Travelblather

Antony Mayfield, one of my colleagues at iCrossing blogged recently about being in a tube (metro) station at Pimlico where they were renewing the billboards and (for a brief few hours in all probability) there were no ads screaming for his attention on the walls... just blank spaces.
I had exactly the same experience a few months back and like him found it oddly peaceful, calming. These days we are so overstimulated with glaring images from almost every conceivable surface.

This constant background barrage of stuff is actually very stressful... And whatsmore they've recently introduced LCD screens on the escalators there too so the images are moving... even more likely to catch your eye... It reminds me of something else I've noticed recently as advertisers clamour ever louder for my attention in an already overcrowded world... they turn the volume of TV ads up. So you're watching your favourite programme at normal volume and then the ad-break arrives and suddenly the TV notches up a few decibels. It drives me nuts.

I wonder if we might get to a stage when more is less sometime? That would be... nice. If I had the cash I'd buy up all those ad-hoardings in Pimilio tube station and put nothing on any of them... except one... something small, simple, straight forward. Bet it would work far better.
(Image: Antony Mayfield)

I guess it was bound to happen, but yesterday when I was looking at the Hayes and Jarvis website I noticed that they now carry Trip Advisor reviews for over 300 of their featured hotels.

According to H&J they are the first UK website to do this. From the description page of the hotel you click a link to get reviews and they pop up in a new box.

I called Trip Advisor's press office and was informed that quite a number of UK tour operators now carry Trip Advisor content.They mentioned First Choice and Thomson, but I couldn't find any examples. What I do know for sure is that hotel owners can now create an RSS feed on the Trip Advisor site that
automatically generates html code, allowing them to publish live TripAdvisor reviews of their hotel on their own sites. This for me is the ultimate example of user-generated content really coming of age. The reviews are completely unedited before they hit the third party websites so there will be bad comments as well as good on them. It takes a brave, confident hotelier or tour operator to offer such public feedback for their product, but it can only be a good thing. Here's one example I found the Barclay House B&B in Vancouver.

I do wonder though whether Trip Advisor charges the bigger operators like H&J for this service? Would be very interesting to know.

Like many holidaymaking Brits, we chose to avoid the Eurozone and head for Turkey for our summer holiday a month of so back. I visited Istanubul about five years ago and went crazy buying clothes. Everything was so CHEAP! Shoes for £10, T-shirts for a £1. I felt like a millionaire.

Wind the clock forward (and one currency revaluation too) and wow how things have changed. Eating and drinking in bars and restaurants in Istanbul was as pricey as London. In fact some places were more expensive. So a meal for two with a bottle of wine at a cheap restaurant - surrounded by locals cost around £20 a head.

If you've heard of the Big Mac index this will shock you most... (it's a way that some people use to compare the relative cost of living in different places around the world. The pricier a Big Mac the higher the cost of living.)

Dalaman airport - a Big Mac meal was 22 Turkish Lira - about £10. And a Big Mac was 9 Lira - that's about £4. Now anyone who travels a bit will know that - contrary to what airport owners and the retailers they charge outrageous rents to will tell you - shopping at airports is far from cheap. In fact it's usually overly expensive... but even at Heathrow you wouldn't pay £4 for a Big Mac! 

I had a great holiday in Turkey, but this was pretty much my last memory, just before I got on the plane home... somebody is screwing holiday makers sideways at that airport... and that's a shame.

I've had contact with three quality tour operators in the last few months. I had a press trip organised by Kirker holidays, I went on holiday with Exclusive Escapes and I gave a wedding gift through Trailfinders to help pay for some friends' honeymoon.

I've been really struck by how quickly my name and address have been added to mailing lists by all three companies - without any request for my consent to do so. Within days of contact with them a mailshot or brochure has landed on my doormat. I'm not a big fan of mailshots - and these days with everyone being a little more eco-conscious it seems a real waste of paper to mail stuff to people who don't want it. (Not to mention the cost of postage and packing.) I was particularly irked by Trailfinders. I hadn't even expressed interest in their products - I'd just paid some cash into a wedding fund that my friends getting married had set up through them.

I called Exclusive and Trailfinders and asked for an explanation of their mailing policies. It basically amounted to - if you contact us and give us your address we add you to our mailing list. The person I spoke to at Exclusive agreed with my point that it might be smarter to just ask people if they want to be added to mailing lists and said they'd discuss it at their next monthly marketing meeting.
With Trailfinders I was even more put out. I'd supplied my phone number too (as it was requested on their website 'in case there were problems with the transaction'). When the person I was speaking to asked for my name so he could take me off the mailing list I gave it and then was starting to give him my postcode too. "I have all that already," he explained. "Your phone number came up on my screen when you called and the system automatically picked up your address details for me." Smart system. But did I ever ask them to put my home phone number on their database? Clearly my phone number wasn't being 'just used in case there was a problem with my transaction'.

It's time companies like this - reputable ones at that - were a lot more overt about customer information and what happens to it. What they're doing isn't strictly speaking illegal, but it's really poor practice and it's wasteful. It ought to stop.