Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2011
The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents World’s greenest airlines unveiled.
The world’s greenest airlines have been named at the ITB Berlin travel show, with European carrier Monarch topping the list.
The study of airline efficiency was conducted by Atmosfair, a carbon offsetting company, and looked into factors such as how efficient an airline’s fleet was and how full its planes normally fly.
Monarch, a charter and scheduled airline operating predominantly from the UK, was judged the world’s most efficient airline, with Atmosfair praising its efficient aircraft and high seating density.
German carrier Condor, owned by holiday giant Thomas Cook, won second place thanks to its high occupancy and Canadian Air Transat was ranked third, making it the most efficient long-haul carrier.
Some of the world’s better-known airlines fared less well, with Emirates in 30th place, Delta in 33rd, Air France in 37th, Lufthansa 52nd, British Airways in 61st, American Airlines in 63rd and Virgin Atlantic in 99th place.
Although the airline index covered 92 percent of global air traffic, it deliberately excluded budget carriers because of problems with comparing them on an equal footing, most obviously because low-cost carriers often receive subsidies and fly to airports further away from cities, causing additional emissions.
Atmosfair Airline Index 2011
1 Monarch Airlines
2 Condor Flugdienst
3 Air Transat A.T.Inc.
4 Air New Zealand Link
5 Kingfisher Airlines
6 EVA Airways
7 Air Europa
8 Srilankan Airlines
9 TAM Regional
10 Edelweiss Air
Source: AFPrelaxnews – See the full list at www.atmosfair.de
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Thursday, March 10, 2011
The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents New Airbus cabin targets Asian corporate jet market.
A new cabin concept called Phoenix, featuring a colour-scheme and layout designed to appeal to Asian tastes, is being offered to Airbus Corporate Jet customers.
The main cabin features seating for six people around a large circular-table – the focus of family life in many Asian cultures – which facilitates work-related discussions and dining.
Airbus Corporate Jets are able to offer this feature because they have the widest and tallest cabin of any business jet, existing or planned.
Playing games of skill and chance is also a passion in many Asian cultures – witness the popularity of Mah Jong in China – so Airbus has designed the circular table to fold into a rectangular shape when needed, which better suited to this activity.
The Phoenix cabin concept can also offer an area for Karaoke, another activity typical of business entertainment and relaxation in much of Asia.
As with all of its corporate jets, Airbus offers its customers a choice of colours and fabrics and, for the Chinese market, it is proposing a decor featuring burgundy red.
These elements, together with other aspects of detailed design, give the Phoenix cabin concept an ambiance that is already attracting interest in the Asian private jet market, which is one of the fastest-growing in the world today.
Airbus has a strong and growing presence in the Asia-Pacific corporate jet market, where it has won more than 25 sales to date, most of them in China.
Most corporate jet customers prefer to remain undisclosed, but those which can be named include Deer Jet of Beijing, BAA Jet Management of Hong Kong, China Sonangol, the Royal Thai Airforce, Skytraders of Australia and the UB Group of India.
Airbus encourages its customers to outfit their aircraft at one of eight specialist cabin-outfitters around the world, each of which has been audited for its capabilities. This network has recently been expanded to include TAECO of Xiamen.
Airbus has the largest corporate jet family in the world, with aircraft offering more space, comfort and freedom of movement than traditional business jets.
Its family comprises the A318 Elite, Airbus ACJ, A320 Prestige and, for customers that want even more comfort, capacity and capability in range, VIP widebodies such as the A330 and A340 Prestige, A350 Prestige and A380 Prestige.
Source: AFPrelaxnews
The main cabin features seating for six people around a large circular-table – the focus of family life in many Asian cultures – which facilitates work-related discussions and dining.
Airbus Corporate Jets are able to offer this feature because they have the widest and tallest cabin of any business jet, existing or planned.
Playing games of skill and chance is also a passion in many Asian cultures – witness the popularity of Mah Jong in China – so Airbus has designed the circular table to fold into a rectangular shape when needed, which better suited to this activity.
The Phoenix cabin concept can also offer an area for Karaoke, another activity typical of business entertainment and relaxation in much of Asia.
As with all of its corporate jets, Airbus offers its customers a choice of colours and fabrics and, for the Chinese market, it is proposing a decor featuring burgundy red.
These elements, together with other aspects of detailed design, give the Phoenix cabin concept an ambiance that is already attracting interest in the Asian private jet market, which is one of the fastest-growing in the world today.
Airbus has a strong and growing presence in the Asia-Pacific corporate jet market, where it has won more than 25 sales to date, most of them in China.
Most corporate jet customers prefer to remain undisclosed, but those which can be named include Deer Jet of Beijing, BAA Jet Management of Hong Kong, China Sonangol, the Royal Thai Airforce, Skytraders of Australia and the UB Group of India.
Airbus encourages its customers to outfit their aircraft at one of eight specialist cabin-outfitters around the world, each of which has been audited for its capabilities. This network has recently been expanded to include TAECO of Xiamen.
Airbus has the largest corporate jet family in the world, with aircraft offering more space, comfort and freedom of movement than traditional business jets.
Its family comprises the A318 Elite, Airbus ACJ, A320 Prestige and, for customers that want even more comfort, capacity and capability in range, VIP widebodies such as the A330 and A340 Prestige, A350 Prestige and A380 Prestige.
Source: AFPrelaxnews
Spain’s hotels are Europe’s most popular
Hotel Indigo coming to Phuket, Thailand, in 2014
Morgans Hotel Group Unveil the Mondrian SoHo
High-end hotelier Autograph lands in Europe
Supper Clubs a Comeback at Ritz Carlton, Palm Beach
The Lap of Luxury: The Arch London
High-end hotelier Autograph lands in Europe
Supper Clubs a Comeback at Ritz Carlton, Palm Beach
The Lap of Luxury: The Arch London
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The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents Spain’s hotels are Europe’s most popular.
Spain is still Europe’s most popular place to stay, according to figures released February 28 by the European Union.
In total, 268 million nights were spent in Spain’s hotels by travelers last year, a rise of 6.4 percent on 2009′s figures.
The second most popular place to lay your head was Italy with 245 million nights spent in 2010, although this was a slight fall on 2009′s figures.
Germany took third place, with 229 million nights, France fourth with 196 million and the United Kingdom fifth with 166 million.
These five countries combined accounted for a whopping 70 percent of the total hotel nights spent in the European Union’s 27 member nations last year (a total of 1.6 billion), although some countries showed considerable surges in popularity.
Estonia, for instance, saw a 16.9 percent rise in stays, Denmark was up 14.9 percent and the Netherlands rose 13.4 percent.
Eurostat’s figures include both domestic and foreign travelers on both leisure and business — strip out domestic travelers to give a true value of international interest and the most popular nations become Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and fifth place for Austria.
Europe’s hotel hotspots
countries ranked by total number of nights spent
countries ranked by total number of nights spent
1. Spain
2. Italy
3. Germany
4. France
5. United Kingdom
6. Austria
7. Greece
8. Portugal
9. Switzerland
10. The Netherlands
Sources: AFPrelaxnews – Eurostat
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The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents Hotel Indigo coming to Phuket, Thailand, in 2014.
International hotel chain InterContinental has chosen Phuket, Thailand to launch as the first resort destination for its Hotel Indigo chain.
Hotel Indigo, a ’boutique’ style brand which aims for individuality with its properties, operates 38 hotels around the world, with the majority in big cities.
The February 24 announcement of its entry into Phuket, one of Thailand’s most popular destinations for foreign tourists, is a clear sign that it believes it can appeal to all vacationers, not just those on a city break.
The Hotel Indigo Phuket Naithon Beach Resort is slated to open in 2014, offering 120 rooms and 15 villas and classic resort facilities such as an all-day restaurant and bar and swimming pool.
Naithon beach, situated in the eastern shore of Phuket, is known among backpackers as one of the quietest and most unspoiled beaches on the island and an excellent area for diving.
It has already caught the attention of hotel developers, with Accor planning a 2011 opening for the 260-room Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon Beach, which will offer multiple restaurants and bars as well as a spa and two pools.
Luxury hotel chain Banyan Tree announced earlier this month that it would also be opening a new Phuket property later this year, under its sister brand Angsana.
The Angsana Laguna Phuket will be created from the current Sheraton Grande, which is set to close in June, with the help of a $30 million refurbishment to transform it into a stylish resort aimed at young, affluent travelers.
When complete, it will offer 384 rooms, a spa, a retail gallery and new features such as a treehouse-inspired kids club and a new rice bar.
Guests will be able to book rooms from July 1, with the property expected to reopen December 1.
Source: AFPrelaxnews
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The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents Morgans Hotel Group Unveil the Mondrian SoHo.
Morgans selected Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, the visionary behind the re-imagined Mondrian Los Angeles, to create Mondrian SoHo in collaboration with the company’s renowned in-house design team.
Noriega-Ortiz’s design for the hotel draws inspiration from Jean Coucteau’s 1946 romantic French fantasy film “La Belle et la Bête.”
For reservations or more information, visit www.mondriansoho.com.
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The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents High-end hotelier Autograph lands in Europe.
Marriott‘s new Autograph brand is to appear in Europe for the first time within months, the firm said March 7.
Autograph, an upscale brand which brings together independent hotels and resorts under the Marriott name, will appear first in Spain, where the company plans to add four properties currently owned by AC Hotels into the exclusive group.
The hotels include the historic AC Santo Mauro and AC Palacio del Retiro buildings in Madrid, which have been converted from houses into five-star properties.
The 75-room AC Palacio de Santa Paula, a former convent in Granada, will also join the collection, as well as the AC Baqueira Hotel & Spa, a ski resort in the Pyrenees.
The debut of Marriott’s new brand in Spain opens a new front against the country’s homegrown hotel chains NH Hoteles and the Paradores group, a state-run enterprise which operates similar luxury properties in converted historic buildings — Marriott is already rebranding AC properties to become ‘AC by Marriott’.
The Autograph chain was created last year with a selection of seven properties and now consists of 14 properties, all in the US, although it expects to operate 40 by the end of this year, operating the same booking and hotel points system as other Marriott brands such as JW Marriott, Renaissance and Courtyard.
It is Marriott’s answer to Starwood‘s Luxury Collection, a string of top-end properties in 30 countries, originally founded in 1906 in Europe.
In January Starwood announced that the 300-room Liberty Hotel in Boston, a US National Historic Landmark built in 1851, as the 100th property under its Luxury Collection and St Regis premium brands.
Source: AFPrelaxnews
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Save and share High-end hotelier Autograph lands in Europe
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Monday, March 7, 2011
The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents The world’s best-dressed cabin crew.
Qatar Airways has topped a list of “best-dressed” airlines conducted by airfare comparison site Skyscanner.
The airline’s “retro-look” uniforms won the votes of 33 percent of respondents to Skyscanner poll, which was timed to coincide with London Fashion Week last week.
Air France‘s uniforms, designed by Christian Lacroix, came second place with 17 percent, while British Airways came in third with 15 percent.
Other entries in the top ten included Spanish carrier Iberia and Italian carrier Alitalia, along with Delta in the US and India’s Jet Airways.
Although cabin crew style doesn’t play the role in flying that it did 30 years ago, some airlines still invest big bucks in dressing their customer-facing staff.Whether crew are dressed to reflect local style such as Singapore Airlines’ iconic “Singapore Girls” or kitted out by top-end designers such Christian Dior and Nina Ricci, who have both designed for Air France, the outfits play an important role in public perceptions of a carrier.Airlines in Japan even sew computer chips and serial numbers into their uniforms to try to stop them being sold onto local fetish shops, where the outfits can sell for thousands of euros.The sartorial choices of the world’s airlines have even spawned a fan site from Netherlands-based flight attendant Cliff Muskiet — “Uniform Freak” displays 947 different stewardess uniforms from 386 airlines, complete with archives from previous uniforms.
Source: AFPrelaxnews
Top ten most stylish airlines ranked in order of most stylish
1. Qatar Airways
2. Air France
3. British Airways
4. Iberia
5. Alitalia
6. SAS
7. Delta
8. Aeroflot
9. Jet Airways
10. Lufthansa
Source: AFPrelaxnews
Top ten most stylish airlines ranked in order of most stylish
1. Qatar Airways
2. Air France
3. British Airways
4. Iberia
5. Alitalia
6. SAS
7. Delta
8. Aeroflot
9. Jet Airways
10. Lufthansa
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The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents Delta tops the world’s most admired airlines.
Delta Air Lines has been voted the world’s most admired airline by Fortune magazine, managing to push Singapore Airlines into second place.
The award means that Delta came out top in a string of assessments including social responsibility and quality of product, as well as business-related criteria such as quality of management and global competitiveness.
Delta has moved steadily up the ranks over the past four years to reach top spot, which was awarded to Singapore Airlines last year — the airline’s boss Richard Anderson described the award as a “remarkable achievement” in a note to staff.
Other airlines in the top ten included major international carriers such as Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, Cathay Pacific Airways, Qantas, British Airways and ANA.
Despite the award, a quick look at the figures show some improvements to be made for Delta.
Although the company topped its peers for social responsibility, quality of management and global competitiveness, it was lower placed in other areas, most notably quality of products/services where it scored a relatively low ranking in 7th.
That criteria was led by (you guessed it) Singapore Airlines, with Air France/KLM in second place, Cathay Pacific in third and Lufthansa fourth.
The world’s most admired airlines:
1 Delta Air Lines
2 Singapore Airlines
3 Southwest Airlines
4 Lufthansa Group
5 Air France-KLM Group
6 Cathay Pacific Airways
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Sunday, April 18, 2010
A visit to the IOM TT races through the eyes of an overseas enthusiast.....
0 comments Posted by car 2011 at 5:50 PMThe TT races were always high on my agenda to visit as I avidly read "The MotorCycle" and "MotorCycling" when they arrived into the shelves every week ( well as they came by ship in those days, sometimes there was none for a while then three or four arrived together) at Omodie's Motorcycle Accessories in Sydney from early in the 1960's....
A dream that was to eventuate with my overland ride to Europe in early 1974.
http://velobanjogent.blogspot.com/search/label/Travel
Two weeks in the IOM for the TT in both 1974 and 1975 went a long way to satiate my thirst........
I took colour slides and spent some time recently scanning them into digital images and realised the differences with film camera then and digital cameras today... The quality of my photos gives me some angst, but then I did take photos and want to share some with you over several blogs.....we'll journey from London to Liverpool and board the ferry with the motorcycles craned aboard as they had been done for nearly 70 years previously....
Some touristy bits and a few racing and associated items....
Come back in time with me to those days.....
Left click on the images to enlarge them...
Above....Pumping out petrol from motorcycles about to be loaded onto the IOM ferries at Liverpool, a practice that had continued for around 70 years by the AA/RAC...just leaving enough for you to ride to a petrol station in Douglas....
Below...shots taken on the ferry, the IOM Steam Packet companies "Snaefell".
At the pier in Douglas, IOM Steam Packet ferries unload...
On the promenade at Douglas in the evening....
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Reading travel stories and in particular articles in older motorcycle magazines of the overland trip from or to Europe whetted my interest and as I finally approached completion of my long running part time tertiary education course, plans were made with my close friend Jim Day to ride to Europe. I did the paperwork and together we built large luggage panniers for our bikes and I imported a 32 litre petrol tank from Germany for my 1971 BMW 500cc R50/5 motorcycle.
At the end of January we took the motorcycles to QANTAS and arranged to airfreight them to Singapore ( it was then, the cheapest method).
Judy and I together with Jim and Val, flew to Singapore a day or so later and collected the bikes, took in some sightseeing then set off across the land bridge for Malaysia to ride up to the island of Penang where transhipment to India occurred.
Many people are unaware that you cannot travel across Burma by motor vehicle The borders closed during WW2 and this remains the case even today. My BMW being craned aboard the MV "Chidambaram" at Penang.
M
ost overland trips start from Europe and doing it that way, you are introduced to the poverty, begging etc gradually. Doing it in reverse as we did meant you we introduced to the daily life of Asia suddenly and it can be a shock. Prior to this trip we had only toured NZ by Velocette in 1968...that may make an interesting story..? The sea trip was 4 days across the Bay of Bengal to the port of Madras in S.India. Customs when we arrived was a new experiance...in hindsight "greasing palms" with money was what was required to expedite matters, but we were green and did it the hard way. Two days later saw us travelling south to the very tip of India at Cape Comeran, where several oceans meet and where the sun rises from 
the sea to the east and sets into the sea to the west...Originally plans were to tranship to Ceylon/Sri Lanka and tour there, but storms had washed away the facilities for loading on the indian side for an indeterminate time, so we re headed north. 
1974 was the first of the major oil shortages world wide and India was hard hit. Often petrol stations had no fuel for weeks. Both bikes had large fuel tanks fitted and the range on my BMW, travelling at 80kph was around around 800km a tankfull so we largely avoided this problem.Judy at a petrol stop, surrounded by the enevitable crowd when we stopped. The south of India, especially Kerala State was different to the area of Madras, largely Roman Catholic to the more common Hindu it featured many waterways with small villages. 
Travelling north we ended in New Delhi, were we had to wait for several weeks as an Islamic conference in Pakistan meant the borders were closed. We met up with an NZ couple in a Kombi van and so left the BMW in the campground and travelled to Agra, Jaipur and back doing a tourist bit.
Above shows a time we became "lost" due to indifferent directions.
ost overland trips start from Europe and doing it that way, you are introduced to the poverty, begging etc gradually. Doing it in reverse as we did meant you we introduced to the daily life of Asia suddenly and it can be a shock. Prior to this trip we had only toured NZ by Velocette in 1968...that may make an interesting story..? The sea trip was 4 days across the Bay of Bengal to the port of Madras in S.India. Customs when we arrived was a new experiance...in hindsight "greasing palms" with money was what was required to expedite matters, but we were green and did it the hard way. Two days later saw us travelling south to the very tip of India at Cape Comeran, where several oceans meet and where the sun rises from 
the sea to the east and sets into the sea to the west...Originally plans were to tranship to Ceylon/Sri Lanka and tour there, but storms had washed away the facilities for loading on the indian side for an indeterminate time, so we re headed north. 
1974 was the first of the major oil shortages world wide and India was hard hit. Often petrol stations had no fuel for weeks. Both bikes had large fuel tanks fitted and the range on my BMW, travelling at 80kph was around around 800km a tankfull so we largely avoided this problem.Judy at a petrol stop, surrounded by the enevitable crowd when we stopped. The south of India, especially Kerala State was different to the area of Madras, largely Roman Catholic to the more common Hindu it featured many waterways with small villages. 
Travelling north we ended in New Delhi, were we had to wait for several weeks as an Islamic conference in Pakistan meant the borders were closed. We met up with an NZ couple in a Kombi van and so left the BMW in the campground and travelled to Agra, Jaipur and back doing a tourist bit.
Above shows a time we became "lost" due to indifferent directions.
Judy in the Red fort at Agra with the Taj Mahal in the background.
Travelling through Pakistan, we came to the Khyber pass, the infamous passage from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which is closed during the night...naturally the hill tribespeople ignore this. There is a charge to enter the pass and traverse it... 
The Khyber gorge. Arriving in Kabul we spent a week there and travelled by mini bus with some other overlanders to the most northern city in Afghanistan, Mazar-i-Sharif, near the Russian border to view a special National celebration day.
This involved travelling over the Salanger Pass, some 12,000' high.Judy in Kabul with the usually armed locals....
This involved travelling over the Salanger Pass, some 12,000' high.Judy in Kabul with the usually armed locals....
The Hindu Kush mountains on route to Mazar-i-Sharif.
Mazar-iSharif at dusk
Mazar-iSharif at dusk
Mazar-i-Sharif was an experiance. It was claimed over a million people were there. Rooms for the night proved impossible to get. We finally slept on the flat roof of a hotel under the stars for several nights. The pic is taken from our "bedroom".The trip across Afgahnistan to the Iranian border proved uneventful, although negotiating the borders was a different matter. You needed to arrive at a border crossing in the morning as it invariably took 5 or more hours and most borders closed around 4pm. There was often a "no mans land" between the two countries of up to a kilometre and it frequently happened that you exited a country only to find the other border closed and unable to return spent the night between countries.
Iran, still under the rule of the Shah also proved uneventful, athough late snows forced us back to Tehran for an extra week to await suitable weather. Camped at Gol-e-Sahra camp ground in Tehran.
Centre of Tehran.
Reaching the Turkish-Iranian border near Dogubayzit we just got through before the border closed for the night, but in doing so an error occured with the Carnet-de-Passage et Duoane, effectively the passport for your vehicle. Issued by the motoring oranisation in your country on behalf of the countries requiring it..then India,Pakistan,Afghanistan,Iran,Turkey, it had a monatary bond attached to it, released when the vehicle was finally "exported"...this meant for us Turkey. A page had been removed by accident and months later the carnet was considered to be active, despite our being in Germany. For once a Customs dept., rather an official, in Munich assisted with the necessary paperwork to "prove" the BMW was in Germany & reason prevailed- we got our bond back.
The weather turned sour in East Turkey, quite high and near Mt. Ararat, reputed site of the biblical Noah's Ark final resting place. Approaching a one lane bridge in light snow, disaster struck....we were forced off the road by an overtaking bus.
We end over ended, crashing... I was knocked out and Judy took charge, erecting the fly of our tent to aford some cover from the snow.
Briefly stopping, the bus sped off, leaving us to our own devices.
Phew...both front fork legs bent, the wiring loom around the ignition switch burnt out...
Some hours were spent jury-rigging the bike and we rode on slowly to Erzurum where enquiries for truck or rail transport for us and the bike to Istanbul proved fruiltess. The idea of riding the damaged bike over several snowed in passes, up to 12,000' high seemed not an option.
Finally a local gas station owner, speaking English arranged for his brother, who didn't speak English to transport us in his car. Money changed hands... then the car arrived..a small Fiat 124, with an equally small boot/trunk. Phew! Out came the front forks and wheel and the BMW squeezed in. Our panniers and Judy squeezed into the back seats and we were off... three days continuous driving finally saw us into Istanbul at the BP MotorCamp.
Enquiries with Turkish customs over importing the parts for the bike revealed a 200% import tarriff plus an additional sales tax. Making our way back to the motorcamp we came across a British registered semi-trailer. Eventually we arranged for the bike and ourselves to be transported to Munich. We slept in the spare bed in the truck cabin and our bike was strapped under the trailer to the from jacking legs. Seven days later and we were in Munich and at Krauser's, a BMW shop I'd purchased parts from over the years, I repaired the bike and we finally arrived into London.
Vienna-Salzburg autobahn.....Back in Munich at Krauser's in 1975 with friend Brian Anderson.
Left click on photos to enlarge.
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