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  • Tourism Australia appoints new RGM UK & Northern Europe

    Tourism Australia has announced the appointment of Denise von Wald to the role of Regional General Manager Uk (UK) & Northern Europe.

    Denise von Wald will take in the role with Tourism Australia, based in its London office, from 26 August 2013.

    Ms von Wald joins Tourism Australia from Education Adelaide where, as Chief Executive, she has led the organisation achieve impressive results for the past seven years.

    Prior to joining Education Adelaide, Ms von Wald also held management positions on the South Australian Tourism Commission and was a published journalist and producer on the ABC.

    Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said Ms von Wald was a powerful leader and communicator in addition to a strategic marketer, with solid experience within the tourism sector.

    “With a proven track record in tourism and marketing, I actually have surely Denise would be a robust asset to Tourism Australia’s presence inside the UK and may be capable of continue the legacy of the good work done by her predecessor Rod Harrex,” Mr McEvoy said.   

    “Growth in visitation from the united kingdom was stymied by global economic factors lately. However, with the British and Irish Lions tour set to kick off next month, followed by the Ashes cricket series later this year, Australia is ready to receive a great addition in visitors from the united kingdom in 2013.” 

    The UK is currently Australia’s third largest source marketplace for international visitors (delivering 593,000 visitors in 2012)  but is the second one largest marketplace for Australia when it comes to spend and visitor nights, delivering A$2.9 billion and 22.5 million visitor nights during 2012.

  • News: Zipcar and Regus team as much as deliver smart sharing solutions

    Zipcar, Inc., the world’s leading car sharing network, and Regus, the world’s largest provider of flexible workspaces, have teamed as much as offer a brand new national program to assist businesses of all sizes around the country lower your expenses by paying just for what they use.

    Today’s consumers are sharing bikes, vacation homes, textbooks and couture, and smart businesses are jumping onto this trend of collaborative consumption to satisfy their needs efficiently. Throughout the new program offered by Zipcar and Regus, businesses can share resources they must prevail – like workspace and vehicles – at a discounted cost, making doing business much more convenient and value-effective.

    “Collaborative consumption is a trend that is sensible for smart businesses, and Zipcar’s new program with Regus enables businesses to make use of their resources more efficiently to save cash and increase flexibility,” said Diane Systrom, Director, Zipcar for Business, North America.  “Regus gives their customers the power to work when, where and the way they need that will specialise in business with no need to take care of the effort of operating an office, while Zipcar for Business gives our members on-demand access to ‘wheels after they want them’ offering the entire benefits of vehicle ownership without the prices. We see many parallels between our service offerings and look ahead to helping businesses with our smart solutions.”

    Through the recent alliance, Regus customers can enjoy a unique offer to sign up for Zipcar for Business, a membership offering designed especially for firms and their employees.

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  • New beach houses open at Parrot Cay by COMO

    Three new two-bedroom Beach Houses have recently opened at Parrot Cay by COMO within the Turks and Caicos Islands. They’re the most recent addition to the award-winning private island resort, and feature been designed by Cheong Yew Kuan, the Bali-based architect who also created Donna Karan’s house at the island.

    Nestled among sand dunes with uninterrupted ocean views, each detached Beach House has a giant outdoor deck, private pool and direct access to the powder-white beach. Floor-to-ceiling windows flood each property with natural light, allowing gentle sea breezes to flow during the open-plan living spaces.

    Relaxed Hamptons-style interiors in sun-bleached neutral shades include spacious living and dining areas with fully-equipped kitchens, two bedrooms, each featuring kingsize four-poster beds and huge ensuite bathrooms with private outdoor showers set within their very own gardens. The homes, which might be appropriate to friends or family travelling together, are furnished throughout with COMO’s signature contemporary style and antique pieces from Indonesia. Each Beach House also comes with the exclusive services of a COMO butler.

    The houses are situated only a short walk from the infinity pool, which forms the guts of the major Parrot Cay resort, and a five-minute buggy ride from the award-winning COMO Shambhala Retreat at the other side of the island. Here, a whole and sundry wellness programme includes yoga, Pilates and Asian-based treatments reminiscent of shiatsu and Ayurveda, inclusive of signature COMO Shambhala massage therapies.  Experienced, intuitive therapists reply to each guest individually and suggestions are made on a consultative in place of prescriptive basis.

  • Queen Mary 2 recalls maiden arrival of original Queen Mary into Manhattan

    Queen Mary 2 sailed into Ny on Saturday 1 June 2013, she arrived at the 77th anniversary of the maiden call of the unique Queen Mary in Ny in 1936.

    Queen Mary’s Maiden Voyage began in Southampton on 27 May 1936 and she or he left to the sounds of bands and ecstatic crowds. On board were the famous bandleader, Henry Hall , scheduled to offer a chain of live radio broadcasts in the course of the crossing; the virtuoso harmonica player, Larry Adler ; and a well-known singer of the time, Frances Day , who performed a song written specially for Queen Mary by Henry Hall , ‘Somewhere at Sea’. And, much as she could have liked being at sea, Miss Day failed to trust the ship’s eggs to be fresh by the tip of the voyage so she took along her own chickens. Queen Mary received a rapturous welcome in Ny.

    Peter Shanks , Cunard President and Managing Director, said:
    “Since her launch to great acclaim in 2004, Queen Mary 2 has proudly continued the Transatlantic legacy of elegance and glamour that Queen Mary personified during her long reign of service – the legend lives on.

    “On this special anniversary, we’re also pleased to continue to name Big apple our homeport within the USA, a city which has embraced our ships throughout the centuries and played a prominent role in lots of of Cunard’s historical milestones.”

    77 years on, Queen Mary 2 left Southampton last Saturday (25 May) for brand new York. Onboard to talk is Jeffrey Weinberg , adviser to seven US Presidents, and passengers are enjoying our legendary entertainment including presentations from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). Today the eggs – all 45,000 of them – are fresh and plentiful and our legendary experiences continue to exist.

    Queen Mary would cross the Atlantic another 1,000 times during her 31-year career before being retired in 1967. Queen Mary 2 will make her 200th crossing on 6 July in this, her ninth year at the Atlantic.

  • News: End of the start for Reading UK station upgrade

    Passengers at Reading now have a much bigger, better station after Network Rail successfully completed the primary a part of an 11-day programme of upgrades over the Easter weekend.

    More than 2,000 engineers from Network Rail and its team of contractors worked round-the-clock from late Thursday evening through to the early hours of Tuesday morning to hold out work which might ordinarily have taken around 20 full weekends.

    As a result, the station now has two new entrances, four new platforms and a brand new 110-metre long, 30-metre-wide passenger bridge, with escalators and lifts providing step-free access to the hot platforms.

    Graham Denny, Network Rail senior programme manager, station works, said: “It’s gone absolutely brilliantly. We opened one of the improvements over the weekend and this morning we opened the recent platforms, which have been able to receive the primary train when it came in at 04:40.

    “The station was able to opt for passengers, and the folks we’ve had through already seem more than happy with the implications.”

    Reading station is utilized by 14m passengers annually, with numbers predicted to greater than double to 30m by 2030. Station users will now have extra space, easier access to platforms, and new passenger information screens.

    The new platforms have two sections, A and B, to enable trains of varying lengths to occupy different ends of the platform collectively, improving efficiency and timings for patrons. Each now has escalator and step-free access to the brand new footbridge, with the prevailing platforms because of follow suit by 8 April.

    Over the arriving months, more platforms might be upgraded, with the station elements of the project due for final completion by February 2014. The programme as an entire will upgrade the station and unblock the bottleneck at the railway serving it – so trains won’t ought to queue while approaching the station. All work is scheduled to be completed by 2015, a year prior to schedule.

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