Sale on German train tickets starts Dec. 7

by Alison Brick on

Starting on Monday, December 7, German Railway train tickets will go on sale — and it’s quite the guter Kauf (bargain). They’re only 66 Euros for two one-way tickets, on local or regional trains anywhere in Germany and Austria.

The tickets will be sold at the German discount supermarket Lidl. The tickets must be for travel on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, between January 4 and March 31, 2010. Children under 14 years-old can travel free.

A standard one-way train from Berlin to Munich costs 113 Euros, and Cologne to Vienna is 146 Euros, so this is a sale with big savings.

[Thanks, GoGermany.about.com]

Frommer’s lists Top Destinations for 2010

by Katie Hammel on

Frommer’s has just released their list of what they think will be the top destinations for 2010. Culled from the suggestions of industry insiders and readers, the list covers every continent, meandering from India to Hawaii, Argentina to Vietnam. Along with listing each place, Frommer’s has also given reasons why each one should be on your list of destinations for the coming year.

How accurate is the list? Last year, the top destinations predicted for 2009 included Washington, DC; Cartagena, Colombia; Istanbul; Cape Town; and Berlin, all of which were popular with tourists, as they have been for several years. Including Berlin may have been a no-brainer. As the 20th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall took place this year, of course the city would be well-visited. Other locations predicted to be hotspots have remained in relative obscurity. How many people do you know who went to Waiheke Island (New Zealand) or followed the Civil Rights Trail in Alabama?

2010’s list will probably be equally hit and miss when it comes to predicting the hot spots for the year. Included on the list is the Big Island of Hawaii, which I recently visited. Frommer’s says the Big Island has everything you need but still retains an untouched feel, and I completely agree.

But other destinations might not rise to the top of many travelers’ lists. Frommer’s says Mexico City will be big in 2010, but unfortunately the city may still suffer from the after-effects of swine flu paranoia. Cuba, another location on the list, isn’t open to Americans yet, but may see an increase in tourists from other countries. And lesser-known destinations, like Kerala, India; Tunisia; and the Isles of Scilly in England may see a boost in tourism thanks to the publicity they receive from the list.

** Be sure to check out Gadling’s picks for the top adventure destinations for 2010. **

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Low flying Ryanair jet blows roof tiles off roof – puts 82 year old in hospital

by Scott Carmichael on

For once, Ryanair is in the news because of something unrelated to oddball fees or something silly their CEO said.

Residents of the German village of Groß Grönau have pulled together to sue the Irish airline because they put an 82 year old woman in the hospital.

Apparently, a Ryanair jet flew so low over her house, that it actually blew roofing tiles off the roof, putting the poor woman into a shock. One villager told the local paper that she actually had to duck when the plane came in for its landing at the local Lübeck-Blankensee airport.

A group of 500 anti-noise-pollution protesters accused the airline of negligent bodily harm and willful property damage. Of course, as is often the case with airlines, Ryanair is rejecting any responsibility for the incident.
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EasyJet apologizes for Holocaust fashion shoot

by Sean McLachlan on

EasyJet has apologized to everyone who will listen over a fashion shoot that appeared in its inflight magazine.

Did the models wear too little? Did they look like fourteen year-old cokeheads? No, none of the usual stuff; they happened to be posing at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.

Yes, some fashion photographer decided the concrete blocks known as the “Field of Stelae”, properly called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, would be a cool place for slinky women to show off designer duds. The editor of the magazine at INK Publishing thought it was a pretty neat idea too, and easyJet didn’t notice until too late.

Now they’ve yanked the issue from all their planes and are “reviewing their relationship” with the publisher.

This was probably an honest oversight by easyJet, who acted quickly and appropriately when the issue came to their notice, but what about the magazine’s editors? Or the photographer? Or the models? Didn’t anyone stop and say , “Hey, millions of Jews died in the concentration camps. Perhaps we should take these photos somewhere else?”

Nope, apparently not.

Visitors from outside the U.S. down 9 percent, spending a lot less

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Visits from outside the United States continued their slide in August. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that 5.4 million people visited the United States from other countries in August this year. Unfortunately, that’s a drop of 9 percent from August 2008. And, the smaller number of people is spending less money when it comes here. In August 2009, international visitors spent $10 billion. This sounds like a lot, but it’s off almost 21 percent from last year. For the first eight months of this year, spending by foreign visitors reached $79.5 billion, down 17 percent year-over-year. The fact that the year-to-date decline isn’t as bad as what we saw in August suggests that the situation has been worsening.

Trends in visits from Canada and Mexico are consistent with the global trend. Canadian visits fell 6 percent in August and are off 8 percent for the year through August. Meanwhile, visits from Mexico surged in August, gaining 23 percent, with land arrivals up 37 percent and air arrivals down 7 percent. This wasn’t enough to change the situation for the year, however. For the first eight months of 2009, visits from Mexico fell six percent relative to the same period in 2008.

Visits from overseas (not including Mexico and Canada) were off 6 percent in August and 9 percent for the year. Of the top 20 countries sending visitors to the United States, 11 sustained decreases for the month of August, with five of these declines hitting double-digit levels. Along with Mexico, China, Brazil and the Bahamas posted double-digit increases. Year-to-date, 17 of the top 20 countries showed declines in visitation to the United States, eight of them reaching double-digit levels.

Europe certainly isn’t sending as many visitors to the United States as it once did. For August, visits are off 11 percent — the same rate posted for 2009 so far. The United Kingdom‘s visits to the United States were down 13 percent in August, which is disproportionately powerful, given that the United Kingdom accounts for 34 percent of all Western European arrivals in the United States. Through August, visits to the United States from the United Kingdom were off 16 percent, with Germany down 6 percent and France down 3 percent.

The trend is improving in Japan. While visits so far this year were down 16 percent by August, the month of august itself showed an improvement, with visits from Japan down only 8 percent. Japan accounts for nearly half of all Asian visitors to the United States. Year-to-date, visits from South Korea and India fell 11 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

It’s clear that travel to the United States continues to suffer from the effects of the worldwide recession, particularly since, the Department of Commerce says, business travel is falling faster than leisure travel this year.

[Chart courtesy of the U.S. Department of Commerce]