Where would you like to travel in 2012? For people in the travel industry, it’s often easier to come up with a list of where they wouldn’t like to travel. So many destinations, so little time.

This time of year, travel lists abound, with each, naturally, subjective in its own way. Looking for top luxury spots? Budget destinations? Off-the-beaten-path spots? How about top ethical places in the developing world? There’s a list for you.

Mayan ruins at Tulum, Mexico.

Without reading a single one, a destination gambler’s best odds for this year would be to include London and its surroundings, home of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Not far behind should be locales in Mexico and Central America that were part of the Mayan world. That culture, after all, predicts that the world as we know it will transition into its next phase on December 21, 2012.

Many of the current 2012 travel lists do indeed mention one or both of these destinations/regions, namely CNN’s World’s Top Destinations for 2012 (the first four of which also include Chicago and Myanmar and happen to align with my personal list of where I’m likely heading this year) and Frommer’s Best Destinations for 2012.

The Frommer’s list is particularly interesting as it’s geared toward the hard-to-define traveler who simply loves to explore the world and runs the gamut from budget to luxury. Destination choices are all over the map, literally and figuratively, from Canada’s Bay of Fundy to Japan’s Fukuoka, Ghana to Girona, Spain, with Beirut, Curacao, Kansas City and Chongqing, China, rounding out the list.

Uptake’s own Yen Lee harnessed the social media power of Facebook’s friend graph to capture the most buzzed about places, based on more than 200 million comments, status updates, photo descriptions and check-ins. The list published on Huffington Post includes some classic Southeast Asian gems, including Hoi An, Vietnam, and Luang Prabang, Laos, along with Copacabana, Bolivia, and Portland, Oregon, stateside.

Lonely Planet has expanded its audience significantly beyond intrepid backpackers during the past decade, so its annual lists now seem to include more places that make one wonder “why there” as opposed to “where is there.” There remain, however, some great picks. For top U.S. destinations, LP editors recommend the always-enjoyable Chicago, the Four Corners region of the Southwest, California’s Gold Country and, perhaps more surprisingly than the other spots, Cincinnati. Ever hear of Culebra? No? It’s an island 17 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. The Caribbean tropics can be yours, no passport required.

Luxury lovers who turn first to picks from Travel & Leisure‘s Hottest Destinations of 2012 will find a variety of remote resort destinations from which to choose, including Sri Lanka, Xishuangbanna in China’s Yunnan Province, and Mozambique’s Northern Coast, along with Bentonville, Arkansas. That’s right—Arkansas, which made the list thanks to the Moshe Safdie-designed Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, opened in November.

Budget Travel magazine has a terrific list of value destinations, including Egypt—surely a bargain these days and desperately trying to rebuild its tourism industry; Atlantic Canada, which also appears on a variety of lists; and Taipei, a personal favorite, for its culinary scene and diverse topography. Stateside San Diego and San Antonio are the places to stretch your dollars.

Conscientious and green travelers can thank Ethical Traveler for its newly released list of the Developing Worlds 10 Best Ethical Destinations (press release), based on their accomplishments in the areas of environmental protection, social welfare, and human rights. The winners, in alphabetical order, are: Argentina, The Bahamas, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominica, Latvia, Mauritius, Palau, Serbia and Uruguay.

The editors at The New York Times haven’t yet published their list for 2012, but they recommended 41 places to go in 2011. That probably was inclusive enough to last most people a good few years, or even a decade.

Photo: D.M. Airoldi

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge spent their first overseas trip, from June 30 to July 10, 2011, in North America. The enormous interest in all things Will and Kate with 1,300 journalists following them around has brought the destinations they visited a windfall in free publicity.

Kate & Wills

But Will and Kate divided their time between Canada and California, so which “CA tourism” made the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

For starters, the California Travel & Tourism Commission (CTTC) and VisitBritain teamed up to push the royals’ July 8 to 10 stay in Los Angeles as benefiting both California and Britain.

“We consider the Duke and Duchess’s visit a true hallmark, once-in-a-generation event that will benefit the state with a halo effect for years to come,” said Caroline Beteta, CTTC president & CEO. “Their visit also highlights the enduring positive relationship our state has enjoyed with U.K. travelers.”

Karen Clarkson, VisitBritain’s vice president for North America, explained the view from the other side of the pond. “Their popularity in the U.S. helps to keep the spotlight on Britain and showcase all of the exciting reasons why Americans should visit now,” said Clarkson. “The U.K. offers travelers choice, value and unforgettable experiences, rooted in our rich history, heritage, arts, culture and sporting traditions.”

The CTTC also launched a Royal Summer campaign which includes hotel packages inspired by Will and Kate’s visit. In a matching move, VisitBritain is offering “Royal Summer” travel tips on visitbritain.us for inbound U.S. travelers.

But while the CTTC and VisitBritain are busy patting each other on the back, Canada looks to be the destination that ends up with the biggest slice of the royal-tourism pie.

The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) set the ball rolling with a dedicated website and an accredited video crew, editor and two bloggers following Will and Kate around and producing daily “Royal Tour” material for website visitors and the media.

The regional tourism bureaus in Canada, whether by design or luck, ended up with great footage of the royal couple attending their most popular events and destinations.

They arrived in Ottawa on June 30, which happened to be Canada Day. The royal couple joined hundreds of thousands celebrating in the capital with fireworks and a rock concert, and the downtown core around Parliament Hill turned into a huge street party with Ottawa hotels completely sold out.

On July4, they were in Charlottetown for dragon-boat racing on Prince Edward Island. Kathy Hambly, executive director of the greater Charlottetown Chamber of Commerce, said it was fantastic to have Prince Edward Island showcased by the international media—not to mention the fact that images of Will and Kate competing against each other in a dragon-boat race will be useful as promotional material.

Banff National Park came into the limelight when the royal couple made a last-minute decision to spend the night of July 6 at the secluded Skoki Lodge near Lake Louise, which quickly had a $4,800 bathtub specially installed for the royal couple. Travel Alberta CEO Bruce Okabe noted that the lodge got more publicity in one day than it had in the last 50 to 60 years.

Calgary hotels likewise enjoyed a nice bounce July 7 and 8 for the 2011 Calgary Stampede, with iconic pictures of Will and Kate donning white cowboy hats. Tourism Calgary CEO Randy Williams said the 10 gallon hats they wore helped put Calgary on the map.

Alberta’s biggest markets just happen to be the United Kingdom and the United States, where interest in the royal tour of Canada was peaking at the right time when the couple were in Alberta, just before their arrival in Los Angeles. All said and done, it was a very well-timed royal tour, and the concerned destination organizations made the most of it.

Photo – VisitBritain

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An austerity drive sweeping through Europe is putting a spotlight on the lavish lifestyles of top officials and big organizations, and New York is feeling the impact as the go-to destination for these big spenders.

EU Parliament

The European Commission stands accused of spending more than €7.5 million (US$11 million) on private jet travel, luxury resorts, parties and handing out expensive Tiffany jewelry to guests.

But the one story that’s getting all the attention in the European news media is a $41,000 bill for a four-night stay at the Peninsula Hotel in New York by EU President José Manuel Barroso.

Barroso had come to New York for the General Assembly of the United Nations. The European Commission has a convenient explanation for the huge bill—it’s New York’s fault.

In response to a question raised in the European Parliament, they said that luxury hotels in New York jack up their rates when a big event like the U.N. General Assembly brings in hundreds of large international delegations.

Then there’s the hotel maid incident involving IMF chief and French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn and another one involving an Egyptian businessman that have made luxury New York hotels like the Sofitel and Pierre infamous.

One of the side stories of the DSK incident is a spotlight on the opulent lifestyles of IMF officials. DSK was staying in a $3,000 luxury suite at the Sofitel, and questions were raised in France about who’s paying for it. Considering the IMF’s role as a global banker for distressed nations, it’s a particularly bad situation.

Coupled with the Greek bailout crisis and a £10 billion (US$14.65 billion) government waste cutting plan underway in the United Kingdom, these incidents have the makings of a full-blown AIG Effect where officials and corporate executives get taken down by the media and public for spending too much.

The BBC, for example, is taking heat for booking 200 rooms in 14 luxury hotels for the Glastonbury Festival. In London, civil servants have apparently spent £25 million (US$36.63 million) on credit cards for late-night pizzas, iPads, snowmobiles and…luxury hotels.  The total travel bill came to £3 million, of which £1.5 million (US$2.47 million) was for luxury five-star hotels all over the world.

The fear of a media take-down will curtail heavy spending by high-profile European travelers when they come to Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities, but the biggest impact will be felt in New York. Four of the top international tourism markets into New York are European, with the United Kingdom on top, with more than one million visitors each year.

Photo – CGP Grey

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Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock will know that there’s a royal wedding about to take place in London, with Prince William marrying Kate Middleton on April 29, 2011.

VisitBritain Royal Wedding

London is gearing up for an invasion of 600,000 domestic and international visitors on the wedding day. The number of visitors for the month of April are up 10 to 20 percent, compared to last year.

The television audience for the event, which is going to be telecast live, is expected to be in the two billion ballpark.

Whenever there’s a mega-event like this one, the relative tourism marketing organization (VisitBritain, in this case) is under immense pressure to milk the event and give tourism a permanent boost.

VisitBritain has been busy with pages dedicated to the royal wedding and tools like Royal Wedding Predictor, which allows users to guess details of the day and has a large fan following on Facebook.

Apart from the website and social media buzz, Meredith Pearson from VisitBritain’s U.S. office tells Forbes and TravelWeekly what else the organization is doing and what it hasn’t been able to do.

The traditional advertising campaign that targets the captive audience at these events is sadly missing. They’re not running advertisements crafted for the wedding and neither is there going to be a boost in regular advertising. VisitBritain can’t afford it, having had their budget slashed by 30 percent over the next four years.

The organization was supposed to kick off a four-year $100 million tourism marketing campaign in May right after the wedding. But the “Britain, You’re Invited” campaign’s U.S. launch has now been pushed back to the fall. The campaign is built around capitalizing on the royal wedding, the Queen’s Jubilee and the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

Pearson explained that the amount of free exposure Britain is getting currently is phenomenal, so funds will be better spent in the fall. Right now, VisitBritain is focusing on media relations, steering the media and networks to cover the rest of Britain outside of London. It even has a “Top 10 Kate Middleton and Prince William Locations” page on its website.

According to multiple U.K.-based research organizations, the impact of the wedding on the economy could be anywhere between $839 million (Center for Retail Research) to $1 billion (Verdict Research). Of this, $585 million goes to food and grocery retailers, while tourism and travel takes $351 million.

The 600,000 visitors on the day of the wedding are predicted to spend between $50 and $80 million. But this temporary boost can’t come anywhere close to making up for the $6.64 billion loss to the economy, because April 29 was declared as a bank holiday.

That loss could have been offset somewhat by a permanent uptick in tourism if VisitBritain had been allowed to target the royal-wedding audience directly with advertisements. As things stand, it has to depend on the media and hope to push Britain as a destination via the coverage linked to the event.

Photo – VisitBritain.com

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