Travel Destinations Beware: 10 Travel Trends to consider
April 12, 2008
Case in point: Five years ago, affluent travelers, tired of staying in luxury hotels for their holidays, starting booking grand villas in the Tuscan countryside, on the beaches of Mexico and in the South of France. Now, hotels around the world are building villas, and vacationers are migrating back.
Another example: It wasn’t too long ago that renting a yacht loaded with amenities was considered a vacation only for the mega-wealthy. Today, however, with prices falling, renting a luxury yacht has become a hot summer vacation for legions of travelers.
In a vast industry that’s constantly changing, it’s not always easy to find upcoming trends, but industry experts have helped us select a few frontrunners.
Today’s biggest travel trend is eco-awareness.
"Travelers today are much more concerned about the environment than they have ever been," says Alexandre Chemla, president and owner of Altour International, a luxury travel consultancy. "A couple of years ago, you didn’t hear about this as much, but now upscale travelers want to do whatever they can to be eco-conscious."
According to research from the Green Hotel Association, a trade organization in Texas that promotes ecological consciousness in the hospitality industry, 43 million U.S. travelers say they are concerned about the environment.
And thanks to the widespread effort the travel industry is making to promote green initiatives, it’s not difficult for consumers to be more eco-friendly. Car rental companies Hertz, Budget and Avis are adding more fuel-efficient cars to their fleet, and many limo companies use hybrid vehicles. Hotel chains including Fairmont and Aloft also have new green programs.
Another trend in upscale travel is private jet charters. Aram Gesar, editor of AirGuide magazine and AirGuideonline.com, says that there are around 500 private jet operators worldwide, up from around 100 just five years ago. Prices to charter your own plane have declined to as little as $2,200 an hour for three to five people, down from $3,800 five years ago.
One unexpected development in the travel world: Despite the boom of Internet travel sites such as Expedia (nasdaq: EXPE - news - people ) and Travelocity, some upscale consumers are holding on to the old-fashioned way of planning trips for their upscale leisure travel.
"The Internet is obviously a major tool that travelers are using to book their vacations, but surprisingly, real affluent travelers want human interaction and continue using travel agents," says Bjorn Hanson, a principal in the Hospitality and Leisure Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers."
Upscale travelers often rely on luxury travel consultants who charge fees to plan every aspect of a trip, from securing hotel rooms to scoring concert tickets and dinner reservations. The agents at Altour International charge anywhere between $250 to $1,000 to plan a vacation. Last year, the company had $490 million in revenues, up from $250 million in 2003. That calculates to some 1 million customers on average per year or 3,000 a day?
Fisher Travel, a members-only travel concierge based in New York City, costs $250,000 just to join, and another $10,000 a year in fees. But you’re out of luck if you’re ready to shell out the dough; there’s a waiting list to join.
Another unanticipated trend is the growth in adults-only trips. According to the 2007 National Leisure Travel Monitor from travel marketing firm Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, six out of 10 vacationers recently took a trip with a spouse or other adult, without children. That’s twice the number of adults who took a trip with kids.
As a result, hotels are increasingly segregating childless adults from families. The Emerson Resort & Spa in Mount Tremper, N.Y., has a new 25-suite, adults-only inn separate from its main lodge. And the hotel and restaurant at the Grace Bay Club in Turks and Caicos is just for adults.
"With the increase in the number of adults who don’t have children, this is a growing market," says Peter Yesawich, chief executive of YPB&R. "This is also a less-price-sensitive crowd and a highly lucrative one for the travel industry. So they are going out of their way to accommodate adults who want to be separate from families."
Here are 10 trends in random order
1. Yacht Charters
Wealthy travelers favor renting luxury yachts for their vacation. With a growing list of amenities such as outdoor Jacuzzis, plasma televisions, spacious staterooms, a culinary team cooking gourmet meals and the option to change your itinerary at whim (after all, it’s your boat), what’s not to love?
2. Traveling with An Entourage
Traveling with an entourage isn’t just for celebrities. Bjorn Hanson, a principal in the Hospitality and Leisure Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says that very wealthy travelers are bringing nannies, trainers, yoga teachers and even chefs on vacation.
3. A New Definition Of Camping
Going camping doesn’t mean giving up all modern comforts. Campsites around the world are amping up amenities: KOA Kampgrounds, which has 445 sites in the U.S. and Canada, has added Jacuzzis, movie theaters and restaurants to its sites.
Note: Now here is a product development idea for the island of Tintamarre….one big camp ground!
4. Human Contact Returns
It’s no surprise that the majority of leisure travelers book through the Internet. But industry experts say that upscale travelers are relying more heavily on luxury travel consultants who charge hefty fees to plan every aspect of a trip. Case in point: There is a wait list to join Fisher Travel, a members only travel concierge in New York City. The cost? $250,000.
5. Adults Only Travel
Hotels are recognizing that travelers don’t always want kids around, and are carving out adults-only sections. Two examples: Emerson Resort & Spa in Mount Tremper, N.Y., has a new 25-suite adults-only inn, and the hotel and restaurant at the Grace Bay Club in Turks and Caicos is just for adults.
6. Multi-Generational Travel
Travel experts say that vacations including multiple generations of families are increasingly popular. The trend, known as "togethering," is expected to increase in coming years. The reason? Rod Cabron, spokesman for travel marketing firm Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, says people have an increased appreciation of time with family.
7. Private Jet Travel
Flying commercial is becoming passé for today’s deep pocketed travelers. Aram Gesar, editor of the New York-based AirGuide magazine and AirGuideonline.com, says there are now 500 private jet companies, up from around 100 five years ago. Over the same period, prices to charter your own plane have declined from $3,800 an hour to as low as $2,200.
8. Hotel-Owned Villas
According to Scott Berman, a partner in the Hospitality and Leisure practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, upscale hotels are building villas in reaction to competition from independent villa rentals. Esperanza in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Four Seasons properties and Evanson Hideaway & Six Senses in Ana Mandara, Vietnam, are a few examples of luxury hotels offering villa rentals.
9. Eco-Awareness
According to research from the Green Hotel Association, 43 million U.S. travelers say they are concerned about the environment. Now, the travel industry is making a widespread effort to promote green initiatives. Fairmont and Aloft have new green programs, and car rental companies Hertz, Budget and Avis are adding more fuel-efficient cars to their fleet.
10. Vacation On The Decline
Research from travel marketing firm Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell says one out of four adult leisure travelers will take fewer vacations this year than in previous years. Why the decline? Experts cite increasing difficulty getting away from work.
Lost Luggage keeps piling up: In just five years, amount nearly doubles
December 17, 2007
The airlines say it doesn’t happen often - less than once for every 100 passengers - but when you lose your luggage, you never forget it.
Away from home without medication. On vacation in borrowed clothes. Attending an out-of-town business meeting in slacks and a golf shirt. Taking a luxury cruise with no formal attire. Going on a long-planned safari with no photo camaeras. Possessions lost, sometimes damaged or never seen again.
It’s happening more frequently every year. According to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics, in 2002, there were 3.84 reports of mishandled baggage for every 1,000 passengers. In the first nine months of 2007, the rate was 7.25 per 1,000 passengers - nearly double. The raw number is staggering: 3.45 million reports in those nine months.
And, yes, the numbers tend to rise around the holidays when air travel and weather delays are at their peak.
“It just goes hand in glove with the congestion problems that all the airlines have been experiencing,” said Ben Popken, editor of The Consumerist, a consumer-awareness blog. “As they go up, so do lost-luggage complaints. . . . You have more flights that they’re putting more people onto, and they’re slicing their margins of error. They’re decreasing the amount of ground time, and you just trim out all those different factors, you increase the likelihood people’s baggage will get lost in the process.”
Because airlines, struggling after Sept. 11, laid off thousands of employees, “there are a lot less baggage handlers, and a lot less oversight of the baggage handlers,” said Kate Hanni, founder of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights, a 21,000-member activist group lobbying Congress to mandate reforms about how airlines treat passengers.
But an industry spokesman sums up the cause for lost luggage in one word: “delays.”
“And the cause of delays,” said David A. Castelveter, vice president for communications for the Air Transport Association of America, an airline-industry trade group, “is an antiquated air-traffic control system that needs to be replaced, and weather. We have an air-traffic control system that is incapable of handling the volume of traffic we have today.”
People lead to boo-boos: Here’s the journey most pieces of luggage take: From the check-in counter through X-ray machines along conveyor belts to sorting areas, and then placed on carts to the plane - reverse the process when the plane lands: from carts to conveyor belts to the carousel.
“The challenge is if there’s an itinerary,” said Stephen Black, director of airport operations for St. George-based SkyWest Airlines. Say you’re flying from St. George to Melbourne, Fla., changing planes at a hub airport or two - in this example, Salt Lake City and Atlanta. “[A bag has] opportunities to possibly get separated from the customer as it goes through the first stop in Salt Lake and the second stop in Atlanta,” Black said. (This may explain why regional carriers such as SkyWest, Comair and American Eagle usually have higher rates of mishandled-baggage reports than the larger airlines.)
And while much of the process is automated, the system relies on baggage handlers and security crews to do their jobs. “The more people who handle it, the more potential boo-boos that could occur,” said Bill Race, manager of central baggage for JetBlue Airlines.
“The biggest culprit is a tight connection in a hub where the customer is very quickly walking or running to a connecting flight,” Black said. “Through our best efforts, we occasionally can’t get [the bag] unloaded, transferred and reloaded onto the next aircraft as quick as the customer sometimes might make that connection from gate to gate.”
* * *
That other 1 percent: Airlines are trying to find innovative ways to solve the lost-baggage problem, said Carol Zupancic, western director of airport customer service for Delta Air Lines.
“We’re loading our airplanes in a new way” to make connecting to a flight easier, Zupancic said. For a plane stopping in Atlanta, for example, “we’ll be putting bags getting off at Atlanta in one part of the plane, the bags connecting to other airports in the other part,” she said.
Delta has also tested a scanning technology - similar to what cargo carriers use to track packages - in its Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Cincinnati hubs, and aims to have it operating systemwide in 2008, Zupancic said.
When your bag doesn’t show up, your next stop is that forlorn little room near the carousel: the baggage claim counter.
Castelveter described the process: “They’ll ask you for your bag tag - the little sticker that is generally put on your ticket jacket that has your name, your bag-tag number and a bar code. They will take a claim, put it into the computer. That claim will include asking you about the type of bag - the size of the bag, the color of the bag, hard- or soft-sided - and they have a little chart. . . . They’ll put it in the computer and begin tracing for it.”
“Ninety-eight percent of the time,” said JetBlue’s Race, “the bag shows up the same day, most likely on the next flight.” In most cases, a bag will be found within hours of a customer’s claim - and most airlines will arrange to deliver that bag to the customer’s home or hotel room.
According to Castelveter, more than 99 percent of mishandled bags eventually are returned to their owners. For that other 1 percent, airlines have a claims process for customers to try to retrieve or be compensated for their missing items.
A customer fills out a form with a detailed inventory of the missing items, Castelveter said. “When that claim form comes in, somebody immediately takes it and codes all those inventory items that you’ve listed,” he said. “If somebody found that bag in Salt Lake City, and nobody claimed it, after 72 hours [the airline] will send it to the claims center, and somebody will open it and code all the contents in the bag. . . . The computer will then begin matching every bag that’s being held with every claim that is requesting those type of items.”
In practice, it doesn’t always work so well, said Popken of The Consumerist, recounting his own experience dealing with one airline’s claim process. “The byzantine route that I had to make in order to even make contact to make a claim with their lost-item department was just completely ridiculous,” he said.
“They had an online form for the lost and found, but when you try to navigate to it, you got a broken Web-page notice. . . . It was very difficult to find a phone number for [the airline's] lost-and-found. The customer-service numbers that I called were dead-ends . . . wandering in this void of phone trees that led nowhere. I ended up sort of hacking the company directory and harassing this lady in human resources - and she gave me a direct number for their lost-and-found department, which was another voice-mail box.”
The airlines also have limits on what they will cover for reimbursement. Delta, American and United, for example, top out at $3,000 per passenger. And most airlines won’t cover cameras, computers, electronics, jewelry, artwork or prescription medicine - which is why carriers advise passengers to pack those in their carry-on luggage.
Hanni, the founder of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights, wants to hold airlines more accountable for lost luggage. She’s pushing for federal rules to require all bags be delivered within 24 hours or airlines would face civil penalties.
“There’s no impetus to solve anything” under the current system, Hanni said. “The only way to do it is to charge the airlines, per bag and per day.”
Hassle-free luggage tips:
- Get to the airport early. The more time the airline has to get your bag to the plane, the more likely it will get to your destination.
- If you’re changing planes, try to book flights that allow some time in between. Staying on the same carrier can help, too.
- Pack within the weight limits - usually 50 pounds per suitcase (except for Delta, whose limit is 40 pounds per suitcase).
- Don’t overstuff soft-sided luggage. Remember, your luggage may be opened and inspected by security personnel.
- If you’re carrying Christmas presents, don’t wrap them in advance. Also, be sure to check the TSA’s prohibited-items list (tsa.gov).
- Keep the important stuff - cameras, computers, jewelry, eyeglasses, prescription medicine - in your carry-on luggage.
- Put an ID tag inside your bag, in case the one on the outside falls off. Include your cell phone number (because you likely won’t be home).
- Write out an inventory of what’s packed inside your checked bag or suitcase. Carry a copy with you, and put another copy in the bag.
- Remember that many bags look alike, so a distinctive marking or colors will help you identify your bag better and deter would-be thieves.
- If you’re taking something you won’t need until you get to your destination (e.g., golf clubs or skis), consider shipping them instead.
Is your luggage safe?
ABC News crunched government data to see what valuables have gone missing from luggage. See how Salt Lake City International Airport fares. Go to abc Go to ABC News
Airlines offer limited liability for lost or damaged baggage. For most U.S. airlines, it tops out at $3,000 per passenger for domestic travel, and for international travel, a maximum of $640 per bag.
Passengers must prove the value of the lost or damaged items, usually with receipts and other documentation. Airlines won’t accept blame for improperly packed items, or for damage caused by security agencies. Airlines also exempt many items for reimbursement - usually such items as cash, camera equipment, computers, electronics, jewelry, business documents or works of art.
Legislation for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights has been introduced in Congress. In addition to mandating airlines to inform passengers about delays and other inconveniences, it includes this provision: “If a passenger of a covered air carrier submits a claim to the air carrier for lost baggage, the air carrier shall make every reasonable effort to return the baggage to the passenger within 24 hours.”
Similar bills in the House and Senate have not been acted on. A citizens group, the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights, is lobbying for the legislation. That group’s Web site is www.flyersrights.org
In New York in August, Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed similar legislation, which is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. But USA Today reported last week, the Air Transport Association, an industry trade group, has asked a federal judge to block the new law - saying only the federal government can regulate air-travel rules.
