John Pasmore's Occassional Blog

unGrounded by John

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Nothing like heading somewhere tropical to drive home the point that you’ve been working hard. And I’ve been working in the travel business. That business, like the economy as a whole, is still stuck in reverse. That’s frightening, but the economy is well beyond my control so time to focus on what’s within reach.

Usually I am that person making sure all the t’s are crossed for the crews we have scouring the Caribbean for good stories to add to the growing video library of Voyages, but I managed to head down to the Caribbean for the Caribbean Hotel Association conference and once I landed in St Lucia it was pretty evident that the business, travel, still has a pretty positive pulse.

We’ve been looking at reams of research on the landscape, and one of the curious side-effects of the downturn is that traffic, web traffic, is actually up on many travel sites as customers search, and search and search for the best travel bargains. And they are out there. And all that searching means that for some, ad revenue’s are up.

So, while there is every reason to stay home and watch CNBC or Bloomberg as we step back from the edge (hopefully), there’s little that you can do about the market and less about the economy. I’ve postponed many, many trips over the years, but I can’t say that I’ve ever had any regret about any of the trips I’ve managed to actually take. So, even in tough times it feels good to be ungrounded. As for all the rest, all we can do is hope.

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