Argophilia

Αργοφιλία: For the love of the journey.

Six Unforgettable Crete Restaurants

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Crete offers a diverse culinary trip for travelers, even though the island’s traditional cuisine is the marque attraction for foodies. While the Mediterranean diet is well known and as healthy as advertised, the Cretan take on healthy eating is actually the oldest and most time honored. Ancient as this cooking tradition is though, fine eateries around the island offer unique twists on age old recipes. Here’s a sampling of superb restaurants of a kind.

TUI Growth 2014: Real Optimism or Reality Fluff?

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TUI AG, one of the world’s most successful and well known travel tour groups, has just announced their Half Year Financial report. Furthermore, TUI’s CEO, Fritz Joussen now says his company is well positioned for growth. With Europe rapidly becoming a stagnant market over east vs west tensions, just how solid are TUI or any other big tour company’s projections?

Travelers’ Hotel Choices: No Choice At All

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When Google acquired ITA flight software a couple of years back, a group of competitors went ballistic warning of unfair practices by the Internet search and ad giant. Most people back then blew off what FairSearch was contending, this author included. As it turns out, a half dozen court cases won and a lot of water under the hotel search bridge, and potential guests really have no choice at all. Google has rigged the hotel booking game into an ad recommendation one.

Are Ryanair Passengers Up On “Selfie” Appraisal?

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Low cost champion Ryanair announced recently traffic growth by some 400,000 passengers totaling almost 8 million in April. The figures relate growth based on this year’s Easter travel, according to the airline up by 5% year on year. Lower prices, improved customer service, and added services like allocated seating were said to be major reasons […]

Q1 Profit and Loss: Weeding Out the OTAs

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In a 2014 economy seemingly stagnated OTAs and other travel businesses are feeling some pain. This is not the case for Priceline Group, which just showed a 1st quarter earnings jump of some 36% on international bookings. However, this company’s gain is evidently Orbitz’s and other digital travel business loss. Are we seeing a “weeding out” of good travel entities versus bad ones?

Weight of Ukraine Unrest, Sanctions, Threaten EU Economies

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The Ukraine unrest unfolding, US and NATO versus Russia challenges and sanctions, threaten to unravel any hope of continued EU economic recovery. This, according to an ITAR-TASS report, must be weighed against European Commission contentions. Whatever the case for western EU nations, tourism and other sectors in eastern Europe will certainly be stifled.

Five Cool Travel Startups You Maybe Never Heard Of

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The travel startup niche is a lot less active these days than it once was. The big names, TripAdvisor, Kayak, Airbnb, Uber, and a slew of others have snatched the attention and loyalty of many. Right now these, are in a sort of “no holds barred” competition to become the Facebook of travel, with a lot of niche value going on in between. Speaking of niches, there’s a lot of room for traveler utility and for developing to sell startup action too.

Hilton Tags Lobby Firm MWW Showing LGBT Pride Proudly

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According to news from PR Week Hilton Worldwide has hired leading lobbying PR firm MWW to handle the chain’s LGBT marketing and PR efforts across all their brands and properties. For some travelers Hilton now becomes the poster child for equality and fairness, while others may shun the world’s largest hotel chain for just being too proud. If ever a hospitality chain bet on a booking bonanza, and a potential bookings bust.

Next Month: The 73rd Anniversary of the Battle of Crete

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Coming next month, one of the most momentous and notorious events in Crete history is celebrated. May 20th, 1941, the skies over this ancient island darkened with the parachutes of thousands of Nazi paratroopers in what was one of the largest airborne invasions in history. The Battle of Crete saw the Third Reich victorious, but not without massive resistance from Cretans and British soldiers stationed there.

A New Cold War Nightmare: The Big Tourism Slump to Come

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Already the conflict between west and east over Ukraine is having its negative effect on travel. 2014 was shaping up as a very positive year for Europe travel, but with fewer Russians planning trips abroad, the upcoming May holidays will be the first tourism casualties of a new Cold War detentes. A just now emerging travel industry, can ill afford a slippage of bookings.