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Tags: North Korea Travel / Travel News / Dangerous Travel / Package Tours / → All Tags
Start Planning Your North Korea 2010 Trip Now, Or Else
They won't take our advice, but they'll still take our money: Despite an absence of diplomatic relations between the countries, Americans can still travel to North Korea, so long as you go when they want you to go, and with whom.
Visiting North Korea is allowed only during the annual Mass Games involving thousands of North Koreans performing complicated choreography and moving into intricate patterns like a college marching band on steroids. The games are normally held August through October, during which Westerners can travel with a tour group—since the government will assign you an escort to make sure you only see the North Korea they want you to see. Now is the time to start planning and booking those trips.
Tags: Travel Promotion Act / Travel News / Travel Fees / Tourism / → All Tags
TIME Tries To Explain Congress' Desire To Tax Foreign Tourists
TIME magazine has finally gotten around to covering the new government-funded US tourism board that we covered a few months ago. We're mentioning our post not because we posted the story way back in September, but because the way we emphasized the Travel Promotion Act was exactly the opposite of how TIME is covering it. It's not that the venerable news weekly didn't get to all the angles eventually. It's just that they took a different, kind of obnoxious road.
Whereas we highlighted how it's a bad idea for Congress to charge Europeans an extra $10 per trip, the better to promote Las Vegas hotels and restaurants, TIME took a more "reprint what the press release said" approach. Let's take a look at the article:
Tags: Airline News / British Airways / Iberia / Airline Mergers / Travel News / → All Tags
British Airways And Iberia Agree To Merge And Become Soul-Sucking Airline
Now not everyone knows that the Spanish airline Iberia hasn't been faring so well, but you should be very aware that they've just reached a preliminary agreement with British Airways to merge. This means that the airlines will cooperate on flights and form a company which, according to SkyNews, has "419 aircraft which would fly to 205 destinations."
BA and Iberia, along with American Airlines and Finnair already put the merger cogs in motion back in August 2008 when they created the website "MoreTravelChoices.com." Since even before then, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic has been railing out against the proposed merger of BA and AA especially, arguing that they'd have a near monopoly on transatlantic routes—ones that Virgin also flies.
Tags: Travel Websites / Expedia / Orbitz / Travelocity / Fees / Car Rentals / Airlines / Airline News / Travel News / → All Tags
Expedia Shocks Travel Industry And Customers, Actually Lowers Fees
Expedia just announced they're waiving their $20 fee for the 7% of Americans who book their itineraries over the phone, establishing themselves in a niche and sticking a finger in the eyes of competitors. Airline centers mostly charge $5-$35 for telephone bookings—Southwest is the only exception—while Orbitz and Travelocity charge $25 per ticket. Priceline doesn't even offer that option.
This won't be much use to us, since our calls to booking agents are limited to rants about the impossibility of reserving rewards travel these days. But Expedia had already eliminated flight booking fees online, and it's nice to see anyone cutting any fee for any reason, no matter how marginal or symbolic the gesture:
Tags: Travel Health / Travel News / Barack Obama / → All Tags
'With Liberty And Travel For All'; Obama Lifts HIV Travel Ban
Although the travel health focus right now is on the Swine Flu, it's nonetheless important to remember that Swine Flu isn't the end-all, be-all of dangerous diseases right now. After all, millions of people in the world don't have it, unlike HIV and AIDS. Up until this weekend, those with HIV were banned from traveling to the United States due to an archaic law which was just lifted by Obama in response to a UNAIDS request for all countries to end such discriminatory travel bans: "Placing travel restrictions on people living with HIV has no public health justification. It is also a violation of human rights," said UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe.
Although the ban won't be fully lifted until next year, those who have HIV and haven't been able to visit the US and make their dreams come true of going to Graceland and eating a slice of New York pizza now can start booking their flights.
Tags: Airline News / Airfares / Recession Travel / Travel News / AIrlines / LCCs / → All Tags
Airfares Plummeting, Airlines Sinking Faster Than Ever
If you're trying to figure out why airlines like American keep reporting mindblowing revenue declines over 2008, the airfare figures for last quarter are out. How desperate were airlines to get any kind of passenger at any kind of price? Desperate enough to drop their prices to 1998 levels.
That means that airlines are more skittish about their current market position than they were after 9/11. As a reminder, that was a terrorist act which involved airplanes and therefore shook people's confidence in airplanes which are the things that airline companies fly. The price dip over the last few months has been worse than that, pointing to an industry that's out of options to get people buying tickets.
Tags: Stupid Ideas / Travel News / Youth Travel / Airports / → All Tags
Is There A Such Thing As 'Travel Addiction?'
Discouraging young adults from traveling is apparently becoming kind of a thing, isn't it? Last time it was predatory safety companies trying to convince single women that traveling alone will get them raped and killed, but his time it's a Huffington Post travel consultant giving kids a Don't Let It Happen To You lecture; "It" in this case being an airport-heavy lifestyle that takes them away from The Really Important Things In Life.
The article oozes with awkwardness, from artificially opaque jumbled writing to moments of forced bluntness, and phrases like "a tip of the fedora" (because if you're going to speak to the young hipsters, it's important to be ironic!). There's some corporate branding going on behind the scenes—the author is a Travel Website "punk marketing" specialist and the CEO of the "only independent PR firms that’s actually fun to work with"—but that's an issue better left for another time. We'll even concede that the article has some valuable moments, reminding its audience to keep petulant "pay attention to me" travel demands to a minimum because no one cares.
There's a dangerous underlying hostility to travel, though, that runs through the entire piece. It's not much more sophisticated than "kids these days are just so crazy and naughty and they never appreciate real life" tsk tsk'ing. It even has soccer mom phrases like "Ms. BlackBerry or Sir iPhone." But it's more than enough to raise our ire:
Tags: Private Jets / 2010 Olympics / Travel News / Vancouver Travel / Olympics Travel / → All Tags
FlexJet Now Scalping Olympics Tickets For $122,000
Fractional jet card provider Flexjet 25—which usually restricts itself to merely renting private jets to ostentatious elites who can't afford their own—has created a special package for the 2010 Winter Games. In addition to flying you and the date you're desperately trying to impress to Vancouver on one of their Bombardier aircraft, they'll put you up for 3 nights in the Sutton Place Hotel and guarantee you access to a bunch of high-level events.
You and your partner will have the chance to participate in the Closing Ceremony, attend the Men's Ice Hockey Gold Medal Game, and see three Short-Track Speed Skating gold medal races. You'll also have entrance into the Figure Skating Gala Exhibition, though you'll probably want to avoid it lest it impinge on the air of machismo you're obviously trying to build.
Tags: Cruise Travel / Alaska Travel / Green Travel / Travel News / → All Tags
Alaska's Nome Is So Hot Right Now
We know someone whose biggest travel dream is to visit the Alaskan town of Skagway while on a cruise along the Alaskan coast. It's hardly unattainable, with cruise ships hitting up Skagway and other towns like Sitka and Ketchikan all through the summer. But what to do once you've done the typical Alaskan cruise? Thanks to melting of the polar ice caps—or rather not, since this is a very bad thing, environment-wise—cruise ships are discovering ports further north than every before. Now you can add the Bering Sea town of Nome to your must-see in Alaska list.
The LA Times drives home exactly what a big deal it is for big ships to be calling in Nome: "More than 500 roadless miles from Anchorage, rugged tundra and frigid Bering Sea waters have a way of discouraging visitors." But after Nome spent $90 million dollars renovating their port to accommodate big ships, the temptation of venturing beyond the tried-and-true Alaskan itinerary is majorly attracting tourists.
Tags: Rental Cars / Cars / Travel News / Thrifty / → All Tags
Prepare For A PT Cruiser Rental Car Shortage
Time is running out if you’re dreaming to get a Sebring convertible or other Chrysler rental car on your next trip. Dollar and Thrifty announced that they’ve canceled their orders for loads of cars from the American carmaker. In the past, the two rental car companies have ordered almost three quarters of their fleet from Chrysler, but in 2010, only about a third will be coming from the pentastar. The company had an agreement with Chrysler that required a certain amount of order per year, but after Chrysler hit the bankruptcy courts, Dollar and Thrifty were free to go elsewhere.
They will be looking to Ford, General Motors, Nissan, and Kia to fill the parking spaces at airports around the country. For 2010, Dollar and Thrifty will be purchasing about 90,000 vehicles, but only 27,000 of these cars will be coming from Chrysler. In the good old days there would have been a much larger check being written over to Chrysler.
Tags: North Korea Travel / Volunteer Travel / Travel News / → All Tags
Help The Blind Read By Visiting North Korea
Wilderness experts teach campers to leave a place better than they found it. A tour group responsible for more than half of all Westerners visiting North Korea has taken that sentiment to heart, asking travelers to donate to help children in the impoverished, often aid-rejecting country.
Koryo co-founders Josh Green and Nicholas Bonner, both Brits, came up with the idea for the company when Green was working for a shipping company in Pyongyang in the early '90s. Using his connections, they were able to connect with the Korea International Travel Company, an official government agency that ushers foreigners in and out of the DPRK, and now contribute to the Pyongyang International Film Festival and produce documentaries as well as leading tours.
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Virgin America, Singapore Airlines Take Tops In Condé Nast Traveler Awards
Last night in New York (the unfriendliest city in the nation, according to results), Condé Nast Traveler held the awards reception for their 2009 Readers Choice Awards, hosted by Stanley Tucci and Mary Louise Parker and seeing big wigs like Richard Branson and David Cush (of Virgin America) in attendance.
This year, 25,000 of CN Traveler's readers voted for their favorites in such categories as best cruise line, best Asian city, and even top car rental agencies. While with some winners, we wonder how they even got on the ballot (Capri is one of the best European islands? Maybe 20 years ago), we absolutely saw no competition for some of the winners (Singapore Airlines took tops in international airlines again}.
While reading the winners after the jump, keep in mind that Traveler's demographic skews a bit older and affluent, so seeing the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz take Top European Resort even though it feels like no one's been there in eighty years is not so surprising, as is the fact that the Four Seasons positively cleaned up in some hotel categories.
