Travel Wires
High flyers So what does it take to be voted the world’s best airline four times in 10 years? Qatar Airways — which runs the longest flight in the world between Auckland and Doha — won the Skytrax title in Paris with top marks for meals, service, seat comfort and entertainment. Those little touches include the Q-Suite, where Business-Class passengers can recline two seats into a fully flat double bed with partitions to create a private bedroom. The seats are leather with ‘satin rose-gold finishing’. Panels and movable TV monitors on the centre four seats allow people travelling together to transform their space into a private suite. Second was Singapore Airlines, followed by ANA All Nippon Airways. Emirates, Cathay Pacific, EVA Air, Lufthansa, Etihad, Hainan and Garuda Indonesia make up the top 10. We could mention something about Qatar’s nasty neighbours or the lack of any US airlines here, but Travel Wires has a self-imposed ban on cheap shots this week.
Close to home Brexit means Brexit for many Brits. Barclays’ annual survey of UK holidaymakers says “staycations” — or holidaying at home rather than abroad — increased to 71 per cent in 2016, up from 64 per cent in 2015. It says adults across Britain are choosing to holiday closer to home because of personal preference as opposed to cost. Some 40 per cent of those choose a city break such as London, while 37 per cent opt for a rural location such as Yorkshire or Humberside. Johnny Foreigner is also coming to Britain: 60 per cent of 7000 international holidaymakers said they were more interested in visiting the UK than a year earlier.
Closer to home You don’t come to Travel Wires for the facts, so here’s another totally random comparison from another couple of utterly unscientific surveys. Barclays reports the average Pom taking a trip within the UK spends an average of $540 on accommodation, $266 on eating out, $211 on shopping and $126 on holiday parks (if they visit one). Mastercard’s survey of Kiwi holidaymakers, out this week, says 75 per cent of us chose a staycation last year. We spent an average of $606 for a domestic trip compared to an average $2663 for an international trip. Travel to the destination is the biggest cost, around 30 per cent of the bill — that’s $180 for getting around Aotearoa, $800 to head overseas. Travel agents won’t want to read this, but 77 per cent looked online for travel deals, and purchasing airline tickets online was the biggest online shopping category at 62 per cent.