Other travel news in brief
Surge in bookings, say agents
Irish travel agents have reported an unusual surge in last-minute bookings this month. The Irish Travel Agents Association says its members are seeing increases of between 20 and 25 per cent compared with last month and huge numbers of inquiries since the August bank holiday.
The association’s president, Jim Vaughan, says the bookings are mainly for holidays later this month and early next month. “My members are telling me their customers are sick and tired of staring at rusting barbecues and soggy kids while they wait for the weather to clear up.”
Dublin beds ‘good value for money’
Dublin has come eighth in an international survey of hotels’ value for money in the first half of 2009, two places above its ranking last year. The best value was in Lisbon, Berlin and Tokyo, according to the Hotel.info booking site. Customers were asked whether the hotels they had stayed in were worth the money.
According to the survey, Dublin hotels offer slightly worse value than those in Warsaw and Budapest and better value than Athens and Madrid.
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Number of people injured when two carriages of Blackpool’s Big Dipper ride collided this week. 11 others escaped unhurt