Stories discussed in this podcast are from the Travelography Twitter Blog for the first two weeks of January 2009. This podcast is also available at Blubrry.com and Travelgeography.info.
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Other findings in the Travel Leaders 2009 trends survey: •90.5% say
customers are cutting back on travel compared with the same period last
year. •57.4% say clients are cutting back on the length of their trips.
•31.5% say airfares on 2009 corporate bookings are equal to or lower
than those in 2008. •81.6% say clients are trading down when it comes
to hotels. •84.3% recommend Mexico as the best value outside the USA,
followed by cruises (61.1%) and the Caribbean (43.9%). Agents were
asked to pick up to three places.
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Forecast highlights are:
Industry revenues are expected to decline to US$501 billion. This a
fall of US$35 billion from the US$536 billion in revenues forecasted
for 2008. This drop in revenues is the first since the two consecutive
years of decline in 2001 and 2002.
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...loading the back rows first and then gradually rows nearer the front
-- should be among the best ways to board, but simulations indicate
that this is the second-slowest way. Even random boarding is faster.
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As many Americans struggle to pay for health care or health insurance,
hospitals in Mexico are expanding in hopes of attracting more patients
from north of the border — in addition, a rapidly growing industry is
marketing "medical tourism" to Americans.
