Announcing the Mall of Kabul Tour:

A new 9-story hotel and shopping center complex has opened in Kabul, Afghanistan. The 90-store mall is the first fully air-conditioned building in the nation and features Afghanistan’s first ever escalators. Security outside is tight. Half a division or so troops are protecting the shoppers, most of whom have never seen a mall before. As…

Cruise Reservations Cascade on Mondays:

An important, but little-known fact, is that nearly 80% of all cruise reservations are made on Monday. They are made in that tenuous period between the Today Show and Monday Night football. Mom and Dad have discussed things over the weekend, played on the internet, perhaps, if they are intellectuals, even scanned the Sunday papers….

Perhaps the Perfect Hospitality Industry Gig :

The Ritz-Carlton in South Beach, the currently oh so hot enclave in Miami, employs a tanning butler. This fellow’s brief is to walk the pool area in search of those who may need assistance applying sunscreen to those areas of the body that may be difficult to reach. He carries a small selection of oils…

How to SEO your Travel Website

Travel SEO Guide How can you increase bookings and make more sales from your travel website? How can you guarantee a steady growth of your travel business? The answer is through travel SEO. Travel SEO is not a theoretical concept, but it’s a term used to describe the set of steps you can follow to…

Explaining the French: Lesson #3,754

The first thing to know about the French is that the drinking age is 16 and is never, ever enforced. In fact, French mothers have been known to mix a bit of wine with baby’s formula to begin the path to maturity. It appears to work because the only drunks I’ve ever seen in Paris…

Does Anyone Still Want Dollars?

The anecdotal evidence is in – and Europe has officially been labeled a “rip-off”. Cruises, Swim Spas Plus and escorted tours to Europe are booming while independent travelers are returning from France and Italy with tales of $300+ lunches and plans to re-mortgage the house. The European-bound traveler needs to consider paying in dollars up…

Facts For A Change

I was strolling the back aisle of a small bookshop in the Notting Hill section of London the other day, thinking how very unlike Hugh Grant I am, when a new title by BBC producer Jessica Williams (Disinformation Company Ltd.) caught my eye. “50 Facts That Should Change the World” is a book that could well…

Retirement At Sea; “The Didn’t We Once Have Fun” Ships

Yesterday – a slow news day until two academics got us thinking ……….to whit, two profs in the Geriatric Medicine field at Chicago’s prestigious Northwestern University. Doctors Robert Golub and Lee Lindquist wrote an article in the Journal of The American Geriatrics Journal that suggests that a modern cruise ship is well equipped to fill…