Travelography #167: Cleaning Up After Tourists

  

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My top story is an article about cleaning up New Orleans after Mardi Gras, which relates to many other tourism venues, as well.  Also: The World's Most Dangerous Countries, The World's Most Delayed Airports, and When Travel and Facebook Do Not Mix.

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This podcast is available at: PodcasterNews.com,  Blubrry.com  and Travelgeography.info and the TravelCastNetwork.com.  And also followTravelography  News on Twitter.com. 

Click Here for links to ALL of the News Stories discussed in this podcast.

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Travelography #131: Tourism and The Economic Meltdown - Part 2

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Stories discussed in this podcast are from the Travelography Twitter Blog for the week of 13 October 2008. This podcast is also available at Blubrry.com and Travelgeography.info.

• Tibet slashes tourism ticket prices after riots

  In the first half of the year, 340,000 people visited Tibet. That's down 69 percent from the same period last year. Tourism almost came to a standstill after a riot broke out on March 14.

• Tourists to tip less as they feel the squeeze

  Penny conscious tourists are now refusing to tip waiters, taxi drivers and hotel staff when dissatisfied and 13 per cent say they'll definitely be tipping less and less often, no matter what the service, to make their travel money stretch further this holiday.

• Travel industry gets flexible to calm clients' money fears

  Under the new rules for fall 2009 cruises, customers will be able to cancel without penalty up to 45 days from sailing date instead of 75 days. They'll also be able to reserve a cabin with a 5% deposit instead of 10%. They'll have seven days to pay instead of three. ... the policy adjustments a "smart move" that can calm clients' nerves about committing to a cruise that can cost up to $8,000 a couple.

• For airlines, oil is proving a two-edged sword

  While cheaper crude breathes new hope into airlines, it carries other penalties. Oil is down because demand is grinding lower. OPEC just slashed 100,000 barrels a day from its 2009 demand growth forecast, citing shaky financial markets and mounting evidence that the global economy is in recession. Included in the downturn is a drop in travel.

• Credit crisis threatens New Orleans' recovery

  It's the commercial sector — privately funded hotels, condos and new-business development — that would be waylaid by a contraction of credit. Compounding the quandary: No one knows how badly the $5 billion-a-year, bread-and-butter tourism industry — the metro area's largest employer and generator of an average of more than $250 million a year in tax revenue — will be hit by belt-tightening consumers.

• OAG revises 4th quarter analysis of global airline activity

  The US domestic market will account for 21.4 million of the cutback in available seats, or 46% of the global decline and a staggering 59% of the global drop in frequencies with 265,000 fewer flights.
  
  

Travelography #48: Hawaii Quake Impacts and Cruises Return to New Orleans

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While scary, the immediate tourism impacts of last week's earthquake in Hawaii were minor compared to the potential longer term impacts that it my have. Regularly scheduled cruises from New Orleans will start up again this Sunday, marking the return of one of the fastest growing segments of the travel and tourism industry.

Here are links to these stories:

Quake could scare tourists away from Hawaii
Earthquake in Hawaii causes only limited tourist disruption
Earthquake leaves Hawaii unscathed
First post-Hurricane Katrina cruise scheduled for New Orleans

G4T #6: Geography of New Orleans

This week's podcast was somewhat of a departure from my focus on the relationship between geography and tourism. In response to the tragedy brought by Hurricane Katrina to the U.S. Gulf Coast, I have instead provided a brief background to the physical and human geography of New Orleans. Hopefully, this will bring some context to the swirling news stories that have dominated radio, television and newspapers this past week. At the same time, however, the basic geographic knowledge provided in this podcast is the kind of information that can greatly enhance the tourist experience of a place.

The following link is to my online New Orleans photo field trip that I mentioned in the podcast:

http://www.geog.nau.edu/courses/alew/ggr346/ft/south/index-new-o.html

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