Travels With Jane

Are online travel reviews legit?

User-generated reviews of hotels, restaurants and just about every travel-related service are all the rage. If you need proof, look no further than Trip Advisor, which typically ranks in the 20 most visited travel websites, according to Hitwise, a service that follows these things.

But can you trust such sites? Travel guru Arthur Frommer questions the veracity of user reviews in a recent column.   

I think he's got a valid point. On Trip Advisor -- and some other sites -- anyone can be posting opinions -- whether they've stayed in the hotel in question, or even if they own. That "open mike'' quality is part of the site's appeal -- but it also makes me uncomfortable. Some other sites, like Hotels.com and Travelocity.com, only allow reviews from travelers who have booked through their services and actually stayed at the hotel in question.

OK, so I admit I use TripAdvisor myself. But I take the reviews with a grain of skepticism. Those that seem most valid to me are the hotels with a large number of reviews, so I can get a real overview of opinion. I mentally discard those that are too glowing and too cranky, and try to focus on the middle ground.

What do you think? Are online reviews legit? Or do they make you feel creepy? Share your experiences.

Pendulum too far?

I'm sitting in a travel editor's conference in DC this morning. Speaker of this moment is Roger Dow, head of the US Travel Association, a trade advocacy group.He's talking about the importance of the travel industry both to the economy and to person-to-person diplomacy worldwide. Some stats: travel and tourism in the US generates $740 billion industry, employs 1 in 8 Americans directly, creates $20 billion in positive trade.Five percent more Americans intend to take vacations inm the coming year than intended to do so a year ago -- though those may be shorter and closer to home than in some previous years. The subject of meetings and conventions have come up. It's a hot topic in the wake of the AIG mess, and between negative publicity and a bad economy, perhaps as much as $1 billion in meetings was cancelled in January and February.Undoutedly some meetings and conventions are boondoggles -- but many are serious business meetings. This meeting I'm attending is so valuable to me that I have paid all expenses out of my personal pocket. What is your experience? Share it here.

Capital City

Yesterday was a rainy mess, but today Washington is clear and beautiful and filled with cherry blossoms just about to peak. On my last visit here, in 2002, the White House was barracaded. Today you can again walk right up to the black iron fence and gaze up the roling lawn at the people's house. Even in yesterday's rain, it was a stirring sight, and a reminder that even in difficult times this is a great nation.

Nibbling fish

I'm sitting at the breakfast table with a bunch of travel writers. The conversation centers on pirhana.

In case you've missed it, the hot new thing is fish pedicures. Instead of soaking your feet in a standard tub of water, you soak them in a tub of pirhana, which supposedly nibble off the dead skin off your grungy and beleaguered dogs.

These places have been closed down in some other states due to lack of sanitation...apparently the water wasn't getting changed enough...but we hear there's one still open here in Alexandria. This may become part of a story...or not.

Most of the conversation this weekend will revolve around the change in media useage patterns -- which is why a bunch of people here are currently unemployed.

For those of you have heard that newspapers are dying, it's simply not true. Newspapers are morphing. Next year or next decade we will be something different from what we are today, but the job we do will still be an essential part of a Democracy. How all that is going to fit together is still a challenge; if you've got any ideas let us know.

And if we find those fishy, I'll report in!

(Almost) 100 and counting

After 30 years of travel and 1.4 million miles in the year, I should have hit 100 countries. Wind, snow and illness have delayed me -- so far. But I've still got plenty of tales to tell, and you can read about some of them, at least, on Sunday in The Miami Herald.

Check it out!

Bound for DC

In a few hours I"ll head north to the capital for the annual meeting of my professional organization, the Travel Editors Council.

So what will we be pondering? All manner of editor-like stuff, like multimedia presentations and social media, along with some just plain general travel stuff, like safety and security. It would probably bore the ears off anybody but a travel editor, but we all think it's pretty cool.

Last year, just before I was due to head for the airport, the editors and a great progressive dinner party for my 50th birthday, The Husband had an emergency appendectomy, nixing that celebration. I'm hoping this year goes better!

Cool new tools for booking hotels

   Most web-savvy travelers are familiar with various websites that let you track and compare airfare prices. (Think Farecompare.com, Farecast.com, Yapta.com, plus the major agencies like Travelocity.com and even airline sites.) Now come two online tools that help travelers track hotel prices.

  Yapta has just introduced a feature that allows consumers to sign up for price tracking on specific hotels. Search the site for hotel availability on specific dates, then sign up for notification if rates drop on a specific hotel that interests you.

   Hotwire.com has long offered a similar tool for hotel and car rental rates, but it doesn't disclose the name of the hotel or vendor until after you book. The site has just added a monthly hotel report (www.hotwire.com/hotelratereport.jsp) that highlights the U.S. destinations where rates have dropped the most over the past 12 months … translation, where you're most likely to find good deals. (Top 5 on the current list: Las Vegas, Phoenix, New York, Montreal, Orlando.)

   Also just launched from the people at Kayak.com: TravelPost.com, designed as a one-stop-shopping hotel site with reviews, content and rates on more than 140,000 hotels from over 200 travel sites. Consumers can book directly with the hotel or via other websites.

New budget options on board

One of the coolest new features coming to sea soon: Budget-priced inside-cabin "studios,'' a mere 100-square-feet but smartly designed, surrounding a group living room. You'll find them in spring 2010 on board the Norwegian Cruise Line's new Epic, the cruise line announced this morning.

NCL pioneered the "ship within a ship'' concept on previous vessels. On those, the concept was more of a high-style, high-priced exclusive "boutique hotel''-like part of the ship. Those Courtyard Villas will also be part of Epic, and they'll have some new amenities, including expanded private dining and a small spa exclusively for Villa guests.

But the budget-conscious studios are an entirely new idea that mix smart styling (designed to appeal to young-adult audience) with $$-wise pricing. Just what that pricing is won't be revealed until mid-May, but NCL execs said they'd cost the same as a regular inside cabin.

What's different?

• Design. Each of the 128 studios incorporates padded bolsters surrounding the bed (easier to lounge against), lights that change in color and intensity (guests can choose four different "moods") and an interior porthole that looks out onto the group living room (but can be closed  off.) Paul Priestman, who also designed the hip-budget Yotels, created the look here.  
• Group living room. The studios will surround a 1,000-square-foot, two-level lounge exclusively for studio guests that stretches from deck 10 to deck 11. Think of those college-dorm "apartments'' with common facilities and separate bedrooms...you get the idea.
• Size. 100 square feet is smaller than my first New York apartment, which was pretty much miniscule.  But the design is smart and sleek, and if you're a 20something who spends nary a minute in your cabin beyond sleep, it could be a good option. The sink slips behind a sliding door; the toilet is behind a regular shut door. Details: The shower sits in a room corner -- but behind frosted glass.

Cheap seats to Latin America

American Airlines has announced a fare sale with prices of $299 each way based on a roundtrip purchase from Miami to its destinations in Brazil and Argentina. Tickets must be purchased by March 23 for travel March 21-June 25, various conditions and restrictions apply. Taxes are extra; from Miami to Buenos Aires, they run around $70.

Things I learned at the cruise conference

A few tidbits from today:

• Though luxury cruising is soft at the moment, luxury line execs promise they're still bullish on the long-term outlook. Pam Conover, president of Seabourn, said that when her company decided to build three new luxury ships, they based their decisions on a 30-year plan that, she believes, will still hold solid despite the current economy. "You can't always get your timing perfect, but the model is still the same,'' she said. Seabourn will introduce the first of the ships, Odyssey, in Europe this summer. And it's a relative bargain, with fares discounted as much as 65 percent off brochure rates.
• Richard Fain, chairman of Royal Caribbean, said one of his fave features aboard the 5,400 passenger Oasis of the Seas being launched in November is an elevator-bar that rises three floors and seats 50 people. Adam Goldstein, the line's president and a ping-pong enthusiast, said he was looking forward to the ship's ping-pong facilities.
• One of the hot topics on the blog-waves these days is the assertion that Royal Caribbean has been rewarding cruisers who post positive reviews of its cruises on websites. Gene Sloan of USA Today details the conversation.