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What You Ought to Know About Destination Leisure Travel...
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Mar. 14th 2016
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How Clearwater Beach helped break state tourism records
 Florida's new record-setting tourism numbers appear to have gotten a boost from Tampa Bay area beaches, which this week took some of top spots on TripAdvisor's 2016 Traveler's Choice Awards. Visit Florida and Gov. Rick Scott announced that the state set a new tourism record for 2015 with 105 million visitors. The announcement came on the heels of Clearwater Beach being named No. 1 in TripAdvisor's annual list of the 25 best beaches in the United States. It's the fifth consecutive record year for tourism in Florida, exceeding the previous high of 98.5 million in 2014 by 6.6 percent.
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Bike Week fills up Daytona, spills over to Orlando and beyond
 The roar of engines echoed through Main Street at Daytona Beach's 75th Bike Week on Friday.Leather-clad revelers whooped and hollered while onlookers admired the custom bikes, belly-busters and bandannas.
When Bike Week first started in 1937, it was confined to Daytona Beach. These days Bike Week events can be found spreading out across the state. "It has truly grown right along the I-4 corridor," said Sal Crivello, director of operations at Seminole Harley-Davidson. "It has become somewhat of a family event. People are staying longer ... so they'll experience the fun of Daytona but at some point they say 'Hey, we're here in Florida, we're on our motorcycles. Let's ride.'"
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Panama City Beach tourism industry locals say spring break is a bust
 If you're a local of Panama City Beach, it's not hard to see that so far, the spring break crowds are a lot smaller than in the past. Some people are happy because they believe Panama City Beach's image needed to change, but others in the tourism industry say the loss of revenue is taking a toll on their business. Spring break is in full swing in Panama City Beach, and while some college students did make their way to our beaches. This year pales in comparison to last year. "It's drastic," Colleen Schwab, owner of California Cycles, said. "Last year we had kids that were lined all the way around the block, and that's not it this year."
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 South Carolina's tourism industry boasted broad-based gains in key categories over the past two years, according to new figures from the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. "It's striking that economic indicators for tourism... are up across the board, showing significant levels of growth over previous years," Duane Parrish, the agency's director, said Wednesday. "The recent performance of our industry is unprecedented in South Carolina's history and points to an exciting future." Last year, tourism-related investments totaled $1.1 billion, and hotel occupancy rose about 2 percent from 2014 to an average of about 62 percent, the agency said during its annual conference in Charleston.
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 There's an ongoing debate about how home-sharing sites like Airbnb are performing, and a new study from LearnAirbnb, a consultancy, casts some fresh light. LearnAirbnb did a 119-page study of the home sharing industry, with market data on 430,000 US listings - which is about a fifth of the 2 million listings that Airbnb says it has in the US. Some of the hard data was culled by Everbooked, a pricing and market intelligence firm for property owners. The study also includes an attitudinal survey of more than 1,300 hosts across 83 countries, done in December 2015.
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 Vacation rental managers get unexpected wins as TripAdvisor and HomeAway add traveler fees to keep step with Airbnb. "We are going to be free to travelers," said Brian Sharples, co-founder and CEO of HomeAway, to shareholders in November of 2014.
"TripAdvisor and Airbnb have chosen to charge big fees to travelers," Sharples continued. "Well, we're going to have a pretty sizeable marketing budget in the next few years. And we're going to be letting everybody know, when you come to our platform, you don't pay a fee, and we think that's a big deal because if you look historically at the travel industry, those competitors who adopted no traveler fees first are the ones that ended up being the big winners in that business."
But that was 2014.
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 The Priceline Group is working to expand its offerings in vacation rentals and other non-hotel properties, CEO Darren Huston said Wednesday during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. This year, Priceline's Booking.com added 200,000 properties to bring up its total offering to 850,000, Huston said. Companywide, Priceline Group said it offers 6.9 million rooms in vacation rentals and non-hotel properties. "We strongly believe that this fee-free, experience-centric model which makes booking homes and apartments as easy and trustworthy as booking a hotel will be the winning model long term," Huston said. An analyst asked about Priceline's philosophy on vacation rentals, and its choice to charge the property owner for a listing but no service fee to the renter.
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 Goodnews for travelers coming from the latest Hotels.com� Hotel Price Index™ (HPI�) with average prices paid per night for hotel accommodation up only 1% globally in 2015 as compared to 2014. The global Index sat at 114 for 2015 and is closing the gap on the previous peak seen in 2007, the year before the global economic crisis. North America drove the global increase as the only region to see hotel prices rise (up 3%) throughout 2015 with the Index hitting 119, exceeding its pre-recession high of 117 in 2007. American travelers focused on domestic destinations in 2015 despite an increase in prices paid* for hotel stays.
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 According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), global tourism generated $7.6 trillion for the global GDP in 2014, making it one the world's fastest growing and largest sectors. At the heart of this industry's growth is the embrace and enhancement of digital technology. With a heightened consumer expectation for value, service, and personalization, the travel industry needs to understand how to reap profit on the intangible: happiness and fulfillment. Today, there are more opportunities than ever for travelers to connect with brands to plan their journeys, making it easier for companies to engage with customers and win their loyalty - or completely miss the mark.
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Say Goodbye to Cheap Plane Tickets
 Cheap oil has been a boon to many air travelers who have been paying less for tickets of late. But according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, this trend of cheaper fares has the industry worried. "Investors are increasingly concerned low fuel prices are driving some carriers to drop the capacity discipline and pricing power that helped the industry generate a record profit of almost $19 billion last year," the Journal reports. Fares have fallen particularly in markets like Dallas and Chicago, where low-cost competition to the major carriers has built out capacity.
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 The first round of competition for commercial routes between the United States and Cuba opened Wednesday with American Airlines making it clear it wants its Miami hub to play a major role in the future of civil aviation between the two countries. In an application American filed with the Department of Transportation, it requested a total of 18 daily flights from Miami International Airport to various Cuba cities: 10 daily flights to Havana, two daily flights to Santa Clara, Holgu�n and Varadero airports and flights once a day to Camag�ey and Cienfuegos. American also is proposing to serve Havana with daily flights from Charlotte and Dallas/Fort Worth and with weekly flights from Chicago and Los Angeles.
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Why Cheap Gas Might Not Be Good For The U.S. Economy
 Happy times are here again at the gas pump. The price of oil keeps falling, and Americans are filling their tanks for less than $2 a gallon. The government says cheaper gasoline put an extra $100 billion into drivers' wallets last year alone. That seems like it would be good for the economy. Turns out, it might not be. "Is it possible that lower oil prices could actually hurt the U.S. economy?" asks Vipin Arora, an economist with the U.S. Energy Information Administration. "I think the answer could be yes." Arora's findings are based on his own research, so this isn't the government's official word on the matter.
Source: npr.com. Read More...
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Bearish Canadian currency fuels bullish travel environment
 If flying over Niagara Falls in a helicopter or coming face to face with a polar bear are experiences on a traveler's bucket list - but not necessarily in their budget - now may be the perfect time to visit Canada. The Canadian dollar - also known as the Loonie - dropped 16 percent against the dollar last year and is now hovering near 71 cents to the U.S. dollar. In January alone, the greenback added more than a percent against the Loonie. That means that U.S. travelers heading north of the border for the extended Valentine's Day/Presidents' Day weekend, or perhaps for the NBA All Star Game (Feb. 12-14) in Toronto will find everything from dining, shopping and lodging to local attractions being offered at a discount of as much as 30 percent.
Source: cnbc.com. Read More...
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