ANOTHER PR DISASTER FOR HEATHROW AND UK PLC!

The site of the UK’s, if not the world’s, premier airport grinding to a halt combined with images of stranded passengers left to their own devices in freezing cold terminals for days being broadcast all over the world has further dented the already tarnished image of Heathrow and the reputation of the country.

With the farce that was the opening of Terminal Five still fresh in people’s memories; now a few inches of the white stuff brought misery to thousands and thousands of travellers hoping to get away for Christmas. While airlines were faced with yet another financial disaster.

With Northern European airports remaining fully operational their bosses must have been so grateful just to have the right kind of snow fall on them!

Not so for the British Airport’s Authority as its flagship remained dead in the water while its hapless management seemed to be as frozen as the weather, inactivity was the order of the day. So thousands of travellers were given no information as to what their fate was.

The question on everyone’s lips, including the PM and Mayor of London was simply – WHY? Yet again BAA demonstrated its totally incapable of dealing with something likely to happen each and every year. There were even reports the company refused help from the Army to get Heathrow up and running again.

The media were universal in heralding it as another in a long line of PR disasters for BAA. With questions being asked as to how much longer airlines will use Heathrow, continuingly stumbling from one crisis to another, as a major hub when other countries are desperate for their business and where airports are run efficiently.

BAA’s critics, and there are many, talked about a company still stuck in the 1950s; chronic underinvestment, poor management and Heathrow being run more like a shopping mall which happens to have parking spaces for aircraft -  rather than the world’s number one airline hub!

But what can be done? Very little as BAA is in private hands and can do as it pleases. Government and the media can apply pressure and airlines, to an extent, can vote with their feet. But the ultimate decision as to whether travellers using Heathrow can look forward to continued misery rests firmly round BAA’s board table.

Given past performance it does not look too hopeful.

WILL THE X-FACTOR EVER COME BACK?

Unless you have been living in a cave off the coast of Scotland for the last month or so then you will not have escaped the fact a certain Matt Cardle won X-Factor and is sitting pretty with the Christmas number one.

While Mr Cardle was starting to enjoy his millionaire lifestyle the programme sent the media into a wild frenzy talking about its favourite subject – itself!

The winner only got a passing mention as most of the euphoria was about the fact up to 20m watched the final show; how much an advert cost during it; did this mean a return to the good times for terrestrial TV; what would Simon Cowell do now, would he abandon the UK for the USA, as we all collectively went X-Factor mad.

Various ‘gurus’ were wheeled out to say that at £250,000 a 30 second slot was excellent value to promote your favourite product – and so near to Christmas. Others talked about how it ‘connected with its audience’ and showed any Tom, Dick or Harriett could live their dream. Days later it was still in the news but this time because of the record number of complaints the regulator had received about the clothes, or lack of them, some of the female performers on the show wore which combined with ‘suggestive gyrating’ was just too much for many a sensitive soul. But the show was still making headlines.

One thing though was certain; the X-Factor thoroughly trounced the BBC’s reality TV show competition – Strictly Come Dancing when it came to audience figures.

For those involved in the travel and media business this may have stirred memories of another time the Beeb and ITV went head to head. This time the two contenders were; in the red corner for the BBC, ‘The Holiday Programme’ and in the blue corner for ITV, ‘Wish You Were Here........?

For three decades these two programmes fought for audiences, reporting from ever more exotic destinations to try and encourage the cautious Brit to go further than Bognor and that not all foreign food was bad for you.

Their presenters became household names; Joan Bakewell, Anne Gregg and Frank Bough among those fronting for the BBC, while ITV mustered Judith Chalmers, Anthea Turner and Anna Walker to its ranks.

Avidly watched by millions, travel companies and their PR people bent over backwards to get their holidays featured. With destination reports lasting up to eight minutes it guaranteed to get the phones ringing in the booking office.

According to one seasoned travel PR specialist enquiries after a client had appeared could easily run into several thousand.

Sadly neither programme survived the first decade of the new millennium and nothing has emerged to replace them. But could there still be a place for such a programme in today’s TV schedules?

We appear to be travelling more than ever, just look at the success of Ryanair and Easyjet. The internet has made booking your own flight, hire car, hotel etc something that can be done in minutes. Whereas in the heyday of those two programmes you would have had to pop into your local travel agent – the only place with the ability to offer the travel junky their fix.

That may just be it, making travel arrangements is no longer the preserve of an elite, slightly mysterious industry, anyone can do it. Many like to travel independently, rather than booking an inclusive package where everything is taken care of from the time you arrive at the airport to the time you got back - the sort of holidays those programmes thrived on.

Maybe ‘The Holiday Programme’ and ‘Wish You Were Here....?’ were part of that whole mystery and awe which once surrounded travel which  the internet has been so good at stripping away.

In addition we now live in a multi channel digital age. Virtually every home now has access to 100s of channels, some of course claim to offer travel programmes but what both the viewers think of it is hard to know.

Sadly programmes like The Holiday Programme and Wish You Were......Here? will never have their own x-factor again!

Wish you were here – in Iraq!

When families sit down over the Festive season to plan next year’s holiday it’s pretty safe to assume that Iraq is unlikely to figure very highly – if at all!

For over two decades the country, which houses the cradle of civilisation, has been an international pariah. Since the invasion in 2003 our televisions and newspapers have been full of images unlikely to inspire many to visit: British soldiers on fire clambering from armoured vehicles while being pelted with stones, the bloody aftermath of suicide bombers and airstrikes on Bagdad.

But could this all change and quickly? Figures from Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism show international arrivals have gone from zero in 2005 to around 1.3m in 2009, reflecting a return to something approaching normality as the country rules itself combined with an absence of foreign troops on its streets.

A few minutes on the internet and you will see that things are starting to happen, you can book a tour of the country and even find out how previous visitors have rated Iraq’s hotels, B&Bs, tourist attractions and restaurants!

Initially its history and religious destinations are likely to be the biggest driver for tourism. Cities such as Najaf will once more become sacred destinations for pilgrims rather than a scene of bloody battles.

Of course the Kurdish north of the country largely escaped the ravages of war and runs its own affairs and has a far more pleasant climate for western visitors.

Direct flights from a number of countries such as Germany, Norway and Greece will no doubt pave the way for others.

Time is a great healer and as memories of harsh conflict fade and providing no more flare ups occur then Iraq just could become the tourist destination of the future.

Journalist – the next endangered species?

A few months ago a company posted an offer on the site’s ‘Any Takers’ section offering journalists the opportunity to go and take part in a project designed to help save one of the world’s seemingly growing number of endangered animals. Maybe it prompted some to think should journalists and in particular travel journalists be added to the list!

It has been estimated during 2009 local newspapers shed over 1,000 journalists while a new website has just been set up to try and help the estimated 6,000 people who have left the TV industry over the last three years. While not all of the latter will have been journalists many will but it just goes to underline the pressure the media industry is under.

Some salutary figures underline how things are changing, and fast. In 2003 the Nottingham Evening Post’s circulation was 80,000, today its 42,500; while the Leicester Mercury has fallen from 97,000 to 56,000 in the same period. Turning national newspapers the mighty News of the World has slipped from 4m to 2.9m and the Daily Mirror 2.1m to 1.2m. In simple terms it seems falling circulation = falling revenue = falling headcount.

Looking at those regional titles fewer and fewer have anyone with the title – ‘Travel Editor’. Yes they still have travel pages to fill to support relevant advertising, or should it be advertising to support the relevant editorial?

But now it appears a journalist will be given the travel pages to fill in addition to his/her day job. Or, horrors of horrors, the editor’s secretary will do it! So they spend a couple of hours a week ringing some nibs out of press releases and dishing out the odd press trip which makes the main feature. But with falling circulations how much longer will travel companies be happy to offer freebies?

What about the nationals? Are they the last bastion of the Travel Editor or have cracks also started to appear there? Do they have their seat at the editorial conference or are they in fact working from a desk in the spare bedroom and doing everything by email? Can freelancers with stories to sell easily get the ear of the travel editor or is the response from the temp answering the telephone – ‘just put it in an email’ – which never gets answered?

Newspaper circulation is falling and journalist jobs are going - could there be a connection? After all people don’t buy a newspaper to read the advertisements do they.