Luxury liner Costa Concordia may be big enough to house swimming pools and restaurants, but its very size might have complicated evacuation and rescue efforts,.

“What jumps out at me is the size of this liner,” said Jacques Loiseau, chairman of the French Association of Ship Captains.

The association had regularly tried to draw attention to the dangers posed by the tendency towards ships of such a vast scale, he said.

Royal Caribbean‘s Splendour of the Seas is to become the first ship at sea to offer an iPad in every stateroom as part of a wider roll-out plan from the cruise line.

The ship, which will emerge from dry dock November 25, is set to offer passengers use of Apple’s hot-selling device in order to replace some of the services traditionally provided by phone, such as ordering room service and enquiring about menus.

Passengers will also be given the opportunity to browse events and activities aboard the ship, view shore excursions, check their onboard account and watch movies.

Italian luxury goods maker Tod’s teams up with lifestyle magazine Monocle to create a limited edition set of accessories.

The new collection of Louis Vuitton City Guides have been released on October 15th, touching down in totally unprecedented cities.

Hong Kong and Macau are being offered for the first time in an individual volume, while London, Paris and Rome are returning in an entirely revisited form.

The indispensable European City box set is adding five new destinations to its map: Bari, Birmingham, Odessa, Salzburg and Zagreb.

US hotel rating program Forbes has launched a new website which allows visitors to browse the hotels and experiences it rates online.

Announcing the launch with its 54th annual listing of five and four star hotels, restaurants and spas, Forbes said that the site would provide a new, interactive way for users to access its content and plan journeys.

Travelers using Startle.com are able to access Forbes reviews, along with content uploaded by the hotels themselves and a Quora-style question-and-answer platform where users can ask questions and request answers from industry experts.

Upmarket French leisure group Club Med intends to open a second holiday village in China, in the southern province of Guilin to add to its northern ski resort.

Club Med said it had signed a 10-year accord with Chinese group China Pao Shan, owner of the site, with the resort to open next year and then be revamped and more than doubled in capacity to 300 rooms for 2013.

Guilin, famed for its scenery, is one of China’s top tourist destinations, attracting 20 million domestic and 1.4 million foreign visitors in 2010, Club Med said.