet wrappers (I had quite an extensive collection): we expect personal TVs with a choice of programmes and videos, eye masks, dinky menus bulging with on-board gourmet delights …. Anything, in short, to distract from the fact we still haven’t arrived, and we’re still stuck in economy. Because if you travel business or first, of course… you can expect anything from your own private cabin to Givenchy-designed pyjamas, a shower and a double bed. Heady days, fellow travellers, heady days indeed.
But all good things must end, and with the announcement US airline JetBlue is to charge for the use of the humble pillow and blanket (one of the scant comforts of economy travel – and at £3.50 a pop) – you can see the writing on the wall from 36,000 feet. Expect to pay for food too (see Ryanair, Easyjet and United), inflight entertainment (Ryanair) and luggage (Ryanair, Easyjet).
Obviously these cuts are in response to rising fuel costs, but they also open the way for a whole new area of commerce: ie, if everything is suddenly an extra you have to pay for, what extra creature comforts would you like to see on sale? Think how you could use the time – a bit of yoga, a language lesson, pedicure, maybe even career advice? The opportunities are endless. And anything’s got to be better than Ryanair’s latest money spinner - inflight mobile phone use.
What would you pay for during your flight? Take part in my survey below:
Q: American airline JetBlue Airways has begun charging passengers for the use of a pillow and blanket, Ryanair is planning to let people use their mobile phones on the plane for a fee, United Airlines, Ryanair and Easyjet all make you pay for food, and most airlines now charge for alcoholic drinks and internet use.
Which of the following would you be prepared to pay for?
David went for a dishwater-grey polo shirt, Gordon a country-gent blazer… both were prefect examples of how, when it comes to wardrobe, the British male still doesn’t quite know what to do about summer holidays. This was the best our political leaders could do even with the aid of a stylist; The Telegraph might label Cameron’s look Baywatch, but both he and the PM looked like my versions of my dad decked out from head to toe in Marks and Spencers.
Both men looked equally awkward posing for their public holiday snaps (although at least the Browns didn’t try to recreate something out of The Thornbirds) too - but even more disheartening was the media fuss surrounding their choice of holidays. The Prime Minister is staying care of Dave Hogan, a celebrity photographer, at Shadingfield Hall in Southwold in Suffolk (£4,500 a week during peak season) and David Cameron has, naturally enough, gone for the posh option with Cornwall (as every aspirant debutant knows, spending a summer in Padstow is like bobbing for apples when it comes to bagging an Etonian).
If you’ve ever visited Suffolk or Cornwall you’ll know that both are incredibly beautiful. So why does the media seem intent on suggesting that holidaying in the UK is some kind of hardship? If that’s our politicians’ idea of sacrifice we’re in worse trouble than I thought.
People love Dubai. From Naomi Watts to Demi Moore, stars flock to the city - Brad Pitt thinks it’s so great he’s even working on another hotel there. And what’s not to love? There’s sunshine, luxury, glamour … not to mention ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum building the tallest building in the world (though we’re not allowed to know exactly how high in case somebody Trumps it).
So what’s wrong with me that I thought Dubai was a soulless building site? The uneasy social mix made me deeply… uneasy… and the golf courses, indoor ski-slopes (kept at -4C when it’s a molton 48C outside - see the video below) and endless island building, seemed nothing but cynical tourist traps. And a testament to the grand scale of our ecological folly.
Obviously this is something Sheikh Mohammed thinks too, because his latest plan is to transform Dubai into an eco-destination, cutting carbon emissions in the hospitality sector by 20% by 2011. And when you think just how much energy must go into Dubai tourism – with its vast race courses, lush golf courses and all-round biggest-tallest-costliest formula – 20% will be a big saving. But there’s still a staggering amount being burned up. If Dubai ever hopes to pass itself off as an eco-destination, it needs to do its green-washing at a significantly lower temperature.
If you are British, then probably you’ll want to visit the Grand Canyon before you die. That’s the conclusion of a Warner Home Video survey done on the back of the Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman film The Bucket List, the (rather mawkish) story of two terminally ill men who make a list of what to do before they ‘kick the bucket’.
I think there’s a correlation between the number one spot and the people taking part in the survey – think how often you see the Grand Canyon in movies – but even so it’s a fun list to make, so I asked the good people of Essential Travel what their bucket list would be. The top five were:
1/ Go into space/to the moon
2/ Visit Petra in Jordan
3/ Walk (some of) the Great Wall of China
4/ Visit India’s great monument to love, the Taj Mahal (“We all need a little love …and a nice chicken Madras”)
5/ See the “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Rio de Janeiro (preferably around Carnival time)
So far, so good. But more interesting was that, once they had mentioned a few admirable ambitions (climb Mont Blanc, become a black belt in anything, etc.) the naughty stuff came out. High on the Essential Travel Bucket List were:
Get fired out of a cannon
Spend a night in the Playboy mansion
Escape from Alcatraz
Blow it all in Las Vegas
And those were just the things they didn’t mind telling me. So is a visit to the Grand Canyon the one thing that most British people really want to do before they die? I don’t think so.
In the many interviews I’ve read with Sarah Jessica Parker (I just can’t help it – they’re everywhere), she is usually quoted as saying there were five stars in Sex and the City : Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte – and the fashion. But she left one out: the city of New York.
From City Hall to Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge, there would really be no sex if it weren’t for the city. No surprise then, that Sex and the City (the film) is believed to have given New York (the city) the kind of advertising that money just can’t buy – and we, the tourists, are flocking. It can only be a matter of time before New York appoints an official Sex-and-the-City “person” much like New Zealand’s Minister for Lord of the Rings.
The city does look pretty good in the film – lets face it, New York looks good in everything – but this is hardly the first time it’s featured. So what’s different? Is there something about a shared shoe-obsession that makes us want to run to Madison Avenue? Or is it that the only logical response to all this emoting is a bracing walk in Central Park?
I think it’s more to do with bonding – a travelling extension of Sex and the City’s focus on friends as the new family. We’ve had the “Baby-moon” (like a honeymoon, but before the baby comes) and the “Man-vacation” (male bonding type stuff), and now it’s the girls’ turn - the “girliday” (yep, I made that up). In the film they went to Mexico…but that was only because they already live in New York.
There were many things I loved about living abroad – like feeling glamorous when I came back to the UK – but one of the unexpected highlights of living in Asia was actually ‘Engrish’: bad or randomly used English. Because, lets face it, when you’re surrounded by signs you can’t read, in a language you can’t speak, finding comedy English makes you feel just that little bit less inadequate. And some of the signs were very funny. My favourite was an “uncomplimentary” towel I found in a hotel in Beijing. I half hoped it would say things like “My! You’ve put on weight,” or, “Uh-oh! Cellulite!” (not that either would have been true, of course), whereas what it actually meant was I had to pay to use it.
Japanese friends used to point out that westerners – mainly footballers – choose to cover themselves in equally nonsensical Chinese character tattoos, but did that spoil my fun? No. But the Beijing Olympics may do. Having schooled Olympic hostesses in the right kind of smile, given locals lessons in how to cheer and done all sorts of scientific hocus-pocus to control the rain, the government has now moved onto tightening up ‘colourful’ translations of food in restaurants. No longer will you choose between ”husband and wife’s lung slice” and ”bean curd made by a pock-marked woman” - now it’s beef and ox tripe in chilli sauce or mapo tofu. The only problem is I don’t really know what those mean either. And they’re not very funny.
It was the cheapest flight I could find. But as I waited in the check-in line (I would say queue, but I was in New York) for over an hour (from 6.30am!) yesterday morning, the glee of having saved £40 was beginning to wear just a little thin. To have dodged the dodgy line– and the next seven hours craning for a glimpse of the rubbish communal telly – I would happily have paid double.
I want to blame the airline (it was Delta, by the way), but really I could only blame myself – over the years I’ve wasted a fortune trying to strike a bargain. I’ve taken flights so early, the only sure way of getting to the airport was a very expensive taxi. I’ve chosen ridiculous routes (London to Tokyo via Bombay-Delhi-Bombay-Hong Kong, anyone?). I’ve booked myself into hotels with soiled sheets, next-door - or actually home to – crack dens and brothels. I’ve bought $8 shoes (a bargain!) for my cousin’s wedding, only to spend the entire ceremony in agony. And that was before the heel fell off. I’ve travelled India, growing out a ludicrous ten-rupee hair cut. I’ve slept under (yes, rather than with) the stars at Glastonbury, after my jumble-sale bought tent ripped down the seams, when we tried to squeeze in just one more camper. And what did I do to cheer myself up after each ill-thought out adventure? I threw money at the situation.
At the moment, you can hardly move for handy tips on how to save during these uncertain financial times. But learn from my mistakes, dear reader - credit crunch or no credit crunch, sometimes taking the cheapest option is simply not worth the money.
There are so many reasons to go to New Zealand – the beautiful unspoilt countryside, their internationally acclaimed wineries, a misguided obsession with Lord of the Rings… and now there’s one more: shark diving in the Foveaux Strait.
For around $500 (£190), you too will be able to cage dive near Stewart Island – a popular haunt for seals … and things which like to eat seals, namely Great White sharks. Shark diving has already proven a huge thrill-seeking draw in Australia and South Africa, so why not here too?
Well one possible reason, is the community of locals who making their living diving in the waters around Stewart Island looking for paua - a species of edible sea snail. A spokesperson for the Paua Industry Council has pointed out the fish oil tourists boats use to attract sharks, will almost certainly lead to sharks associating boats – and divers – with food. And paua divers, of course, don’t have cages. The director of Auckland University’s Leigh Marine Laboratory is behind the Paua Industry Council, but the dive attraction is going ahead anyway.
Now there are plenty of examples of how the drive to snag the tourist dollar is put before ethical, eco or any other kind of concern you care to mention. But looking at this youtube video makes you think perhaps there’ll be karmic retribution for riding roughshod over local sensibilities …
The credit crunch is getting crunchier, the high euro has put Europe out of bounds and carbon-guilt about getting to America has taken the shine off those cut-price dollars, so now seems the perfect time for… Hilton’s new “pet friendly” hotels.
From this summer on, visitors to the Hilton chain will be able to take advantage of stain- and water-resistant pet beds, special treats and pet concierge services. Thanks to the Hilton group, owners and their pets no longer need suffer the expense and indignity of kennels (which I imagine are pretty undignified, actually).
But it seems to me there are two things wrong here: firstly the increasing trend of treating animals like they are humans - or worse, dolls (I realized it was time to stop living in Japan when I saw a dog without any clothes on - and found myself worrying if it might be cold) - and secondly, that it seems so out of tune with what’s going on in the world. It’s almost as if the Hilton group were actually run by Paris Hilton - you can just imagine her sitting pool-side in Beverley Hills mulling it over with Nicole Ritchie: What do those little people out there really want Nicole? OMG! Somewhere for their Chihuahua!
And it was so close to being a totally awesome idea – except we all know that there is no better pet hotel than a Gucci handbag.
