100% baggage tracking at Istanbul New Airport

SITA is to provide 100 percent baggage tracking at Istanbul New Airport, its innovative baggage tracking solution at what will be one of the world’s largest airports, will allow airlines to meet IATA Resolution 753’s baggage tracking requirements from day one. 

The airport, due to open in 2018, will have capacity to accommodate 90 million passengers a year. Upon completion of all four phases, the passenger capacity will reach over 200 million passengers annually and will be required to track more than 75,000 bags an hour. 

The potential for bags to be mishandled in such a busy environment will be significantly reduced with SITA’s baggage solution by providing information on where every single bag is on its route through the airport.

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Istanbul Among Top 10 List of Street Food Cities

VirtualTourist.com surveyed its members about their favorite street food experiences, and they rated #Istanbul as the 7th top city for its doner – lamb, chicken, or beef grilled on a vertical skewer and served in pita bread. There is also simit (ring-shaped bread topped with toasted sesame seeds, Lahmacun (sometimes called Turkish pizza, flatbread topped with minced vegetables and/or ground meat and bold spices,) and midye dolma (stuffed mussels.)

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Turkish Airlines launches double daily flights from Birmingham

TURKISH AIRLINES has started its double daily services between Birmingham and Istanbul, increasing the volume of seats on sale from the Midlands, and providing 289 onward global connections from Istanbul.

The airline has registered significant growth since it started operating from Birmingham with five flights a week to Istanbul in 2008. By increasing its frequency every year, the airline has now reached 14 flights weekly.

Meanwhile, Birmingham has registered record breaking growth in passenger numbers in the past 14 consecutive months. In total, 872,833 passengers passed through the airport in April 2016, up by 13.2 percent compared with the same month last year when the last record April was set.

Long-haul routes experienced the greatest rise in demand, with 41.2 percent passenger growth compared to April 2015. Short-haul routes saw a 9.7 percent growth rate year-on-year.

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Spring into these top cities

SPRING guides to Barcelona, Berlin, Istanbul, London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Sydney, and Tokyo are available now at www.seasonalcities.com.

The guides, written by resident travel journalists and updated every season, are an insider's edit of top fives (sights, events, shops, restaurants, bars and clubs, and hotels), and they provide three-day weather forecasts for each of the cities. 

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Pressure on 'safe' destinations mounts after Istanbul bombing; attack 'likely to lead to travel restrictions'

A PREDICTED shift in tourism to ‘safe’ destinations following the latest fresh terrorist attack in #Turkey could de-stabilize the market, industry experts have warned.

A suicide bomb attack on Tuesday in a tourist area of #Istanbul killed 10 people – at least nine of whom were German tourists. It came four days after suspected Islamic terrorist’s stabbed three tourists at a hotel in Egypt’s Red Sea area.

Approximately 2.5 million British citizens travel to Turkey every year on holiday. Operators fear the incidents could lead to too much demand for Spain and Greece – destinations already experiencing higher sales following previous incidents.

Industry consultant, Andy Cooper, a former head of the Federation of Tour Operators, said: ‘The danger is it that puts huge pressure on Spain, and you end up with a squeeze on beds, prices go up, and capacity runs short.’

Prior to the attacks, specialist operators had announced plans to diversify into Greece and Turkey.

Countries are likely to impose further restrictions on travel to Turkey following the murders in Istanbul's tourist district, says Kinda Chebib, a senior analyst at Euromonitor. ‘The explosion at Istanbul's most prominent tourist attraction is expected to impact negatively on inbound flow to Turkey on the short-to-medium term. The fact that the explosion occurred in the deep centre of Istanbul and that tourists from Germany and Norway were among the casualties is expected to result in further travel restrictions and flights banned towards the destination in the coming days.

‘Major source European markets are very likely to take preventive measures so as to protect their citizens traveling to the popular outbound market.’

Russia's state tourism agency had already recommended a boycott of Turkey after the country shot down a Russian fighter jet in November. So far, the British Foreign Office has not changed its travel advice for Turkey and the German government is not advising its citizens to avoid the destination, but it has issued new advice urging them to stay away from crowded places in the country.


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Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45372714@N07/14129282404">Istiklal Avenue, Istanbul (Turkey)</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)

European tourism - growth, but no grounds for complacency

LONG-HAUL travel to #Europe enjoyed an encouraging summer this year, and the upward trend in arrivals is expected to continue, according to a study by ForwardKeys, which monitors future travel patterns by analysing 14 million reservation transactions daily.

Total international long-haul arrivals from January to September were up 5.1% on the previous year, and forward bookings are up 4.8% for the rest of the year.

Sebastien Cron, global sales director at ForwardKeys, said: ‘While it’s widely recognized that Europe is losing its competitiveness, it’s good to see from our data that long-haul travel to Europe has been growing well recently, pushed up by a strong summer season, particularly in July.’

But the European Tourism Association’s CEO Tom Jenkins urged the industry not to be lulled into a false state of security over figures showing growth. ‘Travel and #tourism in other parts of the world is increasing faster than in Europe. Although the statistics show we are continuing to grow at an average annual growth rate of 3.6% since 2007, the rest of world is growing at a rate of 5.7% over the same period.’

Within Europe, the picture is mixed. Germany and the Netherlands have been the stand-out performers since 2007, displaying total tourism growth of 37% and 33% respectively for the period, a 4.6% and 4.2% annual average, whereas the UK and France have grown just 13% and 10% for the period, an average of just 1.7% and 1.4% per annum.

Top European destinations for arrivals, between January and September, were London, Paris, Istanbul, and Rome, though growth in London and Paris was anaemic, with London 0.3% down and Paris just 1.6% up. For the rest of year, Barcelona and Milan, top the list for the fastest growing destinations, are up 20.3% and 25.6% respectively, owing to the Milan Expo and improved connectivity to Barcelona, particularly via Dubai.

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Pegasus opens Gatwick-Istanbul service

TURKEY’S Pegasus Airlines launched flights on May 1 between London Gatwick and Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport, and onto destinations across Turkey and to Northern Cyprus.

Flights can be booked now at www.flypgs.com/en with fares starting at £39.99 one way, including taxes and charges.

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Size matters for Istanbul’s new airport

ISTANBUL has started work on the construction of the world’s largest airport. The airport parking zone will be big enough for 500 planes. 

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