The new CityCenter development in Las Vegas is set to see an additional 5,900 hotel rooms being offered to tourists on the Las Vegas Strip, along with another huge casino.

The centrepiece of the project is the 4,004-room Aria Resort and Casino which is set to open in a couple of weeks time. This seems strange considering visitor numbers have dropped and hotel rooms are 25 per cent cheaper compared to this time last year.

The billionaire owner of the Treasure Island Casino, Phil Ruffin, said:

“We wish them all the success in the world because it would help the whole city of Las Vegas, but I can’t think of a worse time to open up 7,000 rooms.”

The ill-feeling between the UK’s two top budget hotel chains, Travelodge and Premier Inn, has become public after Travelodge sent an email to customers which stated the following:

“Independent price checking revealed that customers had a less then 1% chance of finding a £29 room if they used Quick Book compared with a 24% chance for those clicking on a Premier Offer banner. This means thousands of customers may have been charged as much as double the price they should have paid.”

Travelodge’s advertising company have registered a domain where there is currently an online petition through which Premier Inn customers are being encouraged to request a full refund. Travelodge have also complained about the Premier Inn offer to the advertising standards authority.

For their part, Premier Inn counter the allegations and say that it is very easy to book a £29 room through their site.

Thomas Cook has announced its results for the year and buoyed by an increase in holiday bookings to Turkey and Egypt, it has seen £308million profits.

While these financial results are similar to last year, it does mean that Thomas Cook is defying the recession and a holiday market that is clearly experiencing a downturn. Holidays to European destinations have fallen, but this has been offset by the increased popularity of non-euro countries like Turkey and Egypt.

The tour operator remains confident that bookings for 2010 will be strong, with early signs reinforcing that view.

BMI has announced that it is to cut around 600 jobs and seven flight routes as it moves to combat the recession.

Recently sold to Lufthansa, BMI has been struggling in the current financial climate and many believe it could lose as much as £200million this year.

Flights to several destinations, including Tel Aviv, Kiev and Aleppo, will come to a halt at the end of the year, while flights to Amsterdam seem set to end in March. Other seasonal flight routes will not return.

The airline has also announced that it is to bring to a close its final salary pension scheme. This all follows on from 160 jobs being axed at its budget counterpart, BMIbaby.

A recent study carried out by the Association of Independent Travel Operators has stated that Tunisia is likely to be a top holiday destination in 2010 if current trends continue.

There are an increasing number of flights to Tunisia and the more frequent service is driving prices down. The average holiday sale for Tunisia is around £300 less than that for Egypt, which should ensure greater popularity. The country should also benefit from the decreasing popularity of many European destinations as the power of the euro drives Brits elsewhere.

Around 30 per cent of bookings were for groups and all-inclusive and half-board holidays were preferred to self-catering.

A recent study carried out by Co-operative Travel has found that the package holiday market is showing small signs that it might be on the upturn.

The study was based on 180,000 bookings made for holidays over the winter period and it seems that winter sun package destinations like Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia have all been more popular than during the same period last year.

However, while packages seem more popular than they were, it’s notable that none of those three most popular destinations take the euro and the trend for holidaymakers to book late in the hope of better deals seems to be continuing.

Holiday makers booking holidays via Expedia and other independent travel websites should be covered in the same ways as those purchasing package holidays, say the EU.

A new directive demands clear descriptions, fair pricing and refunds in the event that a holiday company goes bust, regardless of whether the holiday was booked as a package or independently as constituent parts. This directive would also cover budget airline flights and is great news for travellers who prefer to organise holidays by themselves and who don’t see why they shouldn’t be afforded the same protection.

Now, if flights are cancelled or hotels aren’t of the standard required, holidaymakers will be entitled to compensation regardless of how they chose to book.

Budget airline, EasyJet, has announced a new route from Liverpool to Malta, which will begin on the 13th of June 2010. This takes the total number of destinations served from Liverpool by EasyJet to 24.

Flights will be twice a week and will start at £28.99 each way.

Referring to Malta, a spokesman for Liverpool Airport rather blandly stated:

“It is an island with tremendous history and culture.”

A Zagat survey voted for by passengers as well as travel agents has named Singapore Airlines as the best international carrier for 2009.

A total of 73 different airlines were rated according to comfort, food, entertainment and luggage policies for both premium and economy class. Singapore Airlines came top for both classes, which should come as no surprise as it regularly tops lists such as this.

Cathay Pacific and Dubai’s Emirates tied for second place in the premium class with Emirates also second for economy class, although this time alone.

Air New Zealand was third for both classes, sharing the position for premium class with Virgin Atlantic and for economy with All Nippon and Thai Airways. Continental Airlines was cited as being the best value carrier.

A Cathay Pacific flight from Riyadh to Hong Kong was recently forced to land in Mumbai due to the severity of the toilet problems it was suffering. This has not been the only instance of a Cathay Pacific flight suffering toilet blockages of late.

The airline describes a spate of similar events on board their Airbus planes, with some flights forced to carry limited numbers of passengers as a result.

Cathay say that passengers are not blameless in this and go on to list items that have been found in waste pipes, including clothes and children’s soft toys.