World Travel Market 2012 Delights of London From Budget Hotels

World Travel Market 2012 Delights of London From Budget Hotels


The main Ibis by the ExCel centre (above) is fully booked and cost well over £100 but I found another Ibis Budget City Airport hotel was within walking distance of ExCel where the world's tourist boards and attractions gather in what is now a remodelled area of East London.
    Why did the show move from Olympia/Earls Court (closing down) to here - miles from Heathrow? ExCel was chosen because it's London's biggest conference centre, they told me. I was chilled from cold wind blowing up skirts Marilyn Monroe style through East London docklands from the sea.    But I was entranced by the overhead aerial pod (cable car) carrying tourists across the river.

Helpful hotel staff had suggested a quieter room over the car park.  Both the hotel and (Whitbread's) Costa next door offered breakfast of a takeaway almond slice at £1.50. A bedroom cost a modest £75, had a lovely soothing lime green colour scheme,  and the dinkiest little light over the bed - just reach up and tap and lights go off - and on again next morning after my helpful wake up call. 

  I was born late (Caesarian) but try harder by booking a hotel the day before at my destination. No time to wait for a taxi. The hotel staff give me a call by knocking on my door. Either because there is no phone in the room or the see thru hem dress I wore yesterday is even sexier than I thought.

    So, already wearing my pre-printed badge, I'm soon running after others also dragging carry-on airline bags. The nearest DLR to the IBIS City Airport was Pontoon bridge and I was excited to find that I was walking across a pontoon (moving) bridge where signs warned pedestrians to stand back and get off when the bridge was moving

I ran along the huge centre to the press office for the press networking breakfast. Networking would have been faster if it had been like Speed-dating with everybody having half a minute to exchange business cards. Leith breakfasts had tasty almond pastries and they kept running to refill the run out coffee.

The Ramada reception had asked a hotelier for £300 but he found an offer of £150 on the net.
My Budget Ibis at £75 was starting to look like a bargain.

Israel's Attractions
   At the Israeli tourist board promotion I've perfected my introduction, 'My name is Angela Lansbury, I'm a freelance travel writer and I'm researching my forthcoming book on Jewish travel. I already know about Abraham and Moses, and Jesus, but I and my readers would like to know about modern figures, pop starts like Amy Winehouse, or the Beatles, and why and when they visited Israel, or if you are buying souvenires of them, and your plans for more people of interest to the younger generation.' Madonna is mentioned, a barmitzvah, and the fact that the Beatles were discouraged by a prime minister who thought they'd be a bad influence on Israeli youth. Also an Israeli opera festivfal featuring operas such as Nabucco, famous for the music of the Hebrews.
   In the press office outside the conference room I've just met my friend, freelance travel writer, Louise Cahill, who I met at Swanwick Writers' Summer School. She's still thanking me for introducing her the Toastmasters speakers' clubs. Toastmasters' teaches you to give impromptu speeches in 2 minutes. I don't know whether it's the training or her natural brightness but she has a good question for the ministers of tourism, more succinct than my question, 'What can I as a freelancer offer to editors which will make them think: I must run this story" ?'
   We learn that Israel that Tel Aviv was voted the most innovative city (yet actually it's all art deco), Israel has four seas, the Red sea, the Dead Sea. the Sad sea of Galilee (aside losing money and water) and Israel's successful Facebook page has 1007,000 people.The Israelis calim to have invested money in historical sites connected with all religions and Palestinian tourist boards are taking the first steps towards joint marketing. Just time for a quick half bagel and I'm off to the next show. Tell you more later.

London's Latest Attractions and Travel
1 km cable car goes to Greenwich peninsular.
thecrystal.org
createlondon.org
ssrobin.org
industri-us.org
wakeupdocklands.com
gasworksdock.org.uk
wbstudiotour.co.uk (Harry Potter studio Warner Bros tours)
stratfordlondon.app.com
emiratesairline.co.uk
wtmlondon.com

WORLD TRAVEL MARKET, BEST BUDGET HOTELS & IBIS

Budget Hotels - IBIS EXPRESS and more
The Charms of the East London Edexcel Location

The World Travel Market moves with the times and years ago it was at Kensington Olympia but it is now held at Edexcel on the Docklands Light Railway. It looks new and exciting.

East London is great if you are travelling into the City Airport, although not for me. East London was probably cheaper at first for the organisers, it's bringing heart-warming life to an area which needed redeveloping and big signs show Arab countries investment but the location still seems worryingly inconvenient to travel agents and the travel writing press like me travelling from West or North West London in the Heathrow direction.

The show used to have major events for the press all week but now the big day is the opening day starting with breakfast at 9 am. How do you avoid the stress and risk of a late arrival after travelling 2 hours with waits and delays at three or more train interchanges?

My policy as a travel writer, tourist and Anxious Angela is always to arrive the night before - as I do on site at my Writers' Holiday in Caerleon, Wales. Airports often have a hotel attached. Every conference centre should have an attached hotel, or two or three, like shopping malls in South Africa.

For WTM I want a budget hotel nearby 'my' WTM.

So what are the overnight options? The hotels increase their prices if they are alongside a conference centre during a conference and are also fully booked. I was quoted more than £200 a night. (without breakfast and wifi which is £10 a day and you have to organise it yourself with the whole hassle of passwords and not getting a connection for half an hour of the one hour you want to use it. I was considering Sunday to THURSDAY.  For that money I could have paid for a taxi home to cart my clobber.

IBIS and Budget hotels

So I looked into the value for money IBIS hotels. I logged onto the WTM site and the IBIS hotel next to the conference centre had a room. I left my computer for a minute to discuss my budget 'one night or three?' But by the time I got back the room had gone!
The rooms were available and not available, like traffic lights. That's because you, the customer can book and cancel if you change your mind or change your plans. Until 2 pm on the day of arrival.

The advertised rate of a modest £49 on the website had shot up to £99 for a hotel some distance away. I booked three nights.

Then I phoned to check the hotel's nearness to the station. Nowhere near walking distance to the conference centre. You need a cab. I hate relying on cabs.

When my father phoned to say my mother was dying in hospital in 2005 it was raining and I tried to book a cab. I called six companies. Eventually I booked a cab. But it arrived 20 minutes later than it promised, firstly because of bad weather - and secondly it had diverted to fill up with petrol.
By the time I reached hospital mother was unconscious, my woebegone father gasping, 'Why are you so late?'

Now I'd rather have the second option of walking to the station. My London base is near the station. I chose to live near a station. When mother died I had to cancel a press trip to Nottingham. Now I read that they are planning a huge Robin Hood attraction opening 2015. But that's far in the future. What's in my mind? Don't rely on a cab.

Planning is all. One reason why people are late is that they are over-optimistic about travel times. Canny interviewees check journeys. Drive to your job interview destination the night before. Some people drive to check the venue of Harrovians Speakers Club of which I am president. I know Edexcel but not the Ibis hotel.

We drive to my chosen Ibis hotel the week before. I imagined East Barking would be a run-down high street dodging drunks and down and outs. No way. It is on a motorway, with a pavement beside the noise and pollution, in a cluster of three or four budget hotels, two branches of the IBIS and the one I pull into is the IBIS Express.

A very helpful front desk man tells me the cab is only £5 and you don't need to tip. I am almost tempted to switch to this place. However, no way can I walk from here.

He is able to find me a hotel nearer Excel conference centre, the City Airport. We drive there.

Quiet location of industrial estates and high rise offices and modern apartments. Not exactly a bustling shopping centre with cafes and pubs and shop windows  displaying quirky goods. But next door to a Costa which stocks my favourite almond bake slice. Long walk to the DLR but easy to find your way under the DLR to the the station. One interchange on the DLR. I book one night.

The smiling receptionist warns that people stay a night and want to stay on but the hotel is booked. I ask here to cancel my other booking but she can't. No way am I booking a second hotel in the same group when I am committed to more than £300 for another and her hotel can't sort it out.

I email the cancellation but get no reply. I shall phone them.

Then I'm off to 'my' new IBIS. What shall I pack? Not too much. No room for a nightdress. They won't have a bathrobe at a budget hotel. Costa next door supplies breakfast if I'm up before the press breakfast or can't wait until I get to the press centre.

What about breakfast in the room. A tin of prunes? Must be self opening. Try Morrisons. Oh, forget that. Since my IBIS Express hotel visit I now have the IBIS booklet showing all their hotels. Happy reading.

If you've any suggestions, please contact me
annalondon8@gmail.com

http://www.wtmlondon.com/ (Home page of World Travel Market 2012 at Edexcel lists all the events)