Travellers' Checks | How smart suitcases seem forever poised to arrive
Travelmate the latest entrant in a crowded field, with a case you can talk to, that follows you around and changes colour on command - so why are its inventors so far from their crowdfunding goal?
VIRGIN TERRITORY “Remember your first big voyage, when you couldn’t wait to discover more of this beautiful blue planet?” purrs a velvety voiceover in the brand-launch video for Virgin Voyages. Unfortunately for Virgin, I do.
It started on July 31, 1984. Virgin Atlantic had been in operation for just over a month and its dirt-cheap daily flights from London (Gatwick) to New York (Newark) were still so heavily overbooked that I very nearly got bumped onto a flight to another city, with another airline. It was not a happy experience – not one of the Virgin Voyages video’s promised “serendipitous moments”. (Not that I dwell on these things, you understand.)
Virgin Voyages is a cruise-ship brand that was recently launched at a media event in Miami, Florida, by Richard Branson. “The name ‘cruise’ is pretty awful, so I don’t like that,” said Branson, doing his bit on stage. “I don’t know why people call their companies cruise companies.” It seemed an awkward presentation and an odd statement, considering the event was being held to promote a rebranding of Virgin Cruises, which Branson himself set up two years ago.
