With Labor Day just around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about fall travel, especially as it’s one of the most economical “shoulder season” times of the year to travel. And according to TripAdvisor’s latest fall and Labor Day survey, released today, the number of U.S. travelers planning to take a trip this fall jumped to 86 percent, representing a 12 percent increase over last year’s 74 percent response.

Of the 1,600 respondents with fall travel plans, 56 percent are planning weekend getaways, while 35 percent will vacation for one week. More than two-thirds said that their travel plans for autumn have not been impacted by recent economic news, while 37 percent plan to spend more than they did last year on fall leisure trips and 46 percent intend to spend the same as in 2010.

For Labor Day, 28 percent have travel plans for the long holiday weekend, equal to last year’s survey results. Among those respondents, 60 percent expect to drive, and 34 percent plan to fly. Twenty-six percent will take an outdoors trip, 24 percent will take a city escape, and 24 percent will take a beach trip. Traffic is the worst part of traveling for Labor Day for 40 percent of respondents, while 16 percent cited it being depressing that Labor Day represents the end of summer.

For autumn travel overall, 40 percent are planning a city trip, 28 percent will make cultural trips, and 27 percent will try to extend summer by hitting the beach. Fall foliage viewing was the top ranked fall activity, at 43 percent, followed by wine tasting/visiting a vineyard (29 percent) and attending a state/county fair or fall festival (23 percent).

Which destinations are U.S. travelers planning to visit this fall? New York City, Las Vegas, Orlando, Chicago and San Francisco.

Additional fall travel findings:

• 69 percent said they will stay in a hotel, 30 percent at the home of family or friends and 20 percent intend to stay at a vacation rental (respondents could choose more than one answer)
• Fewer crowds than summer (23 percent) and climate being more pleasant than during summer (22 percent) are the top two reasons travelers enjoy trips in the fall.
• 27 percent of travelers are planning to travel to a hurricane susceptible destination.
• 65 percent of travelers intend to take a domestic leisure trip this fall, while another 23 percent will travel both domestically and internationally, and 11 percent will take international-only trips.
• 70 percent of travelers will drive to their fall vacation destinations, while 69 percent plan to fly (percentage exceeds 100 due to some respondents taking more than one trip).

Photo: kimberlykv (via Flickr)

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Until recently, few people knew or cared about the tiny municipality of Zangberg in Bavaria, Germany. Today, Zangberg is on the world map and all over the Internet thanks to a runaway cow named Yvonne.

Yvonne - The Runaway Cow

Yvonne was being fattened at a farm in Zangberg before being sent to a slaughter house. She escaped from the farm three months ago and has been living in nearby forests ever since, and has even been seen grazing with deer in the forest.

After she caused an accident with a police car, a shoot order was issued to allow for people to kill the cow if they came upon it.

That brought the matter to the notice of animal rights activists, and an animal sanctuary named Gut Aiderbichl bought Yvonne from the farm and has agreed to allow the cow to graze for life.

But Yvonne doesn’t know and is still on the lam. Gut Aiderbichl is trying just about everything to coax the cow back, including enlisting the help of an animal psychic to communicate telepathically with the bovine, and bringing in a bull named Ernst to lure Yvonne back into captivity.

A helicopter has now been brought in to join the search, and German newspaper Bild has even put out a $14,000 reward for the cow’s safe capture. Pictures of Yvonne are plastered all over the Internet and on news and media publications worldwide.

With a cow on the lam and in the news headlines, it didn’t take long for 6-year-old Yvonne to get her own Facebook page and a Twitter account.

The Facebook account has earned lots of likes and expressions of support, not to mention the funny updates of life on the lam for a cow, such as: “Yvonne the German Cow: is away to sleep now in the nice forest, with a comfy bed made of old editions of Moos Of The World (it has udder uses too ) Lots of Mooooooooos to all my Fräulein friends >:-D~” and “Hellooooooo my friends. Yvonne here. Enjoying the Bavarian sunshine through the trees. Still free to roam and loving the freedom of the forest.”

The @KuhvonZangberg Twitter account for Yvonne the Cow is pretty new. Sample tweet: “Actually, I heard about that new “Planet of the Apes” film and was inspired. It’s hard wielding tools with hoofs, though.”

Zangberg, with its main claim to tourist fame so far being that it had a Nazi concentration camp during WWII, isn’t letting Yvonne’s escapades go to waste.

Zangberg Mayor Franz Märkl is quoted in the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung as saying that the cow had been trained well for the summer news vacuum, and now everyone in Germany “has heard of our lovely village.”

Photo – Yvonne the German Cow (Facebook)

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Feature 1: The Wall Street Journal had Concur Technologies Inc. crunch the numbers on 8.3 million business travel expense reports from 3,000 companies that Concur services. What do the numbers say?

Concur Q2 spend report

- Business travelers spend an average of $49 on in-flight expenses, including Wi-Fi, alcohol, meals and entertainment.

- Those dining alone spend an average of $39 per meal.

- The average hotel room rate was $103 per night (up 5.6 percent compared to 2010).

- The average airfare worldwide was $447 (up 9.3 percent).

- Employees are taking longer to file expense reports (21 days compared to 16 days in 2010) and employers are taking longer to approve it (4.4 days, as compared to 3.8 days in 2010).

Also interesting to note is that airfare is charged to company cards in 83 percent of the reports, but airline fees only appear on cards 19 percent of the time.

Download full report (pdf) - Concur.com
Expense Report Confidential - WSJ
Concur adds mobile air booking to the corporate travel experience – Concur.com

Feature 2: Las Vegas is trying out a new “social” take on its “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” tag line. The city came up with a new ad campaign where people who post on Facebook and Twitter about private (read scandalous) moments in Vegas are shunned by their friends. They’re called “Vegas Violators” in the ads.

But the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) apparently thought “Vegas Violators” was too strong a term, so it came up with a tamer tag line that says “Protect the Moment.”

Fact remains, of course, that neither “Vegas Violators” nor “Protect the Moment” is good enough to replace the “What Happens Here” line.

Ads want to make sure ‘it’ stays in Las Vegas – LVRJ.com

Here’s the rest of the week’s interesting news:

Room 77 on track to include 1 million rooms by end of 2011 – Eyefortravel
Hipmunk celebrates first birthday; over 150,000 hours of agony saved - Hipmunk.com
New meta-search engine for flights, hotels and car rentals - Aeroplanes.com

Smartphone app offers safer travel by taxi – BBC
Use your smartphone as attraction admission ticket - SmartDestinations.com

U.S. to invest $510 million in biofuels for planes, ships – Bloomberg
DARPA offers $500,000 award for interstellar travel research – NYT

American Airlines and AmEx reach direct connect understanding – AA.com
AT&T connects IHG across the oceans - ATT.com

Study: The UX of 18 leading travel websites – Usabilla blog (download full report – pdf)

Photo – Concur Technologies Inc.

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Travelers who rent cars often might want to consider Hertz Corporation’s new customer loyalty program, which for a limited time is offering bonus points for signing up and rentals, and is waiving its fee for Hertz #1 Club Gold membership.

Gold Plus Rewards replaces the Hertz #1 Awards customer loyalty program and offers enhancements that are designed to make earning rewards faster and easier, such as flexible reward options including points that never expire, “AnyDay” reward options that have no blackout periods, online redemption on hertz.com, international point accrual and a variety of car rewards including cars from Hertz’s new Adrenaline Collection, featuring Dodge, Ford and Chevy sports cars.

Points earned previously in the #1 Awards program will transition automatically into the Gold Plus Rewards program.

“Gold Plus Rewards reflects extensive input from our customers and, in addition to free rental days, we’re enabling all customers to take advantage of Hertz’s premiere, expedited rental process,” said Mark P. Frissora, Hertz chairman and CEO, in a statement.

To introduce the program, Hertz is offering a 500-point sign-up bonus—equivalent to a free weekend rental day—to current and new members who enroll in the revamped program, and 100 bonus points per paid rental day on qualifying rentals taking place through Sept. 30, 2011. In addition, during this period, Hertz is waiving the $60 sign-up fee for its expedited Hertz #1 Club Gold service.

Members of Gold Plus Rewards Points earn one point per dollar spent on qualifying Hertz rentals. Free weekend rental days are earned for as few as 500 points. Points are tracked automatically and can be redeemed online. Rewards include a choice of rental options and car types including cars from any of Hertz’s Collections—the new Adrenaline and Green Traveler Collections and the popular Prestige Collection.

Gold Plus Rewards also has AnyDay Rewards with no blackout dates, and Gold Plus Rewards Points do not automatically expire. Each time a member earns points or redeems points, their points renew for an additional 24 months

For more information or to sign-up, visit www.HertzGoldPlusRewards.com.

Photo: Hertz via Facebook

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