News from Northern Highland Travel
14 January 2008
Award Winning Tour Operator and Travel Agency Northern Highland Travel has been undergoing a series of expansions lately which have placed them in an excellent position to service local Maitland businesses and citizens.
Over the past five years the company has expanded its operations to include the full range of travel agency services, including booking airfares and accommodation both domestically and overseas, as well as cruises, rail, corporate charter and travel insurance.
For those who are interested in something unique to do on their holidays, who don't have time to do all the research themselves, coach tours are the way to go, and the company has some excellent unique tours to Canada and Alaska that include flights into the Arctic Circle, and land tours of Alaska, and a tour to Southern Africa which includes a journey on the excellent Rovos Rail, a beautifully restored luxury steam train adventure from Johannesburg to Cape Town. For those with less time, the new flights out of Newcastle Airport offer great opportunities for people to explore Norfolk Island, which is a relaxing and informative destination and can easily be covered in a week.
The cruising market is offering new opportunities for relaxing holidays, and many ships are starting to operate out of Australia, which is quite exciting. It is a growth industry as people have less time and want to really relax on their holidays. Northern Highland Travel has also recently been appointed a Rail Specialist with Great Southern Rail. They were appointed as they had gained a wide experience in selling trips on the Ghan and the Indian Pacific and in March they are actually doing two group departures on the Ghan, with touring included out of Darwin to enable people to experience the “Green” period.
The company took on the transport contract for Biannual Corroborree in September 2007 when around 350 American Travel Agents visited the Hunter Valley to learn more about Australian Tourism Product. The event was a huge success, with many of the attendees dubbing it the best ever! The company is also liaising with tourism NSW regarding the transfers for the upcoming ATEC event in Newcastle in April 2008. With luxury coaches, Northern Highland Travel is highly sought after for Corporate Transfers as companies become more aware of the need to ensure staff don’t drink and drive when they are attend work social and promotional functions.
Jenny Aitchison, Managing Director advises all businesses to examine their travel insurance needs to ensure that they are covered if they or their employees are travelling frequently for work or pleasure. “We have a product that we can offer for less than $520 which covers all your travel insurance needs for you and your accompanying spouse and dependents whenever you are 100km or more from home. You only need to do a couple of trips a year to make this a very worthwhile investment, as it covers air fares, rental vehicle excess, lost business equipment, lost earnings and even the cost of transferring replacement staff when you are sick.”
While the costs of accidents may covered by worker’s compensation when staff are travelling for work, if they became seriously ill, it usually wouldn’t be For example, it you had a staff member who got appendicitis, the costs of their repatriation and replacing them with another employee could be very expensive.
The company is also moving with trends in international travel, having recently announced that all carbon emissions for domestic tours will be offset in an arrangement with Greenfleet. The company had been considering options for reducing their carbon footprint for some time.
"The travel industry contributes approximately 1% of carbon emissions, and of all travel modalities, coaches have the lowest emission of green house gases per passenger kilometre, less than motor cycles, heavy and light rail and air transport", said Jenny Aitchison.
"Whilst the footprint of our industry is small, it is important for all Australian companies to play their part. The environment is something we all need to act on individually and take responsibility in order to achieve global results."
"While we completed the upgrading of our fleet to all new vehicles meet the European 3 emission standards in March 2007, we wanted to do more."
"We considered the options offered by airlines, where passengers can opt to pay for environmental offsets as an additional ticket cost, however we believe that all transport providers need to take leadership on this issue, and consequently we will be fully funding our domestic coach emissions out of our existing fares at NO EXTRA COST to passengers. It is a little bit we can do to help preserve our environment for future generations."
"We will be considering options in the near future for passengers to offset their airfares purchased from airline operators."
Should you reproduce any images of Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park and use them for public display or commercial purposes you require permission from the Park. You may contact the Park on
