Oh, to be in first class...

Commercial airplanes weren't always the flying buses that they are now. If you look at old ads, especially from the golden era of air travel in the 60s, you get the impression that service and even luxury wasn't restricted to first class - it seemed so glamorous just to be on a place. Sadly, those days are gone for most of us, unless we travel a LOT & get enough miles to use for upgrades or hit it really lucky & get bumped when the only seats left on the next plane are in first class. That happened to me once & on a cross-country flight to boot, and I cherish that memory every time I stumble out of the cattle car known as coach or economy class. Recently I was checking out Japan Air Lines, which recently upgraded its fleet, and here's a taste of what we're missing. Now that's luxury!

However, their Economy Plus looks pretty good - leg support just like your recliner at home and a footrest for when you're sitting up. I'll take it...

"Blue Line" (RAI International): travel TV as it should be

A few years ago, my cable company began to offer international channels (for an extra fee, of course) & to my delight, one of them is RAI International. RAI is the state broadcaster of Italy & the International channel combines programs from all 3 RAI channels. It's been great for me to improve my Italian and keep up with the culture.



One of my favorite shows is Linea Blu ("Blue Line"), a program about the many aspects of the coastline of Italy: regional life, history, nature & conservation, and local cuisine, all with the spectacular backdrops of the Mediterranean & Adriatic. It's all very interesting & educational, but it's really a great tourism promotion even if they didn't quite intend it that way!



RAI International airs a similar program, Linea Verde ("Green Line"), about the inland areas of the various provinces. Both shows make me wonder why no one in this country has come up with a similar idea for programming - even though we have several travel shows here & even a channel supposedly devoted to travel, in my humble opinion the programming leaves a lot to be desired. One of my long-standing gripes about our travel TV is that, with rare exceptions, it's all about the hosts (and as we all learned as children, if you can't say anything nice perhaps you shouldn't say anything at all). Travel programs are supposed to be about the location, right?



It might be a cultural difference - perhaps we Americans are just attracted to extreme personalities. We do have travel shows with very good hosts who put the location first but they just don't seem to get the air time that the "stars" do, and that's a shame.

P.S. : the photo of Capri isn't from RAI - it was taken by a friend of my father (not a professional).

Why many are giving up on internet travel & using agents

When I got into the travel business, one of my first questions to my host agent was how to compete with the online travel companies that seemed to be taking over the business. Expedia & the rest were spending a lot of money on a lot of commercial time, and there was no way we could compete with that. I was actually surprised when he told me that although they had affected business, they were not taking over by any means and in fact, there was a modest increase in business from those who had used the internet companies. The New York Times just reported a study that explains why: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/business/04frustrate.html?_r=1&ref=global

It boils down to service. Perhaps we agents can't compete with internet travel's advertising budgets, but they can't compete with our experience, knowledge, and customer service.