World Tourism Blog

The number of skier visits in the state will increase by an estimated 3 percent in the 2009-10 season to about 4.1 million, the president of industry group Ski Utah said Tuesday.

That would provide a boost to a struggling state economy increasingly dependent on tourism, and mark a turnaround from last year when the economic downturn hit.

Nathan Rafferty, Ski Utah president, said recent signs of economic growth in the national economy should lead to more destination travelers vacationing in the state than last year, when skier visits declined by 6.5 percent from the record-setting previous year.

“Last season was a little different for everybody,” Rafferty said. “The economic issues that we faced last year — the timing couldn’t have been worse.”

The economic crisis started when most people normally book vacations and got worse as the season went on, he said.

Rafferty’s comments come as most of Utah’s 13 ski areas prepare to open within the next two weeks.

The lift lines started forming at Solitude Mountain Resort last week, the first to open. Solitude, like many other resorts, developed new season pass and lodging deals this year in an effort to increase visitation.

“If you’re a skier or snowboarder, you’re seeing the best deals that you’ve seen in a decade,” Rafferty said.

Last year was the first since the 2001-02 season that the state’s ski industry didn’t experience any growth, mirroring a national trend that saw skier visits nationwide decline 5.5 percent from the record 60.5 million visits the season before.

Resorts near major metropolitan areas, particularly those on the East Coast, fared better than many destination resorts in the West last season because of an uptick in lift ticket and season pass sales bought by those who live within driving distance of ski areas.

“We hope that we’re going to see some pent up demand for skiing for the West,” Rafferty said. “There were a lot of people that stayed home, traditional skiers that maybe would have traveled out to Utah or Colorado that just said ‘You know, we’re going to stay in the car. We’re going to ski somewhere in Vermont or Maine.’”

Early indications are that more people are willing to travel.

Rafferty said the Denver-based research group Mountain Travel Research Project has reported that lodging reservations in Colorado, Utah, California and British Columbia for January are up 17 percent from last year and 7 percent for February.

Ski Utah’s Web site has also seen traffic increase 9 percent compared with the same period last year. Hard money training

Looking to turn over a new leaf on your annual fall-foliage excursion? Trade in subdued “oohs” and “ahs” from the passenger seat for “wows!” and “holy cows!” by signing-up for a fun leaf-peeping adventure.

Each of our 10 fall-foliage adventures is bound to give you a one-of-a-kind perspective on the bold wave of crimson, fiery orange, and golden hues that sweep the country at this time of year.

So read on to discover 10 exhilarating alternatives to jumping in a fresh pile of crispy leaves!

Post Labor Day, the deciduous trees of California’s Yosemite National Park are not alone in experiencing a lovely transformation — temperatures become pleasantly cool (with subtle hints of Indian summer), the mosquitoes vanish, and the hordes of summer visitors disappear, leaving the park more reminiscent of a sanctuary than a frenzied tourist attraction.

One of the best ways to experience the splendor of an autumn visit is by renting a bike from a park kiosk and pedaling over 12 miles of paved paths along the flat floor of the breathtaking Yosemite Valley.

Burlington-based Vermont Discovery Cruises’ Moonlight Lady plies the waters of Lake Champlain well into October, when a fiery display of fall foliage blankets the surrounding Adirondack and Green Mountains with a Technicolor coat of scarlets, burgundies, oranges, and golds.

The 1- to 6-night sailing options — which debuted in 2008 as the first motorized overnight cruises on the lake in over 50 years — offer up outdoor decks for prime viewing, exceptionally fresh ‘farm to fork’ cuisine, and an intimate eight-cabin configuration.

Strap on your boots and saddle up — autumn is the perfect time of year to explore Wyoming’s stunning wilderness. Local wranglers, like those at Dry Ridge Outfitters, offer a variety of guided horseback riding trips that last anywhere from an hour to several days out on the trails.

Prime leaf-peeping season is mid-September to mid-October, when Grand Teton National Park is flush with red-gold aspens and golden cottonwoods, set against a brilliant blue sky. Back at ground level, keep your eyes open for moose, elk, and the occasional bear, too.

For a bird’s-eye view of autumn’s changing hues, the sky’s the limit on the foliage you’ll see from aboard a hot-air balloon out of Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville Hot-Air Balloons will have you soaring to a leaf-peeper’s cloud nine some 500 to 2,000 feet above Pisgah National Forest and the Great Smoky Mountains — the latter of which boasts the superlative foliage of the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of America’s premier scenic drives for foliage fanatics. One-hour flights depart daily at sunrise.

Take a leisurely autumnal paddle on the scenic Saco River with a fall-foliage kayak or canoe trip from Saco Bound.

This pristine New Hampshire waterway courses through some of New England’s more scenic autumnal forests and farmlands (including some in Maine), and boats are available for hire through mid-October — the height of the spectacular foliage display.

While running off in search of foliage and llamas in the adobe-speckled artists’ colony of Taos, New Mexico, might sound like a quest for fool’s gold, rest assured that the golden hues you’ll discover in the nearby aspen forests are indeed the real deal come autumn — as are the llamas-for-hire that can accompany you into the woods, courtesy of Wild Earth Llama Adventures.

While indigenous to South America, the ‘llovable’ gear-carrying llamas fare extremely well in Taos’s climate and make great companions, along with a naturalist guide, for navigating the foliage-speckled terrain.

The thrills of riding Mt. Washington’s Cog Railway haven’t lost any steam since the locomotive first began ascending New England’s highest peak in 1869.

As much a New Hampshire rite of passage as leaf-peeping, the 3-hour journey is the best way to appreciate the region’s fiery fall plumage. Admire nature’s handiwork up close (maple reds, beech bronzes, birch lemon-yellows) as you chug up the 3.1-mile trestle, then experience the full tour de force of the autumnal palette from the 6,288-foot summit, where the views encompass four states, Quebec, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Autumn in New York’s Hudson River Valley is a sight to behold — and there are few better vantage points from which to take it all in then dangling from a rock face on the Shawangunks — affectionately dubbed “The Gunks” — range, some 90 miles north of Manhattan.

A magnet for adrenaline junkies, this revered rock-climbing mecca is scalable by first-timers and expert climbers alike with the professional guidance of outfits like New Paltz-based Alpine Endeavors. Stay the weekend at the historic Mohonk Mountain House and you can also visit one of several nearby harvest festivals kicking off in October.

As the foliage of over 15-million acres turns brilliant shades of reds, golds, and browns, the entire state of Virginia celebrates a month-long wine festival that would make Bacchus proud.

October 2009 marks the 21st anniversary of Virginia Wine Month, with some 30 wineries falling within the scenic Shenandoah Valley area. The list of possible activities is endless, but highlights include attending a blues festival, overnighting at a winery, enrolling in food-and-wine camp, or popping open some bubbly from a hot-air balloon.

For a most colorful encounter with nature this fall, zip on over to Cypress Valley Canopy Tours, based just 30 miles outside of Austin. Sail through picturesque Texas Hill Country by zip line, right through the burnt-orange and yellowish hues of cypress trees that can reach as high as 100 feet tall here.

October also marks the onset of exciting regional events like the Texas Wine Month Trail and the Gruene Music and Wine Festival, making it a great time to experience another side of Texas. Hard money training

While much has been made of CityCenter’s difficult birth, far less attention has been paid to the design behind it. It’s a design that speaks in equal parts to the challenges of the Las Vegas Strip, the unsustainable sprawl of the Las Vegas Valley (now home to 2 million people) and a fundamental shift in American demographics.

“After 30 years of suburban flight, people are moving back into the urban core,” says Billy Vassiliadis, CEO of R&R Partners (the ad agency behind the “What Happens Here, Stays Here” campaign). “You see it in Boston and Chicago, and we’re going to see more of it in Las Vegas. People are increasingly interested in living in a place where everything they want — shopping, restaurants, entertainment — is nearby.”

And residents aren’t the only ones who will benefit from the shift to a higher-density, more pedestrian-friendly Las Vegas.

“We’ve grown so big recently that moving around has become a burden,” says Vassiliadis, who believes CityCenter represents the beginning of a trend toward more destinations within a destination: “Las Vegas is going to evolve into something like Paris [the one in France, not the one up the street] where you spend one day in one arrondissement and go to another the next day.”

“CityCenter is Las Vegas entering the 21st century,” agrees Christopher Leinberger, a professor at the University of Michigan and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It’s fundamentally different than anything else that’s been built in Las Vegas before — modern, high-density, mixed-use — but it’s following the lead of metropolitan areas around the country.” Hard money training

These are hard times for clothing-optional travelers.

Last summer, thanks to two highly-publicized incidents, naked became synonymous with crazy. In one, a passenger stripped during a US Airways flight and resisted an attendant’s efforts to cover him; in the other, a Southwest Airlines flight was forced to turn around after a male passenger went au naturel.

The American nudist community has endured other recent controversies as well, including the withdrawal of a Florida clothing-optional resort called Paradise Lakes from the American Association of Nude Resorts (AANR) after running a controversial ad campaign that violated AANR’s “family-friendly principles.”

All of this has taken a toll: The number of people who say they’re interested in what’s being called a “nakation” slipped from 11 percent in 2008 to 10 percent this year, according to the Orlando-based market research firm Y Partnership. Erich Schuttauf, AANR’s executive director, acknowledged his concerns in a recent interview.

“It is fair to say that members are traveling less and visiting clubs closer to home,” he told me, adding, “There is a lot for which we are thankful.”

With all of this happening, why would you still want to consider baring everything on your next vacation?

First a warning: A clothing-optional vacation isn’t for everyone. For example, when I posted Schuttauf’s interview on my blog, I illustrated it with what I thought was an appropriate photo of four unclothed women running into the Baltic. The picture only showed their uncovered derrieres, but the outcry from some of my readers was loud. They demanded I remove the “not-safe-for-work” image, and because I love my readers, I did. (Even if they’re prudes.)

And by way of full disclosure, no, I haven’t taken a nakation. But I’m open to it.

Here are a few reasons you might consider vacationing in the buff. Hard money training

An airline industry trade group predicts that passenger traffic over the Thanksgiving holiday will drop 4 percent from last year.

The Air Transport Association made the forecast Monday despite deep discounting by airlines over the past several months.

“It is increasingly apparent that the economic head winds facing the airlines and their customers are anything but behind us,” said James C. May, the group’s president and CEO. He said the unemployment rate jumping above 10 percent last month has affected consumer buying decisions.

U.S. airlines have struggled this year with declining traffic during the recession. They cut fares for the peak summer vacation season and have eliminated many unprofitable flights to save money.

With fewer flights, planes are likely to be full over Thanksgiving, the trade group said. It called the capacity reductions the deepest since 1942.

The group said the four busiest travel days around Thanksgiving are expected to be Monday, Nov. 30; Sunday, Nov. 29; Friday, Nov. 20; and Wednesday, Nov. 25, the day before the holiday.

The group said passengers should pack light, check the status of their flight before going to the airport, and get to the airport early. Hard money training

Climbing the Statue of Liberty or catching the view from the Empire State Building are still top New York attractions but tourists are also scrambling to see where their favorite TV shows are filmed.

Whether it’s the exterior of Carrie Bradshaw’s Greenwich Village apartment in “Sex and the City” or the Bada Bing club made famous in “The Sopranos,” TV location tours are a booming business in the Big Apple.

More than 15,000 people from 40 countries have taken “The Sopranos” tour since it was launched in 2001, and at least a thousand people a week board buses to see the locations featured in “Sex and the City.”

Fans are also heading to the swanky Upper East Side of Manhattan to get a peek into the privileged lives of the teenagers in the popular TV series “Gossip Girl.”

“We keep our eyes on shows that feature New York City prominently. For ‘Sex and the City,’ people considered New York to be the fifth girl character,” said Meagan Hess, online marketing manager for On Location Tours, which conducts the tours.

“ ‘Gossip Girl’ takes place in New York City. It plays a prominent role, not only in the settings but in the shaping of the characters,” she added.

Eighty percent of the filming of “Gossip Girl,” which follows the lives of Serena, Blair, Chuck, Dan, Vanessa and Nate who are wealthy teens living in one of new New York’s richest areas, is done on the city’s streets.

“There is a lot of money that goes into the show,” said Rachel Moulton, a 25-year-old actress and guide said during a recent tour.

Launched in May, the three-hour “Gossip Girl” bus tour which runs twice a week on Friday and Sunday afternoons ferries tourists, from the U.S. and abroad, to the shops, restaurants, bars, museums and hotels featured in the show. Hard money training

The Caribbean isn’t exactly known to be cheap, but you can stretch your dollar pretty far on certain islands — even when traveling during the winter high season.

Popular hot spots like the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and others offer great value in terms of easy access and well-priced lodging and dining options. But some off-the-beaten-path islands, from Montserrat to Tobago, are also worth seeking out for the extraordinary bang for the buck that they provide.

All-inclusive holidays dominate the scene on most of these islands — great if you want a worry-free, value-packed vacation, but limiting if you want to experience the destination beyond the resort gates; don’t overlook smaller, locally owned villas and inns for terrific, cost-effective alternatives.

Other surefire money-savers include traveling during the off season (from May to November) and looking to budget carriers for cheap flights — these tips, coupled with our editors’ picks for great-value islands, are guaranteed to leave you with enough cash left over to dole out on those frothy, beachfront pina coladas once you touch down! Hard money training

In these tough economic times everyone deserves a break from reality, and Las Vegas is the cure for the common vacation. Make the most of your Vegas trip with these helpful tips.

Before you leave home, prepare for your trip by booking your room. Staying downtown or off-Strip can save you money, but with amazing deals and added “perks”, staying on the Strip is really your best bet. The Strip refers to the portion of Las Vegas Blvd., where all the major resorts are located. If you’re looking for a four star vacation, check out the Venetian, with its “authentic” Italian landscape, Caesars Palace, which has undergone a major renovation in the last few years, the Bellagio with it’s impressive lake, or the Wynn, Vegas’s newest resort. While not considered one of the finest resorts on the Strip, the MGM Grand, is one of the biggest and best, and the beds are considered the most comfortable in town. All five of these hotels are running amazing specials into the fall, offering such extras as free cash for the slots, and free food and discounts at night clubs, bars and restaurants.

With the hotel booked, it’s time to look at flights. Three days, two nights is more than enough time to spend in Vegas, and most major airlines have non-stop flights from just about anywhere in the United States, and Jet Blue, Southwest and Virgin America often run specials.

Now, with the hotel and flights set, it’s time to start planning the meat of your trip. Here are some suggestions on what to see, where to eat and what to do in Sin City. Hard money training

As I tumbled down the mountainside in a gigantic beach ball filled with water, feeling somewhat like I was in a washing machine, it occurred to me that there had to be a better way to experience New Zealand.

Actually, that didn’t occur to me until after the Zorb stopped rolling and my screams had subsided into laughter.

But I have since concluded that while Kiwis may be best known for adventure tourism — including skydiving, bungee jumping, gliding and Zorbing — perhaps the most enriching part of my trip was the cultural tourism that taught me about the Maori.

Don’t be fooled: “Meeting” a Maori tribe at a heritage center can be just as intimidating as thrill-jumping off Auckland’s Skytower. What’s the proper reaction when a tattooed, spear-carrying warrior bounds out of a house, shouts something in Maori at you, makes menacing faces and throws a leaf at your feet? Think fast, because that spear is pretty sharp.

Centuries before white settlers came and called the country New Zealand, the Maori arrived in canoes at Aotearoa (Ay-oh-teh-RO’-ah, meaning “Land of the Long White Cloud”), most likely from Polynesia.

Flipping through TV channels today, you might come across the Maori-language news station, but you can hear the native greeting “Kia ora!” (kee-ah-OR-ah) pretty much anywhere you go.

And rugby fans may know of the haka, the Maori dance practiced by the All Blacks, the national rugby team, to rattle their opponents before each game. The players chant in unison while rolling their eyes, slapping their arms and thighs, and thrusting their tongues — it’s quite a sight.

My fiance and I saw the haka performed on a stage at Te Puia, a Maori heritage center in Rotorua, after which tattooed warriors taught the dance to men in the audience. It was hardly frightening when the tourists tried to do it; then again, I wasn’t exactly the picture of grace when female visitors were taught happy, hip-swaying dances by Maori women in grass skirts. Hard money training

Airline passengers are getting dinged for everything from checking a bag to upgrading beyond the middle seat.

As carriers nickel-and-dime their customers, it’s hard to believe they would offer a cool new amenity at no cost. But that’s exactly what’s happening.

Several airlines with Wi-Fi-equipped airplanes are letting passengers try out the service for free.

Last Saturday, on her connecting flight from Salt Lake City to Washington, D.C., Pam Scott of Spokane, Wash., got her first chance to try in-flight Internet service. She surfed — for free — thanks to a promotion offered by Delta Air Lines and Aircell, the provider of the Gogo in-flight service. “Loving it,” Scott wrote in a message sent from the skies, “Nice to be in touch on such a long flight.”

Austin, Texas-based event planner Nichole Wright’s first taste of in-flight Wi-Fi was also free. She was on her way to New York City on business when a Delta flight attendant handed her a free pass. “I was thrilled,” says Wright, “and it worked very well; a huge time saver. I think I would pay for it in the future.”

Food blogger Alejandra Ramos would probably pay, too. Access to in-flight Wi-Fi was complimentary the day she flew with United Airlines from New York’s JFK airport to San Francisco. It was an extremely turbulent flight, so Ramos focused on e-mailing with her online friends. “I told them all about my nervousness and it was nice to have several dozen of them giving me their tips for staying calm while flying.” Hard money training