More business travelers try to do trips in one day
from USA Today
 Last year, Bill Hall clocked 100,000 miles traveling for business. But on at least half those trips, Hall never landed in a hotel bed. Instead, he flew round trip from his hometown of Dallas to Orlando or Los Angeles and was back home in time for dinner. More
'Green' hotels juggle conservation with customer service
from The Washington Post
Benjamin Hale, an environmental studies and philosophy professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was attending the December climate talks in Copenhagen when he noticed something odd about his three-star hotel: It kept giving him fresh towels, even though he was hanging up the ones he'd used in accordance with the hotel's advertised policy of allowing guests to reuse towels as a conservation measure. More
Bob Shallit: Tourists may go underground in Old Sacramento
from The Sacramento Bee
Sacramento is likely to become the third West Coast city to start offering tourist-pleasing excursions through its "underground." Assuming City Council members today approve a $185,000 loan request, the Historic Old Sacramento Foundation in May will begin guided tours of the storefronts and sidewalks that constituted this city's original downtown before streets were raised 10 feet or more in the 1860s and '70s to cope with flooding. More
Storms line up to blanket southwestern ski resorts
from First Tracks Magazine
A seemingly endless series of Pacific storms has drawn a bead on the California coastline, dropping immense quantities of snow upon ski slopes throughout California and into the desert Southwest. More
Hoteliers push heads-in-beds, even at $20 a night
from Northern Nevada Business Weekly
A room-and-comp package rolled out by Grand Sierra Resort serves as an indicator of the lengths some hotel properties in the region are willing to go to draw business during historically slow early-winter months. Through March, guests at the GSR can book a room for $39, get a second night free, and get a $20 food comp, as well as $10 comps in the hotel’s health club, arcade and bowling alley. And these aren’t just mid-week room nights —10 weekends are available in the promotion. The Grand Sierra announced the promotion using traditional media outlets and social media sites Twitter and Facebook. More
Housekeeper injuries "One of the top issues for 2010"
from Hotelier Magazine
Of all hotel workers, housekeepers suffer the highest rate of injury, according to a study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. More
New L.A. luxury hotels face tough debuts
from The Los Angeles Times
The newest downtown hotel complex buzzed with activity this week as carpenters, electricians and gardeners hustled to put the finishing touches on the $970-million skyscraper that rises over the Los Angeles Convention Center and the L.A. Live entertainment center. But when the glass-sheathed tower that houses the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels opens next month, it will face one of the worst slumps in years for the hospitality business. More
Event planners try to dodge slide of dollar
from The New York Times
Although it has ticked up a bit recently, the United States dollar did not have a particularly good 2009. Nor was its value against competing currencies like the euro and Japanese yen easy to predict. Coming on top of global economic weakness, the dollar’s travails just compounded the financial hardships faced by the professionals who plan and attend overseas meetings. More
Alternative meeting space a world away from convention center
from The San Diego Business Journal
To bring in convention and tourist business to North County hotels, Cami Mattson strives to show how the properties in exclusive areas such as Fallbrook, La Jolla, Oceanside and Rancho Bernardo offer something a little bit different than those in the rest of San Diego. More
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Tourism officials fear soaring baggage fees may test traveler mettle
from The Palm Beach Post
If you went to DeltaAirlines.com to book a roundtrip flight from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to Palm Beach International a month from now, you could find a total fare, including taxes and fees, of $234. Of course, that rate would only apply if you decide to cram everything into carry-on luggage. If you check a bag, the journey will cost you 19 percent more, or $280. And if, heaven forbid, you check two bags, the trip will run $344, a whopping 47 percent increase over the ticket cost.
More
Air traffic continues to pick up
from The Wall Street Journal
International air traffic and cargo volumes continued to improve, although concerns about the economy and unemployment mean that European and North American carriers are still seeing declining passenger numbers, industry data shows. Passenger numbers rose 5.1 percent for Asia-Pacific carriers, 8.2 percent in Latin America and 16.5 percent in the Middle East last month, but European and North American carriers recorded a 3 percent decline in demand, the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, said. More
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