One way we can gauge how well our ME hotels will perform for any given travel season is by doing a little homework; scanning the travel wires, monitoring conversion rates, planning mock round-trip airflights to worldly destinations, even driving over to the petrol to see what a gallon of gas will cost. All these variables can usually condense down into numbers, and numbers into guesstimations.
A source of ours, the Washington Post, recently posted an epic of a transcript that compiled some of the best Q&A travel information that we have ever come across.
After reading it—all 25 pages—we have come to two conclusions.
1. Most foreign travel is staying within continent of origin. Meaning, people in the United States are off to Mexico and Canada. People in the United Kingdom are flying to France and Spain.
2. People are fed up with the pathetic state of airline food and entertainment. It went from full meals and in-flight movies to a packet of peanuts and entertainment of your own device.
You can the Post’s travel-novella at their ‘Travel Post’.
Below we’ve quoted a few snippets of advice that really stood out.
On the topic of duty-free shops…
“You can buy airside duty-free liquids at any airport in the EU and carry it through security onto your connecting flight provided you maintain it in the sealed bag from the duty-free shop and you carry your receipt proving that the purchase was made within the last 24 hours. (Thus, if you buy liquor in Copenhagen, you are supposed to be able to carry it through security at Flight Connections at Heathrow and onto your flight to the USA. I think it’s easier just to go to the whisky shop in T3 or T4…..) HOWEVER, when you arrive in the USA, you’ll be forced to check it.”
On the topic of later checkout times…
“Get what you want — from a more relaxing day to more soda on the plane — simply by asking for it. At hotels, I always request a ridiculously late check-out time of 4 or 5 p.m. That way, I can enjoy a day of exploring then come back to take a shower or simply catch a blast of A/C in bed. The front desk often compromises and offers 2 or 3 p.m. — still much better than the way-too-early listed checkout times.”
And a little Q&A…
Sterling, Va.: A group of us are trying to plan a trip over Thanksgiving to some place beachy and warm. We were thinking of Costa Rica but the airfares are running around $700 and we were hoping for something under $500. Do you have any other destination suggestions? Thanks.
Cindy Loose [WashingtonPost.com]: Don’t know flight prices offhand for Thanksgiving–prices do tend to skyrocket over holidays. However, I can tell you some beachy destinations that tend to be cheaper from the D.C. area for you to check out: San Juan, Puerto Rico, Cancun, Mexico and sometimes Jamaica or the Dominican Republic. I’d also consider the Bahamas.
