Vacation travel to grow despite rising prices
Travel forecast
Leisure trips and travel spending are expected to continue modest growth through 2008, but travel preferences are changing, according to the Travel Industry Association’s annual forecast.
Travel spending by domestic and international visitors to the U.S. in 2008 is expected to increase 5.2 percent, to $778.2 billion, and the number of leisure trips taken domestically is projected to increase 2.5 percent for 2007 and 2 percent next year, TIA predicted.
Suzanne Cooke, TIA’s senior vice president of research, said that spas, the gaming industry, the cruise industry and sports-related tourism, such as trips related to NASCAR races, are among the leisure-travel sectors that are doing well. In contrast, she said, “the trend over the last decade is that national parks are showing stagnant growth (in numbers of visitors). Major historic properties have also had difficulties” attracting more guests.
However, since 2000, there has been an 11 percent drop in overseas visitors to the U.S., the TIA said, despite the fact that the weak dollar makes the U.S. a travel bargain for travelers from abroad.
Yellowstone National Park
Keep out snowmobiles, say members of Congress
Eighty-six members of Congress have asked the National Park Service to phase out snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. They contend the agency is ignoring the increased noise and air pollution that would result from a plan to allow up to 540 of the machines daily.
The congressional opposition, in a letter sent recently to Park Service director Mary Bomar, comes as Yellowstone is set to finalize its snowmobile rules in the next few weeks.
More than a decade in the making, the park’s snowmobile policy has engendered a nationwide debate pitting public-access advocates against conservationists, who say Yellowstone should be closed to most motorized use during winter months.
The members of Congress - none from the Yellowstone area - told Bomar that snowmobiles should be replaced by a smaller number of guided snowcoaches. Those are essentially buses on skis.
Allowing snowmobiles, they wrote, would provide “inferior protection” of the park and show a “disregard” for the Park Service’s conservation mission.
Rail travel
Amtrak riding high in the Northwest
Amtrak is riding high, with a record number of train passengers in the Pacific Northwest and nationally.
The Amtrak Cascades service, which includes trains from Seattle to Portland and Vancouver, B.C., was particularly successful. More than 674,000 passengers rode its trains in the 2007 fiscal year (which ended Sept. 30), up 7.4 percent from the year before.
Northwest train travel likely will be even more popular next summer when Amtrak Cascades plans to start a second daily round-trip train between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.
Amtrak Cascades, which is operated under contract with the Washington and Oregon Departments of Transportation, also made more money, topping $18 million in ticket sales for the fiscal year, up 9.9 percent from the previous year.
Nationally, Amtrak had 25,847,531 passengers for fiscal 2007, the most since it began operating in 1971.
Tibet
New train brings boom in Himalayan tourists
More than 3.2 million people have visited Tibet this year, breaking all records and doubling tourist spending in the Himalayan region, due to a new high-altitude railway and airport, said China’s state-run Xinhua news agency. Most of the tourists were domestic, but 325,870 came from overseas - a rise of 155.4 percent.
China, which expects the number of tourists visiting Tibet to reach 6 million in 2010, is building a fourth airport in Ngari in the west, which will be the world’s highest.
Activists have warned that tourism and migration by Han Chinese could swamp Buddhist Tibet’s distinctive culture.
Amsterdam
Love purses? Here’s a museum for you
Do you collect purses the way Imelda Marcos collected shoes? If so, you’ll want to plan a trip to the newly reopened Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam.
The collection of 3,000 bags shows the history of women’s bags and pocketbooks in Western culture from the 16th century on, Get details about the museum, known locally as the Tassenmuseum Hendrikjein, at www.tassenmuseum.nl/.
Seattle Times staff and news services