Camp's Bay, Cape Town

TripAdvisor just released its annual list of the world’s best travel destinations, and neither New York or Paris makes one of the top three spots. Cape Town, South Africa takes the crown for its beaches, views, hiking trails and wildlife, as well as its historical significance: Visitors can tour Robben Island, the prison Nelson Mandela was held in for 27 years.

Sydney, Australia (number 11 last year) is in second place. The site notes the city’s broad appeal to “culture vultures, city slickers and beach bums,” along with its world-class shopping.

Coming in at No. 3 is Machu Picchu, the historic Incan limestone architectural wonder on a high plateau in Peru.

Paris, which did not make it into the top 25 last year, holds the No. 4 spot, while Rio de Janeiro (also new to the top 10) is at five.

The four U.S. cities that made the top 25 are New York City at six, Honolulu at 19, San Francisco at 23 and Las Vegas at 25.

With the exception of Machu Picchu, this year’s list reflects much more of an urban travel trend than last year’s rankings, whose top choices were weighted toward small European cities such as Monte Carlo, Salzburg, Lucerne, Heidelberg and Florence.

See the full list here.

Photo: neiladerney123 aka Neil Howard

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Gang Wars: This ain't your father's gun show

You’ve heard of Star Wars? A new travel group in Los Angeles is about to turn that phrase on its head.

For years, tourists have hopped on buses and toured celebrities’ homes — much to the dismay of many celebrities. Our particular tour caught a glimpse of Nicholas Cage walking out his front door — that is until he spied our big wheels on the curb, and he ducked back inside the mansion. We sat there almost 30 minutes trying to outlast Mr. Cage’s need to go wherever he was headed originally, but eventually we had to roll on. He won that round, if you call being trapped inside a mansion winning.

Hugh Hefner fought back, installing a security system at his home that included a cursing rock that announced to tour buses guides to “get the f— off my property.” Tour guides love to set it off for their passengers’ entertainment.

Now a non-profit group known as LA Gang Tours will begin offering a similar agenda in January, but this time the theme is gang related. According to the press release, this stroll will be “a true first-hand encounter of the history and origin of high-profile gang areas and the top crime scene locations.” Think LA County Jail, the L.A. River, the Metropolitan Detention Center, Skid Row, Florencia 13, Florence Avenue, and the Pico Union Graff Lab.

The men behind this idea are civic activists who believe  the poor economy in the interior of Los Angeles is a social injustice, as they like to phrase it. The hope is that Gang Tours can create jobs for folks in South Central Los Angeles and give back to the community overall. You can’t change without some green.

Of course, the real question is whether the idea will bring in real dollars. Sure, people play gang strategy games on the Internet, and the National Geographic Channel saw fit to make this a show topic. But there’s still a distance between the consumer and violence. In this version, participants shell out $65  to wear a flak jacket and sign a waiver on your life during the next few hours. Organizers say they’ve struck a deal with the gangs not to shoot off their guns between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., when they might hit one of these paying guests.

Even the founder, Alfred Lomas, a guy who turned his life around from the gang wars to a food ministry, understands the skepticism. “Well, the purpose of going into [Florencia] is that when this idea was first birthed, it was the result really of what’s known as a one-dimensional approach to a three-dimensional problem. And that is that for generations and decades now, our approach is putting people away in jail, incarcerating them. There’s no prevention, very little intervention, and the gangs are actually growing,” he tried to explain to CNN when its reporter came calling. Somehow, getting them to cooperate on this tour project brings awareness of the problem and that translates into change.

Tourists and gangs don't mix

God bless Mr. Lomas’ heart, because such loyalty and dedication is humbling. But I’m more in line with Dennis Zine, the Los Angeles city councilman who rebutted, “I think it’s a crazy idea. I think that if something moves forward on that, you’re going to jeopardize a lot of people. What are those gang members going to do when they see people coming by and looking at them and gawking at them?”

So while I’ll gladly recommend Alcatraz tours to clients,  hook up travelers with Chicago‘s crime history, and encourage people to take London Walk’s Jack the Ripper tour, I won’t make a peep about LA Gang Wars to my LA-bound clients. I don’t know that I have enough insurance to protect me in the case of an unfortunate incident. That, and the f-word is not entertaining in this setting.

Photography: Michael (mx5tx), DieselDemon

Holiday travel just got cheaper

It’s all over USA Today this morning: the airlines have waived their advance purchase rules, meaning folks can buy their way home this holiday without paying more than those who booked in advance. As the nation’s newspaper points out, American Airlines everyday no-advance purchase airfares between Dallas and New York City were selling yesterday for $1,858 roundtrip. Today, the route is priced as low as $388 roundtrip. (Atlanta to Seattle fell from $1,198 to $258 on Delta.)

That’s excellent news for consumers, of course. No one should have to finance a visit with family over the holiday for the next 12 months.

But this comes on the heels of the airlines swearing themselves blue in the face that wouldn’t happen this year. Travel agents have been spreading the word that capacity is down, prices are up and the old “buy now, or pay more later” adage was definitely in full force for the holidays. Only now it isn’t, and the travel agency segment looks like used car salesmen. My sincere condolences go out to the poor family that paid nearly $1,200 for a ticket yesterday because you, frankly, were screwed.

And good luck, American Airlines/United/Delta/Northwest/US Airways/Frontier/AirTran/ Midwest getting folks to buy seats a few months out on the 2010 holidays, which would be so helpful to your bottom line. You’ve just trained them to wait until December 21 for the deal.

Merry Christmas, travelers!

I certainly don’t have an MBA degree hanging on my wall; my business knowledge comes from two decades as a business reporter and a few years of being a business owner myself. But that gives me enough common sense to wonder if sticking to your guns wouldn’t be worth trying at some point. The airlines have fallen into the couponing trap, and don’t have the strength of will to pull themselves out. Meanwhile, William Maloney, CEO of ASTA, describes 2009 as “miserable, probably one of the worst for the travel industry. Airlines, hotels, tours, cruise lines — everyone saw a downturn in revenue.”

If the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome, then discounting holiday fares is insanity.

Meanwhile, Arnie Weissman at Travel Weekly is calling this the decade of fear for the travel industry. He points the finger at 9-11 and consumers’ reactions. “For how many years will Americans react to each new perceived danger by canceling travel plans?” Weissmann asks. That goes both ways: how long will suppliers in this niche be afraid to step out and try something new?

Photography: jetalone, uggboy (Flickr)

The Franchise Business Economic Outlook for 2010 is forecasting a 2 percent increase in the number of business-format franchises next year — to the tune of 18,000 new establishments. The good news is that will be a gain of 36,000 jobs after watching 400,000 jobs disappear in 2010. The gross value of goods and services produced by franchise businesses (aka economic output), is forecast to increase 2.8 percent to $868.3 billion—an increase of $23.6 billion in 2010.

Business owners not jumping in bed with lodging franchise

“We are pleased that the 2010 outlook for franchise businesses is projected to be more positive than 2009, but access to credit remains a major hurdle to increase jobs and economic output at the levels we have seen during past recoveries,” says International Franchise Association president and  CEO Matthew Shay.

And — surprise! — lodging is expected to feel this crunch more than its fellow franchise systems, according to the IFA in D.C. Employment is expected to decline in lodging (-2.4 percent) while increasing in 8 other sectors, with the largest percentage increases expected in real estate (1.3 percent), quick service restaurants (0.8 percent), retail food (0.7 percent) and personal services (0.7 percent). Lodging is the only sector of the top 10 expected to decline in the number of establishments, too. Quick service restaurants, on the other hand, will see the biggest jump at 3.1 percent new units.

“The U.S. economy is expected to experience slow growth in 2010 as the nation begins to recover from the recession. The Franchise Business Economic Outlook for 2010’s macro view of the economy anticipates nominal gross domestic product (GDP) to grow 3.8 percent, while economy wide employment is projected to increase 0.4 percent in 2010,” says Drew Lyon, principal in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ National Economics & Statistics practice. “Our forecast is for output of all franchise business sectors to expand modestly in 2010 as the recovery takes hold.”

Photography: MoToMo (Flickr)