News that has caught Chris' eye in the Travel World

Travel Guides on your Smartphone for 50 cities (17 September, 2016)

Lonely Planet’s “Guides” app is growing. As well as easy-to-use offline maps, powerful filtering and expert travel tips, their latest update brings 13 brand new city guides for a total of 50. There are better maps and an impressive 18 language guides with audio phrases. But the best thing about this app is that it’s entirely free!  Go to www.LonelyPlanet.com for the details, and of course you can download it from the App Store.

New Delta Airlines System for Baggage Tracking (7 September, 2016)

The days of lost bags may be coming to an end! Delta Air Lines is investing US $50 million to solve the problem of lost and delayed luggage. Delta carried nearly 120 million checked suitcases last year, collecting $25 in fees, each way, for most domestic bags. For that price, fliers expect their suitcase to be waiting on the carousel when they arrive. Delta says that by deploying a RFID, or radio-frequency identification, tracking system globally it can do just this.

RFID wirelessly identifies tags attached to items. The technology is widely used at warehouses to track goods but Delta's rollout is the first global use for passenger bags. Most airlines today use barcodes on tags to identify each suitcase and make sure it is loaded onto the right plane. But reading each barcode with a handheld scanner is time consuming. Often, a bag or two aren't scanned or error messages are missed by workers focused on getting planes out on time.

Delta designed its system to stop those errors. At the airline's 84 largest airports - accounting for 85 percent of its passengers - Delta will have 1,500 special belt loaders with RFID readers built in. Those loaders stop when a bag for a different flight is accidently placed on the belt. RFID also shortens the time needed to find and remove a bag from a plane at the last second. That means more on-time flights. If bags fall off a belt at a particular curve or get suck at a junction, Delta will have enough RFID readers - about 5,200 globally - to pinpoint the trouble spot and fix it.

By the end of this year, fliers will be able to track their bags through the Delta smartphone app, getting push notifications at each step of the journey. If a bag misses its flight, passengers are also notified instantly.

If the system works, other airlines are likely to follow. Ultimately the bag tag might be replaced with permanent RFID readers in our suitcases, reducing the chances that fliers in the future will start a vacation missing their swimsuit.

Zika Health Warning (1 September, 2016)
 

There have been cases of Zika reported in parts of Miami for several weeks – and the Public Health Agency of Canada has issued a travel health notice in response to an escalation of Zika virus activity in a broad area of south Florida. The Government is recommending that women who are pregnant, or planning to get pregnant, should avoid south Florida after health officials there announced five new cases of Zika directly connected to mosquitoes in Miami Beach.

As you can imagine in an area where tourism plays a huge role in the local economy, local government in Miami is undertaking immediate action to minimize this health risk. And now Orlando’s major theme parks have announced that they are offering free bug repellent to visitors as concerns about this mosquito-transmitted virus mount in Florida. Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld Orlando have begun offering the mosquito spray and lotion free of charge at their parks. No mosquito-transmitted case of the Zika virus has yet been found in central Florida, but the parks say they’re offering the repellent as a precaution - and to ease the fears of visitors.