Happy Cruisers Each year, over 30 million people spend their time and money on over 272 CLIA-member cruise ships. Before Covid 19, the industry supported 1,108,676 jobs representing $45 billion in wages and salaries, generating $134 billion worldwide (2017) and CLIA forecasted a rosy future for the industry finding social media and restorative travel increasing, […]
Poorism: Is it tourism?
On a very recent and very cold winter night in Manhattan, I layered up and went to a church on 22nd street to attend a Homeless Forum sponsored by two New York City Council members, Dan Garodnick and Rosie Mendez, to learn more about these escalating crises in New York City. The homeless crises is […]
Sea Sick: Is Cruising Still a Happy Business?
The cruise industry before COVID-19 generated $134 billion in travel and tourism revenue prompting the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) to paint a rosy future. This was before COVID-19. Before COVID-19, almost 351 million posts with the tag #travel on Instagram were generated by happy voyagers. Passengers supported the wellness programs including oxygen bars, healthy […]
Will meetings return? Can hotels really open safely?… Or should we stay home?
Tourism Encounters a New Paradigm Up to, and including the beginning of 2020, many professionals in the hotel, travel, and tourism industry would have agreed that “bigger is better.” Demand created a need to build larger cruise ships, more and differentiated hotels, additional stadiums and convention centers, faster and bigger aircraft. There appeared to be […]
Getting Beyond COVID-19: Press Releases are Not the Answer
Barriers to a reboot of the hotel, travel and tourism industry grow daily. Why? Perhaps the industry cannot gain traction because industry leaders refuse to acknowledge the core issues that concern consumers. They struggle with how to move beyond COVID-19. Pricing is not an incentive: The airlines offer rock-bottom prices and yet there is no […]
Tourism Will Reboot When Industry Faces COVID-19 Reality
Invisible But Deadly: COVID-19 When you can see it, there is no challenge to keeping surfaces clean and sanitized. Find dark particles on the desk top from construction, dust bunnies hiding in corners that escaped the vacuum, cobwebs on windows that have not been opened in weeks, wine stains on the rug from the party […]
If Living is a Priority, Should You Cruise?
Although it is hard for me to believe, each and every year approximately 30 million people spend time and a great deal of money ($150 billion yearly) on cruise ships, although it creates the perfect environment for the spread of infectious diseases. Empowerment Cruise ships bring large numbers of people together in crowded, relatively small […]
The Air We Breathe Can be Deadly
As I work my way through press releases sponsored by domestic and international hotels informing me that they have transformed their properties into safe havens, with spaces so clean (and forgive me for a slight exaggeration) we can relax and not worry about plagues and pandemics, “Trust us!” Kudos to the hotels for finally “deep […]
WHO Has the Right Person for the Job
WHO Impacts My Life I developed a tiny cough over the weekend (although I have not wandered beyond the confines of my apartment elevator and laundry room). To be perfectly honest, there are occasions when I have had my windows open, and rather than have a butterfly land on my windowsill, or have a leaf […]
No more International Flights on South African Airways
Travel to South Africa may be impossible at this time. The COVID-19 pandemic and attendant travel restrictions resulted in a substantial decline in demand for air travel. The situation caused many airlines across the world to ground aircraft, release their employees, and to cancel flights. In the case of SAA, this decision means that SAA […]