During the real estate boom when everyone was buying up everything at the beach, long-loved resort hotels and motels were being bought out and torn down as fast as you could say “room service” to make way for single family homes, high-rise luxury condos and the strange hybrid called the condotel. Heck, sometimes developers trying to beat the real estate bubble didn’t even tear down the hotel they had just bought out. They just flipped it as best they could to look make it appear more luxurious – and with a few Transformer sound effects (wha-wha-whe-whe-whi) – presto! chango! – a condotel for all to buy into. But the problem is, like New Coke, people didn’t buy into the hype…

Perhaps figuring out what a condotel was gave people trouble. Wikipedia says a condotel is typically a high-rise buildings developed and operated as a luxury hotel. These “hotels” have condominium units which allow someone to own what amounts to a full-service vacation home (with lots of neighbors down the hall and people always in your living room – or what non-owners call the lobby). When the condotel owners aren’t using their “home,” they can leverage the marketing and management done by the hotel chain to rent and manage the condo unit as it would any other hotel room. This sounds awfully a lot like a timeshare to me, but what do I know, I’m old school.

But the problem with condotels, besides the freaky name, is developers marketed them to potential owners as solid investments, saying that their condotel room (or “home”) would be booked almost all the time. In addition, some condotels on the coast have gotten into legal trouble for allowing developers to circumvent laws designed to protect public beach accesses. Because a condotel has hotel rooms, it can be called a public accommodation, but in truth the rooms are mostly under private ownership.

The Wall Street Journal offers an article on the pros and cons of condotel ownership in their online archives, and it may shed a little more light than I have on the trend called “condotels”….

Travel trend watchers said they are seeing a rise in the number of Americans opting for stay-at-home vacations, or “staycations,” and people who are either canceling their travel plans, postponing them until later in the year or opting to take fewer, shorter trips. 
         
For some families, it’s a matter of figuring out which trips are necessary – and which ones don’t fit into the budget. For others, financial concerns mean changing warm-weather traditions altogether. Though overarching economic concerns are also affecting travel plans, the increased cost of gasoline is cited by many as a key reason for scaling back.

 

Living near the beach, I can say a staycation looks okay to me. In fact, I did it last year – vacationed here at my house. But it just wasn’t the same. My company called me into work for a meeting, the Terminix guy wanted to come out to do his monthly pest control treatment, telemarketers still called on the phone, and my fellow staycationer – my dad, since it was a family staycation – warned us that our toilet might be broken and advised on how we might make the repair on our va… I mean staycation.

 

A staycation wasn’t too bad, but I think people are still really looking for a getaway when it comes to vacations. Switching out the “va” for an “stay” in “vacation” changes a lot of things….

 According to Hitwise, a leading online competitive intelligence service, the top 20 most visited websites for the travel industry this March were MapQuest, Google Maps, Expedia, Yahoo! Maps, Southwest Airlines, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline.com, Cheap Tickets, Yahoo! Travel, American Airlines, Hotwire, Delta Air Lines, TripAdvisor, Kayak, Hotels.com, Local Live, VacationsToGo.com, Northwest Airlines, and United Airlines.

The Hitwise travel category lists those sites which are related to travel and the travel industry, including publications, travel agencies, transport services/people carriers, airports, destinations, resorts, travel and locality guides and accommodation. 
         
Hitwise monitors a range of Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks to capture the usage patterns of Internet users. For more information visit hitwise.com.

A recent U.S. Tour Operators Association (USTOA) survey of its tour operator members revealed five key desires of travelers: flexibility and choice, an authentic experience, the ability to customize a trip, value for the dollar and enhanced services/new destinations.

 

The survey revealed that while travelers want the value of a packaged tour, they also want  flexibility with more free time, more shopping and greater choices. Travelers also want centrally located hotels for easy access to major sites, making exploring on their own easier. Travelers are also looking for small touches and extra service, along with value for their money.       

It used to be when you stayed overnight at a hotel that the rest and relaxation you had paid so dearly for wasn’t all you had dreamed of. There was the noisy “neighbor next door” with the tv extra loud, baby crying {insert other sleep depriving noises at three o’clock in the morning here} that kept you from realizing your relaxing overnight dream.

But under the dark cloud of staycations, where people stay home and go on “vacation” instead of going away and paying for overnight accommodations, hotels are getting sleep savvy, offering guests ear plugs, lavendar-misted pillows and even a soothing sleep-knowledgable “pillow librarian.” Tell me, who is qualified for that job?

To learn more about accommodations’ ideas to help patrons get their sleep on, USA Today offers an intriguing article. Rest assured, you’ll be amazed at how good of a sleep you can get at some places.

With an almost paid off GMC Yukon, I’m all about the idea of hypermiling.  Hypermiling, according the the online hype, is a method of increasing your car’s gas mileage by making changes in the way you drive, allowing you to save gas.

How do you accomplish hypermiling? Well, it sounds a lot easier than trying to convert your car to run on water. Some of the tips include keeping your car moving in congested traffic situations; not being an agressive driver (yeah, I hate aggressive drivers, even though I tend to be one sometimes because I feel empowered in a big car – it’s the whole sitting up higher than everyone else thing I think…), and slowly accelerating when the stoplight turns green.

To extend my gas mileage, I can deal with being last out of the gate at the stoplight, as long as the kids can deal with mom being a lame driver. No more cheers from the back seat when we beat the Mustang, but that’s okay. I’m over it, I guess….

Want to learn more of the hype about hypermiling? Visit hypermiling.com, and don’t drink too many Red Bulls before you get out there and drive or your gas tank is going to be empty in a heartbeat, mister….