Headline hits of 2013

Thousands of stories have reached your inbox during 2013, keeping you up to date with the industry’s breaking news – good and bad. As the year comes to a close, TravelMole editor in chief Bev Fearis reveals which headlines got the most attention.

Let’s start with the good news. The world’s media went into overdrive when our popular young Royal couple, Kate and Wills, had their first child in July. Of course, we covered the story with a travel angle and our headilne ‘Prince George becomes new poster boy for Britain‘ was one of the most read TravelMole stories this year.

Perhaps more surprising was the level of interest in a story about a lesser-known personality – former Catchphrase presenter Nick Weir. When we reported that he had been employed by a cruise line to oversee its onboard entertainment and guest activities programming – ‘Former Catchphrase presenter becomes VP at Royal Caribbean’ – it became one of the most read stories of the year. Bizarre!

Of course, the troubles in Egypt dominated our newswire during the summer. We kept you updated with advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and with the latest from tour operators. While researching what was happening on the ground, we found posts on a TripAdvisor forum from Thomson clients in resort. Our story, ‘Hurghada holidaymakers told not to leave their hotels’, was quickly picked up by the nationals, who clearly use TravelMole to keep an eye on what’s happening in your industry.

Social media has completely transformed the way we communicate and has massively accelerated the speed at which information and opinion is shared. Like all good journalists, we always keep a close eye on Facebook and Twitter to guage what our readers are thanking about and talking about. That’s how we became aware of the growing discontent among agents about call waiting times and premium phone numbers for tour operators, particularly Thomas Cook. It even led one poor agent to resort to tweeting the group’s CEO herself and we quickly discovered he wasn’t the only one. Luckily (and we like to think partly because of our coverage) Thomas Cook has since cleaned up its act, but not before many of you had shared your views by posting comments on the stories.

Your comments give us a good idea of what you’re most interested in and this issue was certainly one of them. Perhaps the longest comments we received this year were also in response to a Thomas Cook story. After a face-to-face interview with Harriet Green, we told you how the industry newcomer felt the sector had over-complicated itself. "This is not the French nuclear industry, it’s not a complex business. How difficult can it be to put together good holidays?" she said. Well, judging by the comments on this story from Robert Cole and Derek Small, her observation wasn’t that well received.

But when it comes to getting you riled, nothing does it better than a story about Ryanair. When your favourite airline boss, Micheal O’Leary, made a bit of a hash of his first venture into social media, we guessed the story – ‘Ryanair boss makes Twitter gaffes’ – would be well read, and we were right.

However, it seems that the airline we all love to hate has decided it’s time to take a softer approach, both to its customers and the trade, so the headlines might not be so enticing from now on. Perhaps another airline, or tour operator, or hotel chain, will step forward to take on the role of industry villain. Whatever happens, you’ll be reading all about it thanks to TravelMole’s daily newswires. In the meantime, we wish you all a Happy New Year and hope we’ll be bringing you lots of good news in 2014.