holidaydirectuk.com

The Holiday Direct Group who now boasts 331 members has acquired Holiday Mobiles for an undisclosed sum.

The group managing director Cary Lam says, the business fits in very well with the changes and future aspirations of our group. In the UK mobile users send 1.2 billion texts a week, and that doesn’t change when customers fly abroad.

The new service will allow holiday makers the opportunity to make and receive calls cheaper if not for free in over 144 countries and send texts for a fraction of the cost compared to using the their domestic contract mobile. We will be promoting the product which will include handsets from Nokia, Alcatel and Sagem to as many UK agents and tour operators as possible, who will benefit from an additional form of revenue in global communications, as well be able to communicate for free to their user base by texts and multimedia messaging.

Industry giant Amadeus has released the following poll which shows optimism about the short term affects on travel expenditure of the recent ‘credit crunch’. Travel agents expressing that the impact on their business is minimal:

Of the leisure agents polled by Amadeus:

·31% think that the credit crunch impacted on sales in March while 28.6% disagree
·Of the agents who have seen an impact, 30.4% said it was by between 10% and 19%
·However, 35.7%, the majority view, said they thought the outlook over the next three months was unchanged compared to the same period last year

Of the business agents polled:

·43.9% said the crunch had not affected March business
·Of the 19.5% of them who said sales had been hit, 31.3% said it was only by between 5% and 9%
·The majority, some 24.4%, foresaw no change in business in the next three months compared to last year

The CAA believes that many U.K companies are continuing to operate without adequate protection, despite its recent drive to deliver information to the travel industry about what constitutes a package holiday that must be ATOL protected:

“The letter we are sending today reminds other firms of the need to consider whether they are selling air packages and we are prepared to discuss their activities with them and give advice on ATOL requirements.”

“The guidance has now been in the public domain for almost four months and the CAA believes that the majority of travel businesses in the UK should have now considered whether the guidance on the definition of a package indicates they are selling air inclusive packages.”

“The CAA has always made it clear that it would first undertake a thorough education process, so that business had time to assess the guidance, but ultimately the CAA’s duty is to ensure that consumers receive the protection they are entitled to have by law, and consequently the CAA will take prosecution action if it considers that the ATOL Regulations are being breached.”