Queen Victoria's difficult berth a terminal issue

Carnival Australia's chief executive, Ann Sherry, said if Brisbane were to make the most of the booming growth in cruise travel another terminal had to be built on the Bay side of the Gateway Bridge.

Yesterday as passengers on P&O's Oriana disembarked at the Portside Wharf in the northern Brisbane suburb of Hamilton to a modern facility, those on Queen Victoria were greeted with vistas of the grain berth silos and a bustling port.

Indian consulate in Australia opens Visa Services Centre

SYDNEY: The plush new India Passport and Visa Services Centre opened by the Indian consulate here on Thursday will provide welcome relief to those who have sweated in long queues to get an Indian passport, visa or Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card.

The burgeoning demand for Indian visas in Australia made it necessary for the High Commission and consulates to outsource the receipt and delivery of passports, visas and OCI cards to a private company, VFS Global, a subsidiary of the Kuoni Travel Group's India branch.

Australia tipped to see biggest tourist growth in 2008

The survey of 1,000 independent travel agents in the UK by marketing company The Network revealed that 17 per cent expect Australia to be the big winner.

Thanks to the recently-signed US-Australia open skies agreement, extra flight capacity should boost holidays to Australia.

Other top long haul destinations expected to do well in 2008 included the US and Dubai.

Australia and the US struck an "open skies" deal for their national carriers

"This should result in greater choice for Australians travelling to and from the United States and to other destinations," the minister said after the deal lifting restrictions was announced.

But Singapore Airlines remains out in the cold even though it has long lobbied for access to the Australia-US route, which until now was served only by Qantas and United Airlines.

Australian travel agent withdraws from airline class action

The law firm argues Qantas, AIR NEW ZEALAND, BRITISH AIRWAYS, CATHAY PACIFIC, SINGAPORE AIRLINES (SGX:S55) and MALAYSIAN AIRLINES have short changed travel agents by up to A$80 million by failing to include fuel surcharges when calculating agents' fees.

* Managing director Graham Turner said Flight Centre had advised Slater & Gordon it was "unlikely" to participate in the legal action because of "commercial considerations" and would instead hold direct discussions with the airlines.

Australian tourist numbers down

Australian Tourism Export Council managing director Matthew Hingerty said it would take massive innovation to drag the sector out of the doldrums.

"We need to understand why our competitors are booming and racing ahead, and we need to see what lessons we can learn and apply to the Australian market," Mr Hingerty said.

New horizons for travel company boss

Last year the company bought two businesses in Australia and it is currently tendering for a third. Its forecast turnover this year is $1 billion.

Started in 1987 in Timaru, the House of Travel business has grown at the rate of about one new business every eight to 10 weeks.

Paulsen had sold his successful wholesale travel agency Scholes Oakley and was looking around for other opportunities in an industry that was changing and being deregulated.