Joanna Lumley: Why not sell ‘danger’ holidays?
If Advantage agents were disappointed that one of Britain’s best-loved actresses Joanna Lumley didn’t fashion a shoe out of her bra on stage at this year’s annual conference in Malaga they didn’t show it.
Instead, they appeared spellbound by the former Bond girl and Ab Fab star, who occasionally slipped into her most famous character Patsy while she told tales of her travels around the globe, from her childhood in India to filming the Northern Lights in Norway for the BBC in 2008.
During her keynote speech, Lumley revealed that following the screening of her programme on the Northern Lights, bookings to Norway shot up by 50%.
Lumley revealed she’d love to have the same effect on bookings to Africa which, she said, "gets a bad press".
"You must all go to Ethiopia," she said. "It’s wonderful." Only 20,000 Britons visit Ethiopia every year.
The Foreign Office said most visits are trouble-free but it advises against travel to parts of Ethiopia that border neighbouring countries.
But then, 67-year-old Lumley confessed she likes trips with an element of danger, adding: "Perhaps you should try selling "danger holidays". She laughed, but she might have been only half-joking.
She said there was "more danger on our streets" than in Palestine, considered by some to be a no-go destination.
Lumley also expressed frustration that schools are less willing to take students on overseas trips "because they might meet foreigners and they might be horrible to our children".
The star, who was ‘castaway’ on a desert island for the 1994 BBC series Girl Friday, during which she famously turned her bra into a shoe, revealed she’s also a fan of mountain hiking holidays but she said she was also thrilled to be invited to stay in a suite at the Four Seasons in New York while filming in the Big Apple with Ab Fab co-star and writer Jennifer Saunders.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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