TankAway - a concept for UK travel writers and tourism organisations?

I've started noticing (probably years after the event!) a new concept creeping into the travel pages of the local press in the USA - the 'one tank (of gas) trip'.

I haven't found a definition yet - Are we talking one tank there & back? What's the average mileage of an American car these days, and the average petrol tank capacity? - but the concept seems pretty straight-forward: travel features and promotions about destinations roughly within 100-200 miles of home.

It feels very much like a sign of the times. In a post-Fannie Mae/Freddie Mack/Lehman Bros induced recession, Americans, like us, are looking for economic breaks nearer to home.

So, for all those travel writer colleagues in the BGTW and on Twitter who have recently railed against the over-used "staycation"... how do you feel about promoting TankAways?

...Responsible/green travel issues not withstanding!

Unsure about Twitter? Tweet or Delete

I was a bit horrid to @carolmarlow last night on Twitter. I quoted her latest tweet and added "#twitterusefail" as a hash tag.

In Twitter-speak that means "Lame tweet".

In truth, it was. But my reaction was more out of disappointment than irritation.

Carol (who I've met once) is an extremely capable MD of a huge cruise company, which is probably why she doesn't have much time to tweet more than once every 20 days, and when she does, she clearly doesn't have anything much to say. Correct me if I'm wrong Carol, but it feels like one of your bright young things in marketing has told you you need to tweet, and you've been trying to but your heart is not really in it....?

T'was ever thus.

The point about Twitter is the same one that teachers and parents told you about life: the more you put into it, the more you get out. Or put another way: unless you fully engage, you're wasting your time.

... and ours.

Here are some stats from Purewire (now those of you who follow me will know how I stumbled across Tweetgrade last night!)...

• 40% of Twitter users have not tweeted since their first day on Twitter.


• Almost 80% of the users have less than 10 tweets.


• Approx 30% of Twitter users do not have any followers, and 80% of Twitter users have less than 10 followers.

That's an awful lot of people using Twitter resources but not using Twitter.

It's a bit like the global email system - 90% of the traffic is spam. Just imagine how wizzy it would be if there weren't any spam.

These days Twitter has been really flaky at around 5.00pm BST when California starts coming online. It is straining at the seams and posting "Too many tweets. Try again in a moment" notices every few clicks.

So my, harsh, message to part-time Twitterers is: If you're not really using it - and like Bovril, Twitter is not to everyone's taste - there's no shame in deleting your account and leaving. Try Facebook, or Linked In. Or just stick to emails and newsreaders.

Tweet or Delete!

Am I being too arsey?

The lure of snow

Hmm, puzzled by this one...

Visitors to SE1 were welcomed by the sight of snow yesterday as Potters Field Park was transformed into a wintery scene. The surprise snowfall was down to Aer Lingus who were celebrating the launch of their new winter flights from Gatwick by engaging 130 people in a mammoth snowball fight.

The 130 descended on the snow to take part in the fight which lasted an impressive thirty minutes.

In total, 1,600 people registered to take part in the stunt after a three week social media campaign. The first 300 who registered were invited to participate with the lure of the snow proving so tempting that many travelled from all over the UK to take part - London, Liverpool, Newcastle and Huddersfield.

I can't quite bring myself to believe that as many as 1,600 people would be excited enough about a few minutes of snowball fighting in a London park... especially to come long-distance for it.

So what was it? The lure of cameras (everyone wants to be a celeb apparently)? Job enhancement (how many were Aer Lingus staff?)? Or was it that social media thing... people just desperately wanting to belong to something, be part of something...?

Prob a combination of all three. Hope they thought it was worth it.

Chinese coming to play in adventure park... land

You know that long-anticipated transfer of 'world dominant power' status from the USA to China?

Well, if not militarily, or economically or in space, here's another small example of where that could be happening - the adventure park industry, where the big names, until now, have all been American: Universal Studios, Six Flags, and of course the daddy of them all, Disney.

It seems we may be adding a new name to the list - Fantawild.

Fantawild is a Chinese adventure park company, with a Disney-like modular approach to building large adventure parks comprising multiple theme parks. Their Fantawild Adventure park just outside Wuhu on the Yangste delta is the world's largest adventure park by land area (1.25m sq m).

Since it opened one and a half years ago, over 3 million people have visited. And they have more parks on the way - a second theme park, Wuhu Fanta Dream Kingdom, in Wuhu and three Fantawild Adventures in other provinces, with the first, Taishan Mountain Fantawild Adventure Park, opening next May.

"Yeah, but that's just a domestic start-up adventure park company" I hear you say, "Disney and the others are international".

So will be Fantawild. Iran Fantawild in Esfahan is already under construction and work is due to start any moment now on another Fantawild Adventure park outside Johannesburg in South Africa. According to China Daily, other countries such as the Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Russia have also have shown interest in Fantawild.

Welcome to America....that'll be $10!

"The proposed $10 penalty for entering the United States is being sold as a 'tourist promotion' measure, but only in Alice in Wonderland could a penalty be seen as promoting the activity on which it is imposed" - Ambassador John Bruton, Head of EU Delegation to the USA, 9 Sept 09

I think that says it all really.

A week ago, the United States Senate passed the Travel Promotion Act 2009 "to communicate United States entry policies and otherwise promote leisure, business, and scholarly travel."

To help with that promotion, foreign visitors who haven't paid $131 for a visa will be charged $10 to visit the land of the free.

The bill now needs to go to the House of Representatives. Assuming it is passed, the $10 fee would be charged when travellers fill out an ESTA security form and lasts for 2 years. So it's not exactly going to break the bank, but it is targeted firmly at holiday-makers from a specific range of countries including the UK (using the US visa-waiver program).

The money from the entry fee will be used to pay for a new independent nonprofit tourism promotion body, the Corporation for Travel Promotion (CTP).

Because the Americans so need one of those! In my time as a travel journalist they've had a continuous parade of public & private tourism bodies - the USTTA, the TIA, VisitUSA, and now just recently the USTA.

Oh well, it's their country. Let them do what they like.

If you have any views, feel free to comment. I've lost the urge to get excited about it any more.