17 Aug
SOURCE: Associated Press
JetBlue’s All-You-Can-Jet pass is back, making it possible again to travel to an unlimited number of cities over a one-month period.
The pass is valid for flights between Sept. 7 and Oct. 6, the company said Tuesday. There are two price tiers: an unlimited pass for $699 or a $499 pass that excludes travel on Fridays and Sundays.
Last year, the first time the passes were offered, they cost $599 and sold out quickly.
The promotion also brought the 10-year-old airline a lot of publicity, as customers documented their travels on Facebook and Twitter. People used the pass for tours of everything from the nation’s sports stadiums and music meccas to 30-day job searches.
The wildly popular promotion is rolling out a week later than last year. Last week, JetBlue Airways was wrestling with the national attention focused on Steven Slater, the now-infamous JetBlue flight attendant, who cursed out a passenger over a plane’s intercom and made a quick exit down the emergency slide with beer in hand.
The passes are being issued during a traditionally sluggish travel period wedged between the summer vacation and winter holiday seasons, when airlines are keen on filling seats that would otherwise be empty.
The limited number of tickets, which can be booked online through Friday, sold out much faster than expected last year.
All travel must be booked between Monday and Oct. 3. Passengers must book flights within three days of departure, or pay a $50 booking fee. There’s also a $50 fee for changes or cancellations within three days of travel.
Despite fees and a higher price, this year’s pass is a better deal than the first time around, said George Hobica, founder of AirfareWatchdog.com.
Because fares are much higher this year, a single flight across the country is $100 more in some cases, he said. Hobica thinks JetBlue will draw even more crowds this year because of the $499 option.
Of course, this doesn’t mean an end to airport cargo rules. And, you’ll still find yourself subjected to all of the post-911 airport security rules that make for long lines and anxious customers at virtually every airline terminal in the world. But, the perk may just make moving around the country interviewing for those vp jobs a little less expensive.
Travelers must join JetBlue’s frequent flier program, TrueBlue, to participate. All participants earn a standard amount of frequent flier miles for buying the passes — 4,200 points for the purchase of the unlimited pass, or 3,000 points for the pass that’s valid five days a week. One-way flight awards start at 5,000 points.
The airline serves 61 cities with 650 daily flights.
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MY TAKE: I don’t know of anyone, save the guys out there on that executive search for new employment who could travel enough places, let alone afford the costs of the flights, to make this perk a worthy venture. With online casino gambling and everything else being handled via the Internet, is it really a realistic thing to believe people still need to hop on planes so often? I think this may be just a JetBlue PR trick to get us to take our eye off the ball that is/was the angry flight attendant who quit his job in an angry huff a while back before exiting the plane via the emergency shoot.
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06 Aug
Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles hoteliers are seeking to add a new fee to existing hotel taxes on tourists to pump more money to promote the city as a tourist Mecca.
While the city already spends $11.4 million a year to attract tourists, proponents of the new fee say Los Angeles spends far less to promote itself than other top tourism towns such as Las Vegas, San Diego and Orlando, Fla.
“We’ve been noncompetitive in the convention business and tourism business for years,” said Bruce Gorelick, manager of the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa and a supporter of the plan. “We’ve explored this for quite a while and the recession just makes it more urgent.”
The city already levies a 14% transient occupancy tax, or bed tax, on hotel guests. The new proposed fee of an additional 1.5% would be levied only on guests at the 192 hotels in Los Angeles with more than 50 guest rooms. It would generate an estimated $10 million to $11 million annually. The charge must be approved by the Los Angeles City Council and the hotel owners. The proposal is scheduled for a vote of a City Council committee later this month.
Bert Seneca, general manager of the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in North Hollywood, said the extra marketing money would help Los Angeles compete against other cities in drawing tourists.
“Los Angeles is being outspent in marketing by a number of cities,” he said.
The annual advertising budget for Las Vegas is about $71 million, while the city of Orlando spends about $31 million and the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau spends about $24 million to reach out to tourists.
A specific marketing campaign using money generated by the new assessment has yet to be drafted, but hotel officials said a committee of marketing and tourism experts — headed by Universal Studios Hollywood President Larry Kurzweil — has been formed to devise a plan.
The city of San Diego created a tourism marketing district in 2007 that generated $27 million last year and helped fund a 2009 national marketing campaign with the slogan “Happy Happens.”
Seneca said the extra assessment should fund a similar campaign for Los Angeles. Since 2008, the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau has promoted the city through a campaign tied to the slogan “That’s so LA.”
“We need to be able to strengthen the Los Angeles brand,” he said. “We need something that is going to be able to spin Los Angeles in a good light.”
While individual businesses such as Universal Studios Hollywood and the city’s large hotels spend heavily to promote themselves, the backers of the proposed L.A. marketing district say a well-funded united campaign is needed for the whole city.
The campaign needs to push L.A. beyond the scope of common thinking, meaning it needs to give potential tourists a vision of the city that doesn’t immediately conjure up the thought of shopping on Rodeo Drive, organic skin care or auction home buyers. Hollywood is only part of Los Angeles’ draw and in order to capitalize on those attractions, whether beaches, mountain resorts, desert views or garden walking tours, the new slogan and the heart of the campaign need to be as far away from the notion of life in a bikini and how to get rid of belly fat.
“Individually, there is no way we can make the impact that we can make as a united front,” Gorelick said.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn said several hotel owners approached her with the idea last year and she agreed to spearhead it in City Hall. “Tourism is our No. 1 industry, and we really depend on it,” she said. “If it’s that important to us, we should be spending more to promote Los Angeles.”
Under the proposal, the City Council must approve the creation of a citywide tourism marketing district. Hotels with 50 rooms or more would then vote to adopt a 1.5% fee added to the daily hotel room rate.
The 1.5% assessment would be added only to the room rate, not to the cost of meals or other services offered at the hotels.
Hotel and tourism leaders say creating a tourism district would be an easier way to raise money than increasing the bed tax, which would require approval of city voters.
The money raised by the assessment would be collected by a nonprofit group called the Los Angeles Tourism Marketing District Management Corp., which would handle the funds.
A committee of the council is expected to vote on the proposal in two weeks, followed by a vote of the city’s 192 large hotels in late August or early September. Tourism leaders hope to begin collecting the fee as early as this fall.
Gorelick said he was confident the plan would be adopted by the hotels because the vote would be weighted to give the largest hotels more influence in the outcome.
Most of the city’s largest hotels have already joined a steering committee to support the new tax, he said. “I have no concern that it won’t pass.”
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My Take: Spinning L.A. in a good light won’t be easy. Let’s face it, when we think of Los Angeles we think of real estate auctions, traffic, Pilates classes and how to lose fat stomach baby weight. But in a city where organic beauty products cost more than a cell phone bill and the price of gas is as inconsistent as the rainfall, the big question is will tourists accept higher fees and how will residents know if and when the campaign is working?
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