Olympics : news

With exactly 6 months to go to the Olympics, a handover to LOCOG marked the day with work to begin on fitting out almost 3,000 apartments in the Olympic and Paralympic Village. 

Travelmole today reports on an ABTA poll of 2018 adults to find out what Brits, not attending the Olympics, are planning to do instead. The poll revealed that 12% would be going overseas between July 27 and August 12; the older generation are least keen to stay in the UK, with 22% of over 65s intending to head overseas to avoid the event, and 18% of 55-64 year olds. This figure may well be offset by numbers predicted to visit the UK this year by VisitBritain.

Key dates to the Olympics can be found here.

Strategic Framework Second Phase Action Plans

This month's Bulletin is a message from CEO, James Berresford who talks about the Strategic Framework for Tourism in England 2010–2020, which was launched in March 2010 and identified the need to develop nine Action Plans to assist in coordinating and driving forward priority actions.

The aim of this consultation is to gain your feedback on the actions identified. In particular is the need to identify:

• Who will take responsibility for leading each action and driving its                implementation?

• Which organisations, businesses and partners should sign-up to deliver the actions in their area, business, organisation, destination or association?

VisitBritain are seeking feedback from all parties with a stake in the visitor economy, on each of the Action Plans. To help you formulate your response, a set of consultation questions is included at the end of each Action Plan.

The consultation closes on 1 March 2012 and all feedback should be emailed to frameworkconsultation@visitengland.org. Please clearly label which Action Plan your feedback relates to or whether your feedback is general and relates to all of the Action Plans. The completed Action Plans will be published in March 2012.

Find out more here

Department Announces Change to Upcoming Black History Art Exhibit

The work of Jerome Jones will be featured along with that of Dawn Cherry Miles in the department's annual Spotlight Gallery Black History Month exhibit scheduled to open with a public reception from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Jan. 27 at Pine Camp Arts and Community Center. The exhibit, titled “Imagery, Imagination and African Influence,” will no longer feature the work of Thaddeus LaCrette as previously

Costa Concordia Disaster - 2

Today, Travelmole's newsletter reports on Concordia's emergency procedures following new video footage, in this article. Euromonitor comments on the likely cost of the tragedy to the cruise ship industry whilst Thomas Cook offer their own opinion. The disaster has so far claimed 11 lives with 24 passengers still missing. 

Crisis Management - Costa Concordia Disaster

In the latest issue of Docleaf's newsletter, the recent Costa Concordia cruise ship tragedy is discussed, in this case from a crisis management viewpoint; the author goes on to mention an article which appeared in USA Today, on how the disaster may impact the cruise ship industry.

Can UK sport do business?

This month’s issue of Management Today takes a peek at the sport business model in the UK. Contents include Business of Sport Special and Life after Sport : where next after hanging up the boots.

Read these articles + more online

Extreme Sport

A series of fascinating photographs exploring the non-competitive sport of Parkour, high energy sport that involves moving through landscapes by running, climbing and jumping launches at The Public. 

The exhibition runs from 27 January to 20 May 2012 -  

find out more here

Underwater tunnelling, suspended electric wires, broken glass, mudpools and fire - this describes an assult course for extreme running, which according to this article by the BBC, is becoming increasingly popular

ABTA magazine

Fancy putting your feet up with a magazine this weekend? 

Then have a flick through ABTA magazine online... 

This month the spotlight is on West Africa, Austria and sporting destinations in 2012, with special reports on Cape Town, New Zealand, St Vincent and the Grenadines. As well as the latest industry reports, they list destination trends to watch this year.

Date for your diary

 Where : Rooms 501 & 502,  UCB, Colmore Row, Birmingham

When : 11am-1pm on Monday, 16th January 2012

Who :  MA Marketing students

You are welcomed to an exhibition by the students, to showcase the culmination of their work and to demonstrate the creativity of their ideas for a client organisation. Please come along and share your opinion, expertise and feedback on their style of presentation and level of creativity.

2012 Travel Trends Report

ABTA has published a report on what they believe will be the key travel trends this year, such as:

• Growth in demand for specialist holidays
• Luxury and budget breaks expected to perform well
• Baby boomers set to fuel the market
• High street bookings on the rise
• Tried and tested destinations likely to be popular
• More weddings abroad

Find out more and download the report here

Birmingham - a foodies' paradise!

The newly opened Spiceal Street

It's what we always suspected but now it's been confirmed - Birmingham is one of the greatest places to eat out! So much so, it's worth travelling across the world for - that's according to the New York Times, which recently published an article listing the top 45 places to visit in 2012. 

Eurostat regional yearbook 2011

The European Commission provides a central point for statistics on the 27 Member States of the EU, covering 16 areas - namely  population, labour market, labour cost, education, health, European cities, gross domestic product, household accounts, structural business statistics, information society, tourism, land cover and land use, coastal regions, transport, science, technology and innovation as well as a study on trends in densely and thinly populated areas.The Eurostat regional yearbook 2011 gives a detailed picture of a large number of statistical fields in the 27 Member States of the European Union, as well as in EFTA and candidate countries. The text of each chapter has been written by specialists in statistics and is accompanied by maps, figures and tables.    

            Download the Yearbook

ICOT 2012

ICOT 2012

Archanes, Crete, Greece - 23-26 May 2012

ICOT 2012 aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the issues posed by special interest tourism. Although special interest tourism is being seen by many governments and tourism organisations as a means of alleviating the impacts of mass tourism, the conference will argue that little is still known in this area, therefore the conference will seek to inform future policy on the management of special interest tourism projects.  More details can be found on their website.

On what constitutes a Package Holiday

"It's important that agents are explicit with their customers on what they are selling and they ensure their customers understand that they are, where relevant, only acting as an agent. They need to ensure the customer understands what this means in the event of any incidents whilst on their holiday...If an agent is advertising an inclusive price then it's perceived that they are advertising a package and therefore need to comply with the Package Travel Regulations."

These comments came from Julia Lo Bue-Said, leisure director of consortium Advantage Travel Centres, following a case where a customer was hurt while on a holiday he had booked through Qwerty Travel, featured on Teletext Holidays...
read more

Call for papers

Anthropology in the World Conference

8th-10th June 2012 - at the British Museum, Clore Centre.

Deadline for abstracts is 16th January.

Find out more here... 

RGS-IBG Annual Conference : The Geographies of Leisure? 

3rd-5th July 2012 - to be held at Edinburgh University

Deadline for abstracts is 23rd January

Find out more here...

Soundtracks: Music, Tourism and Travel conference
6-9 July 2012 - in Liverpool

Deadline for abstracts is 6th February

Find out more here... 

Spotlight Gallery to Feature African-American Artists

In celebration of Black History Month, the department will host an art exhibit featuring the works of two local African-American artists: Dawn Cherry Miles and Thaddeus LaCrette. The exhibit, titled “Imagery, Imagination and African Influence,” will open with a reception from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on January 27 at the Spotlight Gallery, which is located within the department’s Pine Camp Arts and

Welcome Back!

Hope you're all feeling rested and ready for a new semester! 

Don't forget workshops resume next Monday; as usual, you will find a Subject Librarian in the LSDC (next to Finance, first floor) between 1-2pm, Monday to Thursday. If you need help with resources outside of these times, please drop me an email; alternatively I can be contacted by phone (ext: 2412) or pop into the office. 

You can also find us at the Postgrad centre on Tuesdays (1-2pm) and Thursdays (12-1pm).

I Went To Albania 2

A short new blog posting about my imminent one-man theatre piece 'I Went To Albania' is now up on the Bristol Ferment site here: http://bristolferment.posterous.com/ Where you can also read about some of the other work in this month's fortnight of new theatre at Bristol Old Vic (11-21 Jan).