Travel advice – travel issues today

Travel advice issues: Portugal bookings down – The “Madeleine McCann effect” has decimated bookings to Portugal this year, according to the chief executive of Thomas Cook.

The disappearance of Madeleine McCann two years ago was “still hurting Portugal”, with bookings some 30% down on last year.

“Portugal is such a family destination that it is still not recovering because of what happened there,”

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Swine flu or H1NI travel issue Is now just a tiny blip on the travel landscape, there is no pandemic even the foreign office has now withdrawn its “do not travel advice for Mexico” as we predicted it would. The Who has stated that H1N1 is a pandemic but that is purely a technical issue as opposed to reality.
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Tui Travel Which own Thomson and First Choice holidays has reported an increase in underlying loss before tax for the first half of its financial year.

The loss for the six months ending March 31, 2009, was £289 million, up from £250 million last year, while revenue went up to £5.397 billion from £5.155 billion.

The group blames a £30 million foreign exchange translation effect, the timing of Easter and weaker trading in Canada.