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It is no secret that air lines, in an effort to keep the cost of flights low, began adding a-la-carte fees to previously free services. Want to bring luggage to your destination? That’s an extra $25.00. Want a seat someone larger than midget stature can fit in? Well, that could be an extra $100.00 each way – depending on your distance. Want something to eat or drink on your flight? That is an extra $6.00 for the beer and who knows how much they will price-gauge you for the bag of chips or sub-par sandwich. There is almost no service most of the regional air lines won’t give you for an additional price including a day in their red-carpet lounge. While this has become common practice for air lines, it appears that hotels are trying to jump on this a-la-carte fee bandwagon. Does this mean it is good for business, probably not!

According to the Wall Street Journal, there have been reports of hotels adding surcharges for safes in room, minibar restocking fees, baggage holding fees for guests leaving luggage with bell staff after checking out, and a “tray charge” on room-service bills on top of a service charge and an automatic gratuity. Facility use? Shouldn’t the pool and the fitness center be included in the price of the hotel room? Imagine showing up to a hotel to find out the room rate you negotiated does not include the safe in the room, or the TV they provided, and they are charging you $5.00 a day for toilet access. Even worse, you don’t find most of this out until check out.

The main reason this is a bad idea for hotels is because adding a-la-carte fees for services people may not want, or use, to begin with is a sure-fire way to lose customers. The airlines have a completely different business model that allows them to charge additional fees based on right-of-use. If you don’t want luggage handlers, who could possible lose your luggage, food or drinks on the plane or don’t mind sitting in a seat with less leg-room you have every right to opt-out of these services. However, providing you a service or amenity and then later coming to you with a hefty bill for it is certainly no way to win repeat business – particularly in a recession and especially when charging for services or amenities that guests may not have even taken advantage of.
 
I think businesses of all-types should be up front about costs. Don’t get me in the door by offering me a room at one price and then add a plethora of fees for things regardless if I use them or not. If I want to add in a massage, that’s fine, but don’t charge me $5.00 at check-out because the hotel decided to install safes, mini-fridges or TV’s in all the rooms. What do you think about hotels adding on hidden fees to their offered room rate?

What is couch surfing? No, it is not spending your vacation hopping from one friends house to the next to watch the new Gossip Girl or daily hot show on Primetime TV. According to their Web Site, “it’s a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit” with 1,473,790 members.

Basically, you make connections with people online and they invite you to stay ‘on their couch’ (proverbial or literal) when you are traveling. The site is full of testimonials and the ‘CouchStories’ are both heartwarming and full of amazing couch surfing experiences. To date surfers have claimed 2,742,009 positive couch surfing experiences.

While it might be awkward to stay with someone you meet over the internet, think how cool it could be. Not only do you get to stay somewhere for virtually free – although I am sure it would  probably be proper etiquette to buy your host a dinner or at least a few drinks – you get the unabashed guidance of a local who’s willing, and free spirited enough, to let a complete stranger stay in their home free of charge. What more could you ask for?

I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to make a connection, buy a plane ticket and surf a couch!

World Travel Market – the colossal b2b travel trade event held each year in London’s Docklands- and I will both be celebrating our 30^th birthdays this November, so I thought that it was time I expressed my long-held secret love for the show that costs me my sanity every year.

There’s plenty of reasons for the British travel PR to hate November – not seeing daylight for four entire days, existing on a Morgan Spurlock-style diet of pastries, realising your client is half a mile away from the waiting journalist who you have BEGGED and compromised yourself in five different ways for an interview, I could go on, but I’ve still got to admit that I really quite love WTM week and there’s two main reasons for that:

Firstly, it’s a bit like Ready…Steady…PR! A little holiday from all that strategising, taking the long view, etc. You’ve got a tiny bit of budget, about 3 working days, an eye-watering level of competition from every other travel PR in London but your client is only here for 2 days so it’s well worth pulling something impressive out of the bag. My number one career highlight happened at WTM: back in 2007 I was in the mobile radio studio with Carlos Alberto, captain of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning team. Slightly demented with caffeine, I found myself shedding a little tear as he described the team effort that went into one of the world’s all time greatest goals. It’s not often that you get to sit in a 3ft-wide caravan with a legend.

Secondly, it’s the age-old desire of human beings to get together in one place, have a drink and dish the dirt. Maybe I’m a bit sad, but WTM is one of the few weeks in my year when I’m greeted by more than one person who I know but haven’t seen for a while. Just like the early Britons embraced Christmas because there was already a Pagan celebration to break up the winter misery a bit, no matter how much the travel trade socialises and sells online, I reckon WTM will always be a relevant focal point of the year. Anyone else feel the same? What’s the US version of WTM like?

I was a sixteen year old working in the city’s libraries at weekends when the idea of my hometown, Liverpool, bidding for 2008 European Capital of Culture was first suggested. From the start the people of Liverpool got behind the bid in true scouse style, seeing it as an amazing opportunity to show the world what they and their much maligned city has to offer.

And it seemed to work; 10 million people attended Capital of Culture events which included everything from a homecoming concert by Paul McCartney to an art installation featuring a giant mechanical spider roaming through the city. Key attractions like the Walker Art Gallery and Museum of Liverpool saw a 70% increase in visitor numbers. Over a quarter of visitors in 2008 were new to the city and 75% of all visitors said that the Capital of Culture was the reason behind their visit.

But now we are well into 2009 the question on everyone’s lips is ‘What next?’ how, especially in a recession, can Liverpool maintain the momentum from 2008 and continue to grow the local tourism economy?  The world is littered with cities that once upon a time hosted a big event, whether it was a City of Culture, World Cup venue or Olympic city, some have used these events as springboard for success, while other have been forgotten before the confetti from the closing ceremony has been swept up.

Barcelona, once a grey industrial city, now a thriving cultural centre and top European weekend break destination, is widely acknowledged as an example of Olympic legacy done well. In the Barcelona case the city used the Games as an opportunity to change the way the city was seen by both locals and the wider world. The Games saw an area of industrial wasteland transformed into Barcelona’s beach, giving residents a space to be proud of and creating a whole new tourist district that paved the way for the Easyjet weekend break invasion. For Barcelona the Olympic Games was just the start, they had a plan in place for further development after the closing ceremony

Glasgow, another former Capital of Culture, used its special year in 1990 as a springboard for urban regeneration. Again the key to success was to change the way outsiders and locals themselves think about the city. Glaswegians, like Liverpudlians had something to prove, that theirs was a great world city with an enviable culture. In the years following 1990 Glasgow firmly established itself as a cultural destination with the opening of the Gallery of Modern Art, now the most visited contemporary arts venue outside London, and the Norman Foster designed music venue the Glasgow Auditorium.

So if the recipe for success seems to be having a follow up plan and changing perceptions, how is my city doing? The finale of 2008 was not described as a closing ceremony, instead it was a ‘Transition Event’ and there has been no let up in activity, or in promotion since the start of 2009 with a calendar of events unrivalled by any other city in the UK, many drawing on the most popular elements from 2008. Although 2008 didn’t give Liverpool a beach, it did give us a fantastic new shopping district, cruise liner port and soon a new museum.  When it comes to changing perceptions, 2008 seems to have got the people of Liverpool excited about their own tourist attractions, with 70% of scousers claiming to have visited a museum or gallery in the last year compared to a national average of just 59%. As a Liverpudlian in London I personally have experienced a massive change in people’s reactions to my city. When I tell people where I’m from instead of getting jokes about car theft or hilarious attempts at an impression of a scouse accent, I get comments like ‘Wow, that’s such a cool city, it must be amazing to grow up there’ or ‘I saw all the Capital of Culture events, it looks amazing’. So it’s looking hopeful that 2008 could mark a real new start for a city with so much to offer!

As we all know, 2009 has been a hard year for almost everyone. There are very few corners of the globe that have not been effected by the crisis. The economic downturn has left many countries in or on the verge of recessions/depressions. To compound these matters, the threat of H1N1 (aka swine flu) is leaving some countries worse off than others.

 
Take Mexico for example. They were at the epicenter of the outbreak and the fall-out has been devastating to their economy. Mexico’s claim that the H1N1 virus emanated from Asia  seems to have fallen on deaf ears as Mexico’s economy, which relies heavily on tourist dollars, has been suffering since the outbreak of the H1N1 virus. As a result, vacations to Mexico are cheaper than they have been in years. Forbes  is reporting that Travel-Ticker is offering over 20 Mexican vacations up to70% off.

Since amazing travel deals alone are not luring the tourists in, Mexico is using social media to entice travelers back to Mexico with its “Believe It” campaign. Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History has signed an agreement with Google Mexico to promote archeological and historical sites. This is not a bad idea because according to Trip Advisors 2009 travel trends, 87% of travelers will visit a historical site on vacation. In addition to partnering with Google to showcase the plethora of historical gems in Mexico, they have started a channel on Youtube.com to further showcase their historical landmarks They will also be launching advertising campaigns in 12 major U.S. markets and six in Canada.

There are many communication lessons that can be learned from Mexico’s H1N1 fiasco. Had they handled their communications better from the beginning (apparently blaming Asia did not work) they might have avoided the swine flu’s name metamorphosis into the ‘Mexican flu’ .  Waiting four months to tell the world Mexico is a a safe place to travel might not have been the best idea. We encourage our clients to have crisis plans in place for just these reasons. However, their use of social media to launch a recovery campaign shows how serious they are about revitalizing their image as a safe place with amazing beaches and fabulous historical sites. “Mexico and its tourism sector have proven yet again that we are resilient to crisis,” says Oscar Fitch, CEO of the Mexico Tourism Board. “Not only are we back up and running and receiving tourists every day, but we are showing the world that this administration represents responsibility.”

In the interest of full disclosure, Brazilian Tourism is one of our clients.  But even if that were not the case, I would say this - the Parintins Festival is unlike I have ever experienced in my life.  This festival, held at the end of each June in the Amazon region of Brazil, puts all other summer festivals to shame.  A well-known travel photojournalist, Peter Guttman, who was traveling with us, even marveled that “this festival is bigger than the Macy’s Day Parade.” 

The festival takes place in Parintins, a small city of 100,000 that is in the Amazon state.  The indigenous Brazilians work for several months creating floats, dances and costumes for this festival that splits the city into two - the Caprichoso (blue team) and the Guarantido (red team).  Coca-Cola is a major sponsor and, as seen in the photo below, they support both teams, so the only time you’ll ever see a BLUE Coca-Cola logo is at this festival - something that really blew the mind of this marketer!

The festival only became known in the U.S. in recent years and is still relatively unknown and inaccessible, potentially because it is all in Portuguese.  However, in traveling to another country, the language barrier will always play a part.  With this festival, the music and scenes are definitely the experience. 

The Caprichoso team for the Parintins Festival