Tourism officials in Norway and the North East have spoken out over the decision to stop the ferry service from Newcastle to Bergen. Both areas expect to see major losses in visitor numbers and income.

Holidays in Scandinavia have been easily accessible from the North East with the DFDS Seaways ferry service, but now this route is due to end in September.

Ole Warberg, director of tourism for Bergen says: “The British market has been the biggest for us for the last five or six years, with about 200,000 visitors every summer.

“If this route stops it will be a total disaster for Bergen and the Fjord region.”

Holidaymakers probably won’t have much need for it, but young business travellers want wireless internet access while flying. Almost half of business travellers surveyed recently said they wanted wireless access in the air.

Mobile phones are generally not welcomed by passengers, but internet access seems to be in great demand.

The survey found that two thirds of 18 to 30 year old passengers want internet access, while 41% of 51 to 65 year olds would welcome it.

The survey conducted by Barcleycard Business polled 3,000 business travellers.

The Royal Caribbean cruise line’s two new big ships have been named Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. The ships will be some of the biggest cruise ships in the world.

Cruise holidays onboard Oasis will be available from late 2009. The project name of ‘Genesis’ for both ships has been also been changed to ‘Oasis class’. The names for the ships were decided after thousands of suggestions from the public were considered by a team of experts.

Royal Caribbean launched ‘Name that Ship’ contest to name its two new world-class ships and received 91,000 possibilities. Many were duplicates, or names of ships that already exist with other cruise lines.

BMI will be starting a trial on paperless boarding – passengers will be sent a barcode as a text message which will then be scanned at the airport security.

The text message will have a two-dimensional barcode which will be scanned at security, but it will only work once to avoid security breaches.

Other airlines have implemented a text message boarding system before BMI. The BMI text message boarding system will available for flights from Heathrow to Edinburgh, as well as Manchester to Belfast City.

October will see the 13th Bermuda Music Festival take place with a line up of major stars, perhaps the biggest being Alicia Keys and Beyonce.

Holidaymakers in Bermuda this October will also have the chance to see British reggae group UB40, Aaron Neville and The Whispers. Some acts have been performing at the Bermuda Music Festival for years.

Beyonce will be on the stage on October 2nd, and Alicia Keys will be drawing in the crowds on October 4th. The festival will be held at National Stadium.

Holidays in Jamaica are continuing to grow in popularity, so much that Jamaica is expecting to see 3,000 new hotel rooms every year until 2015. Tourism sector in Jamaica will also require 58,000 more people to work in various positions thanks to the growth.

“The accelerated development has clear implication for employment generation in short and medium term and so over the next three-five years the tourism industry will need an additional 33,000 workers in their accommodation sub-sector alone and this is in addition to the 25,000 workers who will be needed to work in the Casino hotels,” said Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.

Tourism is an important industry in Jamaica where 10% of the GDP comes from tourism, as well as 47% of the Caribbean island’s foreign exchange earnings.

Holidaymakers flying with British Airways from London still cannot be sure about where their flight will be taking off from. BA has changed the move date to Terminal 5 – again.

Previously the airline announced it will move the rest of its operations will move to the new terminal in June. But now the airline has postponed the moving date again, only 15 flights will move to Terminal 5 in June.

Another 30 flights will move on September 17 and 15 flights at the end of October.

“Terminal 5 is working well, and this phased move has been planned in the interests of our passengers and the smooth operation of Heathrow over the busy summer period,” said BA in a joint statement from BAA.

People heading for a city break in New York will no longer have the Stansted option with American Airlines.

Despite earlier announcements that flights from Stansted to New York’s JFK airport would keep operating when American Airlines focuses its flights to Heathrow airport, from July 2 the flights will stop.

The flight has been scrapped as a part of large cuts made by the airline to save money. The Stansted-JFK has only been operated since October 2007, and will end before it fulfils the first year.

Too much negative publicity has driven the German organiser of nudist flights to the Baltic Sea to end the service. Beginning of this year the announcement of nudist flights and package holidays caused a lot of media attention.

The travel agency behind the idea said it’s ending the service because of too much negative public reaction.

Enrico Hess from OssiUrlaub.de said: “In the former East Germany, naturist holidays were a much-loved way of spending the best weeks of the year.”

But still, Germany was not ready for this…

Holidays in Dominica have become much more accessible for holidaymakers from the UK, thanks to a new air service planned to connect long-haul flights from UK to St Lucia airport to Dominica.

The Caribbean island is a popular holiday destination for British holidaymakers, and the air service by Carib Aviation will make the south of the island much easier to reach.

The flights from St Lucia’s Hewanorra Airport (UVF) to Dominica’s Canefield Airport (DCF) and back will operated daily, corresponding with arriving and departing flights to the UK from UVF.

Could Hello Kitty be able to convince you to go on a holiday in Japan? The Japanese government thinks Hello Kitty will attract tourists from China and Hong Kong at least, as it picks the mascot character to be a tourism ambassador to those countries.

Japan is seeing an ever increasing number of tourist arrivals, last year 8.35 million people took a holiday in Japan, the number is up by a massive 60% from 2003 when Japan started a big marketing effort.

Hello Kitty was designed in 1974 by Saniro, and over the years it has become one of the most known brands in the world. There are over 50,000 products with Hello Kitty featured on it somehow, in 60 countries around the world.

Later this year, Egypt is offering a unique chance of getting married in Pharaoh-style ceremony. Egypt has been attracting holidaymakers for years with its incredible history as well as great weather and beautiful scenery.

Now, Egypt is offering a little bit more with a holiday with the chance of being married there, in a traditional ceremony.

The Pharaonic Wedding Festival in October will allow 40 couples the chance to be married in the same style as Egyptian Pharaohs were married thousands of years ago.

The cruise line Regent Seven Seas has announced it is about to finalise an order for a new ship. The new addition will be similar to the Mariner and Voyager, with all-balcony and all-suite layout.

Three ship yards are bidding for the deal according to Regent Seven Seas’ President Mark Conroy. Decision will be made by September and the cruise ship should be sailing the seas by 2011 or 2012.

The new cruise ship will be able to hold 100 passengers more than the two flagships Mariner and Voyager, and cabins will be slightly larger. Other bigger and better luxuries are also planned.

Cultural holidays are becoming more prominent. In the past ten years the percentage of people saying they’re taking a cultural holiday has almost doubled. A new ATLAS survey reveals that a record high 31% of holidaymakers were on a cultural holiday in 2007.

Rome and Paris were the two top cultural holiday destinations. Over 60% of holidaymakers ranked Rome as the top cultural holiday destination, and just under 60% ranked Paris as the top holiday destination for culture.

The ATLAS survey was conducted in eight countries during 2007.

The number of Brits travelling to the US was up by 11% in February 2008, compared to the same month last year. According to new official numbers, the overall number of people arriving the US was also up by 11% in February.

People arriving to the US on holidays or business are also spending more, in February $11.6 billion was spent, a 26% increase from the year before.

US is seeing more tourists arriving from all around the world, the biggest raise was from Canadian visitors (24%) followed by Western European visitors (17%). Western Europe accounts for the largest overall number of US visitors, and of those 40% come from the UK.

Taking a family holiday is usually only possible during half-term, but recent numbers show that families taking a holiday in that busy time, are paying up to 80% more than at other times.

Family holiday prices start to go up after May 24. Parents have spoken against the pricing for half-term holidays, they say it’s unfair pricing by travel agents.

Recent study by Abbey Credit Cards shows that a seven night half-board holiday in Faro costs £356 per person in a four star hotel, if the holiday begins on May 17. But the same holiday only a week later will cost £638per person. A massive 79% rise in the cost.

“It does seem rather unfair that the exact same holiday can often be up to 50 per cent more and then, the week after, it goes back to the original price.

“From the other point of view, it is about supply and demand. If they [schools] were to stagger the holidays then not everyone would be trying to go away at the same time and it would create less of a bottleneck,” said Justine Roberts, the co-founder of parenting website mumsnet.com.

Celebrity cruises has announced it will start cruise holidays to Antarctica. This may sound a bit odd, but Antarctica is becoming more popular as a cruise holiday destination.

The cruise line has been operating in South America for ten years soon, and to celebrate this they have announced two new routes to Antarctica in 2010.

Cruises will take off from Buenos Aires, passing through Port Stanley, Falkland Islands; Ushuaia and Puerto Madryn, Argentina; and Montevideo, Uruguay on its way to Antarctica. The ship will spend three days sailing by the Antarctica coast. Cruise holidaymakers who want to explore Antarctica close up, need to book a cruise with another cruise line.

Hurtigruten and Lindblad offer expeditions on their cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises organise Antarctica cruise a few times a year, and Silversea will launch an expedition ship in June.

Travel and holidays are all about getting environmentally friendly these days. You can offset your carbon emissions of your flight, stay at green hotels and now, if you are going for a holiday in Las Vegas, you can hire an eco-friendly limousine.

Earth Buses launched its services in Las Vegas recently, offering visitors to ‘Sin City’ the chance to do their part for saving the planet while having fun.

The eco-friendly limousines run on biodiesel, and are ‘ultra-low-emissions’. Each can fit 25 people in it, and are equipped with every luxury – flat screen TVs, neon-optic lights and so on.

There will be more fresh air to breathe for people on holiday in Turkey from now on, as a smoking ban has been enforced. Turkey follows many European countries in a wave of banning smoking in public places.

Turkey’s smoking ban is similar to that of the UK and other countries, smoking will be prohibited in public spaces and buildings – such as shopping malls, public transport, and sporting venues.

Turkey is a nation filled with smokers, over half of adult men in the country smoke, and as a nation Turkey consumes 115 billion cigarettes every year. Part of the reason for the popularity of smoking is the cheap cost of cigarettes.

Summer time on cruise holidays – you might find yourself surrounded by children everywhere you go. To accommodate for adults travelling on their own, or for the parents who need a break, many cruise lines have incorporated children-free zones on their ships.

Carnival cruises, Princess Cruises, and Celebrity Cruises are among the cruise liners that have refurbished some of their ships to include “adults only decks” and other areas.

Princess Cruises charges $10 for half day use of the Sanctuary where adults can enjoy a spa-like setting outdoors – and it has proven to be very popular amongst cruise holidaymakers.