Tag Archives: Kenya

the IBIT Travel Digest 2.3.13

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The good, the bad and the bizarre in the world of travel

cropped-hburghof.jpg

When you’ve finished overdosing on Super Bowl hype, chips and dip, come refresh your mind with a peek at what’s happening in the world of travel

PRICELINE+KAYAK=?
We are soon to find out, because according to Travel Weekly, the Federal Trade Commission has signed off on Priceline’s bid to buy the popular travel search engine for $1.8 billion.

That pretty much makes the sale a done deal, which could go down as soon as next month.

Snapping up Kayak gives Priceline a powerful search tool to tie in with its existing travel sales service. Less clear is how this marriage will benefit the traveling consumer.

On the other hand, Priceline has said that Kayak will to function as an independent entity, so we’ll see what happens.

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CAR SHARING: THE BIG BOYS TAKE NOTICE
You know that a new way of doing things really works when the big, old-line corporations start diving into it. That’s what has happened with car sharing.

Car sharing is kind of the automotive version of couchsurfing. It got its start in Switzerland in 1948 and took hold in the rest of Europe in the 1970s.

Once you become a member of a car-sharing service, you can rent a car for an entire day, a few hours or even a few minutes, if that’s all you need. You pick up the car in town, use it around town, drop it off in town. Cheaper and often more convenient than conventional car rentals, more flexibility and independence than taxis.

The concept doesn’t appeal only to travelers. Some people who don’t need a car full-time every day are actually getting rid of their own wheels (and the costs that go with them) and resorting to car sharing instead.

It’s also a good way to get a real-world feel for operating an unfamiliar vehicle type, whether it’s a pick-up truck or an electric car — without having to put up with a car salesman.

One of the pioneers in this field has been Zipcar, available in 34 states and the District of Columbia, as well as Ontario and Vancouver in Canada, as well as Barcelona, Spain and five cities in the United Kingdom.

How well does this concept work? Well enough for some of the rental car industry’s biggest players to take notice.

Hertz is answering its challenge by creating a car-sharing service of its own which it calls Hertz On-Demand. Enterprise followed suit with what they call WeCar. Even U-Haul has jumped into this game with U Car Share.

Avis, too, is buying the Zipcar concept. It’s also buying Zipcar…for $500 million.

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MORE (CRUISE) SHIPS AHOY
At this point, I’m not sure if the cruise industry’s shipbuilding binge is entering its second decade or its third. The one thing I do know: It’s not stopping.

Royal Caribbean, locked in mortal combat with Carnival for the dominant share of the market, is showing every sign of both expanding and updating its fleet super-sized cruisers.

They’re already moving to trademark the names of six new Oasis-class vessels that haven’t even been built yet.

The Oasis-class — led by its namesake, the Oasis of the Seas — is currently the largest cruise ship afloat, maxing out at 5,400 passengers.

But Royal Caribbean isn’t stopping there. The line also is working on a new, slightly downsized cruise ship, the Sunshine-class, designed to transport and entertain a mere 4,100 passengers at a time.

This ship is so new, the first one hasn’t been named yet, much less built. But according to Travel Weekly, Royal Caribbean has already committed to building a second one.

I have no idea how the folks at Carnival will respond to this, but you know that they will be respond. It’s like an arms race, only with oceanview suites, water slides and Bahama Mamas.

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AND FINALLY…
If you were (or perhaps still are) a regular viewer of the 1970s TV series M*A*S*H, you might vaguely recall lots of occasional references to some mythical town or village whose name sounded like “Wee-John-Boo.”

Well, it turns out that Uijeongbu is no myth. It’s a real place, where the real Mobile Army Surgical Hospital operated during the Korean War. And in South Korea, its legacy extends far beyond film and television.

The people of Uijeongbu, desperately hungry during the war, made meals of whatever they could get their hands on. The result was a dish the locals called budaejjigae, Korean for “army base stew.”

Basically, it combined traditional Korean ingredients with whatever leftovers the locals could scrounge or smuggle from U.S. Army mess tents.

The shooting eventually stopped (the Korean War has never formally ended), but “army base stew” remained a staple of Uijeongbu — and Julie Wan of the Washington Post took advantage of a visit to her family in Seoul to seek out this most unconventional dish in its birthplace.

And as you’ll see when you read her story, she found it.

If you know the origins of things like gumbo, barbecue or fried chicken, you can relate to budaejjigae. Cookbooks today are full of dishes devised by poor, hungry people who tossed anything and everything into a stew pot and used a slow fire, a lot of spices and their imaginations to create something unforgettable.

If I ever find myself in South Korea, I may need to make a small side trip to Uijeongbu.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
JetBlue experimenting with an expedited security service that could — maybe — speed you past regular airport security lines. For a fee, of course.

from Smarter Travel
Visual advice on how to dress for air travel. Aimed mainly at women, but the fellas can learn a few things from this, too. SLIDESHOW

from Smarter Travel
The TSA shuts down an airport terminal in Atlanta because of an unattended…toothbrush? You can’t make this stuff up. I mean, those Colgate bombs can be deadly…

from Smarter Travel
Did you know that fresh oranges, in addition to being healthy for you on the ground, can help keep you hydrated in the air? These and other healthy food tips for air travelers.

LAND
from Travel Weekly
Hertz now letting its Gold Plus Rewards members upgrade their rental cars via their smartphone app.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Carnival cancels Belize port calls for two of its biggest ships through 2013. The cruise line says the port is overcrowded with ships.

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AFRICA
from Tanzania Daily News (Tanzania) via allAfrica.com
Serengeti National Park, already a UN World Heritage Site, wins a prestigious international tourism award.

from The Star (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
The German cruise ship MV Astor makes a historic port call at Lamu, setting aside fears of kidnappings by Somali bandits.

from The Star (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Are British Army units training in East Africa arming and equipping poachers?

AMERICAS
from CNN Travel
Today’s Super Bowl is more than just a battle between two pro football teams. It’s also a tale of two cities, Baltimore and San Francisco, and how they play. SLIDESHOW

from NBC News
New York City’s Grand Central Terminal celebrated its centennial last Friday. The Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty may be great monuments, but if you want to locate New York’s beating heart, you’ll find it here.

from the New York Times
Yes, you can send an email to the Bahamas, but a mail boat can send you there.

from Travel Weekly
Haiti officially protests the latest U.S. State Department travel advisory on visiting the island nation, which reads in art: “No one is safe from kidnapping, regardless of occupation, nationality, race, gender or age.” State denies trying to discourage Haitian tourism.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Yomiuri Shimbun
Deep in a forest, well away from the mad urban bustle of Tokyo, a village of Japanese craftsmen hand-builds elegant wood furniture with skills honed over 15 centuries.

from France 24
Missed out on the New Year’s Day festivities Jan. 1? Well, there’s still Chinese New Year coming up on Feb. 10, and the place to party is Hong Kong.

from CNTV
A small lake fishing village in China’s Yunnan province becomes a hidden tourist gem.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Feel yourself choking on mobs of tourists in Venice? Find a way to go eat with some of the locals.

from Lonely Planet
Is this the world’s most beautiful train ride? It’s in Norway.

from Travel Weekly
The Waldorf-Astoria hotel chain is making a serious move on Europe. With hotels already in London, Rome and Versailles, the luxury brand is now opening a Waldorf-Astoria in Berlin. And they’re not done. SLIDESHOW

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.23.12

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The good, the bad and the bizarre in the world of travel

Tongli, China's ancient Venice | ©IBIT/G. Gross

Tongli, China’s ancient Venice | ©IBIT/G. Gross

UP A LAZY ASIAN RIVER
River cruising has long been a travel staple in Europe and shows little sign of slowing down. But cruise lines and tour companies increasingly are looking to Asia as the Next Big Thing in cruising.

According to USA Today, Viking River Cruises, one of the biggest names in European river cruising, has already announced plans to offer river cruises in Myanmar and Thailand, starting in 2014.

Others aren’t waiting that long. Travel Daily News.Asia is reporting that Travel Indochina is already adding Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and Laos to a river cruise itinerary that already includes Vietnam, Cambodia and Yangtze River cruises in China.

With increasing world interest in Asia and growing middle classes in Asian countries with money to spend and a desire to see more of their own homelands, Asian river cruising could be a hot market for years to come.

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PUTTING A STOP TO MOTION SICKNESS
So far, this is one of life’s ailments that has mercifully passed me by. But there are plenty of people who suffer with this — and “suffer” is the operative term.

At the least, it can seriously interfere with your ability to enjoy travel. At its worst, it may prevent you from traveling altogether.

We’ve all had our share of laughs about motion sickness. Even Hollywood films and cartoons have gotten in on the levity. But every time I see the airsickness bag on the airplane or see folks on cruise ships with that little scopolamine patch on their necks, I’m reminded that motion sickness is no joke.

It’s a physical misunderstanding. Your inner ear tells your brain, “We’re moving!” Your eyes are saying, “No, we’re not!” Your stomach wishes they’d both shut the hell up.

There’s no real cure for motion sickness, but there are ways you can deal with this, and the New York Times breaks it all down at length in this article.

Their suggestions may not rid you of this curse, but they might make life a little easier for you, or your kids.

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CHARGED UP
A lot of us travel with a lot of electronic gear — smartphones, iPods, tablets. They make us productive during those long flights, or at least keep us from dying of boredom.

But even if they’re fully charged when we leave for the airport, their batteries may be no match for that 10-hour or 12-hour transcontinental flight. And finding an available electrical outlet in a crowded terminal during an unexpected delay can be…well…challenging.

Which is why the Summit 3000 battery pack caught my attention. As Smarter Travel points out, it’s neither very light or really cheap, but if you need to keep your devices running in places where a plug isn’t handy, you may be glad you have this.

One especially cool feature is that it’s dual-voltage, which means you can use it overseas with no hassle; all you need is a plug adaptor for the country you’re in. And if you travel with electronic gear, odds are you already have some of those.

Still, it isn’t powerful enough to charge a laptop, which leaves my black MacBook feeling neglected and resentful.

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FLYING YOUR FELINE
Traveling with pets is always tricky, especially if the pet is a cat. It’s tough enough on the sensitive little critters, even without having to deal with the TSA — which actually lost one traveler’s cat in New York JFK airport.

There’s nothing we can do about the TSA, but there are things cat owners can do to make travel easier on their beloved felines, and the folks at Smarter Traveler lay out their suggestions in this slideshow.

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AND FINALLY…
If your Boeing and you want to test how well in-flight wifi works aboard your aircraft, what sort of exotic, sophisticated, state-of-the-art testing equipment do you use?

Why, potatoes, of course — 20,000 pounds of potatoes, right on the passenger seats.

And as proof that I’m neither crazy nor making this stuff up, check out this CNN story on Boeing’s wifi tests.

And please, no mashup jokes.

And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
Don’t look now, but your already miserable experience getting through airport security could get a lot worse two weeks into 2013. It’s all about your driver’s license and an eight-year-old federal law that gone unenforced — until now. IBIT will be exploring this in depth shortly.

from the Washington Post
Spas. Yoga. Luxury food. Fine dining. An international resort? You’ll increasingly find these high-end amenities in the last place you’d look for them — American airports.

from Christopher Elliot
Is the TSA doomed? A respected consumer writer says the powers that be have heard the traveling public’s gripes — and they’re paying attention.

from Smarter Travel
Seven ways to avoid airline baggage fees. SLIDESHOW

LAND
from the New York Times
Have you ever longed to explore ancient historic sites, without having to contend with mobs of tourists? Here are five spots around the world where your wish may come true…for now, anyway.

SEA
from Gadling
Cruise travel is rebounding from a rough year.

from Travel Weekly
Are the Viking River Cruises people building a navy or what? Already with ten new cruise ships on order for next year, they’ve already committed to eight more in 2014. That makes 24 new river cruisers in three years. But given Viking’s interest in Asia (see above), it makes perfect sense.

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AFRICA
from The New Times (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
The national airlines of Kenya and Rwanda hook up in a strategic partnership that eventually could stremaline regional air travel between eastern and central Africa.

from The Point (Gambia) via allAfrica.com
A village on a pristine coastal stretch of the Gambia becomes the anchor point of an ambitious experiment in ecotourism.

from Vanguard (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
A state government in Nigeria wants to turn the site of the country’s first recorded plane crash into a tourist attraction. Uhhh…

AMERICAS
from The Guardian (London UK)
We think of New Orleans mostly as a grown-ups’ playground, but come Christmastime, it becomes a magical place for kids.

from SFGate.com
Good news from Mexico: There’s a hotel building boom underway in Cancun.

from the Washington Post
A foodie’s tour of Peru. SLIDESHOW

from the Sacramento Bee
Hollywood has its stars, but in California’s Anza-Borrego Desert, you’ll get an unrestricted view of the real ones.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from CNNgo
Riding waves of modernization, gentrification and newly made Chinese money, there’s never been a better time to visit Hong Kong. An insider’s look at one of the world’s perpetually energized destinations.

from CCTV (China)
China and Nepal sign a commitment to promote tourism between the two countries.

from the Jakarta Post (Indonesia)
Have you ever poured Thousand Island dressing on your salad and wondered if such a place actually exists? It does. It’s in Indonesia, and the governor of the nation’s capital, Jakarta, would love to see the Thousand Islands region become a tourist attraction.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Walk through history in the ancient city of Toledo, a city holy to Catholics in Spain. Its religious importance saw it escape multiple wars almost untouched.

from The Guardian (London UK)
How Vienna waltzes through Christmas.

from The Guardian (London UK)
The world’s oldest monument was discovered only about a decade ago. It’s 11,000 years old. And it’s in Turkey.

from the Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette (IL)
For most travelers interested in Europe, Slovenia doesn’t register as a worthwhile destination. And that’s kind of a shame.

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.16.12

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The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

©IBIT/G. Gross

©IBIT/G. Gross

DOWN AND (NOT) DIRTY EATS, WORLDWIDE
I’m not a foodie; I just like food. And I love checking out the hidden, under-sized, under-rated places. The incredible street vendor. The lovingly run Mom-and-Pop storefront.

It’s great when you do that in your hometown. When you can do it on the other side of the world, it’s magic.

So I could hardly restrain the joy when London’s The Guardian newspaper introduced me to a blog after my own heart, or at least my own palate: Culinary Backstreets.

This blog focuses on five cities — Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City and Shanghai. If their content is any indication, you could lose your mind — and gain some weight — in any of them.

It’s a reminder that you don’t need a fistful of Michelin stars to find a galaxy of wonderful flavors.

The specific blog post that The Guardian locked in on was one about a street food paradise in an old Shanghai neighborhood that was almost lost to redevelopment.

A story like that speaks not only to my love of urban street food, but my taste for preserving and enhancing an old community instead of tearing everything down and replacing it with the new, the shiny, the sterile.

Real people, in a real community, making and selling real food. How does “urban renewal” improve on that?

ANSWER: It usually doesn’t.

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AFTER-CHRISTMAS (TRAVEL) SALES
One nice way to beat the post-holiday blues would be to score yourself some after-Christmas travel bargains, and the period between the day after NEw Year’s and Martin Luther King Jr. days is one of the best ties of year to do it.

The folks at The Motley Fool call this period “dead time” for the travel industry. I prefer to think of it as hunting season for the smart travel consumer.

To that end, the Motley Fool folks have some tips on how to snag some killer travel deals during that period.

Happy bargaining hunting.

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LUGGAGE TAGS? TRY LUGGAGE APPS
Believe it or not — and I know some of you won’t — the airlines are getting better at not losing your checked bags. Statistics from the US Department of Transportation say so. Considering that they make you pay nowadays for the “privilege” of checking them, I’d say that’s only fair.

Still, air passengers do sometimes find themselves left waiting vainly at the luggage carousel, something we’d all love to avoid. And yes, there’s an app for that.

Delta Airlines started the ball rolling with its Fly Delta app that, among other things, allows you to track your checked baggage.

The makers of Bag-Claim say their iPhone app sends a signal to your phone and your Bluetooth headset to let you know when your bag is nearby, and it continues until your bag is literally in your hand.

Another possible option, depending on whether the Federal Aviation Administration decides to loosen up its rules on the use of personal electronic devices in flight, would be to toss your own GPS tracking device into your bag.

One example would be the Pocketfinder GPS Locator. Like Fly Delta, it works with iPhones, Android phones, Windows Mobile devices…and for us digital troglodytes out there, even Blackberrys.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Business Week
Eastern Europe’s state-owned airlines are struggling in the post-Cold War era, with some cutting services and one, Malev of Hungary, shutting down altogether. Hopes that their Western European counterparts might buy them — and thus save them — so far seem in vain.

from Associated Press via Yahoo
Can you put your smile on strike? Flight attendants for Cathay Pacific sas they intend to do just that. And no, this is not a satirical piece from The Onion. The’re serious.

from USA Today
Is South Korea’s Incheon International Airport now the world’s greatest air terminal? The Airports Council International says yes. See why, and see how the world’s other major airports fared.

LAND
from the UN News Service via allAfrica.com
The number of tourists worldwide hit the 1 billion mark in 2012, a record. And as ominously huge as that number might sound, the UN World Tourist Organization thinks that could be a good thing. Maybe even a very good thing.

from Smarter Travel
Is duty-free shopping really the bargain it’s cracked up to be? ST’s Ed Perkins says don’t believe the hype.

from Independent Traveler
If you’re traveling in Britain, better keep it down in the hotel. The hotel noise police are looking — and listening — for you.

from Travel Weekly
Washington fires a warning shot at 22 hotel operators over their hidden fees.

from Travel Weekly
Hertz competes its purchase of Dollar Thrifty rent-a-car. What was three car rental agencies not that long ago is now one. Hertz now controls 26 percent of the rental car market. The company that owns Enterprise, National and Alamo controls 50 percent. So much for competition.

from Travel Weekly
OFFICIALLY COOL: Need some exercise? Need to charge your smartphone or your laptop? The Starwood Element Hotels chain is installing exercise cycles in its hotel gyms that simultaneously let you do both. Charge your devices by burning calories? Genius.

SEA
from Friends of the Earth
The cruise industry has sent the last decade or so trying to clean up its image as an environmentally unfriendly industry. If this report card from Friends of the Earth is any indication, it’s still a work in progress.

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AFRICA
from The Star (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Kenya launches a campaign to promote cultural tourism abroad.

from East African Business Week (Uganda) via allAfrica.com
Turkish Airlines begins flights between Istanbul and Mombasa, Kenya. Flight time, about six hours. Turkey could make a nice stopover enroute to East Africa. Hmmmm…

from The Herald (Zimbabwe) via allAfrica.com
Poaching in Africa is taking a frightening turn. Park rangers in Zimbabwe kill two elephant poachers in a shootout. The rest flee, leaving behind…mortar bombs? If poachers are using mortars, against animals or people, this is no longer a police matter. This is war.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
Manhattan is for lovers. Book lovers, that is.

from BBC Travel
Think of Idaho and a lot of words may come to mind. “Cultural mecca” probably won’t be among them. Think again, says the BBC.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
In Japan, the best skiing is found at small-scale local spots. No crowds and lots of perfect powder. Are you packing yet?

from GrindTV via Yahoo
This is how you get around China’s Mount Hua. When they say the view is to die for, they mean it. If you slip, you’ll be falling for awhile. Actually, you’ll be falling for a mile.

from Travel Weekly
Myanmar, the country most of us grew up knowing as Burma, may or may not have fully abandoned its dictatorial government and fully embraced reform — but that’s not stopping US and other Western travelers from bum-rushing this country. Good idea, or bad idea?

EUROPE
from the New York Times
There’s more to anchovies than those super-salty strips of fish most people want “held” off their pizzas — and anchovy season on the Black Sea in Turkey may be just the time and place to find out why. Ask for the hamsi.

from Reuters
Well, this is not jolly good. A TripAdvisor survey of travelers finds London not only dirty and expensive, but the second most unfriendly city in the world. Only Moscow was worse. Bloody hell, eh what!

from the Los Angeles Times
An early peek at Sochi, Russia, the Black Sea venue for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.2.12

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The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

Catalina sunset

Sunset off Catalina Island | ©IBIT/G. Gross

ALL ABOARD — WORLDWIDE
If you love rail travel — or just loathe air travel — The Guardian newspaper in London has one of the best resources for planning a fantastic rail vacation.

It’s created its own Web page dedicated to great rail journeys around the world.

Stories about terrific train trips on almost every continent, planning advice, suggestions from readers, photo galleries, it’s all there.

One such trip that’s definitely on my list is aboard The Canadian, a train that travels across virtually the breadth of Canada, from Toronto in the east to Vancouver on the Pacific coast.

It’s not a high-speed train, but given the beauty of the land, including the Rocky Mountains, you won’t want to go that fast, anyway.

Even if you don’t actually use it to plan a train trip, you’ll probably learn some interesting things from it.

For example, thanks to the English Channel tunnel, it’s now possible to travel not merely from London to Moscow, but from London all the way across Europe, Russia and Siberia to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean — crossing ten time zones and nearly 8,000 miles — without ever stepping onto an airplane.

Not that you’d actually want to, but you could.

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STRETCHING OUT ON AMERICAN
There’s a truism in the fashion world that says if you wait long enough, everything comes back in style. That may be the case among the airlines, as well.

About a decade ago, I joined my first airline mileage program. The airline of choice was American. The reason? Back then, American touting the fact that it was removing seats from its aircraft to create more legroom between rows. When you stand 6’3,” you pay attention to things like that.

Sure enough, a few years later, the airline decided it needed the money, so it put all those seats back into all those planes. Bummer.

Fast-forward to November 2012. An email from American Airlines pops up in my inbox:

“Good things do come to those who wait.

Earlier this year, we mentioned that extra legroom in the Main Cabin was coming. We’re happy to tell you that Main Cabin Extra seats have arrived. You’ll enjoy the following benefits when you purchase a Main Cabin Extra seat:

• Extra space to stretch out
• Group 1 boarding to settle in early
• Seats near the front of the plane so you can get on and off the plane faster”

Legroom is back. Cue the Kool and the Gang music. “Ce-le-brate good times, come on!”

Well, not entirely. There are a couple of differences this time around.

A decade ago, the extra legroom was spread through the entire cabin. This time, it’s being limited to the Main Cabin Extra section at the front of a selected group of new jets.

The other difference is one you’ve probably come to expect by now. If you want a seat in Main Cabin Extra, and you don’t have elite status with American, you’ll have to pay for it, anywhere from $8 to $118 per flight, according to American’s Web site.

On the other hand, you won’t be paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra for a First or Business Class seat.

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AFRICAN VISA
If I had a dollar for every unsolicited credit card application that turned up in my mailbox in the last five years (and went straight to the shredder), I could probably fly someplace nice… in Business Class. But here’s one Visa card I wouldn’t mind having.

It’s called the KQ Msafiri Visa credit card. It’s result of a joint venture between Barclay’s Bank of Kenya and Kenya Airways.

Not only do your purchases with the card earn miles toward free Kenya Airways flights, but you also get priority check-in and boarding, and up to $56,500 in travel insurance, free.

Cool. But what I’d really love to see would be for outfits like Kenya Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian Airlines or Arik Air to partner up with some American banks — preferably some black-owned American banks — to create a credit card whose purchases would build miles toward travel to Africa.

That’s one credit card application I wouldn’t shred.

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AND FINALLY…
This last item sounds like a punchline, or maybe something from the satirical news Web site, The Onion…but it’s neither.

Starting this weekend on selected international flights, Japan Air Lines will be serving its passengers in-flight meals featuring…Kentucky Fried Chicken.

That’s right, JAL is hooking up with KFC. According to the JAL press release, it’s to be called “Air Kentucky.”

Greasy fried chicken at 35,000 feet? Neither I nor my bowels know quite what to make of this. Believe it or not, however, it does make a certain amount of sense, although perhaps not for the reason you’d expect.

It would be logical to presume that JAL is doing this to placate those Western passengers whose faces turn unnatural colors at the very thought of eating sushi. But you would be mistaken.

According to the press release, “KFC is widely popular in Japan, particularly during the Christmas season.” And according to CNN, it ties in with a JAL gimmick of partnering with restaurtant chains popular in Japan, such as “MOS Burgers, Yoshinoya beef bowls and Edosei pork buns.”

And there you have it. Pass me the sushi, please.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Smarter Travel
A holiday gift from your friends at ST, the ten airlines that give you the best legroom in Coach — or as I like to call it, Sardine Class. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
Flying to the Caribbean from anywhere in the world? No problem, mon. Flying among the Caribbean islands on regional airlines? Big problem, mon.

from Travel Weekly
Delta to begin flying between Seattle and Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport, which is closer to the city than its other airport, Narita. But Seattle’s gain will be Detroit’s loss.

LAND
from Smarter Travel
The ST crew highlights the cold-and-flu season by pointing out the 10 Germiest Places You Encounter While Traveling. Their title, not mine. Never mind that, just take their advice and stay healthy going into the New Year. SLIDESHOW

from CNN
First, the bad news. Hotels are now going the way of the airlines and hitting their guests with hidden “resort fees.” The good news? The feds have taken notice.

from Smarter Travel
Five off-season travel destinations that are really cool, and not just because it’s winter. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
Ridership isn’t the only thing growing at Amtrak. Look for a larger number of Amtrak Vacations packages in 2013.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Houston has had a gleaming new cruise ship terminal since 2009, but no cruise ships ever made port calls there. Starting next November, that will change.

from Travel Weekly
More life preservers, better tie-downs for heavy equipment aboard ship and standardized procedures for bridge officers are among the safety changes being proposed within the cruise ship industry as a result of the Costa Concordia disaster.

from CNN
How do you “undiscover” an island?

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AFRICA
from Travel Weekly
British travelers recently declared Cape Town, South Africa to be their favorite city in the world — and it looks as if Europe’s international airlines are getting the message.

from the South African Government News Agency via allAfrica.com
A cultural, historical and anti-poverty industrial center dedicated to the memory of anti-apartheid martyr Steve Biko opens in South Africa. The Steve Biko Heritage Centre is expected to become a major tourist attraction.

from The Star (Kenya) va allAfrica.com
With foreign tourism starting to dry up, mainly over security fears as Kenyan forces tangle with Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists from neighboring Somalia, the government tries to boost domestic tourism to compensate.

AMERICAS
from CNN
The ravages of Superstorm Sandy are not preventing holiday visitors from pouring into New York City.

from CNN
Take a look at Detroit through the eyes of its mayor, former NBA superstar Dave Bing.

from SFGate.com
Up in the Napa Valley, you can find restaurants that design menus around the finest local wines. Not down in Monterey. This beautiful seaside-scenic town, a two-hour drive south from San Francisco, has gone nuts over local craft beers — so much so that several local restos now feature entire dinners built around local brews.

from the Los Angeles Times
Memories of the California gold rush live on in Yreka.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from China Daily
Have you ever seen any of those ancient Chinese paintings depicting incredibly beautiful landscapes, towering bullet-shaped limestone mountains that couldn’t possibly be real? Well, they’re real, all right, and Guilin is the place that inspired a lot of those paintings.

Travel Weekly
With cruise sales leveling off here and sailing over their own “fiscal cliff” in Europe, the cruise lines are turning to Asia to pick up the slack. Singapore has already built a new ocean terminal large enough to dock the world’s biggest liners, and more are coming.

from CNNgo
Paris? New York? San Francisco? Madrid? You can all sit down. The Michelin Guide to the world’s great restaurants has crowned the gourmet capital of the world — and it’s Tokyo…still.

from Travel Weekly
Canada’s Four Seasons becomes the latest luxury hotel chain to plant its flag in China with a new 313-room luxury tower in Beijing.

EUROPE
from The New Yorker
Paris, that gastronomic capital of haute cuisine, is going ga-ga over its newest craze. Brace yourself: It’s American hamburgers. We’re not talking Mickey D’s, either.

from Cisco
The next time you find yourself in one of those classic London cabs, whip out your smartphone or your iPad and see if its wifi is working. Cyberspace is coming to the hackney carriage.

from Reuters
It’s no big deal anymore to find a Muslim mosque in Paris. A gay-friendly Muslim mosque in Paris? That’s a very big deal.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 11.18.12

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Sahara Desert caravan

The Sahara Desert. Think you could survive here? | ©Simone Matteo Giuseppe Manzoni — Dreamstime.com

The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

THE WORLD’S DRY PLACES
This edition of the IBIT Travel Digest is dedicated to my editor, P.A. Rice, whose name you’ll often see at the bottom of my blog posts. In addition to being a fine writer in her own right and a good friend of many years, she loves — I mean LOVES! — the desert.

Having been born in Louisiana and spent most of my life in coastal California, I’ve never been a desert person. Too much sand, too little shade, too many things that stick or bite you.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s usually hotter than all Hell? Unless, of course, it’s freezing cold.

But when she’s in the desert, she sees — or more accurately, feels — something different. Something profound. Something wondrous. And if you try looking at it through her eyes, you may start to see the desert in the same way.

It’s a land that makes you accept it on its own terms. But if you can do that, it will treat you to breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, night skies overflowing with stars and enough solitude to let you have meaningful conversations with your own soul.

I’ve seen sunlight and clouds combine over the Imperial Valley of California in ways that that I’ve seen nowhere else on Earth.

And as evidenced by this story in the London newspaper, The Guardian, she’s not alone in her appreciation of the world’s driest places.

The article lists incredible deserts all over the world — and tours to let you explore them. Deserts in Arizona, North Africa, Mongolia, and countries you may not even think of in terms of deserts.

Like Spain.

Don’t worry…it’s a DRY heat.

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LOW-FARE AIR TO AFRICA
easyJet is Britain’s largest airline and one of the principal low-fare airlines in Europe. It’s orange-and-white Airbus A319s and A320s are a common slight all over the continent.

Now, according to The Guardian, easyJet’s Greek founder is bringing the low-fare airline concept to the Mother Continent.

Fastjet has taken off, literally, in Tanzania.

The implications of this are huge. Africa is one of the largest and most populous of all the world’s continents — and also by far the one most under-served by the world’s airlines.

If Fastjet succeeds, spreads and inspires the rise of competitors, it could revolutionize African air travel.

Stay tuned.

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HIGH-STYLE HIGHWAY STOPS
If it’s been awhile since you took a cross-country road trip — and at today’s gasoline prices, who could blame you? — you will be forgiven if you go slack-jawed when you see what’s happening to highway rest stops these days.

I got my own inkling of that a couple of weeks ago on Interstate 5 in Southern California, heading back to San Diego.

There’s long been a rest stop overlooking the coast within the boundaries of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, but I hadn’t stopped there in years. Small, nondescript, nothing special.

My, how things have changed. Two buildings are now three. Multiple large, clean restrooms, snack and soft-drink vending machines that actually work. And I didn’t check, but it might even have wifi now.

But as you’ll see in this Washington Post travel story, that’s nothing.

America’s rest stops are going upscale, so much so that some are on the verge of becoming destinations themselves. Check it out.

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AND FINALLY…
And as long as we’re toying with the idea of hitting the road again, the financial magazine Kiplinger offers up this list of its 10 cheapest American cities for a good vacation.

The first thing you’ll notice about this list is that only two of its top 10 cities are anywhere west of the Mississippi River. One of them is Phoenix, AZ.

Desert. It figures.

But that’s not as amazing as the city that appears at the top of the Kiplinger list, the Number 1 destination for a cheap American vacation.

Drum roll, please…Riverside, CA.

When I first saw this, my initial reaction was “really?” Then I recalled my several drives through Riverside with my family enroute to and from family visits in Texas and Louisiana, not to mention my stops there on the train.

After thinking it all over, my reconsidered thought was…REALLY???

If you think you can make a compelling case that the Kiplinger folks are right, drop me a comment here on the blog or send an email to greg@imblacknitravel.com. I’m willing to be persuaded.

Just be prepared to work at it.

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And now, here’s the Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
American Airlines adds service to Europe, Asia and Latin America from its hubs in Dallas and Chicago. The flights themselves don’t begin til next year, but you can start booking them now.

from the Huffington Post
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what about the skies of the beholder? Would you fly in airplanes as ugly as these? SLIDESHOW

from CNN
The A350-AXWB is the lightweight, long-range airline that Airbus intends to compete with Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. Will it catch on with the world’s airlines…and more importantly, their passengers?

LAND
from The Daily Beast
Where to find some of the world’s tastiest cheap eats. No surprise, most of them are in Asia.

from AARP
Airline etiquette — how to deal with rude passengers in-flight.

from USA Today
Is a steady regimen of business travel hazardous to your health?

SEA
from USA Today
NCL joins rival Carnival in selling all-you-can-drink packages aboard its cruise ships.

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
British travelers vote their favorite city in the world. New York? Toronto? Paris? Surprise…it’s Capetown, South Africa.

from the Daily Observer (Gambia) via allAfrica.com
For foreign tourists, visiting the Gambia often means getting bum-rushed by “bumsters.” Mostly, they’re just a nuisance, but they can be a BIG nuisance.

from allAfrica.com
An unlikely alliance of US environmentalists, herdsmen from Somalia and financiers from China is joining forces in Kenya to save the rarest antelope in Africa. The hirola is closer to extinction than giant pandas, mountain gorillas or rhinos…and cannot survive in zoos.

from CNN
How to survive in the Sahara with the world’s original desert survival experts, the Tuareg.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
Atlantic City refuses to bow down to Superstorm Sandy.

from Travel Weekly
And speaking of Sandy, resorts in the Caribbean are still reeling from its impact, these days in the form of widespread cancellations from US travelers. Good time to swoop in and negotiate a bargain, perhaps?

from the New York Times
Seth Kugel loves São Paulo. He wants you to love it, too. WARNING: You may have to work at it.

from the Washington Post
Have a thing for ghost towns? Then check out a pair of abandoned mining towns in Chile. SLIDESHOW

from the Huffington Post
For all the gloom-and-doom talk in the mainstream media about the demise of American manufacturing, there are a lot of local factories still making their own products — and making money doing it. Some of them will let you come in and watch. SLIDESHOW

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
Want to see where The Hobbit lives…at least on film? Head for New Zealand. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters next month. Check out the incredibly beautiful land where it was shot.

from CNN
The Hello Kitty restaurant in Beijing. The pink ambiance will make you smile. The food will not.

EUROPE
from Travel Weekly
Greece is pining for more US tourists.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Some of the lesser known but no less worthy attractions of St. Petersburg, Russia.

from the New York Times
The Prague that hides in plain sight.

from the Washington Post
Here in the States, writers joke about tree-hugging hippies who think they can sing their way to revolution and freeom. In the scenic Baltic republic of Estonia, the people there actually did.

AFRICA: Forcing the Maasai off their land…for tourism?

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There are times when I have some real problems with the safari travel industry. This may be one of those times.

Three years ago, some wealthy business types from the United Arab Emirates came up with an idea: Create a game preserve in Tanzania where well-heeled hunters could legally hunt for “trophies.”

The Tanzanian president, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, whose government is chronically strapped for cash, signed off on the deal.

The deal, however, included the eviction of some 40,000 nomadic Maasai herdsmen and their families from their lands in the Loliondo region of northern Tanzania.

When they objected, things got ugly — violently ugly. Police beat villagers and forced out of their homes. In some cases, they were burned out, their precious cattle destroyed along with their villages.

If you didn’t hear about this back in 2009, it could be because we were preoccupied with a lot of things closer to home. The beginning of the Barack Obama presidency and the battle over health care reform, the deaths of Sen. Edward Kennedy and Michael Jackson, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention the latest doings of Donald Trump and the Kardashians.

Elsewhere in the world, though, people did hear about this. The Guardian newspaper in London, among others, reported extensively on it. There were even YouTube videos about Maasai families being forcibly removed.

Eventually, enough people of conscience, inside and outside of Tanzania, raised enough Hell over this that President Kikwete saw fit to back out of the deal.

Fast-forward to the present, and my email in-box, where I find this little missive:

“At any moment, a big-game hunting corporation could sign a deal which would force up to 48,000 members of Africa’s famous Maasai tribe from their land to make way for wealthy Middle Eastern kings and princes to hunt lions and leopards.”

They’re B-A-A-A-A-CK.

If you read the 2009 Guardian story about this (and you really should), you will see that what’s been happening in Loliondo — and what may be about to happen again — is neither new nor unique to Tanzania.

In neighboring Kenya as well, the Maasai have been getting pushed around — and/or pushed off their ancestral lands — for decades, almost always in the name of generating lucrative safari travel. The Maasai have a few bones tossed their way — a little employment here, some drought aid there, a few sound-bite-worthy efforts toward wildlife conservation.

In the end, however, the story is nearly always the same. The tour operators get rich. The Maasai get dispossessed.

African politics is a minefield from which I generally try to stay as far away as possible. But this one involves international tourism, and this is just wrong.

I’m all for preserving wildlife. I may not be crazy about the idea of sanctioning recreational hunting for no purpose other than to allow wealthy hunters the chance to legally kill animals just for the fun of it, but if the local people are okay with it, that’s fine.

Just not at the expense of their homes and their way of life.

I don’t need to see a lion or a leopard that badly, nor am I inclined to kick people off their lands just for the chance to shoot one. But that’s just me.

Or is it?

If you feel the same way, you should consider adding your digital signature to the email petition being sent around by avaaz.org top put a stop to this land grab, hopefully for the last time.

You can sign the avaaz.com petition here.

MAASAI TOURISM — A DIFFERENT APPROACH
While researching this blog post, I can across an outfit that calls itself NOMADTanzania that claims ti operate tourist camps in Loliondo.

The camp itself is called Nduara Loliondo. It consists of a half-dozen yurts, a large-tent-like structure not unlike what you might find on the steppes of Central Asia.

Two things about them jumped out at me immediately, the first of which was this:

“We are one of a very small number of companies to have formed a partnership with the Maasai in Loliondo and to be given permission to set up our camp here…The time we spend with the Maasai is very much about getting a view of everyday Maasai life; we don’t ask for anything to be laid on for our guests and our guests don’t expect this.”

And then, there was this:

“…like the Maasai, Nduara Loliondo is nomadic; every 6 months, the camp is packed up and moved.”

Are you intrigued yet? I sure am. If they truly operate as they claim they do, they would seem to be a model for the rest of Africa.

For more information, visit the NOMADTanzania Web site.

AFRICA: In a different light

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Downtown Nairobi, capital of Kenya — ©Vladimir Kindrachov | Dreamstime.com

How is it that you can get a fuller picture of African realities today from Chinese television or al Jazeera than you can from American mainstream media?

I just watched a brilliantly produced 30-minute documentary on the fashion scene in Kenya, focusing on a single young Kenyan fashion designer, John Kaveke.

How much can you learn in 30 minutes?

I learned that Nairobi has one hell of a vibrant urban scene. Mr. Kaveke calls it “a small New York” and it’s not hard to see why. The rhythms you see pulsing on those streets require no translation from anyone who’s spent even one day in Manhattan — or London, for that matter.

I learned that Africa’s fashion scene is as diverse as the Mother Continent herself. If you approach African fashion with the “Africa is a country” attitude, you’ve already lost the plot.

I learned too that there are economic, social and even political implications that play in the background of things like fashion.

Kenya may have energetic, creative designers like Mr. Kaveke, but he finds himself up against with a mountainous second-hand clothing industry.

Tons of used clothing from the United States and other Western countries are imported wholesale into Kenya for buyers eager to emulate the styles they see in Western magazines and on television. Local buyers snap up the best to re-sell in their small shops, which do a thriving business serving Kenyans looking for fashionable, affordable threads.

Even middle-class professionals who can comfortably pay for high fashion buy the second-hand stuff, known as “mitumba,” for the quality of its manufacture…and the knowledge that they’re unlikely to run into someone else on the street wearing the exact same thing.

How does this encourage local creativity, pride in Kenyan design? To the dismay of designers like Mr. Kaveke, it really doesn’t. As a result, you see him being invited to high-profile fashion shows in London, but getting not nearly as much love in Nairobi.

The prophet, it seems, is not the only one dishonored in his own land.

Another thing I learned: Kenya grows its own cotton and once produced a lot of its own unique textiles. These days, though, Kenyan cotton producers are suffering and the country imports most of its fabrics from elsewhere, fabrics that don’t reflect Kenyan tradition or creative spirit.

A lot of good, eye-opening stuff, huh? So where did I see all this? On one of the regular television networks? On CNN, MSNBC, Fox News?

No. It was on a program entitled “Talk Africa” from CCTV. China Central Television.

I wish I could say this is a shocking new development, but the reality is that news outlets like CCTV, al Jazeera, the BBC and France 24 all do a much better job of reporting on Africa than any US mainstream news outlet.

It helps to explain the discouraging degree of American ignorance about Africa that persists even into the so-called Information Age.

When it comes to Africa, what we tend to get from American mainstream media is largely misinformation, disinformation or no information at all.

Say what you will about the large Chinese presence in Africa and the motives behind it; I certainly do. But they at least seem to be making an effort to portray Africa in a broader light, one that reaches beyond the latest war, famine or coup d’etat.

That kind of light eventually destroys stereotypes and clichés. Captured in such a light is an Africa that has a lot more going for it than safaris. An Africa that a lot more Americans and other Westerners might love to visit, if only they knew it were there.

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 4.4.2012

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The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media. ​

Bicycle parking lot, Amsterdam | ©IBIT G. Gross

TOURISTS: A BILLION SERVED?
Some of you out there (and you KNOW who you are) are old enough to remember when McDonald’s fast-food joints started running those “1 million served” slogans on the marquees they mounted in front of their trademark golden arches. The count has long since run into the billions, of course.

Well, it looks as if the world’s tourism industry may be catching up.

If the UN World Tourism Organization is right, some time this year, someone will step off a plane or a train or a cruise ship to become something the world has never seen before:

The One Billionth Tourist. That’s one billion in 2012 alone.

There’s a reason why tourism is one of the largest industries on Earth. Nothing, it seems, stops the world from traveling. Not recession, wars, or flight crews losing their minds.

If you’re interested in the breakdown by region, the Adventure Travel Trade Association has it for you here.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from Travel Daily News
The world’s largest airline alliance broadens its reach in the East. Star Alliance agrees to accept Taiwan’s Eva Air as a new member by mid-2013. China’s Shenzen Airlines joins Star this year. That will give Star eight airlines in the Asia-Pacific market.

from Travel Weekly
Pinnacle Airlines files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Never heard of them? There’s a good chance you’ve flown with them without knowing it. That regional shuttle or “puddle-jumper” flight you took with Delta, United or US Airways? In reality, it was these guys.
​
from Travel Weekly
The bad news: Southwest Airlines quietly raises its airfares. The worse news: Five of its rivals match Southwest increase for increase. You didn’t have to do that, guys. No, really, you didn’t.

LAND
from Smarter Travel
Truth or Consequences is one thing but — Elephant Butte, NM? Rabbit Hash? Leg O’Mutton? Crapstone? Some of wackiest town names you can find — including one Colorado town whose name is No Name. SLIDESHOW

from The Economist (United Kingdom)
Airlines aren’t the only ones looking to bypass online travel agencies like Expedia and Travelocity. A half-dozen hotel chains have joined forces to do the same thing.

from Smarter Travel
Shoes that fold up. Shirts that don’t smell. Jackets that double as pillows or even carry-ons. Clothing for the road warriors among you.

from Ethical Traveler
The world’s most ethical travel destinations among the world’s developing nations.

SEA
from the New York Times For every style of music, it seems, you can find a cruise for it, and rock-themed cruises are among the most popular.

from USA Today Another week, another cruise ship runs into mechanical troubles on the high seas. This time, it’s the Azamara Quest. Another engine room fire. Everyone’s safe.

from Der Spiegel (Germany)
Was the Costa Concordia disaster a tragedy waiting to happen? Der Spiegel talks to maritime experts who say yes, and say why.

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AFRICA
from Vanguard News (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
A diplomatic showdown may be coming between the Nigerian government and British airlines over complaints that Nigerian passengers are being overcharged compared with passengers from other West African countries. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are the carriers most often cited by officials inthe capital, Abuja.

from The Star (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Government urged to combat child sex tourism in Kenya. The laws forbidding it are not being enforced.

from The Star (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Tourism investors in northern Kenya appeal to the media to start reporting more of the region’s positive aspects, including its track record as a film location.

from The New Vision (Uganda) via allAfrica.com
Should Uganda use the controversial Kony 2012 video to lure tourists to the country? These guys say yes. EDITORIAL

from Daily Monitor (Uganda)
Unlike many African countries, Uganda doesn’t have a national airline — and odd as it might sound, the country might have a better chance of boosting its tourism without one. EDITORIAL

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from theNew York Times
In New Orleans, they’re re-imagining the hotel bar. It’s not just for tourists anymore. Updated drinks, better food and good music are earning once-stodgy hotel bars a local following.

from the Los Angeles Times
Downtown (Las) Vegas, baby. The part of town that first made southern Nevada a major destination is renewing itself.
​
from the Los Angeles Times
Oakland is moving up in class as a destination. Yes, that Oakland.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
​from Japan Australia
Like the idea of traveling Japan by train and want to save money, but you’re an expat, not a tourist? The Japan Rail Kanto Area Pass may be just your ticket.

from The Telegraph (London UK)
I’ve said it before: China likes to do big things. The world’s tallest bridge connecting two mountain tunnels? I’d say that qualifies. It’s 355 meters high. That’s 1,165 feet. You could fly a jumbo jet under that.

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EUROPE
from Rick Steves via SFGate.com
Europe’s not just about cathedrals and vineyards. If you’re into adventure travel, the Old World is ready to satisfy your need for an adrenaline rush.

from the New York Times
History may be the biggest draw in Cologne, the oldest city in Germany, but fresh shops, restaurants and hotels have Cologne thriving in the present.

from VisitBritain Shop
Better than a hall pass, especially in London — a Pub Pass. Pretty cheap for what you get, and good for a year.

from Hotel Chatter
How’s this for a memorable summer: Commute to the 2012 London Olympics…from Paris.

Edited by P.A.Rice

Q&A: Edward “Eddie” Bergman

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The executive director of the Africa Travel Association has a wide-ranging telephone interview with IBIT about the promises and challenges of African tourism, including the re-emergence of Zimbabwe as a destination.

For six years, Edward Bergman has headed the Africa Travel Association. The son of South African emigrés, he now devotes much of his life to bringing others to the Mother Continent in ways that benefit the host as well as the visitor.

Just ahead of the association’s annual US-Africa Tourism Seminar in Washington DC, he looks at where African tourism is today and where it may be going.

Q. What would you say have been the most important developments in African tourism during your tenure with the Africa Travel Association?

A. Certainly the increase in air access. You didn’t have American airlines flying into Africa. Now you have two. Ethiopian Airlines having 10 (Boeing 787) Dreamliners, that’s a very historical thing. You didn’t have Arik Air that was serving the Nigerian market. Arik has potential to re-create the old Air Afrique routes. They could be a one-stop shop for going to any country they serve in West Africa once that happens.

The (2010 FIFA) World Cup in South Africa. That showed the world that Africa could compete. South Africa made it clear that it wasn’t a South African World Cup but an African World Cup. That really was very big.

Nobody imagined six years years ago that we’d have an African-American president who had family in Africa. It’s a major thing for Africa and for African tourism.

Q. Travelers are always looking for the undiscovered gem. What or where would you say is Africa’s undiscovered gem at present?

A. If I was to predict, I would say destinations such as Libya will become hot. I’m told the cultural tourism product there is spectacular. We were actually looking at having a meeting in Libya before things changed paths. We were actually being encouraged by many people, including Americans.

I think Central Africa could become very interesting. All this depends on safety and security.

West Africa has huge potential, once people can travel more easily with respect to visas.

Q. What are the prospects of getting better air connections to Africa from the US West Coast?

A. We know that a large number of travelers going to Africa are coming from the West Coast. South African Airways has developed a partnership with JetBlue. That may be the direction in which the airlines are going. Code-sharing.

Q. In travel industry trade shows around the United States, the emphasis is almost entirely on safari travel. Doesn’t Africa have more to offer than just wildlife?

A. We haven’t exclusively focused on safaris. ATA has always stood for diversified tourism products. Cultural tourism, heritage tourism, culinary tourism, going to Africa and meeting the people — this is why more people are traveling to Africa. The things we’ve been talking about all these years are coming to light. All of a sudden, it’s cool to go to Rwanda. Who would’ve thought that 14 years ago?

As for the trade shows in the United States, more of the African exhibitors are coming from the private sectors. In Europe, they tend to come more from the governments of the African countries. They’re not investing in the US market. That leaves a gap that the private sector is filling, and the majority of the private sector exhibitors are selling safari tourism products.

Q. What do you see as some of the areas of greatest potential for African tourism?

A. Cruise tourism. The cruise industry is very interested in West Africa; I think we’re going to see some interesting developments there. It needs a set price to make it affordable. Also, the African countries that serve as cruise destinations have to be very firm in making sure that these cruises deliver real benefit to their countries and not just to the cruise lines.

Convention tourism. There are a lot of organizations, a lot of African-American organizations, that could bring their conventions to Africa. I don’t think there’s that much taking place currently. There’s great potential in that.

How about youth tourism? Wouldn’t it be wonderful for African-American youth to travel to Africa while they’re in high school? Educational trips involving multiple countries. I think the cruise industry has some real potential there. Again, the keys would be doing it in a way that was not pricey and in a way that benefits Africa.

Then there’s the Internet. It’s old news to us, but it’s not old news in Africa. As the Internet becomes faster in Africa, it’s going to help the industry. Lodges are being rated on TripAdvisor. You can book stays on Expedia. African tour operators can market themselves directly.

Q.The annual ATA World Congress is going to be held this year at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. What do you see as the major issues in African travel to be discussed this year?

I think culinary tourism is something we need to talk about. We’re going to try to find a way to put this on the agenda, to find ways for African countries to showcase their food. In Victoria Falls, where we’re holding the congress this spring, you can have the African experience. But other than that, once you get outside the capital city of Harare, the hotels are serving Western food and that food is often being flown in and that just doesn’t make any sense.

When you go to Africa, you shouldn’t be having frozen fish that’s imported.

We need to look at striking a good balance between cultural and environmental tourism.

We really need to look at Zimbabwe itself, the difference between the perception of the country that we’re given by the Western media and the reality on the ground. It’s a lot different than one fears it is. They will be participating in the seminar on Friday. We also will be organizing a road show for Zimbabwe.

Tourism has always been important to the Zimbabwean economy. Now that things are settling politically, there seems to be this renewed interest, especially from the West. There’s a definite commitment to bringing back the US visitors. The US ambassador in Zimbabwe is a very strong proponent of the tourism industry in Zimbabwe and has given very strong support for this congress.

Q. What are some of the potential and challenges you see in further developing African tourism?

A. I would say East Africa…as infrastructure grows, tourism will grow. New regions within countries need to be explored (for their tourism potential).

From the US, we still do not have direct flight service to East Africa. One has to go through Europe or South Africa. There’s no direct flight to Kenya or Tanzania. There’s a market for that. The question is when that will happen.

From the US market, I also think that West Africa has great potential. It all depends on how political events play out, especially in Senegal, which was doing well (prior to the current presidential election) and has the potential to do very, very well.

(African) countries need to do more marketing and promotion in the United States, especially when it comes to event tourism. There’s great potential for that in the US market.

Q. Where do you see the Africa Travel Association headed in the next few years?

A. ATA needs to be seen as an organization that belongs to Africa politically. Some still see ATA as an American organization. We’ve worked very closely with the African Union Commission, for infrastructure, energy and now, tourism. We recently signed a (memorandum of understanding) that declares ATA as a partner with the AU…that outlines the beginnings of a roadmap in promoting tourism.

The next step is to move our political headquarters to Africa. We would like to see the ATA headquarters in Ethiopia, where the African Union has its headquarters. It then becomes an African regional organization

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 3.11.12

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A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media. ​

© Christina Deridder | Dreamstime.com

KENYA: GOING BEYOND BUSH AND BEACH TOURISM
I’ve been saying for awhile now that there’s a lot more to Africa than just exotic wildlife. It looks as if the folks in charge of Kenya’s tourism agree.

According to media reports out of Nairobi, the Kenya Tourism Board is abandoning its focus on beach and safaris. Now, they’re looking to diversify their approach, touting the East African nation as a destination for multiple forms of upscale travel — among them cultural tourism, eco-tourism and sports travel.

Kenya also is looking to raise its profile as a prime African location for MICE — traveltradespeak for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions.

(South Africa is the Mother Continent’s current leader for MICE tourism. Looks as if Kenya wants to break off a chunk of that lucrative market for themselves.)

All this is being done with an eye toward drawing more tourism from Europe and the KTB started pushing this updated concept of Kenyan tourism at the International Travel Bourse show last weekend in Berlin.

Kenya continues to draw international visitors despite its military clashes with al Shabab militias from neighboring Somalia.

For more on this story, check out this report from theNairobi Star.

“LOVE BOAT” TO THE BONEYARD
According to USA Today, the cruise ship that served as the floating set for the TV series “The Love Boat” ‐ and may well have helped launch the modern cruise industry as we now know it — is sailing toward an inglorious end.

The vessel formerly known as the Pacific Princess, has been sold to a demolition company in Turkey, where she’ll be cut up for scrap.

Apparently, she’s been laid up at a dock in Genoa, Italy for nearly a decade.

You can read the USA Today story here.

Those old enough to remember the show also will recall how huge we thought the ship was. In reality, she only held a maximum of about 600 passengers. Today’s mega-cruisers can hold more than that on one deck.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from the New York Times
Is there any way to make airplane food taste good? The airlines are trying everything — and I do mean everything.

from the New York Times
A couple of Sea World penguins get the celebrity treatment aboard a Delta flight. Not only do penguins fly, but in this case, they flew First Class. The humans loved it. VIDEO

from USA Today
The skies haven’t been that friendly of late for babies and parents. In one instance, TSA screeners denied boarding to a nursing mother. In another, JetBlue booted an entire family off a flight after their toddler went to DEFCON-5 with her tantrum.
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LAND
from the New York Times
From how to save money on whale-watching in Hawaii to why your next pair of contact lenses should come from Thailand. A roundup of tips from the recent NY Times Travel Show.

from Budget Travel
A vacation rental site adds insurance to protect vacation home renters from nasty surprises.

from Frommer’s
Buy fragile things when you travel? Here’s how to pack them to survive the trip home. SLIDESHOW

SEA
from USA Today
The Costa Allegra, the container ship-turned-cruise ship that went adrift in pirate-infested waters off the East African coast after an engine fire, has probably sailed her last cruise. Her owners, Carnival Cruise Lines, say she will be sold or scrapped.

from USA Today
Another bit of fallout from the loss of the Costa Allegra — beleaguered Costa is cancelling its Red Sea cruises this year. The ship that was to be used in the Red Sea, the Costa Voyager, is being shifted to take Allegra’s place.

from USA Today
Carnival Destiny, the first of Carnival’s mega-sized cruise ships, is going to get one of the biggest makeovers ever done on a cruiser. By the time she re-emerges, even her name will be different.

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AFRICA
from Capital FM (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Buoyed by what is sees as an improving global economy, British Airways is adding flight between London and the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

from The Chronicle (Ghana) via allAfrica.com
Aviation officials in Ghana say their citizens are being subjected to artificially high airfares, antiquated equipment and disrespectful treatment by flight attendants aboard foreign airlines. Accra is threatening retaliation if the foreign carriers don’t “come correct.”

from This Day (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
Four years ago, Lagos welcomed the arrival of the first yacht hotel anywhere in Africa. Four years later, the Sunborn Yacht Hotel is a floating white elephant, yet to welcome a paying guest. PICS and VIDEO

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from The Associated Press via The Grio
In New York’s Harlem, the phenomenon of gospel tourism is increasingly filling the pews of dwindling black congregations with white European tourists. It’s proving to be a mixed blessing.

from Budget Travel
How well do you know New Orleans? Test your knowledge of the NOLA with this quiz.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Mention the Amazon and the first place you’re likely to think of is Brazil. Add Peru to that list. Especially if the prospect of exploring the Amazon via a small luxury cruise appeals to you.
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ASIA/PACIFIC
​from Voice of America
One year after being rocked by a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Japan is still trying to get tourists to come back.

from the Los Angeles Times
In Vietnam, the city of Hanoi is making a name for itself among international travelers looking for the best in Vietnamese cuisine.

from the Los Angeles Times
Another sign of growing affluence in China — a domestic wine industry.

from Your Singapore
Remember when Singapore was known for its staid, ultra-conservative lifestyle? The St. James Power Station is an old coal-fired powerplant converted into the ultimate nightlife venue — ten different bars and live music venues under one roof. (Wikipedia lists 11.) So much for staid.

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EUROPE
from TravPr.com
“Paris pour les femmes” means Paris for women. A European tour company is offering luxury tours of Paris—exclusively for women.

​from The Guardian (London UK)
“Foodie” may be a dirty word these days among the travelerati, but if you’ve got a thing for both rustic Italian countryside and great Italian food, there are some places to stay in rural Italy that can satisfy both cravings.

from The Guardian (London UK)
And speaking of Italy, virtually every hotel in Venice is on an island, but this one has an island pretty much to itself, well away from the tourist mobs.

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