Fake Reviews, Fake Travel Sites -- For Real

Fakery -- it's not just for Rolex watches anymore

Travelers know about fake Rolex watches, faux Louis Vuitton luggage and other cheap knock-offs, and when we succumb to temptation in a market or from a street vendor, we are not being gullible or delusional. We know what is being sold, and if we are willing to fork over a bit of cash for a look-alike, we know what we are buying. But when two recent posts by two respected travel bloggers on two sides of the Atlantic took up the topic of "fake" elsewhere on the web, I was reminded that fakery a dismaying trend in the travel-sphere, where the stakes are bigger than petty cash for an imitation brand-name product. It even seems that Internet users who would never send earnest money to some orphaned Nigerian princess or London barrister can be fooled by phony-baloney travel sites.

Today, Darren Cronin wrote "The telltale signs of a fake travel website" on UK-based Travel Rants. His advice is particular germane to travelers booking air and lodging separately. Some of his tips sound a bit like airport security boilerplate. Instead of being asked whether you packed your own luggage, have had it under your control and been asked to transport a gift from someone you did not know, Cronin counsels, "Book your accommodation through a personal recommendation or a company that you have used before."

How to Spot a Fake Site

Another tip that seems obvious to me is to be wary of any sites within "poor spelling and grammar within the content on the website and within emails." I have grammar police tendencies, so maybe this comes more naturally to me than to someone surfing for good hotel rates. This blog has been spammed by travel sites from India and Pakistan so often recently that, having tired of deleting irrelevant comments with links to "travel information" sites on the subcontinent, I recently and apologetically instituted "blog owner approval."

Cronin also recommended checking out the location of blog owners and how long the blog has been around. He recommended DNS Stuff. Another popular domain name search is WhoIs. One tip that is probably obvious to people more attuned to the intricacies of the Internet but wasn't to me, is "Make sure that the web address starts with https:// and the padlock appears on your browser." I've noticed URLs starting with https but really didn't know what it meant. According to an explanation on Yahoo! Answers, it "was designed by Netscape Communications Corporation to provide authentication and encrypted communication and is widely used on the World Wide Web for security-sensitive communication such as payment transactions and corporate logons."

The Kerfuffle Over Fake Hotel Reviews

As I was musing the issue of fake travel sites created to extract payment for presumably fake travel bookings, I also thought about Christopher Elliott's recent blogs about fake hotel reviews, specifically relating TripAdvisor.com. Just as ballot boxes are sometimes stuffed, hotels have been accused of having friends and employees write glowingly positive reviews of their properties in order to increase bookings. In his most recent post on the topic, "Does TripAdvisor Hotel Manipulation Scandal Render the Site Completely Useless?", he quoted TripAdvisor's April Robb, who wrote, "When a review is suspected to be fraudulent, it is immediately taken down and we have measures to penalize businesses for attempts to game the system. Penalties are handled on a case by case basis."

Then Elliott rhetorically asked, "So should you trust TripAdvisor? Having covered the site since the very start, I think I’m uniquely qualified to answer that question. And my answer is: maybe."

He continued, "Hotels and restaurants are gaming the ratings system, without a doubt. What’s significant about the recent TripAdvisor warnings is that they appear to shift their fraud-detection efforts from an unrealistic, proactive approach to a more reasonable, reactive approach. Which is to say, they do their best to catch bogus reviews as they’re posted, but in the end, they can’t stop them all. "

My post, "Hotel Review Sites: Useful or Misleading," about online veracity in travel reviews, also addressed the topic. Bottom line as many of us have concluded is caveat emptor -- buyer beware, whether it's your credit card number that you are sending out into cyberspace or making a reservation with certain expectations for your vacation or business travel experience.

Travel Apps for Cell Phones

Free and cheap iPhone applications for travelers

I think I have the most basic cell phone and service plan on earth. With my simple Nokia phone and pay-in-advance T-mobile plan, I prepay $100 for 1,000 minutes. The last recharge lasted me over 11 months. However, if I did spring for a more sophisticated communication device (like an iPhone), I'd install one of the applications for making travel information easier to obtain anywhere, anytime. USA Weekend made five suggestions for iPhone apps that it likes for travelers -- and by the way, they're accesible online too for mobile-phone Luddites like me:

• AroundMe - Free app with localized happenings and resources.
• Yelp - Also free and also localized info on restaurants, shops, events and more.
• WorldMate - Free travel planner, including flight alert, maps, weather and much more.
• Packing - There's all sorts of free packing information on the web, but for some reason, USA Weekend likes this 99-cent app.
• FlightTrack (right) - Again, there are lots of free flight-trackers services out there, but USA Weekend picked this $4.99 version, which offers real-time status for flights from around the world, live weather radar updates, route maps and other information.

US Streamlines Visa-Waiver Program

Online registration good for two years coming up for visitors to the US

Currently citizens of 27 counties (mostly in western Europe plus Australia, Brunei, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand) are permitted to enter the US without visas for stays of 90 days or less but must fill out forms en route that federal agents look at on arrival. When flight attendants on a US-bound international flight ask passengers whether they are US citizens and give one Customs form to citizens and two to "aliens," that's the second form. I've never actually read one, so I don't know what information it asks.

A refinement of this process will soon require travelers to submit "biographical details" to the Department of Homeland Security online at least three days before traveling. Optional online registration for visa-waivered travelers begins in August and becomes mandatory on January 12, 2009. As it stands now, the program will require visitors to register online once every two years rather than fill out forms each time they travel.

Times Reports Changes in Travel to Airports

Travelers' habits tilt toward frugality; join the club

I've noticed a real irony when urban travelers (OK, especially New Yorkers) who searched relentlessly for the cheapest air fares, hop in a cab to get to and from the airport once they have secured a low-cost airline ticket. I worship at the altar of frugality and especially watch my travel dollars, so I've been taking public transportation to and from airports for years. I'd rather splurge on a great meal and a nicer place to stay than spend money on a taxi that might be stuck in traffic while the meter ticks away.

In a New York Times business story, "More Fliers Skipping the Cab," reporter Jane L. Levere confined herself to reporting about transportation alternatives to New York's three airports (LaGuardia The Dreadful, Newark Across The Bay and JFK The Distant) and London's Heathrow and Gatwick. I've happily taken public transportation directly to/from terminals at all five of those airports.

I have also used public transportation to/from other airports and almost always use it to Denver International Airport. Occasionally, I travel by SuperShuttle van, but more often than not, I use RTD's SkyRide, the public bus between downtown Boulder or the Table Mesa Park & Ride. The one-way fare is $12 (exact change). The bus goes every hour from Boulder. Youngsters 15 and under ride free, and age 65-plus is half price. From closer-in stops and/or other routes, the regular fare is as low as $8 and as frequent as every 15 minutes.

Airline Losses Predicted to be HUGE

IATA's gloomy forecast spells continuation of surcharges and higher fares

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is projecting that the global airline industry will lose $2.3 billion (that's billion with a B) worldwide in 2008 -- assuming an average oil price of $106.50 per barrel. That's a big assumption. If oil prices remain at a lofty $135 a barrel, those losses could be as much as $6 billion worldwide. Just this past March, when oil was at about $85 a barrel, IATA foreaw an industry-wide profit of $4.5 billion based on an average crude oil price of $86 per barrel.

At current oil price levels, IATA predicts that airlines' cumulative fuel bill will be around $176 billion, more than one-third of operating costs. Compare that to 2006 ($136 billion for fuel, representing 29 percent of total operating costs) and 2002 ($40 billion for fuel, 13 percent of operating costs).

No wonder airlines are charging for checked bags and doing away with the peanuts and pretzels -- and of course mothballing planes, cutting underperforming routes (in the US, anyway) or going out of business altogether.

Airline execs (those still employed anyway), gathered at IATA's 64th annual meeting in Istanbul, resolved to ask governments to step in and take actions that would help stabilize the airline industry with six specific calls to action:

1) Governments must eliminate archaic rules that prevent airlines from
restructuring across borders.
2) In view of existing fees and charges, governments must refrain from imposing multiple and additional punitive taxes and other measures that will only deepen the crisis.
3) State service providers must invest to modernise air transport infrastructure urgently, eliminating wasteful fuel consumption and emissions.
4) Business partners, in particular monopoly service providers, must become as efficient as airlines are now. If not, regulators must restrain their appetite with tougher regulation.
5) Labour unions must refrain from making irresponsible claims and join the effort to secure jobs in aviation and indeed in other industries.
6) In the interest of the global economy and the flying public, we urge authorities to enforce the integrity of markets so that the cost of energy reflects its true value.

I'm not seeing any calls for the international community to pressure oil producing countries and oil companies to roll back or at least stabilize oil prices ("integrity of markets" is a pretty wimpy phrase for what is supposed to be a call to action), and I'm not seeing any calls for executives to make the same salary and bonus sacrifices that union workers have been required to make. I don't know how executive compensation at foreign airlines compares with that of US carriers, but it would seem to be worth putting into the cost-cutting and revenue-raising equation.

More than a year ago, Washington Post reporter Del Quinten Wilber wrote about pay cuts for employees concurrent with big bucks for bigwigs in "Turbulence Over Executive Pay" about just this subject. Just a couple of months later, "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS covered the same subject on "Payday! CEO Salaries." Part of Moyers's report:

"Northwest is the last of four major carriers to come out of bankruptcy after the 9-11 terror attacks. But it is not the first airline to use bankruptcy to keep operating while it cut costs, convinced creditors to exchange debt for equity, and rewarded executives after wringing concessions from the rank and file.

"When US Airways emerged from bankruptcy in 2005 CEO Doug Parker was awarded almost six million dollars-worth of stock and cash. Employees got pay cuts of up to 53 percent:
Pilots' top salary is $120,000.
Mechanics earn at most $48,300.
And flight attendants' top salary is just over $34,000.

"When United Airlines came out of bankruptcy in 2006, CEO Glenn Tilton was
awarded stock options and awards that, over four years, would earn him almost
$40 million dollars. More than the airline's $25 million dollar profit that year.
Employees, on the other hand, got pay cuts of up to 50 percent:
Pilot's top pay is $158,200.
Mechanics earn at most just over $52,000.
And flight attendants at most $37,600.

"Only Delta Airlines CEO Gerald Grinstein didn't follow the Wall Street
script. When Delta climbed back from bankruptcy this past April … it's
employees took pay cuts of up to 40 percent. And Grinstein actually turned down
10 million dollars in compensation."

As I noted, neither oil prices directly nor executive compensation was part of IATA's six-point proposal for rescuing the airline industry. How low-fare airlines will survive is another issue entirely. They have been able to succeed with efficient operations, but there's no way to trim fat off an already lean product when oil is $135 a barrel.

Comment Moderation

Sorry, real visitors, that I have now enabled comment moderation. "Julie," "Christine," Rozydesouza" and other robotic or robot-like humans on the subcontinent have been spamming Travel Babel relentlessly. I am tired of deleting these annoying and irrelevant comments one at a time. As far as you legitimate visitors are concerned, I hate to spoil the instant gratification of seeing your comments immediately. But that's the way it goes. Please bear with me -- and do comment. I'll approve as quickly as I can, and after a while, I hope that I can disable moderation again without annoying consequences.

Vail Deals a Blow, Takes a Hit

Vail Resorts pulls out of Colorado Ski Country USA and loses 2013 World Championship bid

Shock waves hit Colorado, the ski industry and specifically the Colorado ski industry when Vail Resorts Inc. announced that it would not renew its membership in Colorado Ski Country USA, the marketing, promotional and lobbying organization that in 2007-08 counted 26 member ski areas. With the the withdrawal of VRI and its four Colorado resorts (Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breckenridge, each counted separately on the membership roster), there will be 22. CSCUSA , a not-for-profit organization, will have a fiscal challenge to make up for the loss of VRI's contributions to the budget. CSCUSA was established in February 1963, ironically the same year that Vail opened for skiing. What a way for both to "celebrate" their respective 45th anniversaries.

“We had hoped to be a catalyst for positive change, but unfortunately, a number of the other members did not agree with our vision, and we were unable to resolve these differences,” said Robert Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts, was quoted in a much reported and not really convincing press release in the way of explanation of VRI's departure.

For its part, CSCUSA must still be reeling, because the media/news section of its website still does not mention withdrawal of one of its biggest, most powerful members, though very subtly the four VRI resort names have been removed from member list at the bottom of the website. This is not the first shocker Katz gave Colorado skiing. Shortly after he took the helm at VRI, he moved the corporate headquarters from the mountains to an office park in suburban Broomfield. Culture shock indeed.

CSCUSA's annual meeting, which will take place June 11-13, will be a doozy. Not only will the organization have to deal with the ramafications of VRI's departure, but a replacement needs to be named for Rob Perlman, Ski Country president, who resigned to join Intrawest, owner of Copper Mountain, Winter Park and Steamboat and also resorts outside of Colorado.

In what might be considered international comeuppance for Vail, the International Ski Federation (known by its French initials, FIS) denied Vail/Beacer Creek's bid to host the 2013 World Alpine Ski Championships, a biennial men's and women's competition that its previously hosted in 1989 and 1999. Schladming, Austria, was selected not only over Vail/Beaver Creek but also over Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. All four are Alpine skiing powerhouses that previously hosted World Championships and/or Olympic Winter Games.

When it comes to resort positioning, hosting a major ski event is not to be trivialized in the international skiing world. When the extremely snowy '89 World Championships in Vail and Beaver Creek were telecast in snow-hungry Europe, European ski snobs took a new interest on skiing in North America. My favorite story involved an enterprising German who managed to find the home phone number of George Gillett, then the owner of the Vail resorts, to book a ski vacation. World Championship and even World Cup media exposure has, in the pastm, been good for international business to Vail and Beaver in particular, to Colorado in general and to the Rockies even more generally. If the euro continues its strength against the dollar, American resorts will maintain their lure for European skiers. Too bad that Vail won't benefit from that exposure four seasons from now.