Estravelleri arhiiv

Summary in English

Estraveller is Estravel's quarterly customer magazine with an ordinary circulation of 11,000 copies. 9,500 copies of Estraveller are sent by direct mail to Estravel’s loyal customers, the Estravel Kuldkaart (Gold card) owners, and partners, and the rest is distributed through Estravel's sales offices. Estraveller contains material about destinations, many facets of Estravel and the services and products offered as well as travel stories by our clients. In 2001 six issues of Estraveller will be published, all of them full colour 100 pages.

Why not take a City Break instead of a beach holiday? There are a lot of interesting weekend packages available to historic and cultural cities in Europe and beyond, the most popular city destinations of Estonian travellers being London, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam. In our cover story we give some advice and suggestions to our readers how to turn a city break into a memorable experience.

Estraveller's photographer Allan Alajaan has visited Rome several times and has fallen deeply in love with the eternal city. Says Alajaan, "Rome is the beginning of everything. Rome is like Love that can change your entire life."

Ille Alles from Hermann Travel has studied in St.Petersburg (former Leningrad) and therefore knows the city well. "As a travel destination St.Petersburg is an indisputable competitor to West-European cities. There are many excursions available to interesting sights both in the city as well as in the environs," she says.

Recently Markku Marttinen, Finnish travel journalist, visited Tunesia, and in this issue, shares his travel impressions with our readers. "There are several well-known tourist resorts in Tunesia like Sousse, Hammamet, Monastir and Djerba, but it is more interesting to visit other places with authentic atmosphere," says Marttinen.

Olympia Kaukomatkatomisto is one the oldest private tour operators in Finland that was founded as far back as 1952. The first bus tours took Finnish travellers to Turkey and Middle East and even to India, today the family firm offers a large choice of group air tours to many destinations all over the world. And Estravel is Olympia's main agent on the Estonian market.

In the 3rd part of his cruise article series, Timo Kauppinen, international travel writer, gives our readers some advice about cruise programmes and meals, what to do aboard the ship and during shore excursions, whom and how much to tip.

Munich - this name has come to be associated with the Oktoberfest and the Hofbräuhaus and the Olympic grounds. However Munich also has an international reputation as a metropolis of art and culture.

After five years Tjäreborg, a Scandinavian charter operator, has reopened flights to the island of Skiathos. Eret Pappel from Estravel's financial division used the opportunity and visited the idyllic Greek island. In her article Eret shares her impressions with our readers.

"With the right kind of advertising, one can sell a lot of sand in Sahara," says Estravel's president Aivo Takis about international hotel discount cards, sold by telemarketeers. "But in reality the discount is offered from expensive rack rates which the clients need not to use anyway, as travel bureaux offer even lower negotiated rates. And the listed "partner hotels" are not the ones that business travellers really prefer to use in most cases."

Evelyn Karming and Kairi Kullo from Estravel's Corporate Accounts Division, took part in the American Express Australian Travel Network Conference in Sydney. It was their first visit to "Down Under", and they both loved it.

Belgium is a good example of a small country that has historic cities as well as picturesque landscapes. And several nationalities with different languages and cultures. The authors of the story about Belgium are Tarmo Tuule and Katrin Juurvee.

Viking Line is one of the biggest ferry companies operating between Finland and Sweden. Daily departures to Stockholm via Marienhamn from Helsinki and Turku, different hotel and car packages as well as connecting tickets to Denmark and Germany offer several alternatives and make Viking Line's red ferry ships popular also in the Estonian market.