Be warned – if you are planning on flying with Ghana Airways, be warned. Ghana Airways allegedly has something of a reputation for overbooking and not refunding money for seats that are not ultimately available.

Questions were asked in the Ghanaian Parliament about overbooking of seats on Ghana Airways. It was said that whereas overbooking is a normal practice in the airline business to allow for no shows, over sale was an illegal practice employed by travel agents to extract money from customers and inconvenience them in the process – and that there is a difference between over booking and deliberate over-sale of non existent seats

It was explained that in the case of overbooking, the ticket was usually not confirmed so the customer was aware that there were chances of him/her not getting a seat, but with over-sale the Travel Agent usually assured the customer of a seat without consulting the airline.

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A growing number of U.S. airlines and online travel companies are outsourcing customer service jobs overseas in a bid to reduce costs. United Airlines is about to source a customer call centre in Nova Scotia. Travelocity will outsource about 300 jobs to India over the next year and expects to save $10 million in 2004 as a result of the change. American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and US Airways said they do not redirect any calls from U.S. customers to call centres outside the United States. Delta Air Lines, which outsourced nearly 1,000 jobs last year to three call centres in Bangalore, Bombay and New Delhi India, says it is aware of the potential pitfalls.

The Beetle’s own experience of speaking with e-bookers, a travel booking organisation that has been outsourced to India has not been good. The operatives are charming and polite, but pushy and lack in-depth travel knowledge. They also returned calls at 10pm!

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The Burmese government has given the go-ahead for the creation of the world’s largest tiger reserve. The reserve is planned to add to the existing Hukawng Valley reserve making the area some 30,000 sq km, which is about the same size as Belgium.

The news has pleased conservationists who were alarmed when a 2003 survey revealed only 150 to 200 tigers left. Conservationists say that work must be done to train rangers and stamp out the lucrative trade in tiger body parts and new avenues of income will have to be found for local people so they do not succumb to the temptation to profit from the growing regional demand for tiger products. At $200 per kilo, the profits from even a small tiger could be equivalent to 10 years of income for many in this area.

Tiger skins, heads and claws are often prized as trophies, while bones and internal organs are used in Asian medicines. China is the largest market for the trade.

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Holidaymakers are supporting the Travel Foundation, a new charity that is trying to help manage the travel industry more sustainably.

Since the charity’s launch in November 2003, more than three-quarters of holidaymakers who booked a winter or summer holiday with UK operator First Choice have agreed to pay a voluntary donation to the charity.

The Travel Foundation is aiming to raise £1 million a year by 2006, which it says it will spend on projects that help tourism make a positive contribution to holiday destinations.

First Choice is asking its customers to donate 10 pence per adult, and 5 pence per child per holiday booking. Other UK operators, including The Adventure Company (formerly Travelbag Adventures) and Hidden Greece, will soon be providing similar fundraising schemes. Sunvil Holidays is already asking its customers to match its own donation of 50 pence per booking.

The Travel Foundation has already supported sustainable tourism projects in The Gambia and in Cyprus, where all the main tour operators are now offering excursions to the less well-known rural areas to help contribute to the livelihoods of local people. It plans to support similar tourism-related projects in other popular holiday destinations, including Mexico and Tobago, to help tourism make a greater contribution to the local people, environment and economy.

Further information, see thetravelfoundation.org.uk or telephone 0117 9273049.

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Azores Express has announced expanded Spring and Summer service from Boston Logan Airport to Portugal beginning in June 2004. Azores Express will offer direct flights to São Miguel, the main island in the Azores archipelago, on Wednesdays (starts June 23rd), Tuesdays, and Fridays. A Saturday flight is offered from Providence, Rhode Island starting June 12, 2004.

The Azores Islands, an autonomous region of Portugal, are the closest point in Europe to the United States, just four hours east by plane from Boston.

Situated 2,000 nautical miles from New England, the archipelago of the Azores was discovered during the first half of the 15th-century by Portuguese navigators. Today, gothic churches and majestic baroque manor homes mingle with sapphire blue and emerald green lakes, rolling prairies, volcanic cones and craters, and colourful hydrangeas and azaleas to enchant visitors. This inviting land enjoys year-round mild temperatures (between 57°F and 71°F).

A direct service from Boston to the historic island of Terceira will be offered on Sundays starting June 13th with a return flight every Tuesday. Non-stop flights to Portugal’s capital of Lisbon will be available every Thursday (starts June 24) and Sunday (starts June 6). Connecting flights to Madeira, Lisbon and Porto are also available from São Miguel. Inter-island flights are offered to each of the nine islands in the Azores. Roundtrip airfares start at just $579. Upgrades to business-class are just $150 each way to the Azores, and $200 each way to Lisbon. For more information and reservations, contact your travel agent, or Azores Express at 800-762-9995, www.Azores-Express.com.

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Under 30? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we’ll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

Spotted by Bretislav in the Czech Republic, this is from the Canadian National Post: “A spelling error on several hundred government envelopes mailed from Nunavut’s capital last week added an extra ‘u’ to the spelling of Iqaluit, changing the meaning of the word from “the place of many fish” to “dirty bum.”.

”About 200 envelopes containing T4 income tax slips were marked with a stamp that mistakenly referred to Iqaluit as Iqualuit. [A linguist], who consulted with a fluent Inuktitut speaker … said whoever made the stamp appears to have used a prefix meaning faeces adhering to the anus. Seventy-one percent of Nunavut’s population speak Inuktitut… yet the public service does its work primarily in English because bureaucrats from outside the territory hold key positions in government. Government translators trying to turn English documents into Inuktitut reports, posters and street signs are overworked and the final products are often rife with spelling errors and literal translations that make no sense to the Inuit majority…”

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