Tag Archives: flights

Marella Cruises Launches All-Inclusive Cruise Calculator

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Marella Cruises Launches All-Inclusive Cruise Calculator

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Marella Cruises has introduced the All-Inclusive Cruise Calculator, a free tool that reveals the cost of sailing with the company.

The company said in a press release that the tool demonstrates savings from booking an all-inclusive offering.

The tool highlights the all-inclusive offering, which includes flights, food and drink, transfers, entertainment, tips and service charges.

Chris Hackney, managing director at Marella Cruises, said: “The new All Inclusive Cruise Calculator allows customers to see the value for money we provide to our customers.”

“With all-inclusive at the heart of our cruise holidays, we provide an exceptional end-to-end service which includes flights, transfers, tips and accommodation rolled into one price, as well as entertainment, food and drink offerings and fantastic service,” added Hackney.

“We hope the tool helps new-to-cruise customers who are looking for alternative holidays consider a cruise holiday this summer and beyond.”

Research by Marella Cruises revealed that over 60 per cent of Brits plan to take a holiday this year, yet 20 per cent admit that the cost of living is stopping them from booking.

Twenty-two per cent see an all-inclusive cruise to be the best value; however, 46 per cent would be open to a cruise holiday if they could compare the costs more easily.

Chelsea Dickensen, a travel expert influencer, said: “All inclusive holidays are back in fashion with searches for stress-free escapes skyrocketing by 60 per cent year on year.”

“And it’s not just resorts seeing the love, with cruise holidays expecting to surpass pre-pandemic levels by reaching 37.1 million passengers in 2025. However, prices are on the rise too, with the average package holiday prices rising 4.2 per cent compared to 2024,” added Dickensen.

“For cruises, these hidden costs could include your flights, transfers, meals, drinks and tips, though companies such as Marella Cruises do include all of these as standard. Their All Inclusive Cruise Calculator is really helpful in sharing exactly what you’ll get, and how much you could save by having it as part of your package.”

Iata: ‘Widespread use’ of vouchers will accelerate cash burn

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Iata: ‘Widespread use’ of vouchers will accelerate cash burn

The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has highlighted how the extensive use of refund vouchers will accelerate cash burn for airlines.

The association warned that the “widespread use” of vouchers in Europe is “one of the difficulties airlines will be facing as they are slowly moving towards restarting their operations”.

With the grounding of fleets in mid-March, as the pandemic crisis began to hit revenues, airlines opted to provide vouchers to passengers rather than immediate refunds.

“This proved useful in slowing down their cash burn and helped prevent bankruptcies,” reported Iata Economics in its latest Chart of the Week.

“However, airlines’ liability to transport these passengers was only deferred but did not disappear.

“A month after the easing of travel restrictions on intra-EU routes, we can already observe that passengers have used a large number of vouchers to pay for their travel.

“This means that airlines now incur the cost of transporting these passengers – against no or limited new revenues.

“Whilst the issuance of vouchers helped decelerate cash burn a few weeks ago, their use will now accelerate cash burn in the coming months.”

Iata also said the booking behaviour of passengers has changed “dramatically”, with 41% of global travellers booking up to three days before travel in June, compared to 18% last year.

“This makes it difficult for airlines to plan and optimise their schedules, crew and fleet,” said the association.

In April, Alexandre de Juniac, Iata’s director-general and chief executive, said airlines owed $35 billion for cancelled flights, so the use of refund vouchers would buy the industry “vital time to breathe”.

Last week, the Iata Economics chart showed how intra-Europe routes were leading the initial recovery in international flights after border restrictions were eased.

Most passengers were travelling to visit friends and family or going on holiday, rather than going on business trips.

Ryanair tumbles down Google rankings following site revamp

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By Travolution

By Travolution

 Ryanair’s website was sent tumbling down the Google results rankings for important search terms following a revamp that was meant to boost the airline’s brand image and make it easier for customers to book flights.

Ryanair had top ten positions in Google’s search rankings for terms such as “flights to France”.

But in recent weeks it has tumbled down the rankings, and searches for many relevant terms no longer include Ryanair in the top 100 results, according to data from web analytics company Intelligent Positioning.

Internet analysts believe the search problems are an unintended consequence of the revamp of the website, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

“They’ve screwed up big time,” said Sam Silverwood-Cope of Intelligent Positioning, a web analytics company told the FT. “There’s going to be a hell of a lot of traffic that they’re missing.”

When Ryanair restructured its website in March and April, it created a new set of URLs, but failed to correctly redirect the old pages. This resulted in Google seeing the defunct pages, and awarding a lower ranking, according to the report.

In response, Ryanair said that most of the 1.2 million hits a day on its website were from direct visitors, rather than those who came via search engines. It said bookings this quarter were about 5% higher than the same period last year.

According to Hitwise data provided by Intelligent Positioning, Ryanair gets about a fifth of its web traffic through search engines.

Ryanair said it was in the process of migrating various old website pages to its new site and it expected to be able to regain first page rankings on important search terms once completed.

“Until the site settles down, there will be a temporary drop in organic search positions on certain key search terms,” the carrier said. “We anticipate that it will take a week or so for things to bed down properly.”

The website overhaul was a central part of Ryanair’s strategy to rebrand itself as a friendlier, more caring airline and win back lost custom. It unveiled a preview of its new-look website a few weeks ago – highlighting that the number of clicks needed to book a flight had fallen from 17 to five.

Gerald Khoo, transport analyst at Liberum, told the FT that struggles with search engine optimisation could have a financial impact.

“There clearly is an issue that they don’t appear where they’d like to [in the search rankings],” he said.