While corporate CEO’s and executives were being raked over the coals for spending their own and shareholders’ money on luxury travel and junkets, members of the United States Congress were blowing $13 million of taxpayer funds on overseas travel.

Turns out that members of congress, their spouses and staff have been living the high life, and spending thousands of dollars on visits to exotic locales like the Galápagos Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. 

Rep. Brian Baird took a 4-day trip to the Galápagos Islands with his wife, 4 other lawmakers and their family members. They were supposed to study global warming.

Wall Street Journal reports that one group of Senators flew to France for the Paris Air Show on an Air Force Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night. While there, Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby took a cruise on the River Seine.

Another delegation set out on a 1-day trip to Afghanistan, but tagged on an 8-day stopover in Italy before visiting Afghanistan. They spent almost nothing in Afghanistan, but the hotel bills for Italy clocked in at $57,697.

While Joe Sixpack can’t afford to pay for family vacations to Disneyland and costly hotels in New York and other mega-cities, members of Congress are busy blowing millions of dollars of tax payer funds on codels aka congressional delegations.

I opposed the witchhunts brought on by the travel expenditure by AIG and other corporate CEOs. It hurt the travel industry when companies stopped traveling and holding meetings.

But you have to draw a line somewhere. When members of Congress and their spouses are blowing thousands of dollars in the Galápagos Islands to study global warming, you cannot argue that it’s helping the travel industry. It’s time to put a stop to these codels.

Congress can start by banning all spouses on foreign trips, and forcing each member of Congress to publish and make public all expenses related to any foreign trip.

Posted on July 3rd, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News | No Comments »

Hard to believe, but true. Osama Bin Laden, his wife and kids enjoyed a family vacation in the United States on a trip to Indiana and Los Angeles in 1979.

This according to a new book titled Growing Up Bin Laden, authored by Osama’s first wife Najwa Bin Laden, and his son Omar Bin Laden, which will hit the bookstores in October.

Here’s an excerpt from the book, via The New Yorker, where Najwa Bin Laden talks about the trip to America.

…I am sometimes questioned about my personal opinion of the country and its people. This is surprisingly difficult to answer. We were there for only two weeks, and for one of those weeks, Osama was away in Los Angeles to meet with some men in that city. The boys and I were left behind in Indiana with a girlfriend whom I would rather not name…

My girlfriend was gracious and guided me on short trips…We even went into a big shopping mall in Indianapolis…

I came to believe that Americans were gentle and nice, people easy to deal with. As far as the country itself goes, my husband and I did not hate America, yet we did not love it….

We returned to Saudi Arabia none the worse for our experiences.

Apparently Osama didn’t really share his wife’s opinion of America and Americans, and I think it’s safe to say that he won’t be taking any more Los Angeles vacations.

Posted on July 3rd, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News | No Comments »

Reports coming out of Washington and Cape Cod suggest that President Barack Obama intends to take a 2-week family vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in late August.

The secret service has been checking up on homes in the East Chop section of Oak Bluffs - a resort town on the northeast shore of the island of Martha’s Vineyard. It’s reputed as an upscale and diverse resort area which has long been a favorite summer vacation watering-hole for African-American high society.

Oak Bluffs (www.oakbluffsmv.com/) operates the largest marina on Martha’s Vineyard, which not only has the most slips, but is situated in the midst of the historic gingerbread campgrounds, and offers easy access to the rest of the Island.

“OB”, as it is sometimes referred to, also is home to several beautiful public beaches, a teaming shore of wildlife, fish and shellfish, fabulous public parks and even a microbrewery, and the island’s finest golf course, Farm Neck. So that’s one thing you can be sure of  - President Obama will be teeing off at Farm Neck.

Apparently, the Secret Service has booked a block of rooms at The Wesley House - the same place the security forces stayed during former President Bill Clinton’s summer jaunts.

White House hasn’t confirmed it yet, but looks as good as a done deal. That means that the Cape Cod beaches and vacation hot-spots will now suddenly become more popular.

There’s been a big behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign in progress for the last few months, as City and CVB authorities of destinations from Key West to Hawaii to Cape Cod tried desperately to snag the Obamas for their summer vacation.

An Obama family vacation with the President poking around the local eateries and attractions with Sasha and Malia in tow would be a tourism bonanza and hog tons of free publicity in news magazines and television coverage worldwide.

The Obamas’ last vacation in Kailua in Hawaii became such a big media circus that Hawaii even set up a seperate page on it’s tourism website offering an Obama themed Hawaii tour, which included all the attractions in Oahu which then President-Elect Obama visited while on vacation.

Photos by jyllish via flickr (creative commons).

Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Family Vacations, Travel News | No Comments »

A public viewing of the late Michael Jackson’s body is to be held on Friday at the Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara.

And there’s complete bedlam in Santa Barbara right now, with fans descending down to the Santa Ynez Valley from all over the nation, and probably even from other countries, trying to get a last glimpse of the King of Pop.

The 2800 acre fantasy Neverland Ranch, formerly owned by Michael Jackson, is located at 5225 Figueroa Mountain Road in Los Olivos.

The fantasy estate had a zoo, theme park with Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, super slide, roller coaster, bumper cars and other amusements when it was in working condition.

Most Santa Barbara hotels are already booked solid through Sunday. TMZ reports that California’s Fess Parker Wine Country Inn in Los Olivos sold out in 20 minutes after the news broke of Neverland being chosen as the site of the viewing.

The Neverland Ranch is set to be converted into a shrine dedicated to Michael Jackson, much as Graceland in Memphis is the place where Elvis fans go to pay their respects.

This means that the Neverland Ranch, which already was one of the prime attractions in Santa Barbara, will now become one of the most famed tourist hot-spots in California.

Michael Jackson at White House - Public Domain White House Photo. Neverland Ranch photo by tunnelbug via flickr (creative commons).

Posted on July 1st, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Los Angeles, Travel News | No Comments »

Quick on the heels of the City Tours launch by Google, now comes another trip planning helper - this one from TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor® has launched a new “Great Escapes” tool, which helps travelers find outstanding low-cost getaways to unexpected destinations by air or car.

The Great Escapes trip-planning resource (www.tripadvisor.com/TakeOff) inspires travelers with up to ten great air and car options from their point of origin, based on the lowest priced flight and popularity of the driving destination, according to millions of TripAdvisor travelers.

You start off by entering your starting city, and the tool gives you suggestions for summer escapes for under $199 from your starting point. Each suggested destination comes with a comprehensive guide which includes hotels and popular attractions.

In a press statement, Christine Petersen, chief marketing officer of TripAdvisor, said that “No matter where you live or what your budget, Great Escapes offers places you might not have thought of for a great price. TripAdvisor travelers have always cherished a good value but this year even more so, with searches for ‘bargains’ on our site up nearly 30 percent, and now we’re making it even easier to check out the places our travelers love, all for under $199.”

If you type in New York City in the tool, you get suggestions including Philadelphia, PA; Chincoteague Island, VA; Lancaster, PA; Annapolis, MD; Newport, RI and a few others.

The results mention the distance and travel time for each destination from NYC, and top rated hotels with prices. For example, Philly is 102 miles away (1 hr 50 min), and the top-rated hotels in Philadelphia start from $133/night.

The most popular Philadelphia attractions mentioned are City Food Tours Philadelphia, Eastern State Penitentiary, and the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum. If you want more details, you’re given the option of getting the full TripAdvisor guide for the destination. 

So if you’re looking for a cheap summer getaway, you can use the TripAdvisor tool to find it, and then get hold of the best-rated hotels and popular attractions at your destination. Check it out here - www.tripadvisor.com/TakeOff

Posted on July 1st, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News | No Comments »

Marriott International announced today it will become the first major global hotel company to offer telepresence technology in its hotels, using AT&T’s fully-managed AT&T Telepresence Solution.

The telepresence systems will be implemented, as a start, at 25 hotels in Washington DC, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Frankfurt and London. The hotels will be a mix of Marriott, J.W. Marriott and Renaissance hotels. The first systems are expected to be functional by October.

The telepresence systems offer life-size images across multiple 65-inch HD screens allowing for group conferences involving 20 or more participants.

The thinking behind offering in-room video conferencing is that corporates might prefer to rent Marriott’s telepresence rooms at both ends for a virtual meeting, instead of one party traveling all the way to the other city for an in-person meeting.

Of course, Marriott is betting that companies will prefer to pay Marriott for renting the system, rather than purchase the prohibitively expensive telepresence system. And that assumes that said costs won’t be coming down. But if the systems get wider acceptance, and costs go down, then a firm could easily set it up in it’s own conference rooms. 

But until then, Marriott has a potential cash cow on it’s hands.

(Update: June 30, 2009 - India’s Tata Communications has announced a partnership with Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide for a global roll out of public telepresence rooms in 10 Starwood properties. The first telepresence suites are planned for Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, Sheraton on the Park (Sydney), Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, The Westin Los Angeles Airport and W Chicago-City Center. Starwood also anticipates expanding the offering to hotels in key international business markets like Brussels, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.)

Related Links:-
Marriott to capture virtual meetings with high-tech systems
Video Conferences & TeleTrips Replace Business Travel

Posted on June 30th, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Hotels | 2 Comments »

LastMinuteTravel.com is holding ‘$10 tuesdays’ where you can score rooms for $10 at hotels in New York, Orlando, Paris, Brussels and more cities.

Way it works is that every tuesday, LastMinuteTravel will list, on the home page, an ad for the $10 specials. All you have to do is click thru and search for the $10 deal in your city of choice, provided it’s there in the list.

The current week’s list includes the aforementioned 4 cities. The names of the hotels aren’t mentioned, and you don’t get to know the name unless you book it. But there’s plenty of details mentioned to satisfy your curiosity.

The hotel in New York, for example, is a 3-star Manhattan hotel located in the Upper West Side across from Central Park and in close proxiity to all the major New York attractions.

The details page also mentions the hotel has 117 guest rooms, and offers 24 hr front desk service, business services, front desk, elevators, valet dry cleaning and laundry services.

I guess a 3-star hotel across from Central Park which offers at least all of the above is definitely worth much more than $10 per night, so go for it. Let’s hope they can run this promotion better than the last one - the $1 promotion, which ended up getting KO’ed by tax issues.

Visit www.lastminutetravel.com/ or follow them on twitter @LMTTweets

Related Links:-
$10 Hotel Rooms in Orlando
LastMinuteTravel.com Offers $1 Hotel Rooms - World for a Dollar Promotion

Posted on June 30th, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Hotels | No Comments »

Hard to believe, but true. Rosen Hotels and Resorts, as part of it’s 35th anniversary celebrations, is rolling back prices to 1974 at four of it’s hotels in Orlando. The chain is offering rooms at $9.99 for the first night until December 23, 2009.

The four hotels participating in the promotion are:-

Quality Inn International Drive - 7600 International Dr. Orlando, FL 32819; (407) 996-1600

 Rodeway Inn International - 6327 International Dr. Orlando, FL 32819; (407) 996-4444

Quality Inn Plaza - 9000 International Dr., Orlando, FL 32819; (407) 996-8585

Comfort Inn Lake Buena Vista - 8442 Palm Pkwy. Lake Buena Vista, FL 32836; (407) 996-7300

All the hotels are pet-friendly, and offer microwaves, coffee makers, in-room safes and hairdryers. You get a heated pool, 24 hr secure parking facilities, onsite buffet dining, kids eat free program, shuttle service, and gift shop.

Additional nights cost $35. A 2-night minimum stay is required, but even so, it’s still a steal. Book before July 15. More details here - www.orlandohotels4less.com/35/

Photo by turtlemom4bacon via flickr (creative commons).

Posted on June 29th, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Hotels | 1 Comment »

The BBC is standing on a very sticky wicket, after it came to light that the BBC’s high-rollers spent £45 million in one year on travel and accomodation. And as is the norm nowadays, all junkets lead straight to Las Vegas.

Turns out 29 of the Beeb’s execs blew £1,430.88 on a single dinner at the Bellagio. One of the BBC’s bosses claimed £722.06 for a 2-night stay at the Venetian.

The list goes on and on, with thousands of pounds worth of 5-star stays at hotels in Beverly Hills (Raffles L’Ermitage), Tokyo (New Otani), Washington DC (Fairmont), Manhattan and major cities all over the world.

In all, the BBC spent a total of £12.9 million on hotels in nine months between April and December 2007, £13.6m on aeroplane tickets in 2007, and £13.8m on taxi fares and £5.2m on private car hire between April 2007 and March 2008.

Travel News Roundup:-

DialAFlight dials-a-fight with TripAdvisor and Microsoft over posted comments alleging improper customer service - Travolution, UK

Kayak contacts Microsoft, complains about Bing Travel layout being copied from Kayak - Wired

Room Rates Drop for Marriott, Other Hotels - Washington Post 

Pillow Fights at the Four Seasons - New York Times

Las Vegas, Cancun Top July 4 Getaways - Orbitz, via Bloomberg

Unruly man forces jetliner to land in Arizona - Los Angeles Times

New York beaches offer free wi-fi - Newsday

Firefighter killed dogs before going on vacation - Columbus Dispatch

Photo by Marc Smith

Posted on June 28th, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News | No Comments »

New York based Oyster Hotel Reviews recently launched to a lot of hype - hype about the reviews on the site being authentic, hype about the promoters being Microsoft alumni, and so on.

Let’s take a peek inside their shell and see what they have lined up. What they do have is funding - $6.4 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital Ventures and Accelerator Ventures, with plans for a Series B round. 

And what they plan to have is to spend that money on traveling and checking out hotels. Their writers will be visiting properties, sleeping in the beds, talking to guests and only visited properties will have reviews on the site. Admirable, but severely restricts their ability to expand their footprint. As of now, they cover four destinations - Aruba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Miami. And they have plans to add reviews for hotels in Las Vegas and New York soon.

Speaking as a traveler, I prefer to form my opinion about a hotel based on multiple user reviews, rather than the single opinion of travel writer. For starters, there’s not much point in a reporter going to all the trouble to visit a hotel, take pictures and videos, and then say that the place absolutely sucks and to stay away. No mainstream travel magazine will ever do that.

Which is why most professional hotel reviews are uniformly positive in tone. The bad ones never get published. So if you want to really know whether a place sucks, then you need to visit sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp. Now if Oyster is going to send it’s people to hotels and then publish the reviews even if the place is a total dump, it might be useful.

Mind you, unless they’re able to scale it to cover every major city and most hotels in every city, it’s pointless. And once they do it, there also arises the question of how long the review is valid for. What happens a couple of years down the line? A hotel which looks good now may be a dump in 2 years’ time. Are they going to re-review it? Don’t think so.

There’s limits to what Oyster is going to be able to do, and unless they can work out some way to sneak in user reviews or another easier and cheaper way to review a lot more hotels, I’m afraid the investors are going to be left holding a lot of very nice reviews and pictures.

For more information, visit www.oyster.com/

Posted on June 27th, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Hotels | No Comments »