London looks pretty good on TV ... except for all those empty seats. Shame!

Back in the old days, cities awarded the Olympic Games would pretty much have to start from scratch. The smart ones would make a few calls and study things in other cities, but they had to do a lot on their own.

These days, however, the International Olympic Committee has a knowledge sharing service so cities taking on the massive job of staging a multi-billion dollar enterprise can rely on experts who've made all these decisions before and lived to tell the tales of too few bathrooms or too little practice space or what have you.

So why in the name of Queen Elizabeth II do we have so many empty seats at the Olympic arenas? I turned on some events on the weekend and it looked like the 500 level of the Rogers Centre during a Buffalo Bills exhibition game. Awful. We had this problem - big time - in Beijing. And they managed to fill the seats. So what's wrong in London?

Part of the problem is so many tickets are gobbled up by sponsors; about eight per cent.  Sponsors are pretty high falutin' people so they probably turn up their noses at rhythmic gymnastic preliminaries. But there are tons of Londoners who would PAY for those seats.

So why do sponsors get that many? And why aren't these brilliantly run companies who are able to invest millions and millions of dollars in sponsorships able to figure out how to get some bums in the seats? Are volunteers really that hard to find? It's the age of social media, people. Can't Company X put something out on Twitter or something? Or at least line up some folks in advance and say we MIGHT have 400 seats available, put your names on this list and give us your email/instant message address and we''ll get back to you? Is it that hard, people?

Some of these seats, alas, belong to the media. That's a tricky one. Not to be defensive, but I can see where that could be an issue. In all likelihood, the IOC is putting aside too many media seats for the less glamorous events. They know all of us media types are going to want to cover Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps (you remember, him, right?) and Usain Bolt and beach volleyball (and isn't it ridiculous that the women can't wear long sleeves unless the temperature drops to something like 16 degrees Celsius?). That's fine. But surely the IOC and the local organizers by now know that preliminary fencing isn't to bring in hordes of journos.

Too bad, because the city looks pretty good on TV. I think any network that invests as much money as CTV/TSN/etc... or NBC is going to want to make things look good for the folks back home. They could probably make Mimico look like Paris if they sent in their best video guys. Still, London looks fine and dandy and majestic and cool, even with the rain.

Let's hope they can get past the ticket issues and get back to business....

Problems galore for London Olympics? Hey, we've seen this movie before

With four days to go, the headlines were brutal.

“Olympic track in no condition for the big race,” read the headline in the Olympia Oracle, explaining how a freak rainstorm had turned the foot race course for the first-ever Olympics into a quagmire.

Elsewhere, a controversy was brewing over the olive oil to be used in the naked wrestling competition.

“Greek crop weak,” screamed the Oracle, going on to tell its readers that Olympic organizers might, gulp, be forced to import inferior oil from Italy.

Fast forward some 2,800 years. The media frenzy in advance of the Sydney Summer Olympics was slightly larger and just a bit more worldwide than it was for the first-ever Olympic Games. One of the big topics was how the beach volleyball stadium at Bondi Beach (see photo with Richard Branson and some, uh, friends) was going to ruin one of Sydney’s top attractions, which was lunacy.

Four years later in Athens, the alarm bells were ringing in regards to the late construction schedule. In Vancouver for 2010, there were concerns about Mother Nature.

It has ever been thus. For weeks – no, make that years – the focus is all about a city or a country getting ready for the Olympics. The euphoria of the winning city announcement is quickly replaced by a sense of concern about roads that need to be built or subways that need expanding or building the stadiums that everyone assures taxpayers will be put to “absolutely marvelous” uses once the five-ring circus has left town.

For years, the Olympics media has nothing really positive to write about. It’s all preparation and security costs and budget overruns. And it happens in every city for every Olympics, because the media abhors a vacuum (we also abhor high beer prices at Olympic venues but that’s another story). Plus, we just love to write woe is us or, even better, woe is you stories.

You could set your watch by the oh-so-predictable pattern of these things. On Friday, the day of the Opening Ceremonies at the London Games, British tabloids will be filled with more impending doom stories about rain and unprepared security workers and probably even a story that quotes a British betting house on the odds of a plague of locusts landing on the head of Queen Elizabeth during the torch lighting ceremony. By Sunday it will mostly be forgotten because the media will be out watching cyclists racing and kayakers paddling and badminton types shuttlecocking, which is possibly why the media always feels obliged to write about the free condoms they tend to give out at the athletes village.

There will be still be a good deal of self analysis and daily quotes on the weekend from angry cabbies who don’t like the fact that Olympic poo-bahs from all over the world and scruffy sports reporters from Toronto get preferential lanes on impossibly crowded London streets while they suffer through nightmare traffic jams. Not to mention stories about when it will finally feel like summer in London, the answer to which is why worry about something you’ve never had?

As many of us recall from the Vancouver Games, the Brits were horribly hard on Canadian organizers in the early days of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The tragic accident on the sliding track at Whistler and the lack of snow on the mountains in Vancouver and the bus breakdowns were highlighted with what seemed like an extra serving of cold-hearted glee. It probably was, but I always thought Vancouver folks took it too personally.

As Canadians we likely read a bit of “ah, these rubes in the colonies don’t quite know what they’re doing” angle to things. In fact, I suspect the British tabs are just as adept at poking holes in just about every organization that runs just about any high-profile event in the world, whether it's an Olympic Games, a Euro Cup or one of the four dozen G-20 summits that seem to be held every year to absolutely no effect.

Still, one does hope that they’ll be just as vicious and catty when it comes to critiquing the work of London organizer (and British sporting hero) Sebastian Coe as they were in flailing away at Vancouver chief bottle washer John Furlong, who looked positively sick with worry for a few days before B.C. - and Canada - hit the big rebound.

Either way, at least come the weekend we can dispense with most of the items about folks in suits and ties and dig into stories about the real stars of the show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faster, Higher, Soggier? Rain threatens London Olympics, as do Heathrow lines

A double English whammy this morning. One of them I can surely relate to.

I'll get to the rain in a minute but first comes a note from Travelmole that folks have been charging the  lineups at immigration at London's Heathrow airport.

Can you blame them? Last time I went through that hellhole airport's immigration lineup, it was something like an hour. Heck, you could fly from London to Barcelona in that amount of time. Or even get your bags after arriving at Pearson.

So I took great delight, in kind of a whoa, wouldn't you love to see that kind of way, when I read this morning that folks decided to take things into their own hands. According to a report on travelmole, extra police are going to be added at Heathrow "after passengers who had been held in long queues tried to push past immigration officers without having their passports checked."

Immigration officers also claimed they had been subjected to verbal and racist abuse from passengers and slow hand-clapping by those frustrated at the delays.

No, not slow hand-clapping! "Please, officer, make them stop!!!"

Okay, the racist abuse is definitely out of line. And so is verbal abuse.

The Immigration Services Union told the Daily Telegraph its members were seeing public disorder issues in queues at the airport, which have been up to half-a-mile long in recent days.

A half-mile long? No wonder folks get a little testy.

One would hope this would've been addressed by now. I mean, the Olympic Games start in a little more than two weeks.

On the meteorological front, it seems the rain has been hammering England as a whole and London specifically for quite some time. Apparently an entire month's worth of rain fell on parts of the country on one day this month. And forecasts aren't so great for the next 30 days.

Which means London might not come off looking as good on worldwide TV as it had hoped. That would be a shame given all the money they've spent. More importantly, one hopes adverse weather doesn't affect the athletes who've spent so much time and energy and money to get to the Games.

LOS ANGELES TOPS CONGESTION CHART, BUT TORONTO IMPROVING?

TomTom, which makes GPS systems, has a strange study out. Its first quarterly Congestion Index looks at 26 major cities in North America and finds that L.A. - quelle surprise - has the worst congestion.

The report looks at travel time during non-congested periods (2:19 a.m. to 3:47 a.m. Tuesdays in the case of L.A.) and compares them with travel times in peak hours and comes up with a difference that's expressed as a percentage increase in travel time. That''s called the congestion level.

The study gives L.A. a congestion level mark of 33. Next worst in North America is Vancouver at 30, followed by Miami (26), Seattle (25), Tampa (25), San Francisco (25), Washington (24), Houston (23), Toronto (22) and Ottawa (22). Montreal was in12th spot with a 20 mark, while Calgary was 16th (17) and Edmonton 23rd (13).

Interestingly, New York was only 15th, with a congestion level of 17. I guess folks have just given up on driving in the Big Apple.

The report says, and I find this hard to believe, that Toronto's congestion is actually down a little, although it didn't provide figures. It said the average delay per hour in Toronto during peak driving times is 31 minutes, which sounds about right. That means the average driver with a half-hour daily commute is delayed 78 hours per year, they said.

Also, the report said Toronto gets more congestion on non-highways than on highways. Which I can believe, having suffered on Highway 27 last week for 40 minutes going from the 427 to Major McKenzie. Ugh.

The report also said during the work week, the best peak times to travel are Friday morning and Friday evening. I don't know; have they ever seen Highway 400 on a Friday?

They also said the WORST times to travel in Toronto are Tuesday morning and Thursday evening.

Interesting.

 

 

Great Britain takes centre stage/top 10 hotels New York City/best beaches!

Nice bash at the Gardiner Museum last night to celebrate the year of Great Britain.

Well, it's not OFFICIALLY the year of GB, but it may as well be given the goings on with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics/Paralympics.

I kinda think of Brits as being a tad reserved, not unlike Canadians were before the Vancouver Olympics changed us into fire-breathing, chest-beating dragons. But just as the Olympics helped us move a little further out of our shells, so are the Olympics, it seems, pushing Britons.

I mean, have you seen the campaign and the stickers at Union Station and all that, the big signs that say things like MUSIC IS GREAT Britain? I mean, wow, that's not upper class British restraint talking.

Mind you, this is a country that deserves to be front and centre whenever the subject of greatness comes up. Faults? Sure. But a giant (sorry, GREAT) brochure they passed around at last night's soiree paints a pretty solid picture.

Innovation? British ideas and inventions have helped shape the world; everything from the telephone to the World Wide Web (I thought that came from the U.S. but who knows), from the jet engine to the space plane.

Creativity? The brochure talks about how the likes of Damien Hirst, Adele and Hogwarts "exist side by side" with Shakespeare, Elgar and Turner. Not to mention John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Learning? Cambridge University (beautiful campus by the way) has been voted the top university in the world, while Britain has spawned the likes of Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

I didn't know this, but a speaker at the Gardiner event said that both Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason are owned by Canadians or Canadian companies, as is the giant Westfield shopping centre that will be a huge focus at the Olympic Games.

So, yeah, it's a pretty good time to check out GREAT Britain...

TOP NEW YORK HOTELS

Interesting list in USA Today today; a top ten of the best hotels in New York City.

The study was undertaken by a company called ReviewPro, and they list the top hotels in this order:

The Setai Fifth Avenue (see photo), Hotel Casablanca, Crosby Street Hotel, Sherry-Netherland Hotel, Hotel Elysee, The Pearl Hotel, Trump SoHo New York, Distrikt Hotel New York City, Andaz Fifth Avenue and Andaz Wall Street.

I honestly don't know much about the company, but USA Today's Barb DeLollis says they use reviews from 90 online sources as well as a proprietary algorithm, which certainly sounds impressive.

DeLollis said the Distrikt is probably the most affordable of the bunch and that she went online and found there was just one room left for tonight, set at a modest $229.

If anyone has ever stayed at a Setai or the Setai Fifth Avenue in New York, I'd love to know what you think, so drop me a line at jbyers@thestar.ca. DeLollis says the hotel's house car is a Maserati. I think I should check in sometime and ask if I can take it for a spin around Manhattan. That'd be some kinda cool. But I think I'd rather have a convertible.

SAN DIEGO TOPS BEST BEACH LIST

Dr. Beach, the Florida-based scientist who rates beaches, has come up with his best in the USA for 2012. In order:

Coronado Beach (San Diego, see photo), Kahanamoku Beach (Oahu, Hawaii), Main Beach (East Hampton, New York), St. George Island State Park (St. George Island, Florida), Hamoa Beach (Maui, Hawaii), Coast Guard Beach (Eastham, Massachusetts), Waimanolo Bay Beach Park (Oahu, Hawaii), Cape Florida State Park (Key Biscayne, Florida), Beachwalker Park (Kiawah Island, South Carolina) and Cape Hatteras (Outer Banks, North Carolina).

I can certainly attest to Hamoa Beach being a great one one on Maui's south shore. If I recall, it was voted by a certain Mark Twain as one of the most beautiful in the world. 

TOMORROW: FInal thoughts on my recent trip to Nova Scotia, this time focussing on Wolfville....And starting Monday, my first-ever trip to the YUKON....

 

Hotel deals for Canada this summer and Europe later in summer, says HotWire

It looks like a pretty decent time to book a hotel in Canada, even around Canada Day. But if you're thinking of Europe, you might want to aim for August or September.

I met yesterday with Pierre-Etienne Chartier, vice president of operations for HotWire.Com. Chartier is based in San Francisco but is from Montreal so he understands the Canadian market and HotWire is one of the better companies at keeping tabs on what's happening with travel trends north of the border.

Chartier told me average hotel prices around the world have gone up about 15 per cent in the last year, but he said he's finding some very good deals for Canada, partly because the strength of the Canadian dollar has a lot of folks from up our way taking trips to Boston, Chicago, New York and other American cities.

"There's a decreased demand for the Canadian market in Victoria and Banff and Niagara Falls," he said, "So prices are good. Even to mid-July there are good deals in Banff, but it gets busy after that."

Chartier said even Montreal and Toronto, although relatively expensive, have good deals, while Vancouver has some "fantastic" bargains.

"In the big cities, we've seen four-star hotels going for $85 and five-stars for as little as $135."

With HotWire, you don't see what hotel you're booking but you know the area and some details and the category (number of stars). Chartier, for example, was staying this week at the Sheraton in downtown Toronto for a measly $85.

With so much attention focussed on the London Olympics, starting in late July, Chartier said he expects good deals in Paris and other European cities after the Games.

"The demand for hotels is never what folks expect" around the Olympics, he said, adding that prices haven't necessarily dropped yet but that they might in July for travel in August or September.

Closer to home, he suggests looking at summer travel in cities that do a good deal of convention business and might not be so full in non-peak times. That list includes Orlando, Dallas, Las Vegas and San Diego.

In Vegas, Chartier said you can find a four-star property for as little as $40 and a place on the strip for $70. A five-star hotel might cost you just $120 in Vegas this summer.

Car rentals don't get a lot of press in terms of pricing, but Chartier said rental firms are selling their used vehicles for a pretty good price these days, which translates into longer usage of cars and somewhat reduced rates. So you might find some good deals on your rental car.

I've found a wild swing in car prices over the years. I usually pay about $160 a week in Florida and maybe a little more than that in California. But it's often quite a lot more in some places, especially in Canada.

It's not all good news, of course. While hotels are reasonably priced in some locations, air fares right now are quite high.

"Travel has recovered very well, and airlines haven't added much capacity, so right now air fare are the highest we've seen in a while."

 Just for fun, I went on HotWire.com today and checked prices for a pretend trip to Vancouver June 8 to 11. I found a five-star property in downtown Vancouver for a ridiculously cheap $112, and one near the airport (close to public transit) for $79.

 

 

99 days to the London Summer Olympics; everyone take a deep breath!

Yesterday I was talking about how recent reports that the London Olympics could cost $38 billion scared the heck out of me. It's a crazy amount, for sure.

But the Games are coming and there's damned little anyone can do except to make them work. They will, I'm sure. There will be great highs and a few lows and tons of friendly volunteers and folks will have a great time.

How many visitors will come? That's a good question. Olympic bid officials always exaggerate the
potential tourism benefits when they're trying to convince government to give them money. It happens in every Olympics.

But equally predictable are the "woe is us, the sky is falling and NOBODY WILL COME TO OUR CITY" comments.

Today, I read on travelmole.com where some London business leaders are warning that high air taxes imposed by the government are scaring people away. Personally, I kinda doubt it, but here's the travelmole report.

"High air taxes are putting people off coming the London Olympics, business leaders told the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt precisely 100 days before the Games start.

Tour operators have seen a 50% drop in inbound bookings for the third quarter of the year which covers the Olympics, according to UKinbound chief executive Mary Rance, who described the figures as "disappointing".

She said bookings from April to June, including during the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, were down 25%.

"It is clear that Air Passenger Duty is a major contributing factor deterring the regular visitors from coming to the UK, both before, and during the time of the Olympics," she said. 

In a letter published today, industry leaders say arrivals from Australia will be 25% down and there will be 26% fewer people from New Zealand coming to London during the event.

Although overall flight arrivals are up 31% for July and August, they said other European cities are seeing similar increases. They say this shows people are avoiding flying into the UK.

In the letter to Hunt they said it was "inconceivable" that this year's 8% rise in APD won't deter visitors.

I think it's quite conceivable that it won't make an iota of difference. I mean, if I was keen on heading to London for the Games would I really worry about another 8 per cent? I don't think so. Fifteen or 20 per cent? Maybe. But not eight per cent, even if it meant $800 on a $10,000 trip.

This horrible sense of doom happens with every Olympics, you know. In Sydney, remember how folks were convinced the beach volleyball was going to run Bondi Beach? I was at Bondi a couple years ago and it looked pretty damned good to me. Remember the horrible headlines in Vancouver during the rain and the talk about the stalled cars on the mountain and that terrible tragedy on the luge track? It was awful, but the Games finished with an incredible fluorish.

With 99 days to go, there are no sports headlines to take up space in the papers, no winners and losers. So the focus is, naturally, on what could go horribly wrong. Sorry, but it's the nature of the media. And it makes for good headlines that a lot of consumers want to read.

So, yes, there will be tons of stories over the next 98 or 99 days about doom and disaster. But then the Games will start and most of the focus will be on Jamaican sprinters and British cyclists and Canadian rowers and the world will proceed as normal. I think everyone ought to take a bit a chill pill over the pond.

Government opposition types and, I'm sure, the London tabloids both will take that suggestion to heart as we get closer to the Games. Won't they?

 

 

Brand USA about to kick start a huge campaign ... 100 days to London Olympics

It still amazes me that the U.S. has never really had an organized tourism system.

I get dozens of emails a day from Colorado tourism or the San Francisco tourism folks or the city of New York or Miami. Perhaps in keeping with the whole "states rights" thing and distrust of central government that helps define the American spirit, there's been no consistent, government-led push for folks to visit the United States as a whole.

That's about to change. President Barack Obama has made it a goal to dramatically boost American tourism arrivals, and the new campaign is set to launch May 1 in Canada, Brazil and elsewhere on the planet.

Details will be outlined at the U.S. Travel "Pow Wow" meeting in Los Angeles next Monday, and I'll be there to check it out. Look for reports and tweets (you can find me on Twitter @jimbyerstravel) and blogs and stories in Star Travel as the new campaign rolls out.

Meanwhile, as part of today’s opening of the Florida Association of Destination Marketing Organizations’ Industry Summit, VISIT FLORIDA – the official tourism marketing corporation for the State of Florida – announced its new founding partnership with Brand USA.

"Through its base commitment of $1 million and significant in-kind investments, VISIT FLORIDA joins Marriott International, the Walt Disney Company and Best Western International as Brand USA’s founding travel partners," officials said.

 "We are incredibly proud and grateful that these iconic brands have chosen to invest at such a significant level in Brand USA," said CEO Jim Evans. "Recently President Obama called for a national travel and tourism strategy to attract more international visitors, and Brand USA is a major pillar of that. This is more than an investment in a marketing program – it is an investment in job creation and economic growth for hundreds of visitor destinations across America."

 

“Working in close partnership with Brand USA provides a tremendous opportunity for VISIT FLORIDA – and the entire Florida tourism industry – to achieve our vision of becoming the No. 1 travel destination in the world,” said Chris Thompson, President and CEO of VISIT FLORIDA.  

In 2011, Florida welcomed an estimated 3.3 million Canadian visitors (a 6.3% increase over 2010) and 9.3 million overseas travelers (a 16.1% increase over 2010).

There's obviously a ton to sell in the U.S.: great cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco (see photo above left), L.A., Miami, Washington, New Orleans and Seattle; vast wilderness areas of the west with cowboys and incredible native history and craggy mountains and fiery red canyons; sweeping beaches in Florida and Hawaii (and don't forget Puerto Rico); remarkable music from jazz to bluegrass to hip hop to rock and roll to blues; a dizzying area of cuisine and lots, lots more.

Canadians are by far the biggest contributor to U.S. tourism, so it's going to be interesting to see how the U.S. casts itself in our market, as opposed to Brazil or India or China. The U.S. - and everyone else in the world - is coveting the Brazil market in particular, and China. Folks from those places obviously have a harder time getting to the U.S. than most of us do, but they tend to spend, spend, spend. Many U.S. jewelry shops and designer stores have added staff to speak Mandarin or Cantonese so they can appeal to wealthy Chinese shoppers, who seem to want nothing but the best.

It'd be nice if the U.S. shops did something for us, wouldn't it? I mean, would it be that hard for the Dolce and Gabbana store in Manhattan to hire a kid who's up to date on the NHL playoffs and can talk to us about the Sidney Crosby-Don Cherry tiff as we try out the newest, $15,000 handbag? Perhaps a Tim Hortons outlet inside the Tiffany shop on Fifth Avenue?

ONE HUNDRED DAYS TO LONDON

Seems amazing to me that the London Games can be only 100 days out. I thought it was just yesterday when we got word that the favoured French bid of Paris had once again fallen short and that London had confidently swept to victory. And now, it's only three months and a bit to the starting date, July 27.

Personally, I'm of two minds about the Olympics these days. I've loved covering the last six, but I'm a bit sick of the incredible money that has to go into these things. The last I heard was that the total for the Games in London was something in the 24 billion pound range; roughly $38 billion. And that's completely insane.

There's simply no way to recoup that kind of money. Sure, there will be a bit of a buzz and London folks will have a lovely party if they haven't skipped off to Southampton or Mallorca. They'll have a few new stadiums and arenas and, if they're lucky and smarter than folks in Athens and Beijing, those facilities won't sit empty or, as is the case in Athens with at least one outdoor arena, be used as a grazing spot for pigs.

But it won't be worth the money. It can't be. The security alone will be in the billions for London. And that money is all operating cost, with no benefit except a bit of extra cash in a policeman's wallet. I don't begrudge them that by any means, but you don't hold the Olympics to give cops more spending money.

The long-term tourism benefits are almost always illusory. Athens is hardly any further ahead than it was after the 2004 Games. Ditto for Beijing. Even Sydney, perhaps the best organized Summer Games ever, is crying the blues about lost opportunities for tourism in the wake of the 2000 Olympics.

It'll be a great party in London, I'm sure. But is it worth the price tag? I don't think so.

WESTJET AND THOMAS COOK

Interesting to see WestJet and Thomas Cook solidifying their relationship. Officials today said Thomas Cook Canada and WestJet Airlines have formed an "exclusive partnership, whereby the airline will now provide all seats for Thomas Cook’s tour operator brand Sunquest Vacations."

This decision takes effect for Sunquest’s winter 2012-2013 program, which commences in November 2012, and follows on the heels of the already planned summer flying program with WestJet.

Sounds like we'll be seeing more WestJet here in Ontario...

 

Tough time for visiting Spain and Portugal/Expect delays Heathrow this summer?

It's a tough time for visiting Spain and Portugal this week, and possibly for a while. Iberia pilots are disrupting flights with regular strikes, and now Portuguese air traffic controllers apparently have launched regular job actions of their own.

It sounds like, well, not quite chaos but certainly an iffy situation for travellers to southwestern Europe.

Here's Thursday morning's report from Travelmole.com:

"Flights to Spain and Portugal will be disrupted for the next few days due to industrial action. Iberia has been forced to cancel a large number of flights tomorrow, including services between Heathrow and Madrid (see photo), due to a decision by pilots union SEPLA to strike every Friday and Monday until July 20."

(July 20? That's a long time, folks; be prepared).

"The strikes started on Monday, when Iberia was forced to ground 150 flights. The series of 30, one-day walk-outs is in protest against Iberia parent IAG's decision to launch lowcost carrier Iberia Express. Iberia partner British Airways is giving passengers booked to fly to Spain on any of these dates the option to cancel or switch to alternative flights free of charge."

As if that isn't bad enough, now comes word of job actions by Portuguese air traffic controllers.

"A two-hour strike by air traffic controllers in Portugal this morning, which ended at 9:00hrs today, will be repeated again tomorrow (Friday) from 7:00hrs and again on April 19, 20 and 26. EasyJet said that as a result it had cancelled a number of flights tomorrow, including its early morning service between Gatwick and Faro."

Economic troubles might be making Spain and Portugal a little bit cheaper than usual. And Portugal is almost always one of the cheaper spots to visit in Europe. But these job actions might be enough to cause folks to turn to a different part of Europe for a summer holiday. Yeah, Greece won't be having any strikes this summer, will they? And there's hardly ever any chance of job actions in Italy, right?

Well, you could try England this summer. It's the Queen's Jubilee, after all, and then there are the Summer Olympic Games starting July 27. Exciting, sure, but not necessarily conducive to good travel.

Associated Press reports that British lawmakers have questioned Heathrow Airport's ability "to cope with an influx of passengers during the London Olympics this summer, warning that long lines at immigration could force planes to sit on runways or even circle Europe's busiest airport."

Hey, it might be a great sightseeing option. Be sure to ask for a window seat if you plan to fly into Heathrow this summer!

CARNIVAL AND COSTA CRUISE UPDATE

The Wall Street Journal says Carnival Cruise line officials are reporting a recovery from a winter of woe.

There were a series of incidents in the winter and early spring of this year, including the grounding of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy. Apparently Costa cruise bookings are still down (how much isn't clear) but things apparently are better than they were in the first six-weeks after the Concordia disaster, when bookings were off 75 to 80 per cent. (Geez, those ships must've been weird to travel on).

A Carnival spokesman said Costa pricing was down by a double-digit percentage in the last five weeks but that pricing has recovered somewhat.

Carnival Chief Operating Office Howard S. Frank said Carnival bookings rose three per cent in the five weeks to April 1, exluding Costa, after falling nine per cent in the month and-a-half after the Concordia wreck.

Frank said that nine per cent drop forced the company to reduce prices. But Carnival officials have suggested that anyone "holding out for deeper-than-normal discounts may be disappointed."

Of course, they can't very well say, "Hey, we're going to drop prices even more so don't book your tickets now." I suspect cruise pricing will stay reasonably soft through the summer. Not huge discount soft, perhaps, but reasonable. Things are improving in the U.S. and Canadian economies, it seems, but times are quite tough in many parts of Europe and I can't see a huge increase in demand for Mediterranean cruises right now. So I suspect folks looking for good deals will continue to find them in the coming weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

Air Canada pilots making a mess but can you blame them? China's hotel boom

Air Canada pilots are making rather a mess of things for travelers.

Folks coming home from March break, and travellers in general, were inconvenienced on the weekend when a significant number of Air Canada pilots called in sick. This came after the chair of the union apparently said in an internal newsletter to pilots that he felt unfit to fly because of his workload and lack of sleep.

Brent Jang of the Globe and Mail today quoted Captain Jean-Marc Belanger as saying he would've loved to help out on a busy weekend but wasn't able to.

“I believe in leading by example and I will therefore take the same reduction in income that all of you are faced with when booked off. I had a discussion with my doctor last month and she reminded me of the symptoms that are indicative of a reduced spare mental capacity.”

Air Canada reported 23 flight cancellations on Saturday; a pretty significant hit. Fog and a fire were partly to blame but there were 40 cancellations at Pearson on Sunday. Air Canada's administration has asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to declare that the Air Canada Pilots Association have essentially engaged in strike activity, which could result in fines or other action against the union.

It's extremely unfortunate. I'm flying Air Canada on Saturday and certainly hope I don't get delayed as I have a connecting flight to catch on another Air Canada plane. But I don't blame pilots for being upset. They've been trying to reach a deal with Air Canada but haven't been able to resolve their differences. And then the whole thing got sent last week to the CIRB for them to resolve; a move the Tory government has repeatedly gone to whenever there's the threat of labour action with Air Canada.

The pilots clearly feel they've been treated badly, but they have few ways to express their displeasure. With the Tories effectively ending any chance of a strike by sending the dispute to the CIRB, pilots apparently felt they had no choice but to register their complaints via a few sick calls.

If there's any silver lining here, I suspect it's that this was probably a one-weekend move. With the threat of fines looming, I can't see any large scale book-offs in the next couple weeks.

CHINA HOTEL BOOM

According to a report in the China Daily, a whopping 44 per cent of the hotel rooms that Starwood Hotel Group (Westin, Hilton, Sheraton Hampton, etc...) has planned will be in China. 

Starwood last year opened its 200th hotel in the Asia-Pacific region, and there's talk they'll be over 300 by the end of 2014.

“Demand for our high-caliber brands continues to soar across Asia’s many dynamic markets, driven by phenomenal economic growth and significant increases in outbound travel, particularly from China and India," Frits van Paasschen, President & CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., said in a press release last fall.

The China Daily story says there are 53 five-star hotels in Shanghai alone (see photo at right), which I find hard to believe. They also said Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, now has a dozen five-star properties and will have 35 in the next four years. Then again, different countries have different ideas of what constitutes a five-star hotel. The Canadian Automobile Association has recognized only two in all of Canada; the Ritz-Carlton Toronto and the Four Seasons in Whistler, so I suspect the China Daily numbers are somewhat greatly overstated.

Still, there's no doubt that hotel chains are bonkers for China. Fairmont, for example, is building a new hotel in Chengdu, which has a very busy airport and is an increasingly important financial hub in southwest China.

Writing in USA Today, hotel expert Barbara De Lollis reports that Holiday Inn-parent IHG has announced the launch of a Chinese hotel brand called Hualuxe Hotels & Resorts. Plans call for a tea house instead of a bar, restaurants that offer local food vs. fine dining, and foot massage instead of a spa, China Daily reports.

China's hotel market is expected to overtake the USA as the world's largest in 2025, the story says. By 2039, there could be 9.1 million hotel rooms in China; four times as many as exist today.

THIS AND THAT

Nice story out of Scotland on a Newfoundland tourist who lost his wallet, and had it sent back with all his cash and credit cards intact. Good to know there are plenty of honest folks around ... An item on travelmole.com today says tour/travel company Thomas Cook claims it has no plans to discount despite reports that the operator has 100,000 unsold tickets and hotel rooms for the London Olympics.
The operator has already committed to paying for the tickets and hotels, which the Daily Telegraph reports could result in a £10 million loss. But a company spokesman said it has no current plans to discount tickets ...

Four Seasons Hotels makes customer service list ... Rockin out at the airport

The U.S.marketing firm of J.D. Power and Associates issued its second annual list of Customer Service Champions, and Toronto-based Four Seasons made the travel list.

The company singled out five hotels in the travel category: Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Hampton hotels, Hotel Indigo and Drury hotels; a nice mix. In rental cars, they gave the nod to Enterprise and Ace rental cars, the latter a company I know nothing about. They also gave three airlines the thumbs up for customer service; Jet Blue, Southwest and Virgin America; none of them having much to do with Canada (sadly).

It's nice for Four Seasons, for sure. I haven't stayed in a lot of them, but the ones I've been to were exceptional, including the hotel in Santa Barbara, California and, shown at right, the Four Seasons Hong Kong. I had a drink with a guy from a major European-based hotel chain a year or so ago and we were talking about major hotel groups.

"I don't know," he said. "I think Four Seasons has lost their way."

J.D. Power and consumers appear to disagree...

The J.D. Power survey found that 52 per cent of consumers said they'd return to the customer service champion companies, and 58 per cent said they'd recommend them to friends. According to USA Today, only 37 per cent said they'd return to companies that didn't make the list, while only 38 per cent said they'd recommend them to friends.

Stuart Greif, vice president and general manager of Global Travel for J.D. Power, said customers preferred companies that provided value for the price, came up with innovative ideas and had friendly staff.

"If you just satisfy someone, it's not enough," he said. "It's really beyond satisfaction. It's being able to delight passengers and guests."

ROCKING OUT WITH AIRPORT TUNES

It seems a lot of American airports are getting into the music biz. An item in USA Today this week talked about how both Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports play music on the p.a. system; everything from rock to jazz to folk. They'll even toss in boogie-woogie piano tunes and the odd polka classic, which is kinda fun.

Austin, Texas goes one better, with 15 live performances a week by local bands in a city famous for music.

I think this is a great idea. I mean, we know Jann Arden (at left with the now-famous dog) doesn't like taking the train, so maybe she can do live performances at Pearson?

There's certainly no shortage of Canadian tunes that could be played on the sound systems at Canada's airports: The Guess Who, Neil Young, Sarah McLachlan, The Barenaked Ladies, Rush, Celine Dion (not for me, thanks), Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip, Drake. The list could, pardon the expression, go on and on.

WOW - OLYMPICS COMING UP FAST

London 2012 organizers say the first completed Games-time apartments in the Olympic and Paralympic Villages were unveiled today as the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) announced plans to deliver ‘gold medal standard’ athlete accommodation.

"The Village will be able to house up to 16,000 athletes and team officials during the Olympic Games, and 6,200 athletes and team officials plus 1000 referees and umpires during the Paralympic Games, from more than 200 teams around the world," officials said.