Hotelier.com

Cruise itineraries canceled due to piracy fears

The first of possibly more cruises in the Indian Ocean and along the Eastern African countries has now been canceled and the vessel is due to be moved to the Caribbean instead of the Indian Ocean in 2010.

Cruise line company Yachts of the Seabourn decided to move its Seabourn Legend, which was scheduled to sail during the 2010 and 2011 seasons between the Seychelles, Kenya, Zanzibar and Madagascar, among others, after the latest spate of attacks on vessels along the Horn of Africa.

The decision may have been influenced by the growing radius of pirate attacks further out into the open sea, the latest being the reported hijacking of a Chinese ship. The company has a special appeal to cruise aficionados as the company uses smaller vessels offering a true luxury hospitality environment and fear for their very posh and wealthy clientele being taken hostage by Somali ocean terrorists may have been a major factor to avoid the Indian Ocean in the immediate future.

Passengers already booked now have the option to select other itineraries operated elsewhere in the world or else get a refund for deposits made.

No response was yet received from tour and safari operators lined up to handle the ship during port calls and take the passengers on safaris or island tours, but the loss of revenue is thought to be considerable.

This loss will undoubtedly add to the sentiments against the Somali pirates and bring about even stronger calls for a more robust and determined engagement against their safe havens, their mother boats and skiffs out on the ocean, including hot pursuit into waters claimed by Somalia as their own. 

The Seychelles, in particular, depend on tourism as one of the main sources of their national income and has openly embraced overtures of the naval coalition partners for more support to patrol and police their extensive national waters, which extend 200 nautical miles around the archipelago.

Subsequently, the capacity of the Seychelles Coast Guard and related units has been substantially boosted in recent months in regard of both surface as well as aerial capabilities in a bid to create a credible deterrent.

Panic broke out on an Air Lingus flight to Paris

Passengers on the Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Paris began shouting out and crying as they thought their plane was about to ditch.

The drama followed an initial announcement made in English, telling passengers to return to their seats because of turbulence.
Aer Lingus said the mistake was down to a mechanical failure.

But then the crew accidentally played out a recorded emergency landing warning in French as the plane headed south over the Irish Sea.

Around 70 French passengers were reported to be "freaked out" on hearing the warning.
One English-speaking passenger said: "The French man sleeping next to me woke up and looked very startled.

I got quite alarmed. The woman behind me was crying. All the French totally freaked out.
An English-speaking passenger aboard the flight "He then translated what had been said, that the plane was about to make an emergency landing and to await instructions from the pilot.

"I got quite alarmed. The woman behind me was crying. All the French totally freaked out."
The plane was just 20 minutes into its flight to Paris when the bungled announcement was broadcast.

The Irish airline's cabin crew quickly realised their mistake and swiftly apologised in French.

An airline spokesman said: "There was a malfunction of the public address system and we apologise to our passengers.

"This sort of thing happens very rarely."

Source: Skynews

Tourism drop to shrink Cyprus’s economy 0.5% this year

Cyprus’s economy will shrink this year after at least five years of growth as the global slowdown dents the Mediterranean island’s tourism, construction and real estate industries.

The economy of the divided island, the second-smallest of the countries using the euro, will shrink 0.5 percent this year, and grow by the same amount next year, according to the 2010 budget draft, posted on the Cypriot Press Ministry’s Web site. The economy expanded 3.6 percent last year and around 4 percent annually since 2004.

“Cyprus is inevitably being affected by the global economic crisis, in tourism, foreign services and the market for summer homes,” Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis said, according to a separate statement on the Web site. In May, the minister said growth in the country would be around 1 percent, lower than a previous forecast of 2 percent.

Tourist arrivals to Cyprus are down about 11 percent in the first eight months of the year, according to the Nicosia-based Cyprus Statistics Service. Arrivals from Britain, about half of all foreign visitors to the island, dropped 11.5 percent in August, the height of the summer season.

Cyprus will have a budget deficit of 2.9 percent of gross domestic product as it loses income from real estate, corporate and value-added taxes. The ratio is forecast at the same level next year, keeping to a 3 percent ceiling imposed by the European Union for countries that use the euro. The country posted a surplus of 0.9 percent last year.

Revenue from value-added tax fell 11 percent to the end of August, as a slump in overseas visitors and rising unemployment cut spending, the Cypriot customs and excise department said yesterday. Unemployment is forecast to rise to 5.5 percent this year and 6.5 percent next year. Average annual inflation, seen at 1 percent in 2009, will increase to 2.5 percent next year.

Source: bloomberg.com

Is it OK to steal hotel amenities?

I stole a laundry bag from the Alvear Palace Hotel in Buenos Aires. It was made of thick ivory linen, embroidered with the words "dry cleaning" in cerulean blue, and looked like something that I could have found at an antique textiles show. But that wasn't the case.

I'm usually pretty scrupulous about purloined souvenirs. Of course, I help myself to soap and shampoo, sewing kits, even those black sponges meant to spruce up your shoes -- oh, and ballpoint pens and darling little notepads. But the laundry bag was my first sojourn into the land of, what shall we call it ... outright theft?

How widespread is this brand of petty larceny? A brief survey of my acquaintances -- a glass of wine, or three, helped them remember -- reveals that B. (names are omitted for patently obvious reasons) spends an inordinate amount of time at her favorite inn in St. Bart's hoarding the Hermès soap (using the same one for the sink and tub and then pilfering the other), and K. became so addicted to the slippers at the Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg that she now begs peripatetic friends to bring back their extra pairs. Both of these tales were recounted in voices dripping with shame -- which, it turns out, was entirely uncalled for.

The truth is that even the most parsimonious innkeepers want you to take their grooming products and paper goods home, the thinking being that every time you use an item that bears the hotel's name you'll remember what a wonderful time you had there and plan another visit (and not just to take more stuff).

At the supercool Chic & Basic budget hotels in Amsterdam and Barcelona, the owners even anticipate guests' illicit impulses: their toiletries read, "This is the cutest soap that you will steal from a hotel. Enjoy it." and "Amazing quality shower gel rarely found as hotel amenity." Travel + Leisure slideshow: Amenities to snatch or splurge on

François Delahaye, general manager of Paris's Hôtel Plaza Athénée, confirms that the shampoo, shower gel, slippers, of course, and even ashtrays (remember those?) are good to go. Delahaye says anything with the hotel's moniker is extra-desirable.

"If you want it stolen, put your logo on it," he tells me. Usually, he says, hotels shrug off minor light-fingeredness; it's just part of the cost of doing business. But sometimes it gets on even his steady nerves. Lately, he says, there has been such an epidemic of filched silver tea strainers that "it's become a nuisance."

At least Delahaye hasn't lost his sense of humor. He chuckles as he recounts the tale of the absconded umbrellas. Like all good hotels, the Plaza Athénée provides parasols for rainy days. At one time, they were not for sale, but that didn't prevent them from regularly showing up on eBay. (The hotel, noting this flourishing secondary market, now sells these brollies for $46.)

Okay, François, what about my laundry bag? Was my misdeed really so awfully naughty? Silence, then a most surprising confession: Turns out that way back in the day, Delahaye once helped himself to a laundry bag at a Rosewood hotel. This mischief, though hardly sanctioned by the property, had the desired effect. "Whenever I use it," Delahaye says, "I'm thinking about that Rosewood."

Lifting laundry bags is nefarious enough, but it's hardly world-class in the hotel-theft department. For that we must turn to the notorious saga of the bad, bad girl who told me in hushed tones that, while she was staying in a room with two beds at the Setai in Miami, she proceeded to carefully remove the Christian Fischbacher satin sheets from the unused bed, then meticulously remake it so as not to alert housekeeping. Or there's the story of the Kiton-suited banker who never met a wooden shoe tree he didn't like enough to take back with him to Park Avenue.

Now you'd probably think that even the most unscrupulous guest couldn't walk off with a nailed-in showerhead. Guess again. Andrew Stembridge, managing director of Chewton Glen, a manor hotel nestled in England's Hampshire countryside, says he's had visitors unscrew all types of furnishings, including the big bottles of Molton Brown lotion affixed to the spa's walls.

Stembridge cheerfully volunteers harrowing tales of people pocketing silver sugar tongs and helping themselves to the iPod docks available at reception. "Sometimes the culprits are the fanciest people; it's not the guests on the special Sunday night rate. We just factor it in," he shrugs philosophically.

On the other hand, Stembridge is not afraid to fight back. Once, when an antique cup and saucer went missing from a room, he confided that he actually riffled through the guests' luggage, which had been stored as they took a final spin around town. "They had a lovely leather bag falling to bits," he remembers. As he suspected, the dishes were indeed packed in the crumbling old bag, but any triumph Stembridge felt at their retrieval quickly vanished when he realized "I couldn't zip the case!" He finally managed to close it, just minutes before Bonnie and Clyde returned.

That crockery wasn't for sale, but the good news is that plenty of coveted items offered by hotels can be yours, legitimately, for the swipe of a credit card. Have sweet dreams of the bed at the Four Seasons? Everyone knows you can order it. Develop an unwholesome relationship with the Perspex mini-mannequin lighting at the Soho Hotel in London? The property can arrange a set for you.

And what about that classic stuff-it-in-your-suitcase item, the terry robe? Plaza Athénée's Delahaye says that this is actually a much smaller problem than it was a decade ago, since there is frequently no room in today's carry-ons for these puffy behemoths. Do hotels really charge for swiped robes, making good on the threat implicit on those little signs in the bathroom? Since I have learned the hard way that a diet Coke gulped on the sly the final day of your stay will almost surely show up on your bill, I have always wondered about the robe scenario.

"We put a charge for the robe on a card if we can be absolutely sure someone took it, and didn't just pack it by mistake," says Leslie Lefkowitz, the Four Seasons Hotel New York's director of public relations. On the other hand, some hotels have bent the stick far in the other direction. At the Raffles L'Ermitage Beverly Hills, they not only gift a bathrobe to VIP guests, they monogram it, too. (But do these swells take their personalized dressing gowns homes? Nope -- they often let the hotel keep them for use on subsequent visits.)

As it turns out, sometimes resisting temptation can be just as haunting as giving in to one's base instincts. My friend P., who has been traveling longer than many of us have been alive, recalls wistfully, "As you know, hotels of a certain caliber turn down the bed at night and put little linen towels down so your feet should never, heaven forbid, touch the carpeting. Not only did they do that at the Ritz in Paris, but they put down a second one for my dog. It had a bone embroidered on it with the words 'I Am Ritzy.' I didn't take it and, to this day, I regret it."

Maybe he should have just folded "Ritzy" into his Goyard duffel. Then he and Fido could have dreamed of the Ritz as they rested their tootsies back home, just as the sight of my ill-gotten Argentinean laundry bag has me fantasizing about dancing the tango at 2 a.m. in the grand ballroom of the Alvear Palace.

By Lynn Yaeger

Swine flu is windfall for some top tourism spots

The cruise Zenaiva Cervantes booked was to stop in sun-drenched beach cities on the Mexican Riviera. The cruise she took? That landed her in Seattle, where she pulled her arms tightly to her chest as she debarked on a damp, 50-degree morning.

“We wanted to relax in the warmth,” the 61-year-old Tijuana, Mexico, resident said in Spanish Thursday. “If someone had told me I’d be in Seattle eight days ago, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

At the peak of the swine flu outbreak, major cruise operators Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. — desperate to avoid passenger illness and lost revenue — decided to reroute Mexico voyages until mid-June.

So even though fear has receded, once-sun-seeking passengers like Cervantes are finding themselves in San Francisco, Seattle and Victoria, B.C., in Canada. Cruise companies are compensating passengers for the switch with onboard credit plus vouchers for a future cruise. Passengers also had the choice to stay home and get a full refund, but most passengers are choosing to travel when they planned, the cruise lines said.

What they’re losing in sunshine and tan lines, their new destinations are gaining in millions of dollars of business. In San Francisco, the 16 additional swine flu-related landings will boost the year’s port traffic 31 percent and bring 49,000 new visitors, said Michael Nerney, San Francisco’s maritime marketing manager. Each call could mean $1 million in sales for city businesses and together they’ll produce $500,000 in revenue for the port.

“This is highly unusual — shocking, really — as the cruise lines set their sailing schedules 12 to 18 months in advance, and even minor changes are rare,” Nerney said.

The great number of alternative ports in the Caribbean makes it far easier to swap stops there. Instead of Cozumel in Mexico, companies are opting for Ocho Rios or Montego Bay in Jamaica, Nassau or Freeport in the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands’ St. Thomas, St. Maarten or Key West, Fla., or points across the Caymans and Turks and Caicos.

The Bahamas is happily awaiting diverted ships. Customs receives $15 for each passenger, and island clothing and jewelry shops, bars and cafes depend on tourist dollars, said tourism minister Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace said.

Analysts think the benefits may be fleeting for these ports because the outbreak hasn’t been severe.

“I think it’s a short-term bump that may already be dissipating,” said Michael McCall, a hospitality research fellow and lecturer at Cornell University.

Jan Freitag, vice president of global development at Smith Travel Research, noted that, in addition to swine flu, Mexico travel has been affected by fear of heightened drug violence in border states. He sees business travel to Mexico remaining steady and swine flu having minimal impact on leisure traffic unless the virus worsens.

Hotel operators are seeing travelers postpone plans. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts said virtually all guests booked at two of their Mexico resorts in late April and early May will come a few months later instead. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Inc. expected the flu to cost it $4 million to $5 million in revenue but said it could recover much of it from guests rebooked at its U.S. or Caribbean resorts.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says only 10 percent of infected Americans picked up the virus in Mexico, not one-third as previously estimated. But it maintains its warning against nonessential travel to Mexico.

Michael Crye, vice president of technology and regulatory affairs for the Cruise Lines International Association, called that restriction damaging and unnecessary, because areas hit hardest by the flu’s spread are inland and the flu season is almost over.

Crye pointed to lessons learned from several rounds of bad publicity after gastrointestinal illnesses like the “Norwalk” virus broke out and said new passenger screenings ensure ships don’t help spread the H1N1 virus, which causes swine flu.

“We believe ... we’ve got a good story to tell, and that you’re probably at less risk going ahead with your destination than you would be in virtually any other public place,” Crye said.

Eric Brey, head of the Center for Resort and Hospitality Business at the University of Memphis, predicted tourists would have no problem returning quickly to Mexico.

“Outside of this summer, I don’t see it being that big a deal,” Brey said.

In Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas, a place hit hard as tourism has fallen amid the recession, it is usually quiet this time of year. But taxies zipped abundantly by the docks last week.

“(The swine flu) is a good problem for us,” said Edward Thomas, CEO of the West Indian Company Dock.

Despite the lack of sunshine, Cervantes, her husband and the thousands of other passengers who ended up in the Pacific Northwest with them enjoyed Seattle’s blocks of boutiques and Pike Place Market, where vendors famously sling fish.

“We thought we’d be in our bikinis and bathing suits,” said Philipe Tabet, a 53-year-old restaurateur from Albuquerque, N.M., traveling with his wife. “We just had to pack a little bit different, that’s all. Unpack, and pack again.”

By:: Manuel Valdes, Judi Shimel, Juan McCartney