Time for a Smile

Book review: The Traveling Curmudgeon Jon Winokur's humorous compilation of "irreverent notes, quotes, and anecdotes on dismal destinations, excess baggage, the full upright position, and other reasons not to go there." We loved this humorous collection of international grumbles about the mixed joys of travel. Curmudgeonly quotes from a wide-ranging assortment of grumpy notables range from Queen Victoria ("No pudding, and no fun," said of a Scottish inn) to Dave Barry ("We stayed at Caesar's Palace, a giant hotel-casino authentically decorated to look exactly the way the Roman Empire would have looked if it had consisted mainly of slot machines."). Topics include specific destinations, from Addis Ababa to Akron, Winnipeg to the World, plus notations on food, transportation, and accommodations. Witty little book for bathroom reading, bedside tables, and whenever you're feeling grouchy and need a smile. In bookstores or from Amazon.

Travel Trends

Continued growth in online travel buying: A recent article in Hotel Marketing reported on The PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey Sixth Edition: "In 2003, 45% of online travel buyers purchased all of their travel online. In total, 35 million Americans bought travel online in 2003, up 17% from 2002. […] Price parity between online and offline channels and erratic content availability across Web sites are encouraging online shoppers to use multiple channels for comparison shopping and purchasing. In addition, half of all online travelers continue to shop online but purchase offline. Together, these underscore the slower growth pace of the Internet as an exclusive purchase channel due to the increased complexity of online travel offerings, consumers' use of offline support, and supplier success in nurturing consumer-direct relationships in the leisure segment."

U.S tourism sales in U.S. hit highest level in 3 years: USA Today reported that "sales in the recovering U.S. tourism industry edged higher in the fourth quarter of 2003 and hit their highest level since 2000 in the year as a whole. […] Total 2003 sales climbed 3.5% to $722.1 billion, the highest since $737.2 billion in 2000, a Commerce Department report said. Sales for 2002 were $697.8 billion.

Travel outlook for 2004: Cautious optimism seems to be the watchword for 2004 and beyond, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. In "TIA's Annual Travel Forecast, overall traveler spending by domestic and international visitors is forecasted to increase 4.4 percent in 2004 to $568 billion, up from $544 billion in 2003. Still, it won't be until 2005 that the level of spending-forecasted to reach $594 billion-will finally surpass the record set in 2000.

"Two of the hardest hit segments in the travel industry, domestic business travel volume and international inbound travel to the U.S., will once again see year-over-year declines in 2003 of 3.7 percent and 4 percent, respectively. However, the outlooks for both segments are more positive for 2004 and 2005.

"Increasing for the first time since 1999, U.S. residents are forecasted to take more than 122 million business trips in 2004, an improvement of 4.2 percent from 2003. In 2005, business travel will increase 3.5 percent to nearly 127 million trips."

A related article in the New York Times discussed a report by the World Tourism Organization, a United Nations agency based in Madrid, covering international travel trends through 2003. Terrorism and the security precautions required to combat it had a discouraging effect on international travel, with many people chosing to book last-minute and stay closer to home; SARS and economic factors also influenced travelers' choices in 2003.

"Perhaps the most startling statistic in the report is that, compared with the year 2000, when millennium celebrations produced a spike in tourism around the world, the biggest single victim of the tourism decline has been the United States. 'The big loser in terms of tourism volume is North America,' with a 17% drop in the number of international visitors arriving for recreational purposes from 91.2 million in 2000 to 76.1 million in 2003. The United States, the report said, 'is still seriously struggling to overcome the impact of Sept. 11 and the subsequent war on terrorism.'

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