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The Ominous 'Naycation' Prediction Might Be Coming True

Yes, you're the only one for miles and miles around.

With so much travel news raining down on us, we don't always have time to give every story its own forecast. Here's more of the day's news, in brief.

· Naycations on the Rise: Chris Elliott warned us that the year of the Naycation was upon us and he might be right. According to a new travel research report says, "Americans could spend $30 billion less on leisure trips this spring and summer." Eeeeee. [USA Today]

· But Budget Ski Trips Are Still Possible: And as the ski season winds down, the prices go down as well. [Concierge]

· Mardi Gras Revelers Are Like the Energizer Bunny: One dude says he's "been at it" since Friday night and by "at it" he means drinking (and blacking out, we presume.) [AP]

· Seriously Ryanair WTF: Ryanair has announced they will get rid of all check-in desks. From the CEO:

"All we will have is a bag drop where passengers can drop off their luggage, otherwise everything will be done online. Ultimately, we want just one in five people to check-in luggage."

This spells disaster to us. People are not going to know where to drop off this luggage, despite signage. They are also going to want to know who's making sure their luggage gets on the plane. Does Ryanair just not want to be in business anymore or what? [M-Travel]

Naycations / Travel Rationing / Travel Bans / UK Travel / Travel Czars / Adair Turner / → All Tags

UK's Eco-Czar Wants To Ration Air Travel to Two Trips a Year

We're all adults here. We understand that people of good will can have genuine disagreements about politics. And things can get pretty heated, especially when people argue about things like government power and environmentalism.

Take the UK. It's not for everybody. But the Brits seem pretty pleased with the nanny state they've built for themselves. The British Parliament has already slapped regulations on just about everything that makes life worth living.

Indoor smoking is impossible. Crippling alcoholism is monitored. There are even rumors that the state might start discouraging widespread, irresponsible sex. Fair enough. Vastly different countries for different folks, as our great-grandparents used to say.

But this is some bullshit right here:

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Celeb Travel / Brad Pitt's Mustache / Brad Pitt / Angelina Jolie / Super World Travelers / Katy Perry / Naycations / → All Tags

Stars' European Vacations Say No To Naycations

If 2009 is the year of the naycation, the great cities of Europe will be fighting even harder for tourist dollars. But their celebrity support is hardly in doubt: Stars like Lady Gaga, Super World Travelers Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Katy Perry used the Continent as a playground this weekend.

Gaga went out to a London club with her entourage, while Perry's had to hold her hand after she was mistakenly called for an award she didn't win in Cannes at the NRJ Awards.

The world's most famous couple went out on a romantic dinner -- with Pitt's mustache -- in Berlin, where they lived for a while this fall.

Related Stories:
· Super World Traveler Angelina Jolie Is Fearless [Jaunted]
· Award Show Travel: Katy Perry is Cakesexual [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: JustJared]

Naycations / Beijing Olympics / Travel News / → All Tags

Despite Olympics, China Tourism Down In '08

That was an expensive party: China's National Tourism Administration reported over the weekend that foreign visits to China dropped in 2008 for the first time in five years--despite the free publicity generated by the Beijing Summer Olympics.

Some 130 million visitors made tracks to China in '08, 2 million fewer than '07 and a huge disappointment for a host country that put on the most expensive games ever (at an estimated cost of $42 billion). Nearly all sectors of the travel industry suffered: Beijing hotels were actually emptier in the two weeks of the Games than they were over the same period in 2007, and Chinese airlines, despite cutting flights to Beijing in 2007, lost over a billion dollars.

The Tourism Administration pointed out in an interview with China Daily that nearly every destination shed visitors in 2008 due to the global economic crisis. Rising prices, more stringent visa requirements and the Sichuan earthquake were also cited as factors in an Associated Press report. In response to the slump, tourism officials plan to launch a campaign encouraging more domestic travel and urging Chinese employers to dole out paid vacations so citizens will have the money and time to sightsee.

Is it even worth it to host the Olympics anymore? Upcoming hosts Vancouver and London must feel a little queasy right now.

Related Stories:
· Fewer Visits to China Last Year Despite Olympics [AP, via Yahoo!]
· China's Iron Olympic Grip Starts to Slip [UK Times]
· Slowdown Forecast for China's Tourism Industry [China Daily]
· We Still Think 2008's Destination of the Year Was China [Jaunted]
· Post-Olympics Travel: China's (Short-Lived) Afterglow [Jaunted]

[Photo: sockeyed]

Laid-Off Travel / Naycations / Travel Deals / Flybe / LCCs / → All Tags

Free Refunds For The Laid-Off

A paid vacation from your job sounds great... until you get laid off and still have to cough up the funds for the trip. If you work in an unstable industry, try flying Flybe where if you get canned, you can cancel your flight for free!

The British low cost carrier calls its free insurance the "Book With Confidence" guarantee, available to people who have worked at their current employer for at least two years. With some 600,000 people in the UK expected to be affected by layoffs this year, this policy could bite Flybe in a big way, but if all of them fly Flybe, that's under 15 percent of their total passenger load.

We'd rather they hired all those people back as fake passengers, but that didn't work out so well the first time.

Related Stories:
· Flybe Offers Refunds for Redundant Passengers [Telegraph]
· Cheater Travel: Who Paid Your Seatmate to Be Here? [Jaunted]
· Who's Taking A Naycation This Year? [HC]

[Photo of Flybe planes in Edinburgh: Martin Third Av'n]