Stars Come Out For VisitBritain Campaign (COMPETITORS)

VisitBritain is to employ the acting talents of a raft of British celebrities to promote the destination abroad.

Quintessential Brits Dame Judi Dench, Twiggy, Rupert Everett and Jamie Oliver will feature in the agency’s campaign – the first of its type in a decade. Shot in locations around the UK, the adverts will air on BBC World News in Europe and on BBC America. They will also be shown on bbc.com and as an app on the iPad.

By homing in on foreign markets, VisitBritain hopes to capitalise on the exposure afforded the UK by the Olympics and Paralympic Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and build on the interest created by the royal wedding. Chief executive of VisitBritain Sandie Dawe said: “With the eyes of the world on us, we have an unprecedented opportunity to showcase Britain and then to close the sale with great travel deals and offers from our partners. “Over four years, we aim to attract 4M extra overseas visitors, who will spend £2 billion across Britain.”

Rihanna Becomes Barbados Ambassador (COMPETITOR)

Rihanna has become an ambassador for her home country Barbados it has been revealed, to encourage tourism to the Island.

The singer has agreed to a three-year partnership with the Barbados Tourism Authority in a bid to encourage visitors to the popular Caribbean island. She is expected to appear in advertising campaigns, whilst also actively promoting the destination to her millions of fans. Rihanna is expected to begin her role as ambassador on August 5 with a concert in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Barbados' minister of tourism, Richard L. Sealy, said: "Rihanna is a great source of national pride to Barbados and we are thrilled to enter into this formal partnership to promote Barbados as a leading tourist destination."

Airbus ‘Invisible’ Concept Plane Revealed As Future of Commercial Flight (TRAVEL)

Invisible planes? Not quite Wonder Woman invisible plane, but Airbus released media galore of their future tech transparent plane concept for 2050 as reported by the Telegraph.co.uk.

On the newly launched Future Airbus Website, "A third of the people that took part in our global Passenger 2050 survey of 10,000 people said that they want the flight itself to feel like a holiday experience and to be able to access all the technological advances which fill their daily lives during the flight."

Who doesn't want a flight to feel like a holiday instead of the often cramped and uncomfortable haul usually associated with flying these days? At least if you're flying cattle class. Regardless lets hope Airbus paves the way with designs like these instead of Ryan Air and their "standing room only concepts," which thankfully haven't seen the light of day yet.

From a report on FOX, according to Airbus the plane won't have a bad seat (believe it when it happens) and will be divided up by first class, business, and economy, and "is divided by the individual needs of the passenger such as relaxing, playing games, and interacting with other passengers or people on the ground."

"Our research shows that passengers of 2050 will expect a seamless travel experience while also caring for the environment," said Charles Champion, Airbus Executive Vice President Engineering quoted in the Daily Telegraph. He continued, "The Airbus Concept Cabin is designed with that in mind, and shows that the journey can be as much a voyage of discovery as the destination."

Some of the future tech involved in the Airbus transparent plane concept are walls that change according to light conditions, holographic pop-up gaming displays and passenger's body heat powering in-flight entertainment.

Airbus is mum on the actual technology needed to make the transparent material, which the Daily Mail says is to be a plant-based skin.

Maybe some of the $5.7 billion airlines made on baggage fees could go into researching some technology actually geared towards the comfort of passengers, or invisible plane walls.

One can dream.

VIDEO

Super Fly – Innovation in the Air Travel Industry (TRAVEL)

Innovation is ready for take-off in the air travel industry

New methods of identifying the best flight deals aren’t the only changes taking place within the air travel industry. A fresh crop of services and airlines is making flying the friendly skies increasingly more agreeable, whether it’s by making private planes more accessible, offering new seasonal routes, or infusing air travel with good design.

Social Flights: In this era of pervasive environmentalism, using private planes may be even more un-P.C. than not recycling. Regardless, given the excruciating state of commercial air travel, some travelers still choose their sanity over the earth’s wellbeing. Social Flights is a collective buying startup and charter broker that facilitates private jet bookings at affordable prices. Members form shared interest groups, called Travel Tribes, through which they can request and reserve private charter flights. The per passenger cost for such flights reportedly runs as low as $150. However, the carbon offsets that some passengers will likely buy to assuage their guilt may add up.

Peach Aviation: It may not be as affordable as European budget airlines like EasyJet or Ryanair, but new airline Peach is poised to become Japan’s answer to JetBlue. The country’s first low-cost air carrier, Peach may prove to be one of the most stylish airlines in the world as well as its most gently priced. With branding designed by starchitect Neil Denari (of HL23 fame), the airline’s color scheme is defined by brightly hued shades of pink and purple. Similarly modern, the cabin crew’s uniforms evoke a casual aesthetic akin to that of Uniqlo—a look that should appeal to the Gen Y demo the airline is hoping to woo.

StndAIR: For many New Yorkers, the payoff for braving an East Coast winter is a summer calendar packed with beach getaways. However, five months of blizzards and downpours isn’t the only thing that Northeasterners must endure before they can lay their weary heads on a sun soaked beach. Weekend traffic can be just as brutal. Enter StndAIR, a service from The Standard Hotels, in partnership with Shoreline Aviation, which allows the waterfront-bound to bypass gridlock. Consisting of one Cessna 208 Caravan Amphibian aircraft that seats eight passengers, the “airline” is essentially a private seaplane that is open to the public for booking. The airfare isn’t cheap…but neither are the destinations.

Dorms Around the World Offering Cut-Rate Housing for Tourists (TRAVEL)

I feel very good about the recent chance discovery of a remarkable resource for finding university dorms around the world offering cut-rate housing for visitors: University Rooms.

This site (part of TravelBookingNetworks, much of which is devoted to various dorm-stay operations) acts as a broker for many colleges and universities looking to pad out their endowments by renting unused dorm space to passing tourists in the summer.

The savings are phenomenal: from a $32 single in London to a $78 double room by Lake Como in Italy to a $315 two-bedroom apartment in Barcelona that includes Wi-Fi and breakfast. Rates start as low as $30 to $50 for a single room, or $50 to $120 for a twin or double room (usually, the cheaper end is if you are willing to share a bathroom down the hall in true dormitory style).

Many include breakfast in the rates; some throw in dinner as well. A few have a two- or three-night minimum requirement, but most are available by the night -- though weekly stays can often result in even better rates, as little as $150 per person for a full week.

Now these are not fancy accommodations -- at least not for the most part. The vast majority are what you would expect from a dorm room: small, simple, with slightly tattered modular furnishings designed to withstand semester after semester of undergraduate abuse. However, some are located in historic castles, villas, or townhomes, and there are many that break the mold, offering flashy modern flats with full kitchens and other facilities.

This site offers one-stop booking for short-term dorm stays, mostly in Europe (the U.K., Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium), but also a few choices in the United States (Worcester, MA), and Canada (Calgary, Montreal, Toronto), with Australia and South Africa to be added soon.

Free Greeters Programs & Pay-What-You-Wish Tours (TRAVEL)

At last count, no fewer than 21 major cities have created "greeters programs" operated by persons who volunteer to lead visitors around the town they love. These are officially sponsored civic programs in which the tour guide receives nothing for his or her services (and would be offended if offered payment), although the visitor is supposed to pick up any costs of transportation or snacks consumed en route. The number of such cities has rapidly grown in the last two years and they presently amount to 21. In addition to the U.S. cities of New York, Chicago, Houston, and San Francisco, they include Toronto, Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia, Paris, Moscow, Belgrade, The Hague, Buenos Aires, Brussels, Marseilles, Brighton and Kent in England, and several others.

But travelers should know that several other, somewhat similar programs are offered by individual entrepreneurs in a slowly growing group of other cities. These, quite frankly, have only recently come to my attention, and it should be stressed that people taking such tours are expected to pay something for their tour -- an amount which they, the visitors, determine, and which usually should be about $10. In effect, you accept a free-of-charge tour, but tip the tour guide at the conclusion of the tour.

Examples? D.C. by Foot runs what it characterizes as "free, tip-based walking tours," two hours in length, of the nation's capital, on which participants are expected to slip about $10 to the guide. Tour Guys operate free-of-charge walking tours in both Toronto, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia -- they rely on tips for their remuneration and charge no fee for their basic tour in each city. And finally, RunnerBeanTours of Barcelona does the same, and provides an excellent tour by highly-motivated young graduate students of local universities; currenly they offer a "Free Gaudí Walking Tour" and a "Free Old City Walking Tour", and they are working on a free "Kids & Family Walking Tour" to be offered at some time in the future.

Ireland is the Least Expensive Euro Travel Destination Right Now (TRAVEL)

As we approach the high season for trans-Atlantic travel, it is becoming more and more apparent that Ireland is a top destination this year for European travel. Ireland suffered greatly from the financial crisis of 2008-09, the assets and earnings of the Irish people are badly down, and prices are therefore also down for lodgings, meals and sightseeing.

All that can best be seen in the prices charged by leading Irish tour operators for air-and-land packages to Ireland this summer. Though the very lowest warm-weather prices for Ireland are in June and September, and prices spike upward in July and August, even those peak season rates are less than travelers will be paying to go elsewhere in western Europe.

From June 1-15, and again from September 1-30, a payment of $829 (in June) to $839 (in September) for the Emerald Package of Sceptre Tours, that long-established company's most popular travel program, will buy you round-trip mid-week airfare on Aer Lingus between the U.S. and Dublin or Shannon, a night upon arrival in a four-star hotel in Dublin or Shannon, a car (stick shift) with unlimited mileage for a week, and five nights of accommodations with full Irish breakfast daily in your choice of farmhouse B&B's all throughout Ireland. You can extend the number of nights of your stay for only slightly more. Government fees and taxes add about $180 more.

That $829-to-$839 is considerably less than you would pay for airfare alone to London during similar dates. And even though the price goes up to $999 in the latter part of June, to $1,129 in most of July, and to $1,069 in the latter part of August, all those prices are again considerably less than you'd pay for trans-Atlantic airfare alone between the U.S. and England. Yet to Ireland, you receive not simply airfare but also accommodations with breakfast throughout and a car for the week.

It is possible that even these low costs may be further reduced as a result of a government announcement this week that Ireland will soon reduce the VAT tax on travel-related expenditures (hotels, restaurants, museums) from 13.5% down to 9%. It also announced that it will eliminate the air travel tax, thus reducing a great deal of the $180 in air taxes referred to above. These steps indicate the importance that travel has in the judgment of the present government of Ireland, and will surely do much to further reduce the cost of an Irish holiday.

If you haven't yet enjoyed the profound pleasure of a self-drive motoring vacation through Ireland, you might now consider doing so.