The Success story that is MSC Cruises!

When Captain Gianluigi Aponte purchased his first, small ship in Belgium in 1970, just as globalisation was taking off which would soon be fed by the containerisation revolution, little could he have imagined that the small company that he had just founded in Brussels would one day come to employ more than 60,000 people located in over 150 countries around the world. That company was MSC Group, parent of MSC Cruises! (more…)

What is the ultimate travel experience?

Travel, as with all human experiences, is a very subjective thing. What appeals to one person may be anathema to another. Whereas one persons’ idea of heaven would be to swim with dolphins in some sub-tropical paradise; for another, it could be a gastronomical tour of Michelin restaurants in San Sebastian! (more…)

Luxury — Silver Muse by another name!

Like many words in the English language, there are many different definitions and interpretations of the word ‘luxury’. The website www.dictionary.com defines luxury as being ‘indulgence in and enjoyment of rich, comfortable, and sumptuous living. Something that is considered an indulgence rather than a necessity’. It also seems a fitting description of what I experienced last week when I had the pleasure of being invited to enjoy Silversea’s latest addition to their fleet — Silver

Prediction is difficult — especially if it is about the future!

So said Neils Bohr, The famous Danish physicist. Indeed, predicting anything nowadays is particularly difficult, given the fast pace of change and the number of variables at play. Notwithstanding that fact, I am going to make one anyway and it’s this — cruising is going to be the next big thing in travel! Why do I say that? Because all the signs are there: the number of new ship builds scheduled over the next eight

What budgets reveal about how much we spend.

There have been several occasions in my life when money was tight and I had to literally count the pennies to make ends meet. Two of the things I had to discipline myself to do was work only with cash (the rationale being when it was gone, it was gone!) and record details of every single penny that was spent. What was interesting about those episodes was how easily money got frittered away in small,

Would you like to win €2,500?

The phrase, 'Lies, damned lies and statistics' is generally attributed to have been coined by Benjamin Disraeli, the famous British Prime Minister. The standard definition of statistics is 'the practice or science of collecting and analyzing numerical data in large quantities, especially for the purpose of inferring proportions in a whole from those in a representative sample' The bigger the sample, the greater the likelihood of the inferences that are drawn from that sample in

Timely Advice

    It’s that time of year again when most people’s minds turn to New Year resolutions, the next credit card statement and of course the inevitable where to go on this year’s holiday and, equally importantly — when to book it? Many people still mistakenly think that if you are flexible in when you can take your annual leave and are also a bit of a gambler then it is always worth your while

Where to go in 2017?

I know that Christmas is just around the corner and your head is more than likely focused on ordering the turkey, cleaning the house from top to bottom and trying to buy that last present or two for those difficult-to-please relatives of yours but let’s be honest — as soon as the whole hullabaloo is over, thoughts invariably turn to ‘Where are we going to go on holidays this year?’ I’m doing you a favour

Don’t miss the boat!

One of the things that we try to do both on our website and through the medium of this blog is to occasionally alert readers to emerging trends so that they can be ahead of the curve when it comes to sampling new travel products or discovering new destinations around the world. This week’s blog is somewhat surprising in that it covers a subject that people assume is extremely popular! You would think that cruising

Moving out of your comfort zone

Last year, as part of a marketing campaign that we mounted in conjunction with our network of affiliated travel agents throughout the country, we had a series of posters designed that married iconic landscapes from around the world with some great inspirational quotes from people as diverse as the Dalai Lama, J.R.R Tolkien and Steve Jobs. One of my favourites was a quote from Susan Sontag which rather wittily said: ‘I haven’t been everyplace but

What do you enjoy most about travelling?

It's different things for different people, isn't it? For some, it's the destinations themselves: the scenery, the city-scapes, the beaches. For others, it tends to be the culture and the history of each destination. The human interactions that we have with locals when we're abroad most likely features highly on most peoples' lists. For me, whilst all of the above are extremely important, I must confess that one of the highlights when I travel tends

The art of getting a quote that is both competitive in price and relevant to your needs starts with gathering all the right information about what you want to do (or think you want to do!).