World Tourism Blog

Just past Dracula’s castle, deep within Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, the Transfagarasan Highway is a 55-mile stretch of roadway so scenic and wickedly winding that it rendered Jeremy Clarkson  glib host of the BBC’s popular automotive show “Top Gear” practically speechless. That ‘s no small feat, since for more than 20 years, Clarkson has made it his business to bomb around the world’s most breathtaking roads.

Surveying the twisted tarmac zigzagging below its summit from the cockpit of his Aston Martin DBS, he chuckled with pure delight, exclaiming to the camera, “That’s the most amazing road I’ve ever seen!” If he’d had a tail, it surely would have been wagging.

This serpentine motorway is just one of many mind-bogglingly crazy roads around the globe. And these exciting — albeit potentially perilous — paths offer travelers a refreshing diversion in an era of monotonous interstates and traffic-controlling roundabouts.

From the seemingly insurmountable Alps to the craggy coastline of the Amalfi, the steep hills of New Zealand to the arctic expanses of northern Canada, dramatic geography has left us with some of the world’s more brilliantly engineered pieces of pavement.

Or not so brilliantly engineered. Take, for instance, Bolivia’s ill-conceived Yungas Road, a rickety route connecting the high-altitude capital of La Paz with the low-elevation rainforest town of Coroico. This dangerous pass poses such a harrowing journey (largely unpaved, single lane, no guardrails, 2,000-foot drops) that it claims an estimated 200 drivers  lives annually, rightfully earning it the nickname El Camino de la Muerte (“The Road of Death”).

Back in Romania, the  Transfagarasan ’s own bloody history began with its creation. Built in the 1970s under President Nicolae Ceauescu as a means to mobilize armed forces in the event of a Soviet invasion, this roadway —connecting the remote regions of Transylvania and Wallachia in an endless series of bends, tunnels, and viaducts  exists at the cost of six thousand tons of dynamite and 40 road workers’ lives. Dracula might have approved, but to this day locals bitterly refer to the highway as Ceauşescu’s Folly.

Given those figures, Bolivian bus tours and Transylvanian road trips might not top your to-do list. But the next time you’re zoning out in cruise control or find yourself verbally engaging the Garmin GPS’s female navigator just to stay awake, think of the demanding, dangerous, and downright crazy roads ahead. Then thank your lucky stars for the carpool lane. Commercial Loan Workout.

American Airlines upped the ante in the tug-of-war over Japan Airlines, vowing Thursday to lead a $1.1 billion investment in the struggling carrier to prevent it from falling into the orbit of rival Delta.

American’s chief financial officer, Tom Horton, told reporters that the offer is “far superior” to the $1 billion rival proposal from Delta Air Lines and its SkyTeam partners.

He refused to describe the composition of the offer, or say how much of the money would come from American. But he said the proposal by American, its oneworld partners and private equity firm TPG Inc. is part of a larger restructuring plan to get JAL back on solid footing.

Horton and his team asserted that if JAL enhances its links with American, over a 10-year period it would gain additional revenues of some $700 million.

Delta, meanwhile, is trying to lure JAL away from its partnership with American.

Aviation consultant Mark Kiefer of CRA International in Boston said the battle is far from over.

“It does sound like it has the potential to drag on further,” Kiefer said. “There’s a lot at stake here, especially given the importance of the Japanese market and the Asian market to all of these carriers.”

Demand for air travel has been under intense pressure from the global economic slowdown, but U.S. carriers that compete internationally know it will be important to have a strong presence overseas when things rebound. Airlines can reap a premium for long-haul seats, particularly business and first class.

Japan Airlines has been teetering for years, hammered by surging fuel prices, global competition and an image problem caused by a series of safety lapses. It lost $1.5 billion in the first half ended September and has obtained approval for government loans in recent weeks to avoid grounding flights. The airline remains attractive as a partner because of its extensive routes in Japan and other important markets in Asia.

JAL President Haruka Nishimatsu has said he will make a decision regarding the offers by the end of the year.

Delta President Ed Bastian said Thursday the billion dollar offer by his airline and its SkyTeam partners to get Japan Airlines to join their alliance is still on despite the dollar’s recent weakness. He expressed confidence the deal will get clearance from regulators.

“The offer was stated in dollars,” Bastian told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. “That’s not enough to change our offer,” he said in acknowledging the dollar’s fall. It dived to a 14-year low against the yen last week.

Bastian said Delta, based in Atlanta, would be willing to consider teaming up with a third-party investor if the Japanese government wanted more money pumped into JAL. He did not provide details.

American, a unit of AMR Corp., which is based in Fort Worth, Texas, has said if JAL switches from the oneworld alliance it will cost the Japanese carrier up to $500 million in lost revenue in the first two years after the changeover.

American officials have argued that if JAL sticks with them they could both apply for antitrust immunity from U.S. and Japanese regulators and bring in up to $100 million a year in additional revenue.

The immunity allows U.S. and foreign carriers to work closer together in coordinating schedules, sharing revenues and carrying each other’s passengers — moves that can boost profits.

Such a tie-up depends on U.S. and Japanese governments striking a so-called open skies agreement that would reduce barriers to airlines from one country operating in the other.

Delta’s lawyer said if JAL decides to join the SkyTeam alliance they could also win antitrust immunity.

“A JAL-Delta alliance would pose no threat to competition,” said Jeffrey Shane, a partner at Hogan & Hartson and former U.S. transportation undersecretary, who appeared with Bastian at the news conference.

But Horton asserted in his meeting with reporters in Tokyo that a Delta-SkyTeam-JAL partnership would not pass regulatory muster and would hurt competition.

“It is in the best interest of U.S.-Japan customers to have three robust alliances competing for their business instead of just two,” Horton said.

Horton was joined by former U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who insisted the risk to competition from Delta’s proposal is too great. Hard money training.

The first new hotel opened at the CityCenter development on the Las Vegas Strip. Vdara, a hotel with nearly 1,500 rooms, was unveiled to the public on Tuesday, and is the first property of the $8.5 billion CityCenter project to open.

The unveiling Tuesday of the nearly 1,500-room Vdara hotel marks the start of a phased opening of the $8.5 billion project built by development partners MGM Mirage and Dubai World.

The Crystals retail shopping mall opens Thursday. The 392-room Mandarin Oriental opens Saturday. The centerpiece Aria hotel-casino opens Dec. 16 with about 4,000 rooms.

Vdara is a 57-story, non-gambling, nonsmoking condominium hotel connected with other CityCenter features and the plush fountain-front Bellagio hotel next door. Bellagio is also owned by MGM Mirage.

Dubai World is the investment arm of the Dubai government. Hard money training.

A long-awaited plan to build a Disney theme park in Shanghai appears to have moved forward, with officials confirming Monday that central government approvals are in place and an announcement is due soon.

However, Disney said there was no change to report.

Mayor Han Zheng told reporters Sunday that the city plans to make an announcement as early as this week to explain details of the plan — handy timing ahead of President Barack Obama’s planned Nov. 15 visit to Shanghai.

An official in the public information department of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s main planning agency, confirmed Monday that the plan had been approved.

The official, who like many Chinese officials refused to give his name, referred inquiries to the local NDRC branch. That office did not immediately respond to requests for information submitted by phone and fax.

Two other officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to media, confirmed that the NDRC had OK’d the plan. But they also would not give any details.

A Disney executive confirmed discussions were still under way and that the company and the Shanghai government had submitted a request for central government approval, which would be required for any major project.

“No deal has been agreed to, no project has been approved,” Leslie Goodman, an executive vice president for Disney Parks and Resorts Group, said in a statement.

The difference in public stances could reflect last-minute quibbling over details for the project, such as the share of costs or ownership to be taken by Disney.

Speaking after weekend meetings with international business advisers, Han, the mayor, said the city would hold a news conference this week.

Last spring, Mayor Han said on the sidelines of the national legislative session that the two sides were getting down to serious negotiations.

But he compared Disney and Shanghai to “lovers, still in love but having a hard time deciding when to get married,” the Shanghai newspaper Oriental Morning Post quoted him as saying.

Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger, said earlier this year that the company was waiting for word from the central government about building the theme park.

Residents were long ago moved off farmland in Chuansha, a part of Pudong district near the city’s main international airport, to make way for the theme park.

Shanghai’s leaders are keen to develop this former bastion of Chinese industry into a global services and financial center, and building a Disney park would create jobs and be a key draw for tourism.

Walt Disney Co. earlier had emphasized that it was focusing on developing its theme park in Hong Kong, which has seen disappointing attendance since opening in 2005. Shanghai itself is in the midst of a massive construction boom ahead of next year’s World Expo, which will run May 1-Oct. 31 downtown along the city’s Huangpu river. Hard money training

What city do you think of when you think great coffee shops? How about terrific music? What if you’re in search of the perfect winter getaway?

Say you just want to meet some friendly locals — where would you go? Or perhaps you have a least favorite city, where the restaurants are overrated or overpriced and the people aren’t so attractive — or smart?

TravelandLeisure.com really wanted to know, so for the third consecutive year, we asked visitors to our site to rank their favorite American urban locales. These travel experts weighed in on a wide variety of topics: where they like to go for a family vacation, a shopping bender, or a relaxing getaway; and which spots are the best for cheap eats, haute cuisine, and more.

This year we changed the rules a little. Before the main survey opened, we gave travelers one month to vote for five additional cities to join the 25 veterans in our lineup.

The voting was tight, but the results were clear: Houston, Kansas City, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Providence would all contend for titles in the 55 survey categories.

Knowing how strongly travelers feel about airports and hotels, TravelandLeisure.com also expanded the survey to include questions about how the cities’ airports rate on everything from on-time arrivals to layover-worthy restaurants. And we added questions about which cities offer the best lodging options, ranging from the biggest big-name luxury hotels down to the smallest B&Bs. Hard money training

The travel industry is working to redefine itself as a key player in the American economy by showing how it helps companies improve profits, serves as a source of tax revenue and provides jobs.

Geoff Freeman, U.S. Travel Association senior vice president, said factors that include the recession, a spurt of public anger over extravagant business travel and politicians who lashed out at the travel industry resulted in $2 billion worth of events and meetings being canceled when the rancor was at its peak early this year.

If over the years the industry had done a better job of articulating why it is a vital economic force, the damage likely would not have been so great, Freeman said Tuesday at a national marketing forum organized by the association.

“We had left ourselves exposed, terribly exposed. We were the folks that were an easy target,” Freeman said.

Steve Moore, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau, said hospitality groups focus too much on hotel and meal taxes, when they should tout their economic impact, including sales taxes and property taxes they bring communities.

The convention business can do more to paint a picture of the people who work in the industry and note that travelers don’t drain city services, Moore said.

Citing research by Oxford Economics, a consulting firm that collaborates with Oxford University’s business college, Freeman said that for every dollar companies spend on business travel, they get an average of $12.50 in revenue and $3.80 in profit.

Christine Duffy, president and CEO of Maritz Travel Co., a corporate meeting organizer, said meetings are a tool for keeping “employees engaged and motivated.” Hard money training

A posh Bermuda resort named one of the world’s top 500 hotels this year will close its century-old main building because the economic crisis has sapped tourism to the island.

Elbow Beach Hotel will lay off about 160 employees by the end of November as it shutters 131 rooms and outsources food and beverage services, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group spokeswoman Danielle DeVoe said Wednesday.

“It’s fair to say that current business levels are challenging globally,” she said.

The hotel’s 1908 pastel-yellow building will remain closed for several years. Hotel officials hope to renovate it during that time, although no details have been specified, DeVoe said.

Premier Ewart Brown said he hopes the projected renovation will enable Elbow Beach to compete with other high-end brands.

“The closure of any hotel property is difficult at any time,” he said. “We never want to see Bermudians losing their jobs.”

Elbow Beach will still operate 98 luxury suites and cottages, said Frank Stocek, the hotel’s general manager.

The resort made its debut on Travel + Leisure magazine’s list of the world’s top 500 hotels this year. Mandarin Oriental has managed it since 2000. Rates range from $300 to more than $800 a night.

Bermuda, a British territory several hundred miles northeast of Florida, has seen a nearly 20 percent drop in tourists through June, compared to the same period last year, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization. Hard money training

Business travel  often the target for cutbacks by companies seeking to reduce expenses actually boosts profits and could help the U.S. economy come back from the recession, a report found on Tuesday.

Research released by the global research firm Oxford Economics estimated that for every dollar invested in business travel, companies can expect an average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits.

“Cutting back on business travel can in the short run have some benefits but, even over a 12 month period, (have) significant negative effects on corporate performance,” said Adam Sacks, managing director of Oxford Economics. “As companies perform, so does the U.S. economy.

“When companies reduce their travel budgets there are negative consequences that we can now quantify, in terms of lost revenue and profit growth and in terms of giving competitors a distinct advantage.”

The study was commissioned in part by the U.S. Travel Association, which represents the American travel industry.

Roger Dow, president of the association, said the report quantified how businesses can benefit from travel and from face-to-face meetings.

The analysis said executives and business travelers estimated 28 percent of current business would be lost without in-person meetings. They said about 40 percent of prospective customers are converted to new customers with an in-person meeting compared to 16 percent without one.

“In this economy especially, business travel has come under greater scrutiny than before,” Dow told reporters.

“It’s very important that business travel be seen as a solution. This industry could lead the economy out of the recession if people begin traveling and doing business.”

The industry group said in the first six months of 2009, business travel spending is down 12.5 percent and business travel volume is down more than 6 percent.

Sacks said a 10 percent increase in business travel across the board could potentially boost U.S. gross domestic product between 1.5 percent to 2.8 percent.

The report was based on a combination of two separate surveys of corporate executives and business travelers and an econometric analysis of the effects of business travel on corporate performance. It covered 14 economic sectors over a span of 13 years. Hard money training