London to host World Pride just ahead of Olympics

London Mayor Boris Johnson

Mark your calendars, Travelgaygents: London will play host to more than a million visitors celebrating World Pride, just days before the start of the 2012 Olympics. London won the hosting duties largely on the strength of its wildly successful Europride 2006, which drew thousands of tourists from around the world for a week of star-studded events.

To support its bid for an even larger gay extravaganza, London’s organizing committee put together a video featuring the mayor and various celebrities emphasizing the city’s diverse, gay-friendly charms. Besides the biggest sporting event on the planet, organizers pointed out that 2012 will also mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, sure to be a cause for celebration among all her worldwide wannabes.

World Pride 2012 is tentatively scheduled for June 23 – July 8, with the main parade taking place on July 7. Keep an eye on the Pride London website, however, as dates could shift a bit with all the other big events competing for the spotlight.

Source: pinknews.co.uk

Holiday airfares coming down

Faced with falling demand, the airline industry has launched a broad fare sale for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. After a series of steep hikes — one a month, on average, through the first half of the year — airlines may be finding that they’ve priced themselves out of the market at a time when the economy appears to be crumbling.

“It’s by far the most broad-based fare sale we’ve tracked in at least 18 months,” says Rick Seaney of FareCompare.com, “and this is the earliest I’ve ever seen one.”

For travelgaygents, the timing of the sale looks especially good, since many GLBT people choose not to go home for the holidays. Deep hotel discounts, combined with the lower airfares, may help you book more clients on trips they’ve been putting off.

Gay couples plan multiple trips for multiple ceremonies

Pursuing the legal, financial, and emotional benefits of marriage, same-sex couples sometimes criss-cross the country to take advantage of shifting laws, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.

Daniel McNeil and Patrick Canavan have gone through the motions four times in three states, including a civil union in Vermont, a domestic partnership in D.C., and finally — just last August — a marriage in California.

Some experts say the multiple ceremonies are necessary because different jurisdictions recognize different rights. Oregon, for instance, recognizes domestic partnerships registered elsewhere, but not same-sex marriages, which are prohibited by an amendment to the state constitution. But in New York, the situation is flipped: Marriages performed in other states will be recognized, but not domestic partnerships.

Due to the patchwork of laws across the country, Jennifer Pizer of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund recommends that couples have both a marriage license and a domestic partnership. “We advise people to have a belt and suspenders, and then another pair of belt and suspenders,” she says.

If multiple ceremonies are the price gay couples pay to achieve legal recognition, multiple honeymoons just might be part of the reward. Following their initial commitment ceremony at an Episcopal church in D.C., McNeil and Canavan honeymooned in Spain. A decade later, they celebrated their California marriage with a wine country honeymoon in Napa Valley.

Attention, RuPaul: You can carry on your hairspray in 2009

Drag queens, rejoice. Starting next year, the Transportation Security Administration plans to relax its rules for carrying liquids aboard commercial airlines. Travelers currently are limited to bottles of liquids containing 3 ounces or less — hardly enough to hold a decent bob, much less a beehive.

But, thanks to technological advances, X-ray machines can now distinguish between AquaNet and nitroglycerin, so authorities are confident they can keep the flying public safe without the sample-size rule. “We’re confident it’s going to happen in 2009,” a TSA spokesman said of the rule change. “That’s a major milestone for security.”

One giant leap for security, one small step for privacy, as it turns out. Liquids will still have to come out of carry-on bags for separate scanning, so TSA personnel will still get to see your favorite brand of anti-itch cream or “personal lubricant.” It’s enough to make a girl blush — biological or otherwise.

USA Today, TSA likely to ease restrictions on liquids in 2009

DC police want to see what you’re packing

Tourists visiting Washington, D.C., might want to think twice when packing their bags. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has announced that Metro police will begin random searches of bags at subway stations throughout the city, effective immediately.

With 1.2 million trips a day, the D.C. Metro is America’s second busiest subway system. Authorities have long considered subways vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and the weeks just before or after an election are said to be especially attractive to terrorists.

Still, it’s not clear that peeking in the briefcases of random travelers at a single Metro station will do much to increase riders’ safety, and an ACLU spokesman says the new program “doesn’t make any sense.”

Exclusive: Is luxury travel dead?

If your image of gay luxury travel is Liberace disembarking from a private jet with piles of hat boxes and Luis Vuitton steamer trunks, it may be time for a re-think. The luxury market isn’t dead, experts say, but it’s not as flashy or free-spending as it once was.

“Many who travel luxuriously may not feel the direct effects of the slipping economy due to their strong financial situations,” says Dane Steele Green, President & CEO of Steele Luxury Travel. “The rich will always be rich, and the rich will always want to travel.”

Still, they may not travel in quite the high style they once did. According to a new WealthSurvey from the Luxury Institute, “cost” is the No. 2 factor in choosing a luxury vacation, second only to “scenery and nature.”

If it seems counter-intuitive that wealthy travelers would worry about the cost of a trip, the Luxury Institute explains: “Most of the wealthy are self-made, and have sacrificed to earn every cent while delivering great quality and service to their own customers. Like their customers, they use both sides of their brains to make luxury purchasing decisions.” That means that spending for its own sake is out, and “it’s back to value-added luxury fundamentals in 2009.”

When even the wealthy start watching their spending, those who are merely comfortable or affluent are surely even more price-conscious. Steele says it’s a phenomenon he’s seen with his own five-star travel packages such as sailing trips in Sardinia and Corsica or dancing at Vienna’s extravagant Life Ball, the leading AIDS fundraiser in Europe. November’s Buenos Aires tango trip has had two last-minute cancellations, both citing the economic crisis.

Steele acknowledges he’s had to make “certain price adjustments” to keep people traveling through the downturn. For instance, when the U.S. dollar gained recently against the Brazilian Real, “Instead of pocketing the extra cash made on the currency exchange, I passed the savings on to the consumer.

“For the time being, prices will come down to keep the consumer attracted to luxury travel products,” Steele predicts. “People may resort to flying economy, or skipping out on the weekend trip to Rome for a while” in order to preserve cash for more meaningful trips.

But even as customers cut back in the present, they’re still dreaming of a more affluent future. “When people are losing their jobs, you still must advertise and market your travel company,” Steele says.  “People will still read magazines, blogs, and browse the internet.  When the markets bounce back, who are they going to remember: the travel company who pulled advertising and editorial, or the travel company who enticed them during the gloomy times?”

Steele offers 12% commissions on luxury packages such as Turkish Delight

Agents may find silver lining in economic storm clouds

In a lengthy run-down on bargain rates at luxury hotels, USA Today manages to bury the real story: Economic turmoil is leading some people to travel more.

“It’s almost as if the economic situation is so agonizing that it puts in perspective for people that what they want most is to spend time with their loved ones,” notes Melissa Biggs Bradley, a formal travel editor who recently launched luxury travel company Indagare.

“The week that Lehman went bankrupt, we had a number of people decide to book ski trips with their extended families,” she recalls. “We had one individual who was laid off and decided to take his family on a once-in-a-lifetime safari in Africa. He had been working so hard … and never had time to spend weeks away. So he decided to make something positive out of a bad situation.”

Granted, traveling to escape grim economic news is the exception rather than the rule, but it’s a marketing angle that just might work for some.

CMH takes gay to the extreme

Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) is promoting its first-ever Gay Heli-Ski Week, scheduled for April 11-18, 2009. Each day, the company will fly up to 34 gay and lesbian skiers to remote portions of the Canadian Rockies to challenge glacier runs with names like Endless Journey, Run of the Century, and Breathless Bowl. Apres ski, the exclusive Gothics lodge will turn exclusively gay for the week, right down to the planned long johns and lingerie party.
CMH also promises a “gay travel celebrity,” which has us intrigued to no end, since most of the gay travel celebrities we can think of would prefer an appletini to an avalanche.
At any rate, the price per person is $5,500 Canadian, and more details are available at the CMH website.

Happy Vacations jumps into GLBT market

Evidently it’s not enough just to be Happy anymore — these days, everyone wants to be positively gay.

After four decades in the travel business, Happy Vacations has unveiled LifeJourneys Vacations, a new brand targeting GLBT travelers. The launch makes Happy Vacations “the first wholesaler to introduce a comprehensive product targeting this niche market,” according to a company press release.

“Comprehensive” may be stretching things just a bit. Granted, the LifeJourneys website is brand new, but so far I count just six different destinations available: Australia, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Mexico, New Zealand, and Tahiti. Within those few destinations, however, the packages look pretty attractive, including Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, Mexico City Pride, and New Zealand Gay Ski Week.

Right next to the website’s “Destinations” tab is another one that travel agents will find more interesting. LifeJourneys is offering an online Honeymoon Registry for same-sex couples, allowing friends and family to purchase honeymoon add-ons — massages, sunset cruises, champagne brunches, and so forth — rather than traditional wedding gifts like toasters and china.

“The registry is created at no charge to the couples and is fully commissionable to the travel agent,” according to the LifeJourneys press release, though if you go online you’ll find lots of fine print about minimum purchases and so forth. One thing you won’t find online — so far, anyway — is any way for agents to register or login with LifeJourneys.

Southwest holds key to ending fuel surcharges

Okay, all you travelgaygents, here is today’s pop quiz:

When will major airlines drop fuel surcharges?
a) When Washington forces them to
b) When oil drops to $30 a barrel
c) When Southwest gains market share
d) When hell freezes over

Regarding choice (a), the pressure already seems to be building. Yesterday Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., held a press conference at Newark International Airport to point out that the price of jet fuel has dropped 45% since July. “It’s deceptive to say you still need a fuel surcharge when aviation fuel prices are down $2 per gallon,” he scolded the airlines. “It’s just wrong.”

Realistically, however, the government won’t — and shouldn’t — dictate pricing policy to the airlines, and $30-a-barrel oil still looks like a dream, despite its recent plunge. As for choice (d), we’re neither meteorologists nor theologians, so we won’t touch that one.

That leaves Southwest as the best hope for ending the surcharge charade. As agents, we’re not making commissions from any airline, so why not funnel business to the carrier with the most transparent pricing? Fuel surcharges are one of the big reasons people aren’t flying, and the entire travel industry will be better off when the bogus fees go away. More air travel means more cruise bookings, more land packages, more hotel rooms, and of course more commissions.

That’s why agents should be spreading the word that Southwest still doesn’t tack on a fuel surcharge. When Southwest starts stealing market share, other airlines will notice, and the surcharge will become about as rare as hotpants on a stewardess … or a hot meal in Coach.