Friday's Travel InsideOut

Southwest and JetBlue now are flying into some major airports instead of off-the-beaten-track landing strips. Will they be able to maintain their value proposition as they get right in the middle of all of the hub-bub?

Wall Street Journal: Southwest Lands at Logan, Bringing Low Fares Mainstream: Next week Southwest Airlines Co. will do something that Herbert Kelleher, its legendary former chief executive, said would never happen: The airline will offer flights at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Read more

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Following are two articles, one from the Los Angeles Times and the second from the Havana Times, detailing efforts by U.S. citizens to defy the Cuba travel ban. Hey, it's Travel InsideOut, you know.

Los Angeles Times: Violator of Cuba travel ban seeks to force court action: Erika Crenshaw returned to Los Angeles this week from a 10-day trip to Cuba with a message for authorities charged with enforcing a ban on travel to the communist-ruled island: Come and get me. Read more

Havana Times: US Travel Ban on Cuba Losing Teeth: While visiting Cuba is still illegal and subject to fines for US citizens, Washington’s travel ban appears to be losing some of its teeth. Read more

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A new tool for revenue managers helps hoteliers determine how to set their opaque rates on Priceline. How high is too high? How low is too low? Let’s limbo some more:)

The Center for Hospitality Research: Setting Room Rates on Priceline: How to Optimize Expected Hotel Revenue: Executive Summary: This report and tool combination develops a novel approach to set prices on Priceline.com to maximize revenues received from releasing rooms to Priceline. When setting rates on Priceline, hotel properties face a straightforward auction-like pricing decision. Read more

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A new hotel application on Twitter shows more experimentation with travel search and planning on the social media site.

InventorSpot:Twihotels, The Twitter Hotel-Finder Launches: Hotel booking sites like Hotels.com can locate a number of hotels anywhere in the world and if you are diligent enough to cross-reference with TripAdvisor you can most likely obtain a review on that hotel's performance. But until now, there was no one site that could surface hotel recommendations for you firsthand, without a lot of searching and cross-referencing. Twihotels is filling that void nicely with a new app they just rolled out in August. Read more

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It’s too soon to tell whether there will be fewer cruise-ship repositionings or vacation cancellations, but hurricane watchers have downgraded their hurricane forecast after a pacific start to the hurricane season.

Travel Weekly: Hurricane forecast altered after a quiet two months The lack of hurricane activity prompted the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to alter its 2009 forecast on Thursday. Read more

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I’m betting that Orbitz will take Ratestogo.com’s modified retail model out of Asia and Europe and into North America in a meaningful way.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Does Orbitz Ratestogo.com Mean Merchant Model To Go.com?: Orbitz Worldwide CEO Barney Harford is bullish on subsidiary ratestogo.com, the Sydney, Australia, hotel business primarily selling last-minute rooms in Europe and Asia. Read more

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Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

Orbitz Cuba-Travel Campaign Hits 70K Signers

The Orbitz petition drive to pressure the Obama administration to overturn the roughly 50-year-old U.S. ban on travel by Americans to Cuba recorded its 70,000th signer July 30, less than three months after the campaign began.

Orbitz Worldwide spokesman Brian Hoyt said the goal of OpenCuba.org is to attract 100,000 signers.

Hoyt said Orbitz would then present the petitions to elected officials in Washington, D.C. in the fall.

I'm happy to see that supporters of the drive include Cuban-American organizations, as well as the National Tour Association, the U.S. Tour Operators Association (USTOA) and the Adventure Travel Trade Association.

I am disappointed to see that a broader swath of travel companies and associations hasn't followed Orbitz's laudable lead and stepped forward on this issue of such import to the rights of Americans and to the travel industry.

Travelocity, Priceline and Expedia where are you on this?

American Express, Carnival Corp., Hertz, ASTA and NBTA why are you sitting on the sidelines?

It is time to get behind this effort and to display some guts.

In Block-ade-Buster Move, Orbitz Launches 'Open Cuba' Campaign

Orbitz is offering a $100 coupon toward a four-night vacation package to Cuba and the online travel agency's Away.com brand is featuring a Cuba Travel Guide, with tips about exploring Old Havana and the Afro-Cuban heritage in Santiago de Cuba.

Imagine that.

It's all part of a petition campaign and website that Orbitz is officially launching tomorrow that calls on Congress and the Obama administration to end the 50-year-old Cuba travel ban. The petition reads:

"We call on you to reverse our failed policy of isolation and end the 50-year ban on travel to Cuba in the United States. We believe that every American should have the freedom to travel to any country in the world, including Cuba, because the interaction between peoples from different countries is the single most powerful way to advance the causes of peace and prosperity."

In light of the Obama administration's steps to loosen travel to Cuba by Cuban families, I heartily endorse the effort.

Americans should have the right to travel anywhere, and I give credit to Orbitz for taking the bold step to take a leadership position in the travel industry on this issue.

Orbitz and market-research firm Ipsos released a poll in tandem with the campaign launch that shows that 67 percent of respondents would back a plan to allow travel agents to book Cuba travel and 63 percent supported allowing online travel agencies to do so, as well.

I believe this was a bold move by Orbitz because the OTA risks a boycott and a backlash.

And, it's also curious that the Interactive Travel Services Association, the trade group that represents major OTAs and global distribution systems (GDSs) like Sabre, Galileo, Worldspan and Amadeus, didn't lead or at least join in the effort.

Perhaps there is some dissension in ITSA about the move.

As much as I applaud Orbitz's Open Cuba campaign, I have to say that offering the $100 coupon for Cuba travel cheapens the effort.

Signers of the petition get emailed a promotion code, which is good toward a four-night Cuba air-hotel vacation package if you register on Orbitz.com and once the federal government approves travel to Cuba for the general public.

Orbitz officials plan on presenting the petition to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., later this year, but the coupon offering opens Orbitz to charges that the petition signers may have been swayed by the discount.

At any rate, I hope other major travel companies and nontravel companies join the campaign.

It is not only a travel issue, but a human rights issue.

There is growing momentum toward lifting the Cuba travel ban and travel companies, including some airlines, are getting excited. AirTran Airways and Allegiant Air already are dusting off plans.

In the Orbitz-Ipsos poll, 72 percent of respondents said they believe restarting U.S.-to-Cuba travel would benefit the daily lives of the Cuban people.

Clearly, the boycott hasn't worked and only has served to cause greater suffering for the Cuban people.

Let's take this opportunity to push travel to Cuba and to put pressure on Raoul Castro to open up the society.

Cuba Travel: An Opening

The U.S. Treasury Dept., following Congressional directives, reinstated the right of U.S. citizens to visit "close relatives" in Cuba once every 12 months.
It's a meaningful opening, and could signal the day when ordinary Americans might have the freedom to travel to Cuba.
Might even Barack and Raoul begin a dialogue one of these days? Now, that would be something. We might have to tackle healthcare first.
But, if we can talk to Tehran or Damascus, why not Havana?