Q. Just thinking if the aim of tourism is to make money then surely all "alternative" forms of tourism whether its "eco" "cultural" or whatever are still just money making ventures that will aim to make profits and therefore grow irrespective of well meaning regulations. This will just push the eco-tourist to constantly new destinations as the prev one becomes spoilt leaving a wake of disaster. At least with big beach resorts eg Benidorm, Malaga, the infrastructure is already there and the tourist can be kept contained?
A. Eco-tourisim only works in communist or socialist countries. In capitalist countries, you have to pay for your trip and they treat you like just another tourist. And, what's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their Sunday Mirrors, complaining about the tea - "Oh they don't make it properly here, do they, not like at home" - and stopping at Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in their cotton frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh 'cos they "overdid it on the first day." And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Continentales with their modern international luxury roomettes and draught Red Barrel and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night the hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big a-rse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners. And then some adenoidal typists from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhoea trying to pick up hairy bandy-legged w-o-p waiters called Manuel and once a week there's an excursion to the local Roman Remains to buy cherryade and melted ice cream and bleeding Watney's Red Barrel and one evening you visit the so called typical restaurant with local colour and atmosphere and you sit next to a party from Rhyl who keep singing "Torremolinos, torremolinos" and complaining about the food - "It's so greasy isn't it?" - and you get cornered by some drunken greengrocer from Luton with an Instamatic camera and Dr. Scholl sandals and last Tuesday's Daily Express and he drones on and on about how Mr. Smith should be running this country and how many languages Enoch Pow ell can speak and then he throws up over the Cuba Libres. And sending tinted postcards of places they don't realise they haven't even visited to "All at number 22, weather wonderful, our room is marked with an 'X'. Food very greasy but we've found a charming little local place hidden away in the back streets where they serve Watney's Red Barrel and cheese and onion....... crisps and the accordionist plays 'Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner'." And spending four days on the tarmac at Luton airport on a five-day package tour with nothing to eat but dried BEA-type sandwiches and you can't even get a drink of Watney's Red Barrel because you're still in England and the bloody bar closes every time you're thirsty and there's nowhere to sleep and the kids are crying and vomiting and breaking the plastic ash-trays and they keep telling you it'll only be another hour although your plane is still in Iceland and has to take some Swedes to Yugoslavia before it can load you up at 3 a.m. in the bloody morning and you sit on the tarmac till six because of "unforeseen difficulties", i.e. the permanent strike of Air Traffic Control in Paris - and nobody can go to the lavatory until you take off at 8, and when you get to Malaga airport everybody's swallowing "enterovioform" and queuing for the toilets and queuing for the armed customs officers, and queuing for the bloody bus that isn't there to take you to the hotel that hasn't yet been finished. And when you finally get to the half-built Algerian ruin called the Hotel del Sol by paying half your holiday money to a licensed bandit in a taxi you find there's no water in the pool, there's no water in the taps, there's no water in the bog and there's only a bleeding lizard in the bidet. And half the rooms are double booked and you can't sleep anyway because of the permanent twenty-four-hour drilling of the foundations of the hotel next door - and you're plagues by appalling apprentice chemists from Ealing pretending to be hippies, and middle-class stockbrokers' wives busily buying identical holiday villas in suburban development plots just like Esher, in case the Labour government gets in again, and fat American matrons with sloppy-buttocks and Hawaiian-patterned ski pants looking for any mulatto male who can keep it up long enough when they finally let it all flop out. And the Spanish Tourist Board promises you that the raging cholera epidemic is merely a case of mild Spanish tummy, like the previous outbreak of Spanish tummy in 1660 which killed half London and decimated Europe - and meanwhile the bloody Guardia are busy arresting sixteen-year-olds for kissing in the streets and shooting anyone under nineteen who doesn't like Franco.
Has anyone stayed at either The Britannia Hotel or the Etap in Birmingham - what did you think?
Q. We're looking for cheap accommodation and these both fit the bill, but some of the reviews are pretty rough. Help us make up our minds between them!
A. Not stayed in either.
However I have stayed at the Britannia's sister the Britannia Airport Hotel in Manchester and it is every bit as bad as the reviews. The chain seems, in my opinion to have somewhat of a bad reputation.
Never stayed in any Etap (i think it is Accor's budget chain - they also own Ibis and Novotel). However, all the ones I have seen are pretty new. I would expect it to be relatively clean and comfortable but very basic in terms of facilities
However I have stayed at the Britannia's sister the Britannia Airport Hotel in Manchester and it is every bit as bad as the reviews. The chain seems, in my opinion to have somewhat of a bad reputation.
Never stayed in any Etap (i think it is Accor's budget chain - they also own Ibis and Novotel). However, all the ones I have seen are pretty new. I would expect it to be relatively clean and comfortable but very basic in terms of facilities
When is the best time to book a flight to England?
Q. My friend and I are planning a trip to England this summer (july, 2010). I was wondering when the best time to book our tickets? Right now they are super expensive, will they go down at all?
Thank you!
Thank you!
A. Hi Jessica,
Typically tickets tend to be their cheapest, I have found, for international travel about 8 - 12 weeks prior to the date of departure. With that said, traveling to the UK in July is a peak travel time and I would not expect to find inexpensive tickets. Prices you see now, I feel, will go down but do not expect them to go down that much. If you are looking for inexpensive tickets to the UK there are two periods when ticket prices for travel to the UK is reasonable. One period is from mid-September - late Nov / early December. Second period is from late January / early February - late April / early May. Also you have to remember that the cheapest days to travel, generally speaking are Mondays - Thursdays. Fridays and weekend departure dates can be significantly higher. Therefore to get the best deals possible look for departure dates during the week.
Another option you may want to consider is booking your flight and hotel room together. Sometimes it is cheaper to book both together on line instead of booking them separately. Also if you are going to the UK as a group of at least 8 then you may want to see if the airline will give you a group discount. However to get a group discount you may have to go through a travel agent or call the airline directly then booking on line. Lastly consider other airports such as Birmingham or Manchester sometime you can get cheaper flights into them instead of London. Birmingham is about a 1.5 hour train ride and Manchester is just over 2 hours via train from London.
Typically tickets tend to be their cheapest, I have found, for international travel about 8 - 12 weeks prior to the date of departure. With that said, traveling to the UK in July is a peak travel time and I would not expect to find inexpensive tickets. Prices you see now, I feel, will go down but do not expect them to go down that much. If you are looking for inexpensive tickets to the UK there are two periods when ticket prices for travel to the UK is reasonable. One period is from mid-September - late Nov / early December. Second period is from late January / early February - late April / early May. Also you have to remember that the cheapest days to travel, generally speaking are Mondays - Thursdays. Fridays and weekend departure dates can be significantly higher. Therefore to get the best deals possible look for departure dates during the week.
Another option you may want to consider is booking your flight and hotel room together. Sometimes it is cheaper to book both together on line instead of booking them separately. Also if you are going to the UK as a group of at least 8 then you may want to see if the airline will give you a group discount. However to get a group discount you may have to go through a travel agent or call the airline directly then booking on line. Lastly consider other airports such as Birmingham or Manchester sometime you can get cheaper flights into them instead of London. Birmingham is about a 1.5 hour train ride and Manchester is just over 2 hours via train from London.
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