Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

IATA: Africa sees growth in Business and First Class Travel

2:05 PM nero
Yet more positive news for the air travel market in Africa. In the year 2011, the growth in first class and business class air travel on intercontinental flights from Africa to Europe, the Far East and the Middle East dipped according to the latest IATA survey.

In Africa, the opposite was true. Business and First Class travel rose within Africa and between Africa and the South West Pacific area.
Business Travel within Africa grew by 2.9%

Decline in Premium Travel in European, M.Eastern and the Far Eastern Routes
Premium travel fell by 7.9 percent between Africa and the Far East, by 5.7 percent between Africa and the Middle East and by 4.8 percent between Africa and Europe. But it rose by 9.6 percent between Africa and the southwest Pacific(Fiji, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Cook Islands) and by 2.9 percent within Africa. 

Worldwide, the report shows that air travel in both premium and economy markets rose in December, with premium travel increasing by 3.7 percent, compared with the same month the previous year, and economy travel by 7.4 percent. 

IATA economists suggested that this was due to an improvement in business confidence, which had “turned up in the past two months, and is pointing to increased business activity. As a result we would expect some increase in business travel lending some support to premium travel in the months ahead.
“However, growth risks from the euro zone debt crisis remain.” 

Despite this, the report continued, “a leading indicator of premium travel growth – the purchasing managers’ index of business confidence – signals an optimistic outlook for premium travel markets in coming months”.
“Changes in business confidence have been a good early indicator of changes in premium travel growth, leading them by up to six months. 

“The index has now clearly turned and broken through the neutral level into expansion territory, indicating likely improvements in premium travel growth in coming months.” 

Commenting on the drop in travel between Africa and the Far East and Middle East, the report pointed out that these routes “previously experienced strong growth from increased investments and trade but now shows weakness”. 

However, it said that travel within Africa “has proved to be very resilient with good economic growth rates in a number of countries on the continent facilitating strong travel activity”.


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Lonelier Planet: Solo-travel trend continues to rise

1:17 PM nero
Tour operators and hotels are noting a significant increase in solo travelers within their customer base and are taking steps to further accommodate this growing travel niche.

There are plenty of reasons why one would want to travel alone. Sometimes a frequent travel partner isn’t available. Other times people simply crave quiet and solitude. For these and many other reasons, solo travel has become a growing niche over the past few years, and agents, tour operators and cruise lines are adjusting the way they do business in order to accommodate the new trend and the new travelers.
Hotels and booking agents are seeing an increase in the trend of solo travel
Last year, tour operator Abercrombie & Kent launched a dedicated solo travel division that waived or greatly reduced supplements and fees for solo travelers, and saw a 26 percent increase in this niche for the last three quarters of the year. Bob Simpson, A&K’s vice president of product planning and business development, feels that this bump contributed significantly to the company’s overall profits for the year. A full 11 percent of its overall client base is now people traveling alone. Simpson estimates that 50 percent of the company’s solo travelers are not part of the single travel program, but sign up for a regular excursion.

Get the full story at Travel Agent Central

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Protecting your data as you travel

3:00 AM nero
Our last post on cybersecurity at the airport and on board some aircraft that offer on board connectivity dealt with rogue Wi-Fi hotspots and the measures you can take to protect your laptop from hackers. This post will deal with a bigger problem of information security throughout your travel itinerary and how you can protect yourself from data loss or even data theft during your travel.

Wi-Fi access points still play a major role as they are the entry points to your data that hackers, cybercriminals and the individuals involved in cyber espionage. The other option is when your laptop is stolen. So these miscreants have two gateways to your information. Free Wi-Fi is the most important amenity amongst Business Travelers, according to a survey done by American Airlines and HP in 2009. In fact business travelers responded that Wi-Fi was the "most important airport amenity, outscoring basic travels needs such as food by nearly 30 percentage points."

Information security and travel: Travelers needs to place more efforts in safeguarding their data.
For many of these travelers, the convenience of accessing free Wi-Fi at the airport lounge outweighs the risks of hacking and information theft. But this depends on the position in the pecking order. The loss of information by a high flying executive or government agent is definitely quite expensive!

Even for an "ordinary" business traveler, there are risks associated with malware installed via rogue Wi-Fi access points that might cost you lots of data and hundreds of dollars to restore your data and  remove the malware.

According to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institut, the physical loss of devices, and the accompanying combination of replacement cost, detection, forensics, data breach, lost intellectual property costs, lost productivity, and legal, consulting and regulatory expenses sets a company back an average of $49,246 per lost laptop! Lost laptops with encryptionhttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4596185367102352450&postID=4789261814681384493 however cost companies only $20,000, which is 29,000 less than for an unencrypted laptop. Encrypted disks however safeguard data by scrambling information on them. They unlock that information only when the user enters the proper passcode.

Tips for Safeguarding your data during your travel
There are a few simple steps that you can take to ensure your data is safe during your travel. Travel can be a headache and who wants an extra head ace post travel? Use the following steps to safeguard your data and ensure a smooth and safe Wi-Fi access as you hop from one city to another in your business travels:
  • Use an encrypted disk to safeguard the information on your laptop or smart phone and make sure you log off of your computer when you're not using it.In most cases when you hibernate your computer, its memory is recorded unencrypted. You can also use a free software called TrueCript(http://www.truecrypt.org) that allows you to encrypt the content of your local drive and on USB Flash drives.
  • Turn off your wireless and Bluetooth connections if you're not using them. These are electronic gateways into your devices and as long as they are on, hackers can scan for open Wi-Fi peer to peer connections and gain access to your files. Hackers can use software like Aerodump to quickly figure out the existing wireless access points. Woo unto you if yours is one of them and you are not well armed to fend off attacks.
  • Use an anti-glare shield on your computer to prevent others from spying on your screen. With such shields, you must be face-to-face with the screen to be able to read it. 
  •  Regularly back up the data on your laptop or smart phone. Several companies offer backup services, but you can also save information on other computers and disks. Even if your data is encrypted- eliminating your fear of sensitive information getting stolen -backing up the data will make it easy to transfer to a new phone or laptop.
  •  If you lose your smart phone and don't want others to access your information, call your provider and request that the device be wiped of information. There also exist security software that allows you to send a text message to your phone that will remotely wipe it and block others from accessing its content. 
  •  To ensure that you're visiting an authentic Web site and not getting duped by a phishing scheme, some experts suggest logging onto those sites through your company's VPN connection.
  • Be vigilant to avoid losing or forgetting your laptop at the lounge. Avoid sleeping or taking a nap with the laptop on your lap; place the laptop on your lap instead of a table when using it as it's much easier to forget the laptop on the table but impossible to forget to carry it with you when it's on your lap :)

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