Upcoming travel blogger conferences for 2012

by Laurel Miller on

If the word “conference” immediately conjures images of tipsy, poly-suit clad conventioneers, comic book geeks, or coma-inducing workshops, you obviously haven’t attended a travel blogger gathering.

‘Tis the season for some of the year’s biggest travel industry blowouts. Each has a different focus–some are for accredited travel writers, others hone in on the burgeoning travel blogging industry or events tailored for the public. What they all share is an emphasis on networking with industry professionals, travel trends, and continuing education in the form of field trips, workshops, seminars, panel discussions, and yes, a fair bit of partying.

Below, our picks for the best in travel industry camaraderie and information exchange:

Travel Blog Exchange (TBEX)
The year’s most anticipated travel scribe gathering will be held June 15-17 in Keystone, Colorado. Expect a mix of over 350 fledgling and veteran writers, PR and travel industry experts, guest speakers, and workshops. In your downtime, take advantage of Keystone resort and environs by hiking, mountain biking, paddling, fly-fishing, or riding. Psst. Europe TBEX will be held in Lausanne, Switzerland, October 11-13.

New York Times Travel Show (NYT)
Held March 2-4 at Manhattan’s Jacob C. Javits Convention Center, this is a great event if you’re an accredited writer with a specific niche (Industry Professional Sessions include topics like “Focus on Africa,” and “Focus on Travel Media”); there’s also a “trade-only” day. The public and and newbie writers can explore the Exhibition Hall, check out a variety of cultural events to be held on five stages, and let the kids run amok in the Family Fun Pavilion. Bonus: Accredited travel professionals can attend the Friday Exhibition Hall and travel industry welcome reception, and Saturday and Sunday seminars and Exhibition Hall free of charge.

Travel Bloggers Unite (TBU)
Feel like a tax write-off trip to Umbria, Italy (did I just say that)? From April 20-22, this UK-organized conference unites travel writers and bloggers with travel PR experts, tourism boards, and travel companies. Seminars include photo walks and workshops, and using social media. Best of all, delegates will be able take free post-conference tours of Umbria.

Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference
Lonely Planet guru/Gadling editor Don George co-founded this renown industry event with Book Passage owner Elaine Petrocelli in 1991. Held annually at Petrocelli’s Marin County bookstore (located 15 minutes north of San Franciso; the other Book Passage is a tiny shop in San Francisco’s Ferry Building). The event has attracted in the past luminaries such as Tim Cahill, Larry Habegger, and Gadling’s David Farley. This year, esteemed writer Susan Orlean will be in attendance, and the schedule includes four days of seminars, workshops, panel discussions, and optional evening field trips. If you’re serious about travel writing–and few places provide as much topical diversity as the Bay Area–sign up, stat.

Be sure to check out Don’s article on “Top tips for TBEX and other writers’ conferences” before you sign up or get on a plane (they say advice doesn’t come cheap, but this is free, baby).

[Photo credit: Flickr user Dia™]

Presenting Xtranormal’s “I want to be a travel writer“


Cruise line makes offer, gets sued, waits

by Chris Owen on

The cruise line that owns Costa Concordia is trying to move forward, past recovery and initial assistance efforts to make an offer to non-injured passengers. Still without conclusive forensic reasons or blame placed for the tragic grounding of January 13, Costa Cruises faces legal action as it and the entire cruise industry review safety standards.

The families of those who died, passengers that were injured and crew members will be handled on a case by case basis. For everyone else, the line is offering:

  • A lump sum of 11,000 euros (about $14,500) per person as indemnification, covering all patrimonial and nonpatrimonial damages, including loss of baggage and personal effects, psychological distress and loss of enjoyment of the cruise vacation;
  • Reimbursement of the value of the cruise, including harbor taxes;
  • Reimbursement of air and bus transfers included in the cruise package
  • Full reimbursement of travel expenses to reach the port of embarkation and return home;
  • Reimbursement of any medical expenses resulting from the cruise;
  • Reimbursement of expenses incurred on board during the cruise.

Almost simultaneously, crew member Gary Lobaton off Costa Concordia has filed a complaint in the federal court of Chicago seeking class-action status in a $multi-million lawsuit.

“The defendants failed to properly and timely notify all plaintiffs on board of the deadly and dangerous condition of the cruise ship as to avoid injury and death,” Lobaton said in the complaint. The passengers and crew “were abandoned by the captain.”

Meanwhile, Fox News reports six passengers off the stricken cruise ship filed a complaint against Carnival Corporation, parent company of ship owner Costa Cruises, in a Miami court demanding $460 million in compensation.

Maritime law experts say such actions probably won’t go far. Similar attempts to sue in the U.S. have been turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court and the expense of filing in a foreign court is often too great. Between the liability limitation clauses of the passenger contract cruise travelers agree to by booking passage on a cruise ship and the nearly-exempt status of foreign flagged cruise ships, cruise lines have themselves covered.


“It’s well-settled law,” said Jerry Hamilton, a maritime attorney who regularly defends cruise lines against lawsuits in STLToday. “The Supreme Court has said those clauses are valid clauses. They will be upheld.”

Still, the cruise industry moves on and the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), a trade group that represents the interests of 26 member lines, announced a global safety review in answer to questions raised by the Costa Concordia grounding.

Key components of the Review include:

  1. An internal review by CLIA members of their own operational safety practices and procedures concerning issues of navigation, evacuation, emergency training, and related practices and procedures.
  2. Consultation with independent external experts.
  3. Identification and sharing of industry best practices and policies, as well as possible recommendations to the IMO for substantive regulatory changes to further improve the industry’s operational safety.
  4. Collaboration with the IMO, governments and regulatory bodies to implement any necessary regulatory changes.

“While the cruise industry has an outstanding safety record, CLIA is fully committed to understanding the factors that contributed to the Concordia incident and is proactively responding to all maritime safety issues,” the organization said in a statement, adding “The Cruise Industry Operational Safety Review will enable the industry to do so in a meaningful and expedited manner.”

How this story ends, how much compensation will be given or awarded, will have a lot to do with conclusive results of investigations underway involving the captain of the ship and black box evidence of what really happened.

For now, concerned parties wait while preliminary operations to pump fuel out of the cruise ship were suspended Saturday due to bad weather. Workers decided the sea was too rough to continue the salvage operation.


Flickr photo by Cyr0z

Vagabond Tales: “The Governator is better, yes?”

by Kyle Ellison on

Crossing borders can always be a bit of a hectic experience. There are long lines, scam artists, customs officials, new currencies, people offering to expedite your visa process for a fee, screaming children, rogue livestock, and occasionally people with guns. Dirty and dingy, border crossings are never the favorite part of my trip.

Luckily, however, I was once aided through a particularly tense border moment by of all things, an American politician. As any American traveler who spends copious amounts of time out of the country will tell you, divulging the fact that you are an American frequently involves being buffeted by a hailstorm of opinions/questions/debate over American foreign policy, war, clothing, oil, health care, politics, and lately, Justin Bieber.

This is because–and excuse me as I fabricate completely random statistics to argue a point–it’s becoming apparent to me that about 70% of the globe knows more about American politics than 70% of Americans do.

Evidence? I offer three examples:

-A particularly smelly hitch hiker I once picked up in New Zealand was able to tell me how many seats the state of Hawaii has in the House of Representatives (2).

-The Kathmandu shopkeeper from whom I was purchasing a $1.50 plate of dhal bhat discussed with me the geopolitical ramifications of Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Burma.

-A mate from Sydney writing me to express his concerns about the upcoming vote in Congress to once again raise the debt ceiling.

The list goes on.

Although flashing the blue cover of an American passport will frequently lead to this uninvited political joust, I would like to thank one American politician for effectively waving me across international lines.Prior to Slovakia being an EU member and part of the Eurail network, the border crossing by train from Slovakia to Austria was not exactly warm and rosy. Perhaps it’s because it was the depths of winter and the whole of central Europe seemed to collectively huddle beneath a fog of frozen breath and post-Communist-era gray, but the passport control was cold in every way.

Instead of having all of the passengers depart the frigid rail car, two chiseled specimens of angry looking police officers toting unnecessarily large automatic weapons boarded the train and checked the passports of each passenger row by row. From the truncated grunts in German and the international sound of pleading it was apparent that for some passengers the proceedings were going less than swimmingly.

Finally, with a stone cold glare and a heavy thudding of boots the two officers made their stop in front of my assigned seat. Brandishing our shiny, navy blue passports my college girlfriend and I handed over our international identity and awaited what the vibe of the car was telling us might be a hard-fought entry stamp.

Scrutinizing the details of my girlfriend’s passport, a thick, monotone voice came from within the border patrolling giant.

“You are from California, yes?” he stiffly questioned.

“Ummm…yes, California” was the meek reply she could muster.

Moment of truth. Friend or foe.

Then, with a smile that could bridge the Iron Curtain, the gun-toting guard slapped his companion on the chest and jubilantly exclaimed, “the Governator is better yes!”

What followed can only be described as the laugh performed by the alien characters in “The Simpson’s” who carry on with a guttural belly laugh for so unbelievably long that after the first 40 seconds have passed it becomes hilarious in its discomfort.

At no point while boarding the train to Austria did I expect the fact that the Austrian-born actor turned California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, would ultimately expedite my passage through the border.

The guffawing agent–obviously pleased with his joke–nonchalantly stamped the passports and flipped them back into our stunned laps. only to unleash a throaty gumbo of syllables on a dreadlocked hippie behind me who, apparently, was not a California resident.

So thank you Arnold for getting me into Austria, and for allowing me to use my passport for more than political banter. Schnitzels on me.

–
Want more travel stories? Read the rest of the Vagabond Tales here…

[Photo: Flickr: Toprankonlinemarketing]

Interdisciplinary art gallery in New York allows travelers to buy a ticket for a journey unknown

by Jessica Festa on

Calling all free spirits: Have you ever felt the urge to just get on a random train and let it take you to a new place. Do you like the idea of forgoing any trip planning and just letting the journey guide you to where you will go? Well now through mid-April, the Bureau of Unknown Destinations in Brooklyn, New York, is open for business.

Basically, travelers will book a free round-trip train ticket to a destination unknown and will be given an envelope telling them where they can expect to go, a notebook, and a simple yet silly task. The goal of the popup travel agency, which is part of an artist’s residency going on at the Proteus Gowanus interdisciplinary art gallery and reading room, is to “offer temporary displacement to members of the public seeking to experiment with their migratory impulses”.

The Bureau of Unknown Destinations is located at 543 Union Street in Brooklyn, and bookings can be made up to two weeks in advance. Their hours are a bit odd, so I would contact them before going in, although they are open most Saturdays from 1-5PM. You can also make an appointment by emailing Sal Randolph at SalRandolph@gmail.com.

Cruise tragedy calls for increased focus on safety

by Chris Owen on

On the heels of the Costa Concordia cruise tragedy, where a once-proud ocean going vessel now lay on its side off the coast of Italy, calls for increased safety standards and procedures are being made. While history will remember the Concordia event as more of a near-miss than a Titanic-like disaster as tabloids might have us believe, most experts agree: this can’t happen again.

As rescue workers still try to find 20-some missing passengers, blame has been placed squarely on the shoulders of the ship’s master, Captain Francesco Schettino. The ship was sailing a course approved by the cruise line, similar to an airline flight plan, when Captain Schettino chose to deviate from that plan, sailing too close to a nearby island in order to show the ship to locals.

“This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa,” said Costa Chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi in a live press conference via telephone from Italy yesterday.
Rogue move on the part of an out-of-control captain or not, it is clear that changes will have to be made in the way cruise lines do business to insure another event like this never happens again.

“The incident has many in the maritime industry and those contemplating a cruise questioning how something like this could happen” says cruise expert Paul Motter on FoxNews. “After all, the Costa Concordia, which was carrying 4,200 passengers and crew, was stocked with the state-of-the-art navigation equipment.”

Look for changes in the way cruise lines do business very soon. Maybe more focus on safety instructions, starting at embarkation. Perhaps more detail and a different way of handling safety drills and surely some sort of check system that requires more than just a Captain’s whim to change a ship’s course. But Motter urges passengers to take responsibility for their own safety with a number of suggestions.

“Choose a cruise line that specializes in your native language,” says Motter. During the Costa Concordia event, safety instructions being broadcast over the ship’s loudspeaker system were difficult to hear in any language, leaving those who did not speak the language being broadcast at a disadvantage. “Costa, MSC and other cruise lines offer cruises in as many as five languages simultaneously. Europeans are used to hearing announcements in five languages consecutively; Italian, French, German, Spanish and English. In a critical situation the idea of having to communicate in five languages is not just daunting, it can mean life or death.”

Another lesson to be learned from Costa Concordia is to avoid itineraries where passengers are allowed to embark from multiple ports. In the U.S., passengers embark and disembark at the same port in most cases. European sailings allow passengers to embark along the way.

“During a disaster, having people onboard who have not yet had a boat drill can really add to the chaos, ” says Motter, noting the International maritime law requirement that says a ship must hold its safety drill within 24 hours of sail-away. Many cruise lines have a safety drill before the ship begins to move. While procedures followed on Costa Concordia were in compliance with this rule, it left 600-some passengers who embarked the ship the day of the event, uninstructed on safety procedures, adding to the confusion of getting off the ship.

Cruise lines, appropriately, will wait until the final story is told about Costa Concordia. The ship’s “black box” of navigational data and other pertinent information was seized by local authorities in connection with their investigation of the captain. That may add information that will steer the direction the cruise industry takes.

Costa has placed priority appropriately. They still have 20-some unaccounted for passengers to find. Addressing potential environmental hazards caused by that ship laying on its side off the coast of Italy is also a priority right now. But look for changes to be coming soon, changes that will impact the on-board experience of a cruise vacation, hopefully in a safety-conscious way that will make for smooth sailing into the future.

Getty image/daylife