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tv   The Travel Show  BBC News  April 27, 2021 3:30am-4:01am BST

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doctors in india report people are dying on the streets outside hospitals in the capital delhi, as the country records more than 3,000 as the country records more than 300,000 new covid—19 infections for the fifth consecutive day. the head of the world health organsation says the situation is "beyond heartbreaking" us says its supply of the astrazeneca vaccine will be shared with other countries. they say up to 60 million doses will be available. there has been growing this is the country was hoarding vaccines to the detriment of global efforts. there's been growing criticism the country was hoarding vaccines to the detriment of global efforts. the british iranian academic is being sent back to jail in iran for 12 months charged with spreading propaganda against iran. she had just completed a five year sentence on spying charges in march.
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the former chief executive of the post offices has resigned her role on the boards of two big companies which led to the wrongful convictions of post office workers when she was in office workers when she was in charge. she is also stepping down from her duties as an anglican priest. still on a high from her victory at the court of appeal on friday, i'm back in hull with janet skinner... it's just... it's just wrong. ..and paula vennells is on her mind. she's had numerous times where she could have, do you know, been upfront with everything. so, to have to actually get a victory for her to step down, it's quite bitter—sweet, really. although the computer problems began before paula vennells took charge, under her leadership, prosecutions continued.
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a high courtjudge has previously said that when she was the boss, the post office had engaged in "oppressive behaviour". here at morrisons headquarters — and at the homeware retailer dunelm — they're hoping that today gives them some points in terms of good governance and puts enough distance between themselves and the storm clouds that are surrounding the post office because of this scandal and the damage that's been done to the post office brand. the diocese of st albans also announced today that paula vennells will be stepping back from her duties as an ordained minister in the church of england. former sub—postmaster and churchgoer tom hedges was also one of those who had his conviction overturned on friday. she's done the right thing now and stepped down, but i just wonder whether she jumped before she was pushed. in a statement, paula vennells has again apologised to sub—postmasters and says that she will now be able to...
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the department for business says it welcomes that move. but the man who ran the post office's original investigation says those questions won't be answered because the government inquiry is looking the wrong way. it wasn't dodgy software that prosecuted sub—postmasters, it was senior management within post office, and the inquiry is avoiding looking at the decision—making and the accountability within post office. janet agrees and wants a more thorough investigation. i think there is a lot more people involved, and she shouldn't be made the scapegoat for everything that's gone wrong. the business minister is due to make a statement about the sub—postmasters issue tomorrow in parliament. colletta smith, bbc news. now on bbc news, it's the travel show. this week on the travel show: how the travel industry uses your money to pay for someone else�*s holiday. transforming trash
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into art in lisbon. what really matters is the message behind the pieces. and i'm looking for killer whales in norway. so, a killer whale can take down a great white shark? yeah, they would flip it over on the back. oh, my days! hello and welcome to this week's travel show, with me, ade adepitan. now, i'm in london this week, basically because we can't go anywhere, but we're still hoping that we'll be allowed to get back out on the road again very soon. until then, though, we are taking the opportunity to ask some big questions about travel. last time, we were asking
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if the pandemic will change the way we all travel in the future. this week, we're looking at why it took months and months for so many of us to get our refunds back last year, as we investigate the business of travel. the way that holidays work, it can be quite shocking to people. we will see more and more airlines going bust. something has to give. travel is a massive global industry. back in 2019, global tourism revenue amounted to nearly $usi.5 trillion — that's the equivalent to about half of the uk's entire goods and services. for decades, the travel industry has operated in a distinctive way. a model has developed in which money is taken in advance of people going on holiday, helping to fund other operations in the short—term. everything about that works
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fine, as long as people keep buying holidays. but what if, say, a global crisis comes along? when lots of people can take trips, and they want their money back, well, the cash has already been spent. and with so few new bookings coming in, there are delays in refunds — or worse. during covid—i9, this is one of the factors that lead to issues in getting money back to customers promptly. you would expect any business to have savings in the bank, and yet, so much of the travel industry, when this struck, it seemed like there was almost nothing left. i feel like the public trust in the industry — the travel industry has eroded, unfortunately. a lot of people have — are still actually waiting for refunds to this day, and a lot of people feel like businesses have put profit over people.
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so i think it's going to take a long time before people trust businesses again. i hope this will change a lot, but only by putting customers�* money in trust, but governments are also now starting to look at the impact this is has had on consumers. some of us who booked through online travel agents, companies which themselves were left waiting for refunds to be signed off by airlines or accommodation providers, had to wait before they could then pass them back onto us. the influence of these online middlemen is another thing that's had an impact on how the finances of the travel industry operate. 0ut soar mill cove hotel on england's south coast, they've been preparing for the return to work after the latest lockdown. we're a small family hotel set in south devon. we have 22 bedrooms,
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we have two self—catering units, a lovely restaurant, and outside dining area, which we'ave just extended. it's a real challenge to get things there. and we've often been referred to as a hidden gem, which is lovely a customer, but of course, in the interest of being a successful business, we want everyone to know about us. 0nline travel agents or, 0tas, like booking.com, expedia, and tripadvisor have helped hotels get noticed and help travellers shop around for good deals. but there are some downsides, too. we're taking quite the brave move to step away from what i would consider the biggest of the 0tas more recently. and that was for a number
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of reasons, really. well, for hotels, one of the main ways is that 0tas have an arrangement to have access to sell a certain number of the rooms — all of them, in lots of cases. the 0tas will charge a commission for every room they sell. the rate of commission has gone up over the years. it now ranges from around 15—25%. a difficulty for the hotels is where something called rate parity comes in. it's different around the world, but generally speaking, the hotels aren't allowed to offer cheaper rates than the 0ta. hotels struggle to get customers to book direct, in face of competition from 0tas. in my last proper year of trading, and — we were spending upwards of £30,000 per year in commissions to booking agents, which is a huge amount, considering we are only a small hotel, and margins are already very, very tight. so, it is of course a huge part of our decision to move
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away from 0tas. ultimately, if margins are increasingly being squeezed, then something has to give, if we're to make do with what we're doing, and that's not a compromise that we're willing to make. and for some, the cost of convenience means that us travellers will have to pay more. previous research that we've carried out has found that in the uk, this has raised prices anything up to 10—20% across the board, so, anything you're saving in shopping around, unfortunately, is being passed on because of this general raise. our advice, and we have backed this up with research as well, is if you contact the b&b or the hotel directly, this is notjust uk, but europe as well, anywhere that you are, you will almost certainly be given a better deal. because it helps you get around those rate parity clauses. but it was aviation that held a lot of the travel headlines during the pandemic. confusion and delays over refunds once again caused
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concern, but then questions were raised as to whether they could see out the crisis. the impact very much depends on the government support. so, different governments provided different levels of support for the aviation industry, and for the travel industry as a whole. theoretically, most airlines should have had enough money in the bank to see them through six to eight months of any sort of situation like this. but realistically, many of them didn't, for a wide variety of reasons. but the difficulties the airlines have faced to survive the covid—i9 pandemic could have big implications on the cost for flying in the future. i think one of the worst things that is likely to come out of the pandemic is an increase in the cost of flying long haul again, because we have seen so many budget carriers either go under, orsignificantly that is really true of the whole world, and it was happening before the pandemic, the pandemic exacerbated it.
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it could be that all of the disruptions to the industry caused by the pandemic will have a long—lasting impact on all of our travels. i think after a year of this pandemic, that travellers are going to feel more empowered, i think you are going to find people more willing and more keen to actually read the fine print and to understand the terms and conditions and to also know their rights and protections. well, i'm sure many of you are like me, itching to get out there, exploring again. while we're staying at home, and staying safe, we've gathered together a few ideas to maybe ease your wanderlust a little. here is this week's virtual global guide.
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may 5 marks 200 years since the death of napoleon bonaparte. and to mark the occasion, there's a day of virtual events planned, including events streamed from saint helena, the remote british island he was exiled to for the last 5.5 years of his life. you can learn more about the island and watch the proceedings on the napoleon 200 website. looking back even further, almost 2,000 years into the past, an old roman temple has been given a digital makeover. the baalbek ruins in lebanon have been rebuilt in a bran—new app which lets you explore a 3d reconstruction of the original site. an audio guide fills in some of the history, and it's available to download on smartphones, tablets, and even vr headsets.
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and the cherry blossoms may have arrived a little early this year, but arigato tours still offer a number of seasonal virtual trips around japan. you can get a taste of one of their food events, wander around two of tokyo's buzziest neighbourhoods, or sample the spectacle of mount fuji. and the company plans to continue these online tours, even after the pandemic is over, a sign that perhaps still to come on the travel show... we meet the portuguese artist transforming the streets, with rubbish. and i'm in the arctic, on the search for killer whales. they're around six, eight metres. oh, my days! so, basically, they can be higher than the boat. wow! well, next, we're off to lisbon, the hometown of an artist who freely admits the majority of his work is a load of old rubbish!
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portuguese street artist bordalo has built around 200 of these fantastic animal sculptures in over 20 different countries, and they're made entirely out of things people have thrown away. we caught up with him just before the pandemic, when he was installing his latest creation at home, in lisbon. the animals, they have a lot of expressions that looks like us. they've got the eyes, the nose, they look sad, they look angry, or they look happy. so, i think animals are the best way to represent the nature. i wanted to use the trash to talk about the environmental issues, about the problems we are living nowadays.
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the pollution, the contamination, the waste, the over—consumerism. we know that this is destroying the nature. relaxing music. his mind works in a different way. he has a very good sense on the three—dimensionality in how to create a sculpture or mural. how many pieces he needs, how to build them in layers, what to paint, what not to paint. most important part is to create the right shape and the right scale. for that, you just need
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to have a lot of materials. we play with the cuts, with screwing, and then we play with the textures. my team is made with some of my friends since ever. we know how to work together. we work quick. we're used to work together, painting in the street. in other countries, we need a local production team to collect all the tools and materials for us. there is, like, a classic list of stuff that we know that we need, and a few others that might change between place to place or project to project. i hope that if there is a lot of people that enjoy what i'm doing, they understand the real message behind the work. because the thing is not, like, making beautiful things out of trash, that's just the first step that makes the people stop and look, but what really matters is all the idea and the message behind the pieces. i'm an artist and i want to make art.
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if you can create an idea that lasts forever, or an image, the idea is the most important. if the piece lives there for 20 years, i think it's going to live on a lot of minds for a longer time. and to end this week, here's a trip i took to beautiful norway, just a few months ago, with a lot of covid measures in place. now, i was in search of one of nature's most powerful predators. here's how i got on. i had come here to seglvik, on norway's northern coast, which lies in the arctic circle. 2020 was one of the hottest years on record, with
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the highest amounts of c02 in the atmosphere ever reported, and that's despite a year of lockdowns which kept a lot of us at home. the arctic also saw record temperatures. it's heating up around twice as fast as the rest of the world, which is having an unpredictable impact on the area's wildlife. including the animal that draws travellers like me to this remote part of scandinavia. the orca, or killer whale. i'd been told northern norway is one of the best places to see them in the wild. and i wanted to swim with one, which in arctic waters, meant getting kitted out in a very thick wetsuit. i'm going to pour hot water in it, and soap, and try to slide you in. so let me run through this, what can i say...this process.
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so, ten millimetre suit, you are lubricating it up with some hot water and washing up liquid. oh my days, this is madness, i hope my mum is not watching this. it might be a little bit cold. yeah, that's cold. 0oh! i see what you mean. iwill stand up... may i? laughs. i better not be stuck in this. i just can't believe all of this palaverjust to get this on. laughs. everything's gonna be ok. oh my god! argh! laughs. you're geared up.
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oh my days. i don't think i can do anything. even turning is an effort. hello! here i come. the orcas don't spend all year here. they migrate to this coastline every autumn in search of herring to eat. i had arrived in time forjulie�*s first trip to see them this season. what is the big deal about killer whales and orcas, what makes them so special? they are around 6—8 metres. that's huge! yeah, and their dorsalfins can also be two metres high. basically they can be higher than the boat. they are the apex predators of the sea, they hunt for, depending on where they are they can hunt on whales, great white sharks, on ray...
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so a killer whale will take down a great white shark? yeah, they would flip it over on the back and just eat the liver. oh my days. what i am trying to get my head around again is, if we see the apex predator of the sea, i'm going to have to get in the water with them? they are not aggressive to people. you will see that it will check you out. i can show you a video... what have we got? oh wow, that is so beautiful. is that here? that was here. it was a juvenile, and very curious with a snorkeller. just playing? completely. how close... wow! that was two metres maximum. just two metres away from a juvenile orca that was just having fun.
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and enjoying, yeah. and it looks so beautiful. to be sure of seeing the orcas, we were here more than a week after they arrived in the area the year before. we are on orca watch. julie's got some friends who are out in boats and they are looking for them. as soon as they see anything, hopefully she will get the message and we head on out there. how far out do you think we need to go before we see them all, will they be anywhere around here? they can be anywhere and they can be fast, so we just have to look at the horizon and find a boat. do you see something there? julie and her husband rudolph used to run orca tours further south.
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a few years ago the whales moved north and the tours followed. and now since probably four years, we are seeing they are going more north, so of course we can't predict if they go more north, it is basically the plankton and the herrings who will tell us. do you think the patterns of their travel and the patterns of where the herring go, has that become more irregular and harder to predict? something happened. i think everyone is aware about it, and every season is a guess, and wejust have to wait and see what is happening and where they are going. but we don't know exactly why they are going more north, and why it is changing. after hours on the water, it became clear the orcas were a no—show, which
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was disappointing. julie told me they eventually arrived on the fjord two weeks later. it's hard to say for sure whether these shifting patterns are down to climate change. but with warmer temperatures affecting all manner of wildlife from seals to seabirds, from walruses to other species of whale, it's making its effects known across the entire ecosystem. and for more of my round—the—world—trip tracking the impact of these changes, you can catch up with climate change: ade on the frontline, on bbc two this month, and the iplayer. that was an amazing trip, even if we didn't get to see any orcas. well, that's all we've got time for, butjoin us next week when we take a look back at some of our all—time favourite city breaks. here we go.
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from our art exploration around the new york subway, to our trip on board karachi's most colourful tour bus. there isjust so much more to karachi than we know. looks like that will be a good one. in the meantime you can catch up with all our past episodes on bbc iplayer, and you can also keep up with us online. but until next time, from me, ade adepitan, and all the travel show team at our home here in london, it's bye—bye. hello again. this month has been a really dry month, particularly
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across parts of england and wales, where we've just recorded five millimetres of rainfall so far. and that's left the ground completely dried out, desiccated and cracked in places. but there are changes on the way. on monday, we started to see low pressure move in across scotland, and that brought some thicker cloud and finally some rain. and looking at the rainfall amounts that we're expecting through the rest of this week, we'll get around 5—10 millimetres of rain. in the grand scheme of things, that's not a huge amount, but it's easily doubling what we've seen for many so far this month. so the rain, i'm sure, is going to be pretty welcome for the farmers and growers, although you probably want even more than we're going to get. so, there's our area of low pressure moving its way in, and as we go through the next few hours, the rain will continue to push its way southwards, always quite showery in nature, across northern ireland, northern parts of england as well. but with the cloudy skies across these northern areas, it doesn't get that cold. in the south, still cold enough, though, for some pockets of frost. it's here where we'll have the clear skies to start the day, and for some it will be a nice
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sunrise as well. through the day, our centre of low pressure is going to start to wobble back inland and dive in a diagonal south—westwards towards wales, and that will bring outbreaks of rain across northern england, wales, into the midlands. still some showers around for northern ireland and scotland as well, but it is an area of low pressure where the amount of rain that we see from place to place is going to vary quite a lot. now, on into wednesday, our low pressure continues its journey southwards, so again we'll see some rain moving into wales, parts of the midlands, southern areas of england this time with a few showers following. but on wednesday, we'll also start to get a really quite brisk and cold east—to—north—easterly wind blowing in off the chilly north sea, and that means around some of our eastern coasts, temperatures may well struggle to get into double figures in places. even further west, it's not going to be exactly warm for the time of year. now, looking at the weather charts as we end the week, our area of low pressure moves back out into europe, but in its place, the winds tend to become pretty light. we've got cold air back with us, so again we're likely to see some night—time frosts. there will be loads of showers around, particularly on friday. and because there's not going to be that much wind around, there'll be nothing really to blow those showers along,
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so some of them could end up being pretty slow—moving in nature. and it's not going to be a particularly warm end to the week, but at least there's going to be a bit of rain.
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this is bbc news. i'm david eades. the headlines: india's covid crisis deepens. doctors say people are dying on the streets. the head of the who describes the situation as beyond heartbreaking. could help come from the us? president biden agrees to donate millions of vaccine doses from stockpiles. the usjustice department launches an enquiry into the police force that shot breonna taylor to see if their officers routinely behaved if violations are found, the justice department will aim to work with the city and police department to arrive at a set of mutually agreeable steps that they can take to correct and prevent unlawful patterns and practices.

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