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Ideas, suggestions and recommendations that can help you choose from a more limited palette of options that we know — both from professional and personal experience.

October 30, 2015

There’s ‘free’ … and then there’s ‘FREE’!

The word 'free' is one of the most powerful trigger words in the English language. It grabs our attention and forces us to read on further. It is a marketing guru's tool that many of them use to good effect. We, as consumers, are suckers though and when a lot of the claims of free this and that fail to live up to the hyperbole, we're left feeling foolish for having been duped — yet

October 12, 2015

Variety is the spice of life!

Imagine if you happened to find yourself in conversation with an overseas visitor of any nationality who was a regular visitor to Ireland but who always came to the same place. What do you think your reaction would be? You'd most likely say that Dublin (or Cork or Kilkenny etc.) whilst beautiful and well worth the visit was nonetheless not completely representative of all that Ireland has to offer. You'd most likely recommend that they

September 30, 2015

Is it just me?

Like most people, I love to travel and even though I do a lot of it, I never tire of the expectation, the excitement and the sheer joy of discovering new destinations and having new experiences. What I could well do without though is the hassle that is increasingly part and parcel of the 'getting to' such destinations — particularly where travelling by air is concerned. The long queues in airport terminals; the surly staff

September 24, 2015

Perception is reality

The news — e.g. the commentary that you see on the TV or read in newspapers and magazines is a commodity and just like any other kind of commodity it is perishable and thus must be sold by its sell-by date. By 'sold' I mean distributed or broadcast. Describing the 'news' as a commodity that is bought and sold may sound counter-intuitive but it's true and because of its perishability, there is a constant pressure

September 16, 2015

The thrill that is History!

I'm Irish and very proud to be so. I think that for such a small country, we've made a disproportionate impact on the global stage. Both our history and our mythology are extremely rich — as is our almost unique culture — some of which we share with our Celtic cousins. There are times though when I travel, that I'm reminded of how all such things are relative and that by comparison with some other

August 30, 2015

All travel doesn’t have to be International!

I came into the travel business back in 1975 so I suppose that that makes me a 40-year veteran of the industry at this stage. Over the course of those 40 intervening years I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel all over the world and experience some of the most beautiful places on earth. But do you know what, I wouldn't trade any of them for the little piece of heaven that I

August 17, 2015

What, exactly, is value?

The sage of Omaha, Warren Buffet, once famously said that ‘price is what you pay; value is what you get!’ He was talking about choosing stocks but the principle holds true for practically everything that is traded and travel arrangements are no different. The Internet is an amazing resource which millions of users benefit from and it is certainly a useful (albeit time-consuming) tool that consumers use when they are researching their next trip abroad.

August 10, 2015

Blogtastic — The rise and rise of the travel blog!

With each year that passes and as more and more people enjoy the delights of international travel, it is inevitable that more and more travel blogs get written. Some blogs — like this one for instance — are an incidental activity to something else that is being done — in my case, running a travel consortium and trying to maximise the level of commerce being generated on behalf of key supplier partners. In many other

July 29, 2015

‘Life is a journey – not a destination’

So claimed Ralf Waldo Emerson, one of America's greatest essayists (b. 1803 —d. 1882). Whilst I have always subscribed to that philosophical thought, it was brought home to me in a very tangible way recently when I travelled from Dublin to Stockholm for a short break. I was travelling with SAS who are the national airline of Sweden, Norway and Denmark and they have recently introduced an innovation in their fare structure which I think

July 23, 2015

Scandinavia’s best kept secret!

When we think of former colonial powers in days gone by, we tend to think of European states Like Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands and perhaps even the Austro-Hungarian empire. But a Scandinavian country? Surely not! Sadly, most people’s knowledge of European history tends to be seen through the prism of what British historians have written about and thus an important chapter of such history in which the Kingdom of Sweden played an important role,

July 13, 2015

The undiscovered France!

Despite continuing to be the most visited country in the world, it is perhaps surprising that there are still huge swathes of France that your average tourist knows next to nothing about! In the same way that spending a few days in Dublin does not constitute getting to know the 'real' Ireland, so too is it with France and believe it or not, there is so much more to France than Paris, the Cote D'Azur

July 5, 2015

If Toulouse is not on your radar — it should be!

Toulouse — fourth largest city in France and home to Airbus, manufacturers of the world's largest civilian airliner, the A380. This beautiful city suffers from anonymity and it shouldn't because on paper, it really does tick most, if not all the boxes. True, it does not contain iconic locations or structures such as the Eiffel Tower or L'Arc du Triumphe but in its own modest and unassuming way, Toulouse insinuates its way into your thoughts and

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