News in Brief: Friday September 20

News in Brief: Friday September 20
By admin


From October 1, Magellan Travel Group will welcome five new members to its ranks with more "exciting announcements" to follow at its annual conference, to be held in Noosa Heads from October 16 to 18.

The new members are Platinum Travel Corporation, Benalla Travel, Rheom Travel, Spencer Travel and the Travel Centre Coff's Harbour.

"We are thrilled to have travel agents of such stature, experience and reputation joining the group, which further cements our place as the leadign group for high performance, high achieving independent agents in Australia," chief executive Andrew Macfarlane said.

 

One year since the announcement of their alliance, Qantas and Emirates have launched their largest joint commercial offer to date with earybird airfares now available in all cabins for travel in 2014.

Under the offer, return fares to Europe start from $1547 to Copenhagen, with business class fares to Europe from $7598.

Emirates vice president commercial operations Australasia, Bryan Banston, predicted Scandinavian travel would be a particular growth area for the year ahead, based on strong bookings from Australia to Stockholm since the service launched on September 4.

 

Tune Hotels has appointed Nathan Copsey as general manager of its first Australian property in Melbourne, to open on November 1.

 

Tourism New Zealand has reported a strong ski season with international arrivals up 6.2% in August year on year and Australian arrivals climbing 4.7% for the month.

Meanwhile, the tourism body revealed plans to push harder into the growing Indian market with several key appointments for its Mumbai office.

Neha Bola joins as country manager, Nisha D'souza becomes marketing communcations manager and Naomi Lobo has taken on the PR manager role. 

 

Air Tahiti Nui is celebrating its 15th birthday by inviting 10 Australian agents to a picnic on a motu as part of a five-star trip from November 14 to 17.

To be in the running, agents must book and ticket any Air Tahiti Nui-marketed flight on TN 244 paper to anywhere on its network from Seoptember 23 to October 20.

The winning agents will be notified on October 21.

 

The Sunshine Coast's markets have topped a TripAdvisor poll, with the Noosa Farmers Market coming in first place and Eumundi Market in fourth.

 

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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