Planet DMC

News and tidbits from the travel industry

Month: May 2019

Google’s new all-encompassing Google Travel features make you your own travel agent

As you may recall, last year the search giant souped up its flight and hotel search options. Then, in March of this year, it released a new flight and hotel search feature, elbowing its way to the front of the travel pack. Now the company is throwing its weight around even more. Google Trips will organize your searches and reservations at google.com/travel, to make it easier to find information relevant to your trip at Google Search and Google Maps, whether you’re searching on mobile or planning your trip on your office desktop as you pretend to look busy.Melissa Locker (Fast Company)

Olympic Tourists to Paris Will Find No Direct Airport-City Rail Link

Paris is one of the few major global cities with no dedicated rail link to its main airport, and the trip can take just under an hour, sometimes longer. Although the CDG Express link was part of the city’s infrastructure pledge for its Olympic bid, the committee for the games, Paris 2024, said in a statement Wednesday that the delay in its completion won’t hurt visitors’ transport conditions.William Horobin (Bloomberg)

Ryanair’s profits have plummeted by almost 30%

Ryanair’s fares fell by 6 per cent in the year to March 2019, leading to a slump of 29 per cent in the airline’s profits. But with full-year profits of over €1bn (£880m), Europe’s biggest budget airline remains in far better shape than many of its rivals. Last year, the carrier’s average one-way fare was €37 (£32), down 6 per cent. Passenger numbers grew by 7 per cent to 139 million, representing a profit per passenger of £6.33. Non-fuel costs rose by 5 per cent, largely due to an increase in salaries – particularly for pilots.Simon Calder (The Independent)

Revealed: Lonely Planet’s top 10 places to visit in Europe in 2019

1. High Tatras, Slovakia; 2. Madrid, Spain; 3. The Arctic Coast Way, Iceland; 4. Hercegovina, Bosnia and Hercegovina; 5. Bari, Italy; 6. Shetland, Scotland; 7. Lyon, France; 8. Liechtenstein; 9. Vevey, Switzerland; 10. Istria, Croatia.Lonely Planet

Delicious reasons to visit Kenya

😋Žiga Sancin

Salomonen-Inseln: Tauchen zwischen Weltkriegs-Wracks

🏖Žiga Sancin

Meadow larks: orchids and alpine views in Slovenia

Orchids are everywhere, in varying shades of flecked pinks and whites and greens, in clusters or dotted singly throughout the mountain slopes and fields. I count seven new varieties in a happy half an hour before our guides inform us that there are 42 varieties growing here in the Julian Alps and 84 different wild orchid types in the country.Allan Jenkins (The Guardian)

Don’t Call It Tex-Mex

Until the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, much of southern Texas was Mexico, and for centuries before that part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. That’s why, to Mr. Medrano, the heart of Texas Mexican culture is an area that includes southern Texas — the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi and greater San Antonio and Houston — but also part of the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.Rachel Wharton (New York Times)

Emirates Rethinks Routes Without a Superjumbo in Its Future Fleet

After establishing Dubai as the leading interchange for flights linking cities around the globe, Emirates is finding it tougher to find profitable new routes, especially with sluggish Persian Gulf economies weighing on margins. The state-owned airline was also unable to convince Airbus SE to upgrade the A380, forcing it to buy smaller jets requiring a recalibration of its super-hub model.Layan Odeh (Bloomberg)

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