Arthur Frommer's Blog, page 32

A New Hotel-Finding Website Makes the Choice of a Hotel a Win-Win Proposition, Enabling You to Get a Better Price for Your Next Stay

A remarkable new website has just gone online, designed to get you a better deal on your next hotel stay than the hotel at which you've earlier made a reservation. Because it requires that you first have such a reservation, I haven't myself been able to test it. But it has the potential to be a remarkable tool for travelers.

Backbid.com operates a bit like Cruise Compete, the website that circulates your cruise desires among hundreds of travel agents, asking them to bid for your business--that is, to state the price and the ship they're able to obtain for your vacation needs. But Backbid.com is somewhat different.

On Backbid.com, travelers post the details of hotel arrangements they've already made (room cost, dates, and amenities) -- without specifying the name of the hotel itself -- and hotel members of the site can then compete to undersell or outbid the deal and get the traveler to switch to them.

It's somewhat like Priceline.com, only in reverse. They do all the comparison-shopping on your behalf, and you just sit back and pick the deal you like best. The site claims to have 100 hotel partners and counting -- though currently only in the U.S.

The new site is also a nothing-to-lose proposition. You've supposedly already found and booked a hotel you're willing to use, so if you don't see a deal that you like better, you're still good-to-go with your original choice.

The continuing ingenuity of online entrepreneurs is a marvel to behold!

Critics of High-Speed Rail Remind Me of Those Who Used to Yell "Get a Horse!" at Persons Who Had Acquired Automobiles

If your incoming e-mails are like mine, then they are full of links to an influential article entitled "Requiem for a Train" in a recent edition of Slate, sent to me by well-meaning friends and readers. In it, the author accumulates all the reasons for not embarking on a national campaign to upgrade our rail lines: it will cost too much, it will not achieve speeds over 100 miles an hour, it will attract far fewer riders than anticipated, it will be a boondoggle -- -something, I suppose, like Seward's purchase of Alaska in the 1800s.
 
Alaska, as you'll recall, was a boondoggle, too. An absurd waste of money. So was the automobile, a ridiculous unnecessary alternative to the animal-drawn carriage. Remember reading about the hoots that people delivered at others who were having difficulty starting their cars? "Get a horse!" was their favorite cry.
 
"Get a horse!" Those words resound in my mind when I read all the pettifogging, cavilling arguments against proceeding with high-speed rail. We will eventually lapse into a second-rate nation if we do not proceed with these projects. We will drown in automobiles, crash in planes crowded into air routes between close-in cities.
 
Have you driven recently between Ft. Myers and Naples, Florida, along the west coast of that state? Stewed for upwards of three hours on a highway only 60 miles long, as recently happened to me? Encountered traffic jams of an unprecedented sort? Have you driven between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale? Or from Tampa to Orlando? Have you been stuck for hours on highways between Los Angeles and San Francisco? Have you needed to devote several hours to a trip by air between New York City and Syracuse? Have you stewed at the airport, hearing one announcement after another of delayed flights for a route that should be handled by rail, not by air?
 
We have no alternative to high-speed rail.
 
The arguments arrayed against high-speed rail by that avatar of intelligent planning, the Governor of Florida, or by the affluent residents of California who hate the idea of a nearby rail line, remind me of the people who used to shout "Get a horse!"
 
The rest of the world -- nations from China to western Europe -- are unanimous in their support of high-speed rail, and are busily engaged in bringing their countries into the twenty-first century. We should join them.

Japan's Largest Tour Operator Has Announced What May Be the Cheapest Air-and-Land Package Ever to Japan

Almost in the believe-it-or-not category is the $999 air-and-land package from New York to Osaka, Japan, just announced by KIE/Kintetsu International, the giant Japanese tour and travel agency company. Though somewhat lower prices have occasionally been announced from Los Angeles, this one is from New York on a non-stop flight aboard China Airlines, of all companies (one usually doesn't see such cooperation between Japan and China). For $999, apparently including all taxes and fees, avid travelers on the East Coast can fly non-stop and round-trip to Osaka (far removed from the area suffering from the recent nuclear meltdown elsewhere in Japan) and enjoy two nights of accommodations at a major hotel there (with the opportunity to extend the stay on their own for as long as they wish, anywhere in Japan).
 
The press release announcing this odd flight and odd package doesn't supply any further details or list of conditions, but suggests that persons interested in an unusual travel opportunity should either phone the New York office of KIE/Kintetsu at tel. 800/422-3481 or e-mail for more information to info@japanforyou.com. You might want to know that KIE/Kintetsu operates five branch offices in the USA staffed by more than 100 employees.
 
Osaka, incidentally, is only 34 miles from Kyoto, which can be reached from Osaka in an easy, half-hour train ride. It is a place of two and a half million people, the third largest and second most important city of Japan (a commercial capital), and has a dazzling, neon-lit downtown, several theaters, famous temples, art and history museums, and unique food theme park. And it is well-known for still another theme park operated by our own Universal Studios called Universal Studios Osaka. Many visitors combine their stay in Osaka with a visit to nearby Kyoto, and regard that two-city combination as offering an excellent introduction to Japan. In these days when many tourists steer clear of Tokyo (290 miles away), a flight to Osaka (and nearby Kyoto) takes on added appeal.

Cheap Trips to China May Soon Become a Thing of the Past

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the cost of a trip to China will increase considerably once we reach the early spring of 2012. The Chinese currency -- the Yuan -- has risen in value by at least 6% in recent months. It is steadily increasing in value at a rate that will bring its rise to at least 7.% by spring, and probably to at least 10% by summer. More important, the rate of inflation in China has also increased and Chinese workers -- hotel staff among them -- are increasingly demanding higher pay for their labors.
 
All this has resulted in a certain skittishness among the key tour operators to China. For several days recently, the price leader in low-cost tours, China Focus ( www.chinafocustravel.com ), eliminated from its website its signature tour called "Historic China" which offered incredible value to the tourist in winter: round-trip air to China from San Francisco and nine nights in five Chinese cities including virtually all meals, taxes and fees, and daily escorted sightseeing, for the near-miracle price of $1,299. I phoned them about this mysterious elimination of their top-value program (the one on which they obviously earned only a tiny profit), got a vague and puzzling response, but was told the $1,299 tour would soon re-appear. It has reappeared, but only for 3 dates in February (none in January), and one date in March, after which the price ascends to $1,449 in March and the first two weeks in April. After that, I am betting it will soar to $1,799, $1,899, and even higher.
 
Meanwhile, the major competitor to China Focus, which is China Spree ( www.chinaspree.com ), is pricing its own multi-city nine-night tour (meant to compete with China Focus' similar Historic China) for a minimum of $1,399 plus $87 in tax in January, February and early March, which then jumps to $1,559 in late March. Again, I am willing to bet the same tour will rise to $1,899, $1,999, or more in April. When you consider that round-trip airfare between New York and most European capitals is itself more than $1,000 for a seven-hour flight, you immediately see how impossible it is to charge only slightly more than $1,000 for a tour that includes the much more lengthy flight from San Francisco to Beijing.
 
To sum up, I'm predicting hefty prices for travel to China in April and thereafter, and a cessation of the miracle pricing ($1,299 including airfare, accommodations, travel within China, all three meals daily, taxes and daily sightseeing!) that we've encountered thus far. Just as Chinese clothing and home furnishings are expected to rise in price at your local Wal-Mart, Chinese travel must necessarily soar in price as well. A steady rise in the value of the Chinese currency, and the demand of Chinese workers for higher wages, must inevitably bring about this result.
 
Conclusion: if you want to enjoy a cheap trip to China, go now -- meaning now in the middle of winter. Don't delay, or you'll pay a hefty penalty for doing so.

Sing For Your Supper, Work For Your Bed: "Free" Volunteer Vacations at Working Farms

 I've written a great deal about volunteer vacations, but always pointed out that many of them require a hefty payment or outlay of money by the volunteer. But there is a category of organizations (all of them dealing with working farms) that will provide you with full room and board in exchange for your labor. Because some of our readers may value the chance to enjoy a free-of-charge interlude of this sort, I've offered a run-down of the opportunities, which follows immediately below:
 
WWOOF (www.wwoof.org): This is the classic work/stay vacation program, founded in 1971. Work on an organic farm about six hours a day, six days per week, and you get free room and board in any of 90 countries. It's actually a network of associations. You join the local WWOOF chapter in whichever countries you wish to visit (for varying fees) in order to receive the chapter's catalog and start contacting potential host farms. Membership costs $10 to $40 a year.
 
Help Exchange (www.helpx.net): Founded in 2001, this is similar to WWOOF, with almost as complete a global reach (i.e., it's also in 90 countries), but there is just one membership fee covering the entire network. It also features volunteers' reviews of host farms and full profiles of volunteers, so that farms can contact those with the skills they need. The work is not limited to farmhand tasks, but also sometimes includes odd jobs. And work commitments range from only two hours to six hours a day. Membership cost: none (unless you seek a two-year-long "premier membership" giving you access to more details. The latter costs €20).
 
GrowFood.org (www.growfood.org): A non-profit founded in 2001 and designed both to "train a new generation of sustainable farmers and reconnect people with farms." It boasts nearly 24,000 members and nearly 3,000 farms, and offers everything from season-long internships to paid work to short-term volunteer gigs. Mainly located in the U.S. (where it has 2,000 farms). Membership costs $20 (but that's a contribution which isn't strictly required).
 
Workaway (www.workaway.info): A travel work-exchange network with 2,700 some-odd hosts around the world (and these are not just farms, but occasionally small tourism-related businesses like B&Bs, guesthouses, lodges, and hostels). Types of work include farming, housework, baby-sitting/childcare, language practice, computer programming, and more). Average commitment is 5 hours a day 5 days a week, and membership fee is €22 for two years.
 
So there it is: sing for your supper, work for your bed.

Museums Devoted to the History of Slavery Are a Compelling Sightseeing Visit on Your Next Tropical Vacation

Although slavery in the Caribbean and Bahamas was undoubtedly the most important historical condition of those islands (roughly beginning around the mid-1600s and continuing until the mid-1800s), it is only in the last fifteen-or-so years that museums devoted to that topic have either emerged or been renovated to feature the history of slavery, and these are places that every tourist should visit. The most comprehensive is the Kura Hulanda Museum in the Hotel Kura Hulanda of Curacao, but also impressive and instructive is the Pompey Museum of Slavery and Emancipation in Nassau, The Bahamas. Too few tourists attempt to visit these awesome collections of artifacts relating to that awful institution, and more of them should on their visits to Curacao and The Bahamas.

The Absurd Obstacles Russians Erect for Tourists Serve to Highlight Challenges to Tourism to the U.S.

On the Travel Show that my daughter and I present each weekend, we recently interviewed a prominent blogger about the difficulty of obtaining a visa for travel to Russia. She is Chris Gray Faust, who appears on Frommers.com as well as her own blog ( www.chrisaroundtheworld.com ), and she provided us with more horrifying facts about that task than anyone could possibly imagine. She recently organized a trip to Russia, and "most" of her clients, she reports, succeeded in obtaining a visa for the trip. Imagine: several would-be travelers to Russia were unable to fulfill the complicated requirements in time.
 
The Russians require, first, that you complete a lengthy questionnaire online, in which you not only provide every conceivable genealogical fact (your parents' birthplaces, the birthplaces of your siblings and others), but also a complete, lifelong work history including the names of your supervisors at every company at which you've been employed. (You must also name all countries you have visited over the past 10 years.) All in all, it takes from 45 minutes to an hour to answer all questions, provided you're able to dredge up the material for doing so.
 
Thereafter, you must present the Russians with proof that you are fully covered by medical insurance for the time you will be in their country, and if your current policy doesn't cover overseas travel, you must take out a supplemental policy that does.
 
And then you must obtain and supply a Letter of Invitation from the hotels at which you will be staying or the tour operator you will be using. All of this must then be mailed, accompanied by your actual Passport, which you must give up for the period of time that will be required (at least two weeks) for the process to be completed. If you're not willing to trust that document to the mails, then you must physically visit one of the five Russian consulates in the U.S., each of which maintains different hours for meeting with applicants for a visa.
 
It's a nightmare, but it's not much worse than what the U.S. puts potential visitors through in order to get vaction in the U.S. Unless they belong to one of the few countries where the visa requirement is waived (mostly in western Europe), applicants for travel to the U.S. must undergo an actual live interview with a U.S. consular official. If they live in Bahia or Recife, Brazil, for instance, they must travel over a thousand miles to the city of Brasilia to undergo such an interview. Tales are also told of backlogs as great as 100 days in the time it takes to process most applications for a U.S. visa. Such backlogs are normal in the three major countries -- Brazil, China, and India -- from which we could be enjoying large amounts of tourism if the visa process weren't so difficult.
 
Recently, in advance of a trip that I have planned to Brazil, I learned that a visa for travel there now costs $140 per person and takes upwards of a month to obtain. Why? Because the proud Brazilians are wisely retaliating for the $140 fee and lengthy backlogs that we impose on Brazilians hoping to visit the United States.
 
Congress recently established an agency to promote incoming tourism to the U.S., an entity now called Brand USA ( www.discoveramerica.com ), which will have an initial budget (obtained from private sources, not from the federal government) of about $100 million, most of which will be spent on advertising the country's attractions. If some of that money were spent instead on hiring 200 or so additional persons to speed up the issuance of visas in Brazil, China, and India, the appropriation would result in far more tourism to the U.S. than advertising will. I now see that we need to review the ill-considered policies of attracting tourists to the U.S. before we start making Russian bureaucracy look efficient. Our failure to ease the process robs us of millions of potential tourists, hundreds of thousands of potential tourism-related jobs, and billions of dollars of revenue.

It's Entirely Possible That the Drought in Tourism to Las Vegas Has Ended and Those Luxury Hotels Are Again Charging Stratospheric Rates

Over the past several weeks, I've been fascinated by the bargain-basement prices charged by deluxe hotels of Las Vegas in the months of November and December. And I reported, with mouth agape, on the availability of deluxe suites at hotels as glamorous as the new Vdara, in the City Center development there, for as little as $105 a night, even $99 a night.
 
So it was with high hopes that I recently consulted the January and February booking charts for such five-star properties on "the Strip" as the Vdara and Aria, only to feel slapped in the face by what I saw. Would you believe $499 a night for suites at the Vdara on some January dates? Or $399 a night on others?
 
It appears to me that the drought in Las Vegas bookings, at least for the deluxe hotels, has come to an end, confirming the claim by the Occupy Wall Street people that the super-rich of America are doing quite well and continue to have money to burn. Or that a steady increase in the number of Chinese visitors to Las Vegas is starting to affect occupancy rates. Whatever the explanation, Vegas appears on the brink of becoming pricey again. Be forewarned.

Prices to Almost Everywhere Dip in January, When Smart Travelers Schedule Winter Vacations

A lot of people I know are already thinking of a vacation in the month of January, when prices drop to both tropical and trans-Atlantic destinations. If I were asked to advise them, I'd start by suggesting they give serious thought to the semi-independent tours of Costa Rica packaged by G Adventures ( www.gadventures.com ), which cost $1,199 throughout that month (plus the cost of airfare to that country) for near-daily departures. These arrangements place you for one hotel night in the capital city of San Jose, one night at the foot of the Arenal Volcano, 4 nights in a hotel along the beaches of Guanacaste, and one remaining night back in San Jose. You are brought from place to place by "Adventure Bus," which takes you direct to your hotel in each location. Meals other than breakfast are not included (and you are advised to budget $230-$300 for them).
 
If the person in question insists on taking an escorted group tour (and there are people like that), I would have to suggest they consider what appears to be the most popular group tour of Costa Rica ever offered. Caravan Tours (tel. 800/CARAVAN; www.caravan.com ) will take you by escorted motorcoach on a 10-night spin past nearly every important sight of Costa Rica, for a total of $995 in the early days of January, 2012, including quality accommodations, all three meals daily, daily escorted sightseeing and entrance fees. (Airfare to Costa Rica, for which you make your own arrangements, is not included). 

And it may come as a surprise that 7-night cruises of the Mediterranean continue to be offered throughout January by Costa Cruises and MSC Cruises, at remarkable rates. (In previous years, the cruiselines had wrapped up their Mediterranean programs by October and didn't resume until April). If you'll go to the website of any cruise discounter, you'll find numerous 7-night cruises of the Mediterranean offered in January (by Costa and MSC) for as little as $549 per person in inside cabins for a 7-night cruise, or $78 a day; $559 or $79 a day; $599 or $85 a day; $649 or $92 a day; lengthier cruises are occasionally available for even less than those daily sums, although you'll have to pay airfare (including taxes and fees) of $1,000 and more to reach the embarkation and debarkation ports for them.
 
And then, of course, there are those remarkable tours of China offered by China Focus Travel (www.chinafocustravel.com) and China Spree (www.chinaspree.com), priced in January at below $1,000 for a one-week tour of one or two cities -- like Beijing for 6 nights, or 6 nights split between Beijing and Shanghai (including round-trip air to China from San Francisco; China Spree has particularly good tours of this sort), and for as little as $1,299 in January for 9-night tours of four or five Chinese cities (the latter from China Focus).
 
There are no poems or songs about January similar to what we possess for September and April; but in the world of travel, January is rather exciting.

Recent Parasailing Tragedies Remind Travelers That the Popular Tourist Recreation is Totally Unregulated

The recent decision by Carnival Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line to eliminate parasailing from the shore activities offered to passengers, should give us all pause. So should the recent deaths of three tourists while parasailing, and the risk posed to all visitors by the greatly increased availability of ziplines.
 
Most of us have been tempted to permit our children or ourselves to go parasailing or ziplining on our visits to various destinations, especially tropical ones. Hardly any of us stop to consider the substantial risks in both activities, and the also-important fact that both are totally unregulated by the governments of their locations. Thus, several years ago, when one of my daughters went parasailing, and my wife and I looked proudly on, it never occurred to me that she would be at grave risk if the motor of the boat pulling her aloft were to fail. This apparently happened on the occasion of one recent tourist death, and the person who had earlier been pulled aloft plunged to his death from a height of several hundred feet.
 
And three years ago, one of my grand-daughters, then nine years old, came to a stop on a zipline hanging over a deep ravine because her weight was insufficient to keep her moving. A young attendant of the zipline had to reach her by holding on to the zipline, moving hand over hand, and then giving her a push to safety. Heaven knows what would have happened if he had been unable safely to reach her.
 
When we go on vacation, we increasingly encounter these highly alluring but dangerous activities (bungee-jumping should also be added to the list). We should pass them up. And we should perhaps encourage governments to either prohibit them, or to issue and enforce stringent regulations keeping them safe.
 
But is there a guarantee of safety, even if there is regulation? Who can assure that the propellors on a motorboat will function properly or fail? The propellor failure on one boat led to a recent tourist death. That tragedy should serve as a lesson to all tourists.