Europe
New cabins: Air France gives itself the means to...
"Consistency" was the key word in Frédéric Gagey's speech as he presented Air France's new medium-haul offer in Stockholm on Wednesday. In the wake of the long-haul network, and after a year focused on the leisure segment in 2014, the airline is extending its strategy of moving upmarket to...
Lyon-Saint Exupéry: free WI-FI on board Rhônexpress
Business travellers can now stay perfectly connected during their journeys between Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport and the city centre. The Rhônexpress, which commutes in less than thirty minutes, has recently been fitted with WI-FI antennae, guaranteeing excellent reception quality along the 22-kilometre line. The user...
London: address book
Last November, EUROSTAR celebrated its 20th anniversary and 150 million passengers. Identity card Currency: pound sterling (GBP). 1 euro = 0.73 GBP (March 2015), +44 (Great Britain), 20 (London). Getting there EUROSTAR celebrated its 20th anniversary last November, as well as its...
Contemporary art: London steals the show from New York and...
A latecomer to the international art scene, the British capital is now one of the world's leading centres for contemporary art, and has only been in existence for twelve years: the Frieze Art Fair, held every October around Regent's Park, attracts almost 70,000 visitors and is already competing with the...
Good momentum for Caen-Carpiquet airport
2015 is off to a flying start for Caen Airport. The Caen-Carpiquet hub posted double-digit growth for the 1st quarter of 2015 (+17%) compared with the same period in 2014. A total of 23,500 additional passengers used the Normandy airport at the start of the year, thanks in particular to the...
Interview with Agnès Ogier Agnès Ogier, CEO of Thalys
What will this new status as a rail company change for Thalys? Agnès Ogier - Thalys will now have a product on which all its staff will focus. The new status means that resources will be pooled, with 100% of staff dedicated to Thalys. This will enable us to improve service quality. We will...
The Paris hotel industry gets a makeover
The City of Light, a sleeping beauty? It remains to be seen. Hotel inaugurations follow one another and the dance card looks like a Prévert inventory where you can find a little bit of everything, just like in the Samaritaine. Even a trendy youth hostel - the Generator - on the banks of the Canal St Martin!
New boss, new impetus for Airberlin
AirBerlin, Germany's second-largest airline carrying almost 32 million passengers a year on a network of around a hundred routes, is still losing money. Stephan Pichler, the new CEO, wants to return to breakeven by 2016 with a two-pronged strategy: attractive prices and greater competitiveness with low-cost competitors...
Greenland: like the beginning of the world
The intense blue of an icy sea is reflected in a myriad of icebergs. The Ilulisat fjord conceals a beauty that is almost inaccessible, except to those who want to experience a unique journey to the Far North... Where, in the words of Baudelaire, "the sun only grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternations of light and night...
High-speed WiFi: Nice airport increasingly connected
Five years after launching a free, unlimited WiFi connection - a first for a French airport at the time - Nice Côte d'Azur Airport is continuing its efforts to establish itself as a pioneer in aviation connectivity. Since 13 March, business travellers have been able to take advantage of a high-speed WiFi network...
Accor focuses on the top end of the market
"This is a year of achievement in the upmarket and luxury segments", explains Christophe Alaux, General Manager of HotelServices France for the hotel group. Until now, we haven't made any major announcements. First of all, we wanted to do all the work upstream to achieve consistency in these segments". This dynamic, which affects both the Pullman...
CDG, Saint-Ouen, Ajaccio: three new French addresses for Holiday Inn
The Holiday Inn Express Paris - Aéroport Charles de Gaulle is set to be the first of three hotel projects recently announced by IHG to open in the French market. Opening in 2017, the hotel will have 305 rooms. Its strategic location should appeal to French and international business travellers, especially as the CDGVal...
OnlyLyon: a good year for business tourism in 2014
In total, some six million tourists visited Lyon during 2014, according to figures published on Friday by ONLYLYON Tourisme et Congrès. Hotel establishments benefited from this influx, as shown by the increase in the number of overnight stays (+1.4% compared to 2013, to 4.2 million overnight stays). The...
Interview with David Chapple, Director of the Business Travel Show
How would you sum up the Business Travel Show 2015? David Chapple - It was the biggest edition since the event was created 21 years ago. We welcomed 256 exhibitors, compared with 220 last year. All the major brands are represented, from airlines, hotels and business travel agencies, as well as a wide range of travel agencies.
Vienna Donau City: business on the left bank of the Danube
Donau City is a far cry from the imperial pomp of the Ring and the Finde-century arteries of central Vienna. With its high-tech skyscrapers, the Austrian capital's new business district presents a very contemporary vision of Mitteleuropa. It all started with the aborted 1995 Universal Exhibition, ultimately rejected by the...
London: imminent kick-off for the Business Travel Show
A record-breaking BTS 2015 is about to get underway in London on Wednesday 25 February at the Olympia Grand Hall. More than 252 exhibitors are expected at the London show - there were 226 last year - and they will be coming to meet the 6,500 participants expected. On the eve of its 21st anniversary, the Business Travel Show confirms...
A 2nd piece of cabin baggage for easyJet Plus passengers
EasyJet is making its travel policy more flexible by targeting business travellers: from 19 March, members of the easyJet Plus frequent flyer programme will be able to board with a 2nd piece of cabin baggage. This new feature will also be available to holders of a "Flexi" ticket, an "Upfront" seat or the "Extra Legroom" option. "Certain customers...
Eurostar: business travel contributes to good 2014 results
A total of 10.4 million passengers travelled on the Eurostar network in 2014, according to the figures unveiled on 18 February by the rail company: a slight increase (+3%) on the 2013 financial year, during which Eurostar recorded traffic of 10.1 million. Business travellers contributed to these good results...
French hotel industry: a mixed 2014 according to Deloitte
Slight growth in revenue per room for the mid-range (+0.1%), top-of-the-range (+1.5%) and luxury (+0.2%) segments, weakness in budget hotels (-2.0%) and a continued decline in super budget hotels (-3.5%): this is the overall picture of 2014 drawn by Deloitte. The Paris hotel industry, while continuing to record high levels of occupancy,...
The first Marriott in Lyon: Cité Internationale
We will have to wait until the end of the renovation work - directed from this year by architects Albert Constantin and Marie Courdouan, and which will affect a large part of the facilities (rooms, meeting spaces, fitness centre, restaurant...) - for the Marriott Lyon Cité Internationale hotel to give the full measure of its...








































