With two bank holidays in one month, May is one of the top months for taking a short break. According to a recent survey, nearly half of Britons are planning to go on a holiday during May. Many of these are heading abroad for a short city break.

Of those planning a holiday in May, 25% will be taking a long weekend break or longer. City breaks have grown in popularity recently, and continue to attract Brits especially in May when there is a chance for a city break without taking days off work.

Taking a short holiday in May is a welcome break after the winter to almost half of the 500 respondents to the TripAdvisor survey.

There are several in-flight mobile use trials on the way at the moment, and the issue is on everyone’s lips. But trial by Air France is reportedly not running very smoothly. The British Airways has announced it will not be introducing the service any time soon.

On Air France flights, there seem to be several difficulties in using mobile phones. The connection is slow and of poor quality, and incoming calls and emails are not yet able to get through to the planes.

The developer of the technology that allows mobile calls to be made during flights, On Air, says it will sort out problems very soon.

Despite these reported issues, Ryanair will be introducing its own trial of mobile usage on flights later this year onboard 20 aircrafts.

“Mobiles have become such an extension of people’s lives that it is only natural to bring them into air travel,” Ryanair says to Telegraph.

“We are not concerned about the noise because our cabins have never been quiet places. People are constantly coming up and down the aisles, selling scratch cards or food, and we believe there is a market for this.”

While on holiday in Las Vegas a British tourist managed to con his way to the film set of Iron Man. The film is set to be next summer’s blockbuster, with Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow amongst the leading stars.

The holidaymaker had been staying at the legendary Las Vegas hotel and casino Ceasar’s Palace when he spotted the film set and managed to get by security guards by saying he was one of the extras. Other extras on the set played along, and he spent the day filming alongside Robert Downey Jr. And was even asked to do a scene with Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Brit missed his flight home from Las Vegas because he couldn’t leave the set during filming, but seems to be quite happy as he now appears even in some promotional shots for the film.

Holidays in the US could become more difficult in the future as the US government’s plans to fingerprint all arriving and departing visitors are causing controversy.

The latest announcement said it would be up to airlines and cruise ship companies to take the fingerprints from their passengers arriving or departing from holidays in America and deliver them to the government in 24 hours.

Outsourcing security measures to be the responsibility of private companies has not been well received by airlines and other companies who have spoken against such plans.

The plans are not yet definite, but the US Congress has set a deadline for when all visitors entering and leaving the US have to be fingerprinted – June 9th 2009. There has even been talk of scrapping the Visa Waiver Programme if this deadline is not met.

New Orleans is beginning to see a real recovery of tourism after suffering severely from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The city had almost double the amount of visitors in 2007 compared to 2006.

Last year 7.1 million tourists visited New Orleans from outside the US. The visitor numbers were released by the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau recently.

Holidaymakers from the UK are also beginning to show a revived interest in the legendary city. Several tour operators have said they’ve seen a considerable increase in the number of holidays sold to New Orleans, especially in the first few months of 2008.

When hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, 80% of the city was flooded, over 1,600 people were killed and it has caused $100 billion worth of damage.

Despite all that, the city continues to be a great tourist destination and needs it to overcome the effects of the hurricane.

Low cost airline Ryanair has announced two new routes to operate over the summer from Stansted airport. The airline will offer flights to Beziers in France and Rimini in Italy.

Holidays in Italy are very popular during the summer season, and Rimini is one of the many destinations where holidaymakers from Britain head to. Holidays in France are equally popular, and both are easy to get to with routes from regional airports.

The Ryanair flights from Stansted will operate during June, July and August.

As cruise holidays continue to grow more popular, Princes Cruises has announced it will increase capacity by 40% on its ships for 2009.

The cruise line will have most of its fleet in Europe next year, with Emerald Princess, Ruby Princess, Royal Princess and Tahitian Princess all sailing around Scandinavia and the Mediterranean.

Cruise holidaymakers will also have the opportunity to sail with the cruise line’s biggest ship Grand Princess out of Southampton for the first time.

“In the last three years we’ve grown the number of passengers and our percentage of repeat passengers has grown exponentially, but to reach 40% we need growth from all areas,” says Head of brand marketing Pieter van der Schee.

Low cost airline Jet2.com has announced two new routes to summer holiday destinations from Newcastle International airport.

The airline has added two Greek islands to its expanding destination list – Corfu and Rhodes. Flights will commence on June 4th to Rhodes and June 20th to Corfu.

“Both destinations have lacked direct, scheduled and, importantly, low cost services from Newcastle and we’re delighted to be launching them today,” said Jet2.com chief executive Philip Meeson.

The new routes are expected to be popular for family holidays, couples and groups of friends alike as holidays in Corfu and Rhodes appeal to a wide variety of people.

The best way to get people to visit an online travel agent site is to attract them with email marketing. According to a new survey, email offers and newsletters are a better marketing tool in online holiday sales than TV and newspaper ads as well as sponsored search engine links.

Holidaymakers not only expect to receive email offers from holiday companies they have used in the past, but they are also 52% more likely than average to get people to visit the website after receiving an email.

Travel companies use many sponsored links on search engine results, but these are only 8% above average likely to attract people to buy a holiday online.

“These findings are very revealing and of crucial importance to the travel industry. It punctures the received wisdom that online advertising is the best means of driving web visits and purchases.

“Whilst 60% of British households now have a home internet connection, there is evidently a need for research to examine how the internet is really used for leisure and pleasure time,” says Amanda Ling from Response One who conducted the survey.

The results are based on a survey of 1,000 adults in January and February 2008.

Majority of over 50s couples are planning to take four or more romantic short breaks this year, compared to just one when they were in their 40s.

The figures were revealed by a survey by Holiday Inn. In two years there has been 25% rise in the number of older couples taking short city breaks.

Holiday Inn spokesman Chris Hale said: ”By 50 most people have paid off their mortgage, their kids have left home and all of a sudden they have enormous freedoms they haven’t enjoyed for years.

”While people in their 30s and 40s are tied down with debts and family life, the over-50s are packing their bags and heading off for romantic weekends, with great big grins on their faces.”

Every year more and more bags are mishandled or delayed in airports around the world. Last year, a total of 42.2 million pieces of checked baggage did not get to their destination with their owners.

The problems cost the air transport industry $3.8 billion every year. With growing number of passengers, tighter security measures and short turnaround times there is ever more pressure for baggage handling.

The biggest problem handling the 2.25 billion pieces of luggage in 2007 was transfer baggage mishandling (49%), followed by failure to load, 16%; and ticketing error/ passenger bag switch/ security/ other, 14%.

The numbers were realeased by SITA.

After moving its base of operations to St Pancras International rail station, Eurostar has seen a massive increase in passengers. Over 2 million people have taken the high-speed train between London, Paris and Brussels since beginning of 2008.

It’s an increase of 21.3% compared to same period in 2007.

“The passenger increase is coming from shorter journey times, better punctuality and improved connectivity, particularly from the UK regions. We have seen a near doubling of passengers from places such as York and the east Midlands,” says Nick Mercer Eurostar commercial director.

The luxurious villa in Jamaica, where Ian Fleming wrote many of the James Bond books, is to become a holiday resort for the rich and famous.

The 15-acre site is currently owned by music tycoon Chris Blackwell who has already turned Fleming’s villa (Goldeneye) to a hotel visited by A-list stars. Now Blackwell will begin £60 million improvements on the estate to create 85 homes for pop and sports stars.

Blackwell says he thinks the development will create 1,500 jobs for Jamaicans. “The Jamaican people are the root of my success and I want to give something back.”

Virgin Atlantic airlines has announced it will be adding a new daily service between London Heathrow and Washington Dulles International. From April 20, there will be a twice daily service between the two big cities by Virgin.

The extended service to Washington DC will only operate over the summer period, until October 25.

“DC is much more than the home of the US government, it is a very colourful city, offering great hotels, restaurants and shopping for those travelling on business or leisure,” said Virgin chief executive Steve Ridgway.

Royal Caribbean International’s “Search for a Godmother” campaign has lead to the nomination of four finalists to become the Godmother of the Independence of the Seas.

The cruise line has received nominations from families and local communities this time – usually cruise ship godmothers are celebrities, but Independence of the Seas will have a more down-to-earth godmother.

The finalists are: Barbara Natasegara from Cardiff, Elizabeth Hill from, Madeleine Henry from Southampton and Sue Stones from Bakewell. The four women will be taken for a VIP tour of the ship as it receives final touches at the docks in Turku, Finland.

A new 60 million Euro ski centre construction will commence in Bulgaria in May. The project in the Bansko ski area has been planned for a long time.

“Mechi chal” ski centre will have ski lift capacity of 2,000 as well as a hotel and a restaurant ready for ski season 2008-09. In the second phase of construction there will be an addition of 35km of new trails, ready for the 2009 ski season.

The new Bulgarian ski centre will be built near the town of Chepelare.

The famous concerts held at the Ischgl ski resort are getting closer to the grand finale of May 3.

Easter Sunday saw a concert by Stereophonics, April 20 will see a reggae performance by Jimmy Cliff and the final event on May 3 will be topped off with a performance from Sir Elton John.

The Austrian ski resort hold concerts every year at 2320m in a mountain top arena. The ski resort enjoys a long five month season, and kicked it off this year with a concert by Rihanna.

The Top of the Mountain concerts have been very well known since Sir Elton John appeared there for the first time in 1995.

As the Euro continues to grow stronger against the pound, the dollar grows ever weaker against the pound. For British holidaymakers this means that holidays in Euro-countries are becoming more expensive.

To get the most out of the pound, Brits should be heading for a holiday in the US as the dollar has not been this weak in years.

But the British holidaymakers have not been defeated by the economic fears, summer holiday bookings are as strong as ever to European destinations as well as other favourite holiday destinations.

Cayman Islands have kicked off a new initiative to achieve a more environmentally friendly tourism sector. Seven holiday resorts in the exclusive Cayman Islands are taking part in the pilot scheme from April.

The pilot is the first phase of Cayman Islands Environmental Project for the Tourism Sector (CEPTS), an 18 month long program to develop environmental management systems for Cayman resorts.

The ultimate goal is to achieve Green Globe 21 Certification. In the first phase, Cayman Islands are also trying to achieve an island-wide certification for Little Cayman. The unspoilt island of just 150 residents has a very good chance of attaining the environmentally friendly certification very soon.

A new survey has shown that on average 200,000 people have had to deal with misplaced or lost luggage at UK airports over the past two years.

According to the figures by InsureandGo, August is the worst month for lost luggage, while January is the best. 250,000 passengers luggage was misplaced in the month of August, while “just” 156,000 passengers faced the same situation in January.

With the risk of lost luggage, people are beginning to pack lighter in order to keep their luggage with them during the flight. 31% of 1,514 people surveyed said they sometimes packed less for this reason.