Online agencies bright spot in Spanish travel market

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The slump in the travel market has certainly affected Spain, which is among the top leisure destinations in Europe. Both foreign travel to Spain and domestic excursions within the country have suffered as a result of the global recession, with travel industry research firm PhoCusWright putting the decline at 12 percent for 2009. The traditional booking channels were hurt more than the online travel agencies, though, which only saw a 1 percent decline in the action. This is a bit of a shock, the research team reports, because the Spanish market has a lower rate of penetration for travel than other countries in Europe.

“While all travel segments contributed to the total market’s decline, each travel industry vertical has experienced varying levels of consumer pullback,” says Carroll Rheem, PhoCusWright director, research. “Car rental and hotel companies, particularly in Spanish cities like Madrid and Barcelona, have experienced some of the sharpest declines.”

The hotel industry in Spain had its worst drop in decades, losing 7 percent in 2008 and 9 percent more in 2009. International visitors, especially from the United Kingdom, plunged, and domestic tourism was squeezed, too. Excess capacity made the situation worse for the hotel business, as new properties hitting the market in 2008 upped the number of rooms to be filled by 3 percent.
Unlike many European markets, low-cost carriers did not post the market share gains against traditional carriers seen other markets. Both airline sectors suffered declines in demand due to both the travel slump and competition from high-speed domestic rail companies.

Online travel agencies, on the other hand, fared much better. They posted a revenue growth rate of 2.7 percent, with packaging becoming an increasingly lucrative service. PhoCusWright basically indicates that this is “a bright spot in the currently bleak Spanish travel landscape.”

South by Southeast: Avoiding the hordes

by Jeremy Kressmann on

I had high hopes for my arrival in Hoi An. This historic city, set along Vietnam’s Central Coast, has all the ingredients to be the perfect destination: a charming downtown lined with ancient Chinese buildings, a picturesque waterfront setting and a unique culinary history. So it was a shock when I stepped off my bus to find the city the epitome of a tourist trap, stuffed to the gills with tour groups, souvenir hawkers and pushy tailor shops. Hoi An, in my eyes, sucked. What happens then when travelers come to Southeast Asia with visions of the exotic and come away with a bad taste in their mouth? And how can we manage our expectations to best experience this fascinating destination?

As it turns out, increasingly we have to share the deserted beaches and charming historic quarters of our dreams with other visitors – and there are a lot of us these days. According to Vietnam’s Tourist board, the country received 3.7 million foreign visitors in 2009. Thailand is even higher, welcoming almost 14 million tourists. These travelers have left an unmistakable footprint, altering the places we love, the food we eat and the way we’re seen by locals. This influx of visitors (and their resulting impact) will only increase in the years ahead.

Yet despite the rise in tourists, Southeast Asia can be and still is the exotic destination of our dreams. You just need to come armed with a few simple strategies to maximize your enjoyment. Keep reading below to see how.Leave your expectations at home
Our idea of places we’ve never visited rarely matches with what we find when we get there. For Southeast Asia in particular, a steady diet of movies, books and glossy travel magazines have conditioned us to hold unreasonably high expectations. We come in thinking we’ll walk out the airport doors in Bangkok and plant ourselves on the beach beside a row of postcard-worthy palm trees. Instead we find superhighways and rows of 7-11’s.

Remember that people live in our fantasy destinations and they have everyday lives just like you and me. Revise your idea of what is and is not worth seeing. Sometimes watching Thais hang out at the mall can be just as interesting as a Buddhist temple.

Reconsider the “must-sees”
Hoi An is truly one of Southeast Asia’s most unique, one-of-a-kind destinations. But with that “wow factor” comes huge crowds and overwhelming popularity. To beat the tour buses you need to be flexible. Can you schedule your trip during an off-peak time of the year? Maybe you could get up early in the morning before the tourist hordes have descended? You can even consider alternate destinations that provide a similar atmosphere but with less fuss. Don’t be the guy that’s “too cool” to see Angkor Wat, but a little creative planning will make your visit far more enjoyable.

Get out of your guidebook
Guidebooks rule. I love the background information, the helpful maps and the suggested sleeping, eating and activities sections. But when you follow Lonely Planet to the letter, you’re following a well worn trail. It’s not a bad trail, mind you, it’s simply a path followed by thousands of other travelers each year. The prices you pay will be higher, there will be more travelers around you, and merchants will often view you as just another backpack with a giant dollar sign on it.

Don’t be afraid to skip the guidebook suggestions and follow your own instincts. You’ll often find some of the best adventures (and lower prices) off on your own. Not to mention less tourists.

Gadling writer Jeremy Kressmann is spending the next few months in Southeast Asia. You can read other posts on his adventures “South by Southeast” HERE.

Foreign visits to the U.S. show signs of life

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Travel to the United States finally grew in October! After six months of declines, thanks to an Easter bump in April, foreign visitation finally ticked higher, an increase of 1 percent year-over-year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce. If you take the holiday factor out of the equation, the last year-over-year increase came in August 2008. It’s difficult to tell whether the October gain signals a turn, since the 2009 result was measured against the first month following the financial mayhem of September 2008.

Four million people visited the United States from abroad last October and spent $10.3 billion in the process. Unlike the visitation statistic, spending was down … considerably. The cash shelled out by international visitors was off 13 percent year over year. But, the declines are shrinking. For the first 10 months of 2009, visitor spending amounted to $100.9 billion, a decline of 16 percent from the same period in 2008.

Thirteen of the top 20 countries in terms of visitation to the United States posted increases in October — six of them in double digits. Brazil, Australia, China, South Korea, Venezuela and Colombia delivered the greatest gains.The news was mixed from our neighbors. Visits from Canada fell 1 percent from October 2008 to October 2009, which is still an improvement over the year-to-date decline of 7 percent. Mexico, meanwhile, showed a 2 percent increase in October and a 5 percent decline for the year. Slightly more than half of the 4 million visitors to the United States came from overseas — i.e., not Canada or Mexico — an increase of 1 percent year-over-year. Through October, 19.8 million people crossed water to hit the United States, an 8 percent drop from the first 10 months of 2008.

Visits from Western Europe were down 5 percent for October and 11 percent for the year, while Asia posted a 2 percent gain and a year-to-date decline of 11 percent. The greatest gains were in the South American market: visitation to the United States was up 22 percent for October and 6 percent for the first 10 months of 2009.

[Photo by hjl via Flickr]

Hawaii needs your help!

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Hawaii needs $1.23 billion and could use your help. Governor Linda Lingle is calling it a “fiscal crisis” and says it won’t be fixed with budget cuts alone. Essentially, the fiftieth state wants everyone else to chip in. This year’s budget gap is $721 million, which will be followed by $509.5 million next year. The state might not hit pre-recession levels until 2014.

According to Lingle, “The stark reality of continuing declining general fund revenues means the state does not have sufficient resources to cover all expenditures.”

The problem is exactly what you’ve seen here on Gadling for a while – the travel market sucks. Hawaii relies on tourism to bring in the cash; the industry touches 74 percent of the state’s jobs directly or indirectly (at least as of 2007).

Georgina Kawamura, the state’s director of budget and finance, tells Reuters, “I can only remain hopeful that we are now at the bottom and will start to pick up.”

Venice hosts its own funeral

by Katie Hammel on

Venice is dying. At least, according to Newsweek it is. The population has been shrinking so rapidly (it dropped below 60,000 this year) that the mag predicts there won’t be a single full-time resident in the city by 2030. A city that sees millions of visitors per year, an average of 55,000 per day, won’t be home to a single person. Yeah, I’d call that a dead city.

To draw attention to the issue, residents of Venice have organized a mock funeral in which three gondolas will pull a red coffin through the city’s canals on Saturday, November 14th.

In addition to the flood of tourists who make the city nearly unlivable during summer months, other factors such as increasing home prices and a shrinking tax base, have combined to result in the mass exodus of long-time Venetians.

One of the organizers of the “funeral” says this doesn’t have to be the end though. He hopes that by drawing attention to the issue, some of the problems can be addressed and new citizens will be lured to Venice. “It might be the beginning; it could even spur a rebirth. Now we just have to create a Venice [people] will want to stay in. We have to give them a reason not to leave.”

[via Budget Travel]