February 25, 2009 Archives

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As the pound plummets, Dom Littlewood discovered why rejecting brochures and going it alone may no longer be the most cost effective way of booking your holiday.

To prove this, Dom compared two holidays to two popular destinations - Florida and Majorca - and discovered that on both occasions the brochure price beats the DIY price. But the benefits don't stop there.

Package holidays - the advantages:
* Perhaps the biggest advantage of booking a package holiday is the protection you receive from companies involved going bust.
* Under the ATOL scheme (Air Travel Operator's License), you are protected from losing your money or being stranded abroad. It does this by carrying out checks on the tour operators and travel organisers it licenses, and requiring them to take part in a financial guarantee scheme managed which provides the funds to protect customers should a firm fail
* A package doesn't have to be an all singing all dancing all in holiday - it can just be a flight and a hotel booked together on your behalf by the tour operator (ATOL does not cover flight only bookings).
* Make sure when booking to confirm with the tour operator that your holiday will be covered by ATOL, and that they give you an ATOL receipt.
* You can double check that your tour operator is ATOL covered by looking at the Civil Aviation Authority's website.

There's more information from the CAA here.

Secret week of summer holidays:
According to the tour operators, the 2009 high season ends on August 29 - the last week of the summer holidays.

Of the 175 local education authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales, about 80% have scheduled the autumn term to start on Thursday September 3, according to the department for children, schools and families.

However, a significant number of schools within each authority have scheduled teacher training, or 'inset' days, for September 3 and 4, meaning that most children won't actually start school until Monday September 7.

By exploiting this bureaucratic anomaly, canny families who gain that extra, secret week of the summer holidays.

What do you think? Are there still package holiday bargains to be had out there? Or would you still prefer to go your own way? Add your comments.

Have your say.

Over the past few months Britain's industrial output has been falling at a rapid rate. But, as Lucy Siegle discovered, British manufacturing was in decline long before the current recession.

In December official figures showed that manufacturing output declined at its fastest rate since 1981, underscoring the fragile state of the UK economy. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said it fell 10.2 per cent from a year earlier as recession hit the sector.

For the final three months of 2008 output fell 5.1 per cent, the biggest quarterly fall since 1974.

The real worry is that the various industrial surveys suggest that things are set to get even worse over the coming months, with no signs at all that the drop in the exchange rate is yet boosting manufacturers' export order books.

This has lead to calls for the government to bail out slumping manufacturing companies in the same way as the US government did for car maker GM who received a $6 billion bail out package last year.

If that wasn't bad enough, engineering entrepreneur James Dyson believes there are not enough people leaving school and university with engineering qualifications which is leading to a national skills shortage. And CBI officials have stated that the government needs to do more to encourage children to seek out jobs in engineering.

But what do you think? Is the outlook for Britain's manufacturing industry really that gloomy? And should the government now step in? Have your say.