TGPodcast #63: Dubai World Tourism Conference in 15 Minutes

This is a Travel Geography Podcast related post (click on the title above to download the .mp3 file)

This is a soundseeing (sst) tour from the World Travel and Tourism Council Summit in Dubai (20-22 April 2008) that I attended. It includes three elements:

1. About 5 minutes from an Intro to Dubai city tour,
2. A short and interesting segment of a presentation from the conference, and
3. A segment of the Gala Dinner, which closes with my visit to a fortune teller (entertainment for the dinner guests).

The whole presentation is about 20 minutes due to my introduction section. The actual Dubai part is 14 minutes.

SOME PHOTOS:

The conference site was adjacent to the Burj Al Arab (literally, 'the Arab Tower') - the self-described 7-Star Hotel, with daily rates running US$1,200 to $12,000 a night.


The Dental Spa - near the area where the tour guide talks about houses owned by Emerati that are rented out to expatriate workers.


Fortune telling, henna, and Arabic calligraphy were some of the entertainment for guests at the conference's Gala Dinner.


More Dubai photos can be found on my Flickr site at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alew/sets

Travelography #113: China, Thailand, UK, US, Iraq, and Airlines

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THIS WEEK'S STORIES: China's Premier On-Line Travel Booking Site Launches in the U.S.: China's premier and fastest-growi.. http://tinyurl.com/58sppl about 22 hours ago
Tourism Authority of Thailand launches the amazing Experience Video Contest and the Thailand Portfo.. http://tinyurl.com/6rjn7u about 22 hours ago
Green Hotel Rating System Launched in Great Britain: The Green Start project aims to encourage a â€.. http://tinyurl.com/5wzdft 06:08 PM May 05, 2008
Iraq signs deals for 40 planes from Boeing: "Today, the process of developing economy has started,".. http://tinyurl.com/6kpmjk 06:08 PM May 05, 2008
Global Traffic Continues to Slow: The slowdown in the demand growth continues the sharp downward tr.. http://tinyurl.com/65warx 06:08 AM May 04, 2008 Airline torches woman's baggage: The airline reportedly issued Blewitt a "baggage irregularity rece.. http://tinyurl.com/5ocuds ----- THESE AND OTHER TRAVEL AND TOURISM STORIES CAN ALSO BE FOUND AT HTTP:/TWITTER/TRAVELOGRAPHY LOOK FOR THE NEW TRAVELOGRAPHY PODCAST COMING IN JUNE 2008

Oman's Musandam Peninsula - A Travelography 2.0 Podcast

Three Photos from Oman's Musandam Peninsula. More photos can be found in my Oman Set at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alew


Our "Dhow" - traditional Omani wooden fishing boat -- though these are for tourists.

View of part of Bhuka, Oman

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST - in case the player below does not work for you.

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TGPodcast #63: A Rennaissance in the 21st c. - by D'Arcy Dornan

This is a Geography for Travelers Podcast related post (click on the title above to download the .mp3 file)

REPOST WITH SLIDECAST: This Podcast was originaly posted in late November 2007. I recently made it into a Slidecast (with the original slides from D'Arcy Dornan), so am reposting it today.

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Today's podcast is the last of my recordings from the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, held in San Francisco, CA in April 2007. I also talk about changing the name of the Geography for Travelers Podcast to the Travel Geography Podcast.

And I talk about my new Travelography 2.0 Podcast for NaPodPoMo on Utterz.com.

Length: 36min 03sec
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Abstract from the AAG.org website:

Tourism Geographies: a Renaissance in the 21st Centurytrave
Author: D'Arcy J. Dornan, Ph.D. - Central Connecticut State University

Geography departments are seemingly well positioned to take advantage of the growth in the popularity of tourism as a field of study. The ever-growing international reputation of the journal Tourism Geographies is a good case in point if we can use this journal's success as an indicator of this trend. This paper aims to evaluate and discuss the impacts of academic managerialism and capitalism and related processes to the development of programs, both academic and professional, relating to the geography of tourism, the geography of tourism and hospitality, and to the professional development of tourism. Concrete and recent examples of the aforementioned program types will be drawn from program development efforts in both California and Connecticut. These 'case studies' will be examined and used to illustrate their significant impacts on the growth of this field within geography. Additional comments and conclusions will be taken from one of last year's panel discussions on a different but related topic entitled: 'Tourism geography: lost realities and prospective opportunities,' which sought to assess the current situation and future trends in the academic tourism geographer community in its ability to meet the needs and challenges of the tourism and hospitality industry and of academia.
Keywords: tourism, geography, impacts, California, Connecticut

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Direct .MP3 download: G4T-TGPod-60-28Novt07-TourismGeographies-DArcyDornan.mp3

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TGPodcast #62: Defining Place Authenticity: My Heritage Can Beat Up Your History

This is a Travel Geography Podcast related post (click on the title above to download the .mp3 file)

This is a recording of a classroom presentation made by me in April 2008 at the National University of Singapore. The entire podcast is 50+ minutes long. I do two things in this podcast: (1) discuss four thematic communities / retail districts in the state of Oregon (Sisters, Junction City, Oakland and Florence) -- based on my Master's Thesis from many years ago; and (2) discusses five perspectives on authenticity which are then applied to the four cases studies. There is also some background perspectives on the issue of authenticity and some conclusions at the end.

The powerpoint slides for this presentatin can be found here:
http://www.slideshare.net/alew/slideshows

I also created the Slidecast, below. However, I had a hell of a time working with the interface -- not sure what the problem was. So only the first few slides are synchronized with the lecture. You have to make your own way through the remainder.

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Direct download: TGPod62-13Apr08-Defining-Authenticity.mp3

Travelography #112: Airline Bankruptcies - Global Implosion

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Bankrupt Airlines to date: Maxjet (December), Aloha, ATA, Skybus, Adam Air (Indonesia), Oasis (Hong Kong) - all in these past 2 weeks. Coming soon: Champion Air (pretty much confirmed), and Mesa and Go (rumors on the last two). My prediction: look for the airline bankruptcy disease to spread internationally in the coming months.

Experts see regional airlines at risk now (SF Chronicle)

Travelography #111: Euros, Spies, Crime and Tourism

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The first story today is about the trend for some large tourist cities on the east coast of the US to accept Euros in addition to dollars because of the many Europeans who are going shopping in the US. Reminds me of my recent trip to Cambodia, where they prefer dollars over the Cambodian Riel.

This is followed by a warning from the US State Dept that Americans (and anyone else) going to China for the Olympics (and in fact any other time) need to be aware that their hotel rooms, movements and conversations may all be bugged/monitored by Chinese authorities. So, when in China, smile -- you are on candid camera!

Also in China is a discussion of an increase in crimes againsts tourists, as Chinese theives seem to becom more emboldened. Still on the crime topic, Thailand's tourist police will be issuing whistles to women in "risky spots" (which seems like just about everywhere, in an effort to reduce crime concers following a year of negative publicity over murders and rapes of tourists (mostly females) in Thailand.

A final tourism and crime story comes from Sicily, Italy where a new tourists guide to the Mafia has been published -- again in an effort to reduce tourists fears of visiting the island, and to help them spot Mafiosi on the streets of the city!

GET MORE TRAVELOGRAPHY TRAVEL AND TOURISM NEWS STORIES ON TWITTER at: http://twitter.com/Travelography

Alan A. Lew

Travelography #109: Hawaii - Tourism Troubles in Paradise

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Three news stories from Hawaii this week, all oif which are related. First, Hawaii's travel arrivals dropped last year (2007) about 1.2% from the previous year (2006), mostly due to the economic crisis in the US mainland. This year is likely to be flat, as well.

Residents across the islands are complaining about the impacts of illegal vacation rentals on their communities. The second story talks about this issue on Kauai, which is trying to keep its rural character in the face of growing tourism pressures. The third story covers the same issue on Oahu, which banned vacation rentals many years ago.

Photo of rural northern Kauai (by Alan A. Lew).

All of today's stories come from eTurboNews.com.

Travelography #108: Cruise Trends for 2008

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I recorded this week's Travelography at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport using a simple microphone on a Macbook Pro It does not have the best sound quality (sorry about that), but at least I got it out.

Only two stories for this week's Travelography, though the first one s quite long.

- Cruise trends for 2008 include grwing popularity for European cruises, while Americans look more to Central America.

- Cruises to Cuba have declined 90% since 2005 - find out why!

Travelography: Kenya, ASEAN, and Cell Phone Users Arrested

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Three travel and tourism news stories today (30 Jan 2008):

1. Kenya's recent political problems and resulting ethnic violence have had a devistating impact on the country's once thriving tourism industry.
   
2. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) recently announced plans for a border-free travel region among its 10 countries by the year 2010. That is not very far off. Will they be able to deliver?
   
3. Three people on an Alitalia flight were arrested for refusing to turn off their cell phones which were interfering with the plane's navigation system and caused an aborted take off from Milan, Italy. they face up to 3 months in jail.

Trip Advisor's Top 10 Destinations in 2008

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Travelography #106: Hyrdofoils Collide, Tourists Molested & Selling the USA

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Three stories from Singapore's Straits Times newspaper from last week:

Two hydrofoils full of tourists collided in fog between Hong Kong and Macau, sending many to the hospital.

India starts a campaign to protect foreign female tourists from sexual molesters -- mostly groping, which seems to be a major problem in that country.

The US is still trying to gain back the international tourist arrivals that it received prior to 9/11. To do this, an increasing number of states and cities are running advertisements for the first time in Europe.

These stories came from the local newspaper in Singapore. I found the links above by searching online for similar stories.

Travelograph #105: Airplane Hotel, Philippines Downgrade, + Webcam Traveling

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Stories in today's Travelography podcast include;

- An old, abandoned airplane in Stockholm is to become a budget hotel -- the first of more to come.

- Philippine Airlines is downgraded by the US FAA due to lax flight safety standards. And the US Embassy in the Philippines recommends that other airlines be used instead.

- The proliferation of webcams is providing a glimps of a future of virtual travel.

Travelography #104: Travel and Tourism in 2008

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What will 2008 hold for Travel and Tourism?

New technologies and new planes will be tested in 2008, but wont really affect travelers until 2009. Open air agreements will expand air travel across the Atlantic, which will help to continue the year-on-year record growth in international travel. The high cost of travel to Europe will encourage many people to go elsewhere, benefiting many new destinations and special interest niche tours around the globe. Climate change will also affect where people go and how the travel and tourism industry develops.

Links to stories in Travelography #104:

• Travel Trends for 2008: Travelers May Stay Closer to Home

• Changes for better on horizon for fliers in 2008

• Travel Trends: What's Hot for 2008

Travelography #103: Prostitutes and Pilgrims

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Links to today's stories:

Well, at least I put a tech story between the Amsterdam's brothels and the Vatican...

1. Amsterdam to clean up famed red light district

2. Denver Airport offers 802.11n Wi-Fi for free

3. Higher fares don't deter holiday fliers

p.s. - I had some problems with the new PodcasterNews.com interface and was not able to upload this until December 31st when my problem was fixed. -- Alan