Music and romance. No, it’s not ‘Our Gay Wedding: The Musical’…

This week we saw new meaning given to the term "in-flight entertainment". As passengers buckled in for Virgin Australia’s flight 970 from Brisbane to Sydney on Wednesday, they were treated to a seemingly impromptu performance from the cast of the hit musical The Lion King. The assembled cast burst into The Circle of Life, the iconic song which opens the musical. The clip, posted up by one of the show’s cast-members and then re-posted by Disney has clocked more than 5.5 million views within 48 hours. It has also been picked up by mainstream media outlets far and wide including The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Huffington Post and The New York Daily News.

Love was truly ‘in the air’ as American Airlines and Twitter turned into a digital cupid for a woman called Erica Domesek. Miss Domesek, from New York, had a chance encounter with a man named Clauco, but other than this small detail, and the fact that he was born in Torino and lives in Soho, she was at a loss as to how to get in touch after the flight when she realised she was smitten. So the New Yorker turned to Twitter and posted, ‘Dear @AmericanAir: just got off my flight with my future husband, but didn’t catch his full name. Wanna be match maker #flight1037‘. While the airline couldn’t give out passenger details it retweeted the plea and helped to spread the word which resulted in friends of friends meeting in an Apple Store in NYC and the pair being reunited. Now that really is a modern day love story!

As ‘smart’ web-connected TVs become the norm in more households, it’s no surprise that we’ll see this technology utilised by travel companies wanting to tap into a digitally focused holidaymaker. This week, a smart TV app launched by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts will allow potential travellers to use their remote controls to research holidays at theme parks and hotels. The app will be free to download through the Samsung smart TV app store. It’s another example of a travel brand speaking to a target audience in a space where they are already engaged and offers an opportunity for Walt Disney to tell its story through a different platform.

Paris’s infamous love locks may be no more after a campaign has been set up to ban the practice which can commonly be seen on Pont des Arts and Pont de l’Archevêché. Traditionally, lovers will attach a lock to one of the grates on the bridge, and throw the keys into the river, symbolising their unbreakable love. The No Love Locks campaign, wants to rid the city of the 700,000 plus padlocks from the bridges and ban any more from going up. The campaign is not just a bitter backlash from those without a love of their own, but aims to highlight the safety concern of the sheer weight added to the bridges. The Pont des Arts is a small footbridge which now holds over 93 metric tonnes from the locks.

For those of us in our twenties, next week’s re-launch of Bebo will be a walk down memory lane. The founder, who re-purchased Bebo from AOL for a fraction of the price it was initially sold for, is set to re-launch the social media platform with a whole new angle. Bebo’s Blab will allow users to send short videos to friends and families regardless of whether the recipient has the app. Blab will allow travellers from around the world to keep in touch with friends and family making phrases such as ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ part of a bygone era.

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