Useful Travel Info
Here is our useful travel information:
Packing Checklist - European Flight ToursTo print these Packing Checklists above and all of the Additional Information for tours please see the PDF versions above or go to our Download Centre
Scroll down to seek Travel Advice links.
Weather
The BBC weather forecast offers a five day overview for your selected town, city or country.
Foreign Office Travel Advice & Visa Requirements
The FCO’s travel advice site is very useful and now carries detailed proportionate recommendations covering individual cities and situations. FCO advice has improved over the past few years since the mid 1990s when they overreacted in Chile, damaging both British Companies and Chile’s economy and fatally under-reacted in various parts of the middle & far east. This improvement is largely down to the fact that they have started talking to Tour Operators.
Department of Health Travel & Health Advice
The official website of UK Department of Health, the government department responsible for public health issues. Including official recommendations for vaccinations and other health precautions you should take throughout the world.
The State Department Travel Advice
Our contingent of American travellers find this website an invaluable source of detailed travel tips, health precautions, warnings related to the particular country they are visiting (if there are any), regional summaries and other useful information.
ATOL – CAA Air Travel Organisers Licence
The Civil Aviation Authority issues Air Travel Organiser’s Licences (ATOL). On this site you can learn more about the CAA, ATOLs and check if the company that you have chosen to travel with has a valid in-date Atol Licence. All British companies offering holidays that include flights are required to have an ATOL. Some don’t bother or can’t get one; use these companies at your peril. Also many European holiday suppliers are not properly bonded, even though this is a legal requirement throughout the E.U.
For the moment Airlines and on-line budget shops selling flights with a click through to other suppliers, are not required to be bonded. You should be aware that they fall outside the “package travel” laws and regulations, which is very much to your disadvantage. Furthermore, although the ‘elements’ of a holiday may depend on each other absolutely, they are in fact individual contracts, not in any way related to each other, as I am sure they will tell you when one vital element fails, does not connect with another, is substandard or is withdrawn.
AITO
Arblaster & Clarke are members of AITO, the association for independent and specialist holiday companies. Our member companies, usually owner-managed, strive to create overseas holidays with high levels of professionalism and a shared concern for quality and personal service. The Association encourages the highest standards in all aspects of tour operating.
ABTA
The Association of British Travel Agents was formed to provide a simple and economical way for travel organisers to comply with their regulatory obligations. As a member of ABTA, Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours has provided a bond to meet the requirements of the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.
Brighter Futures
Dick Sisman advises AITO on responsible tourism and maximising the benefits of tourism to local communities. Dick is Chairman of Brighter Futures, which is an ambitous new programme, the first international tourism trading programme for fairly traded goods. Brighter Futures is based on trade not aid. It works with local producers in economically disadvantaged tourism dependent communities to gain fair prices for their goods. Brighter Futures sells these goods in new ways to the tourism market.
TICOS
The outbound tourism industry recognises that it has to play a key role in the development of programmes to reduce and offset the effects of carbon produced as a part of the holidays it sells. Although the primary responsibility for the global impacts of aviation rest with the airlines, tour operators and travel agents also need to take action as a part of the holiday supply chain.
TICOS is being developed as an industry wide programme to stimulate collective action by all operators and travel agents selling holidays which include air travel. It is supported by a number of international and national agencies including UNESCO, IUCN World Commission for Protected Areas and the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO).
Carbon Offsets
Carbon Offsets Ltd enables individuals or businesses to offset their carbon emissions. These offsets help slow the pace and degree of global warming.
To see how Carbon Offsets Ltd are helping us all towards a better climate, take a look at our projects.
To move yourself, or your organisation, towards a better climate, go to our offsets section now on our website.
Travel Information by ANTOR
Providing a useful, comprehensive guide for visitors and travelers who wish to know details such as International dialling codes, time differences, electricity voltages and currencies.
Tourist Offices
A listing of links through to most countries’ Tourist Offices, for all the information you should need before you travel, direct from the country.
