Americans leave an average of 11 vacation days on the table each year

by McLean Robbins on

We’ve spent the past two weekends trying to plan a last-minute pre-holiday getaway and keep coming to the same conclusion … it’s just too busy at the office to take time off right now. Turns out, we’re not alone – a recent Harris Interactive study conducted on behalf of JetBlue Airways found that 57% of working Americans will have unused vacation time at the end of the year, and most of them will leave an average of 11 days on the table – or nearly 70% of their allotted time off.

The survey also showed that while more than 60% of those with vacation days believe they deserve to take their time off, 39% report having reservations about asking their boss for a vacation.

It’s difficult, as numerous studies show that employees who don’t use vacation time have lower levels of productivity and satisfaction with their job, as well as higher rates of health problems.

To assist, JetBlue launched a “Getaways Granter,” a new custom Facebook application that serenades bosses with a custom video request for vacation approval.

“We were surprised to learn that almost a third of American workers feel guilty, nervous or stressed when asking for a day off of work,” said Grant McCarthy, director of JetBlue Getaways. “Whether outdoor wrangling, island hopping, or romantic retreating, JetBlue Getaways wants to help people make the most out of their unused vacation days. We believe people deserve their vacations, so much so that we will go out and ask their boss for them.”

With the new Getaways Granter, JetBlue will take the edge off of requesting vacation days by allowing fans to plug in their desired number of days off before choosing from four destination themes to suit their getaway needs. They can even upload a photo of their supervisor to be featured in the video, crooning bosses everywhere into letting employees take their much-needed getaway.

Hmm. We’re pretty sure that our boss would prefer a politely-worded email. The program, while creative and an interesting way to use social media to get the world out about Jet Blue, seems like a gimmicky promotion that won’t go over well in the workplace. Still, we hope you remember to take advantage of your vacation time.

The Whistler Sabbatical Project – sign us up

by McLean Robbins on

We’re a sucker for these amazing free trip contests. Year-long diving contracts in Australia? We’ll get SCUBA certified. Photographing wedding locations across Ireland? We’ll find a husband. For this new incentive from Tourism Whistler, we’ll learn to ski on more than just the bunny slopes.

Dubbed the “Whistler Sabbatical Project,” this one-month, all expenses paid trip will include airfare, accommodations, lift passes, ski or snowboard equipment and “extraordinary experiences.”

Sign us up. How do you win? Each Tuesday for the next 15 weeks, the Whistler Sabbatical Project will showcase Whistler experiences online – and ask the question: Would you do it? How contestants respond will set the stage for building an itinerary of adventure.

Potential “experiences” include slicing the tops off magnums of champagne with a sabre (in a 20,000 bottle wine cellar), access to a world-class spa facility to on-mountain adventures, and of course, all the skiing or snowboarding you can handle.

“We’re encouraging people to go to the site every week, think about the question and answer whether or not they’d do that particular activity,” said Kirsten Homeniuk, Tourism Whistler’s senior manager of marketing services.
enter the contest,” she said.

Of course, the contest is also aimed at drawing visitors to Whistler through 45-second videos that highlight not only the planned Whistler Sabbatical but the many activities that make the area a desirable tourist destination.

A sample question? “Would you dance in your ski boots until midnight?” Response options include:
□ I’ll do it
□ Been there, done that
□ I’ll need a little more time with that (and likely some good tequila)

In addition to the Whistler Sabbatical Project, contestants can enter to win each of the highlighted experiences as a weekly prize via Facebook.

The Whistler Sabbatical Project and the weekly prize contests are open to residents in North America, the United Kingdom and Australia only.

Ajungo, the new social network platform just for travelers

by Jessica Festa on

Sick of searching through advice sites and hearing reviews from who only knows? Wish you could connect with other travelers about past or upcoming trips and events? Love social networking but wish you could interact with others in your travel niche? Then there is a brand new social media website just for travelers that brings together all of these platforms into one site.

Ajungo, created by Ben Barton and Steve Shea, is a brand new networking site that allows travelers to connect before, during, and after a trip. Here is how it works:

1) Create a profile and link all of your social networking sites. What this does is allows the site to funnel through your social networking platforms to pull information and funnel it around specific
destinations.

2) Find others who have been to your destination of choice and look through their posted trip or ask them for advice. Or, you can find others who will be in your destination of choice and plan to meet up or travel together.

3) Create your trip canvas, which consists of enabling the sites real-time travel guide feature so that the site can pull your photos and updates while you’re on your trip. This allows other travelers to learn from your experience as well as acts like a blog or trip journal by keeping your trip memories organized and sharing them with friends.

The goal of the site is to make travel more social as well as more comfortable for people going to new destinations. And, if there is any information that you do not want shared, the site will not post it without your permission.

Make connections with travelers, view their trips, find travel buddies, or just interact with others in the travel community. It is all possible on Ajungo.

Swiss village Obermutten has more Facebook fans than residents

by McLean Robbins on



A tiny Swiss mountain village is taking social media to a new level. Obermutten in Graubuenden has promised anyone who “likes” the town on Facebook that they will put his/her photo onto the Commune’s official notice board. By doing this, they say, anybody anywhere in the world can “become Swiss”. After only three days, the village already has fifteen times more fans than residents, and this number is growing by the day.

The identity pictures are printed out by a councillor and pinned up on the noticeboard and the fans thus become part of the village community. So far, the fan list has grown so fast that they’ve filled the town’s message board and resorted to using a barn side to post pictures. The eighty inhabitants – many still without an internet connection – like to get to know their fans in this way.

The Commune, located in the Graubuenden holiday region, seems excited by their newfound fame.

“Obermutten is developing a personal relationship with its guests. Here it’s not a question of the total volume, but of each individual one. Why shouldn’t this be the same for us in the internet?” said Martin Wyss, Mutten’s village president.

The village president communicates with his fans in short video YouTube messages like the one seen above.

Wow, this is really taking “social” to a new level.

Trippy launches, aims to transform travel planning into a social experience

by McLean Robbins on

When it comes to travel planning, your friends are the best source of information. Such is the motto of just-launched social networking site for travel planning, Trippy.

Using a simple integration with Facebook, members can create trip planning templates with the click of a button. Fill in just a few details and the site will auto-populate suggestions for hotels, activities, and restaurants, plus provide a comprehensive list of your Facebook friends who are from, live or lived in, have visited or went to school in the destination. Then, using a personalized trip link, you can privately message friends to ask for suggestions about your upcoming trip.

As you piece together parts of your vacation, Trippy helps organize the information into an itinerary that can be sent via iPhone app or email. While you’re traveling, you can easily snap a photo with your smartphone and send pictures to the friends who helped you plan. The itinerary is also easily saved, so other friends who use the site can copy your travel plans at a later date.If you don’t have friends in a certain spot, the site’s handy auto-complete feature pulls in data from Factual.com, Google Places and the site’s own internal database. More features will be added soon.

Entrepreneur J.R. Johnson is behind the site. Once the brains behind VirtualTourist and OneTime.com (sold in 2008 to Expedia), Johnson aims to develop a new kind of traveling model. “There’s too much user generated content out there now,” Johnson said. Trippy is based on the principle that the best information is “friendsourced” rather than “crowdsourced.”

It’s becoming more and more difficult to rely on sites that don’t vet reviews, Johnson said. One never knows if the reviews are posted by paid travelers or the properties themselves. With Trippy, travelers will know that the information they’re getting is from a trustworthy source – their friends.

Trips can be planned for real, upcoming stays, or for a “dream” vacation. This process, Johnson says, helps travelers make the leap from dream to reality – the site soon showcase easy booking integration with sites like Expedia, where users can check rates and book right within Trippy.

We played with the site for an upcoming visit to Chicago and found it easy to use. We were able to reach out to several friends we didn’t even know were in or from the area and added a few great suggestions to our upcoming itinerary. A few kinks are still being worked out, as in any beta version, and integration with sites like Twitter and Foursquare is soon coming. We look forward to testing the iPhone integration in a few weeks, but the free app is available for download now.

Gadling readers get early access to the beta site with code GADLING.