Arthur Frommer's Blog, page 57

With Fuel Surcharges to Eastern Europe and Asia Topping $500, There's a Large Disparity in Domestic and International Costs

Observers have noted that trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific airfares are among the few products to have risen only slightly in price from the levels they enjoyed 30 years ago. That condition may finally have come to an end: tour operators to Asian destinations from the west coast of the United States have noted that fuel surcharges are now in the previously-unthinkable $525 per person range -- as, for example, on a round-trip flight between Los Angeles and the island of Bali. Accordingly, a one-week air-and-land package from EscapesLtd.com to Bali from Los Angeles, including round-trip airfare, is now priced at around $1,100 per person plus $525 in fuel surcharges, for a total of around $1,600.

As long as oil sells for more than $105 a barrel (currently the case), international travel will now cost far more than the average trip within the United States. If you are cost-constrained, and need to place a severe limit on your overall vacation expense, it is probable that a trip to either coast of the United States, or to one of the national parks, may be the wisest vacation choice for the months ahead.

The Finest Form of Volunteer Vacation Requires a Minimum of Several Months

I receive a number of inquiries from teachers and other professionals about how they can devote their vacations to the voluntary use of their skills overseas. Opportunities of that sort do exist, but most of them require devoting a longer amount of time to the effort than a short summer vacation.

WorldTeach ( www.worldteach.org ) is the definitive source of teaching opportunities abroad. By far the greater number of its opportunities are for year-long stints of teaching in such countries as China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Rwanda, Thailand, and Tanzania. A smaller number of openings are for semester-long periods in Panama and Namibia. And a very small number of summer programs are available in Poland, South Africa, and Ecuador.

A similar, and even more stringent, pattern is offered to highly-skilled individuals who offer their talents to the United Nations Volunteers program described at www.unv.org . They, to begin with, must be 25 years of age, highly-skilled in a much-needed profession, and willing to undertake a six-month-to-one-year renewable contract in one of the hundred or so countries in which the program operates. Persons able to qualify submit an e-mailed form to the program's headquarters in Bonn, Germany; and if accepted, receive transportation and a living allowance for the period of their service.

In a subsequent blog post, I'll discuss the few opportunities for a volunteer vacation by unskilled individuals.

The Southwest Effect is Working: Continental and United Cut Fares to Chicago

Yesterday, both Continental and United instituted a round-trip, non-stop airfare between Newark and Chicago in April of $197, including all taxes and fees, which is 40 cents less than the $197.40 fare announced by Southwest, again including all taxes and fees.

So the "Southwest Effect" has struck again! That's the phenomenon that finds the other airlines pressured to reduce their prices once Southwest begins flying on one of their routes. They do so immediately, and then find -- a few months later -- that they are unable to operate profitably on income of the sort enjoyed by Southwest (whose operating costs are among the lowest). So back go the airfares, upwards. The Southwest Effect lasts for a short time, but enables a great many of us to fly cheaply on several carriers for a short time.

Add Skyscanner.com to Your List of Very Effective Airfare Aggregators

It is, as only an example, one of the favorite devices of British air passengers for finding the lowest fares to their destination, even for flights within the U.S. And it's now enjoying a growing clientele here. On a recent list of popular sites displayed by ExperianHitwise, Skyscanner ( www.skyscanner.com ) repeatedly shows up among the search engines with the greatest number of followers.

And a couple of recent test bookings made by me, confirms the site's usefulness. Example?

Try a round-trip flight between New York-Newark and Chicago-Midway, departing April 20, returning April 27. Skyscanner reveals a tax-included round-trip price of $198 ($99 each way) on the new, nonstop Newark/Chicago service of Southwest Airlines. By contrast, Orbitz.com lists (as its price champion) a fatiguing, one-stop flight on the very same dates by Delta Airlines costing $218 round-trip, including all taxes. Skyscanner easily beats the price of that mammoth and typical U.S.-owned search engine, which contains no mention of the new Southwest service.

From now on, I'm going to try Skyscanner for the flights I book (along with Momondo, Kayak, Dohop).

How Will the Japanese Earthquake Affect Tourism to Hawaii?

Travel industry professionals are all discussing to what extent the Japanese tragedy (earthquake, tsunami, and radiation) will have on tourism to the Hawaiian islands. Japanese visitors make up a large percentage of visitors to Hawaii, and those numbers will obviously be considerably down in the weeks to come, creating vacancies in hotels and slowness in business generally.

To learn the exact effect of that downturn on the islands, I e-mailed Jeff & Rob of Beat of Hawaii ( www.beatofhawaii.com ), asking them to estimate the extent to which problems in Japan will have on tourism to Hawaii. Jeff immediately replied to me (his e-mail is set forth verbatim below) and made the interesting point that the downturn will be felt mainly on the island of Oahu, to which most Japanese tourists go, and to a much lesser extent on Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island. His comments are as follows:

Certainly the impact of Japan's tragedy is being felt for multiple reasons here in Hawaii. First, it has impacted all of the Hawaiian Islands, because of the very strong cultural connection. Secondly, Oahu will take the brunt of the short-fall, due to its unique popularity among Japanese visitors.

Last year in March, Hawaii had about 100,000 Japanese visitors. I've heard estimates that this month we might see a drop of up to 20 percent in those numbers, but that April should already have some rebound. Japanese visitors love Hawaii, and even though we may well see fewer of them for a period of time while they recover, I believe they will recover and will be back; their numbers will ultimately exceed what we've seen in the past few years.

Japanese visitors amount to just over 15 percent of the state's total. They tend to travel to Oahu far more than to the neighbor islands. That became even truer when direct flights between the Big Island and Japan ceased last fall.

Like any loyal resident of the islands, Jeff seems to be reacting in a rather optimistic fashion in making his estimate that April tourism by Japanese visitors will be down by less than the 20% drop experienced in March. Nevertheless, I'm setting forth his viewpoints here for whatever bearing they may have on readers' plans for a Hawaiian vacation in the coming months.

A 15-Night, $1,399 Cruise to Hawaii Causes Me to Overcome My Reluctance to Recommend a Certain Sailing

I would not normally devote space on this blog to a couple of attractive cruise departures, but the special price offered by Online Vacation Center (tel. 800/329-9002;  www.onlinevacationcenter.com ) of $1,399 for a 15-night cruise of Hawaii on the Celebrity Century (that's $93 a day), round-trip between San Diego and those islands, seems so exceptional as to warrant doing so.

The ship leaves San Diego on October 2 and October 17. It sails overnight from San Diego into the open Pacific Ocean, then spends four days at sea sailing to Hawaii, and then spends five nights visiting the three main islands of Hawaii (the Big Island, Maui, and Oahu). Three days are spent at different locations on the Big Island, including an evening sail past the famous, active volcano. And then the ship spends five remaining days simply at sea returning to the West Coast, stopping first for one day at Ensenada, Mexico, and then arriving back at San Diego. I can't imagine a more relaxing experience, aboard a ship that is certainly one category upscale from the ordinary run-of-the-mill cruiseship.

(If you book by March 31, you'll also receive $300 in onboard cash). Government taxes are additional.

The State Department's Advisory About Travel to Japan Stops Short of a Blanket Warning

In case you haven't seen it, you may want to know that the State Department Advisory about travel to Japan is a rather strange document that opens with the flat warning (dated March 21) that U.S. citizens should not approach within 50 miles of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which would not prevent visitors from traveling to Tokyo and Kyoto, as most of them usually do. It then proceeds with a few paragraphs containing no blanket warning against travel to Japan outside the area of nuclear reactor problems, but further on adds the words that on March 17 it "strongly urged" U.S. citizens not to travel to Japan at all.

I regard the Advisory as rather contradictory, and one that doesn't really advise a complete current ban on all non-essential travel to Japan. True, the text of the document does predict that in the wake of a 9.0 earthquake, there may be aftershocks for some weeks to come. It also talks about wind conditions possibly extending dangers from the damaged reactors to more than 50 miles from the directly affected area.

But there are numerous Americans who have traveled before to Japan or have acquaintances there, and badly wish to return; and for them, the State Department's warning is -- to me -- less than categorical. That's a layman's opinion, and you may want to consult better-informed persons before making the trip.

El Al Has Launched a Comprehensive Website for Air-and-Land Packages to Israel

Starting around the time several years ago when U.S. travel to Israel was sharply reduced because of safety concerns, the budget-priced tour to Israel virtually disappeared from the repertoire of air-and-land packages offered by the major tour companies. Now that mass-volume tourism has returned to Israel, budget-priced packages have been slower to make a re-appearance, and the only companies to come close to offering low-cost trips there are Gate 1 Travel and Sunnyland Tours. From Gate 1, you can now buy an air-and-land package ("Israel on Sale") for as little as $1,449 to $1,599; and from Sunnyland there are five-night Jerusalem packages for $549 (not including airfare).

But we may now be witnessing the return of price competition to Israel with the announcement by El Al of vacation packages through a new, dedicated website EL AL Tourism ( tourism.elal.co.il ). It offers escorted tours, daily tours, hotel booking and car rentals, and build-it-yourself "Dynamic Packages" wherein you pick your dates and cities and it puts together a fairly comprehensive trip for you.

Some of El Al's splash-page prices for a flight plus five-night-hotel are:
$1,300 for Jerusalem$1,450 for Tel Aviv$1,500 for the Dead SeaHotels alone start in the $35 to $40 a night range, rental cars in the $29 to $42 per day range.

I tried building a sample, five-night air-and-hotel package in Jerusalem, and the El Al site returned a price of $2,572 for two (or $1,286 per person) for air from NYC and a room at a four-star hotel on Jaffa Street. A transfer to the hotel from Tel Aviv Airport was $103 more (for two), bringing the actual per-person cost to $1,338.

That's not exactly budget travel, but it's not too bad for Israel.

Like-a-local Provides Modestly Priced Tours and Meals in Scores of Cities

Like-a-local ( www.like-a-local.com ) is one of the most intriguing, most exciting, travel websites I've seen in some time. It is somewhat like one of those free-of-charge greeters programs in New York or Chicago, except that this one imposes a modest charge for its services. But Like-a-local, now in its fifth year of operation, is also found in scores of large world cities, where enthusiastic "locals" take you to see their favorite sights and activities, and even sometimes host you (for a small charge) at a dinner or other meal in their homes. It's obvious to me that these locals are acting as greeters and guides not for the money, but because of their love for their home cities and the pleasure they get from showing visitors around.

You register for Like-a-local on the eve of a trip, and your date of arrival and place of stay are communicated to one of the various locals in that city. After first confirming the visit and the modest price, they then meet you on arrival and take you to see not the famous tourist attractions but the ones where locals gather (and cherish); you live like a local. I was amused by the proposed itinerary suggested by a local in New York City who made almost exclusive use only of sights and attractions that were free-of-charge to view or use: a free ocean-going ride on the Staten Island Ferry, a visit to a museum on a pay-what-you-wish day, a free visit to civic buildings, and free university speeches or presentations, and the like.

And, as earlier promised, some of the locals cook a meal for you in their own homes, for which they ask a modest fee.

I have often searched for ways to enjoy foreign cities exactly as a resident does, to experience the unique lifestyles and pleasures of local residents, the places where tourists are rarely found. Like-a-local, created five years ago by three friends, and now consisting of an awesome number of options, tours, greeters, and home-cooked meals, comes closer to satisfying that desire than any service other than the half-dozen greeters programs about which I've written in the past.

Take a look at Like-a-local.

If MGM's Website is Any Indicator, the Booking Situation for Las Vegas Hotels is Generous to Travelers

I recently pointed out that advance room reservations in Las Vegas for the month of April were unusually light, causing a hotel as elegant and desirable as the new Aria to list 11 dates when its rooms would sell for just $139 a night (they are usually priced at closed to $300).
 
That situation has apparently worsened (from the standpoint of the hotel, that is). There are now five dates -- April 17, 18, 19, 20 and 24 -- when room prices at the Aria have dropped to $129 a night, an amazing bargain for a hotel of such quality. And the total number of April nights when rates of $129 and $139 are available has risen to twelve.
 
Go to MGM Resorts's website ( www.mgmresorts.com ), select the Aria Hotel, pull out its booking chart for April, and by carefully scheduling your stay in Vegas, you can bring your room costs at a spectacular deluxe hotel down to levels that can't usually be enjoyed.