Talk about controlling the business supply chain. Here’s a press release hip-hop enough to rock your socks off.

LOS ANGELES, CA–(Marketwire - March 31, 2008) - West Brands, LLC, a holding company owned and controlled by multi-Grammy Award winning artist and business entrepreneur Kanye West, is set to launch Kanye Travel Ventures (”KTV”), a travel program specifically geared to serve the business and leisure travel demands of Kanye’s world-wide fan base. As opposed to past celebrity brand-based travel programs, West Brands has brought together travel experts and consultants to create and manage a platform of best-in-class processes and systems, in order to assure the highest quality and most cost effective travel experience for Kanye’s loyal fans. As the program continues to evolve, Kanye fans will be able to customize their trips on the KTV site, www.KanyeTravel.com, including purchasing Kanye concert tickets and other performance-related merchandise and events, at the same time as they are booking their travel reservations.

Along with a lot of other blah-blah, the press release also states that once this ‘arrangement’ works out successfully, the company plans to offer similar arrangements for other celebrity driven travel programs.

Must say that’s a pretty smart and innovative idea, so long as the celebrity has enough wattage to draw the crowds, so the company can make bulk bookings for hotels and air tickets (their website says you can save $240 on average if you book air & hotel together), and get a cut out of everything a fan does, instead of just a concert ticket. More importantly, it’s cheaper and more enjoyable for the fans, who can get deeper discounts, and be booked alongwith other fans traveling to and staying at the same destinations.

To be honest, though, the site and its offerings have very little to do with Kanye West, at the moment. It’s just like any other travel booking and search website, with locations and attractions and tickets and hotel bookings. Nothing about Kanye, music, concerts or anything remotely hip-hop, except for the name of the site. Hopefully, that’ll change soon.

Maybe Kanye can electrify a stadium full of fans, but there’s this guy who’s sending waves throughout the world with his bas-ass attitude - The Dalai Lama. Worldhum.com interviews Pico Iyer, whose new book ‘The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’ just hit the stands. Brief excerpt from the interview below.

Pico Iyer’s new book The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, which hits bookstores today, is a gorgeously wrought dissection of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s peripatetic life, philosophy and status as an iconic figure throughout the world. While not a work of travel literature in a strict sense, Iyer nevertheless infuses the story of the quiet, compassionate Buddhist monk with vivid descriptions of the many places he takes his message of peace and understanding, particularly his headquarters-in-exile, in Dharamsala, India……

I took a lot of trouble choosing the title of “The Open Road,” partly because, in some ways, I do see this as a travel book, and when I think of travel, and any of the travel books I’ve written, the real meaning of them is trying to see the world through different eyes. It’s a journey into a different perspective for me. So this book was, for me, a travel book in the same sense, because it was a journey into how the world looks to a Tibetan Buddhist, and someone who’s really pursued that pathway deeply.

Smart guy, this Pico Iyer. Travel isn’t all about looking at a pile of stones someone left behind a few centuries ago. It’s about people and interaction, and learning new things. And food…C’mon, you can’t say you’ve visited a place without having sampled their best culinary offerings. Point is, if you come back from Dharamsala or any other place which holds some deeper meaning with only a bunch of pictures but nothing new inside your head, that’s not travel. That’s photography.

It may be easy for the Dalia Lama to float on a cloud when he’s on a journey, but for us ordinary folks, travel is a time for frustration and chaos. The New York Times publishes a quick how-to for achieving ‘Inner Peace’ on a journey, from Joseph Michelli, an organizational psycologist and published author. Money quote - Despite the concussion and the joy ride, I still like the journey. They say that only a truly happy person enjoys a detour. If that’s true, I may be the happiest guy on the planet.

Concussions? Detours? Umm…Maybe, just maybe, this might not be the guy you want to turn to for travel advice…

Posted on April 3rd, 2008 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News