New Niches for Travel and Tours

There is a new thinking on niches in the travel and tourism arena such as edu-tourism, clustering and swapping packages.

In edu-tourism, tourists learn about a place, its culture and history via homestay or similar programs.

In clustering, specific themes like sports tourism or wellness tourism can be formed.  For example, as Australians like sports in summer they can visit Cebu for summer sports and Japan and Korea can offer winter sports. Malaysia and Indonesia can focus on wellness and health programs as these countries are best known for these.

More details at this news site.

And a sampler of what Cebu can offer, a video by pyroworksinc, the Cebu Annual Sports Festival:

A bed's a bed, the magic is outside

Brian Thacker is a backpacker with a yen for adventure. He went backpacking across Southeast Asia, using as his only reference, a 1975 Lonely Planet book ‘South-East Asia on a Shoestring’. It was an adventure to find out what changes had happened in the last 36 years and boy did he have loads to share. 

Because Thacker was following a book that was 35 years old, many of the guesthouses that were still standing were decrepit, however he wasn't deterred, no matter how seedy they were.

"I'm sort of a backpacker traveller anyway," he says. "I remember I read this great quote once: 'A bed's a bed, the magic is outside'.  "I'd rather spend the money on a great meal or doing some great experience." Even so, Thacker admits some of the hotels were dodgy and he'd spend the least amount of time in the rooms as possible.

Read more at this article ‘South-East Asia on a 1975 guide book’ by Jennifer Chapman.  The full details are in his latest book ‘Tell Them to Get Lost’.  

While on backpacking, this is an awesome video by xTsyx sharing their backpacking adventures in Southeast Asia.

Cruise into Southeast Asia

Between November 2012 and March 2013, educational cruise line Voyages To Antiquity’s Aegean Odyssey will be offering nine new trips that focus on the history, art and culture of South East Asia, India and the South Pacific.

Ornate temples, ancient cities and beautiful scenery are going to be some of the highlights explained by guest lecturers on board. Shore excursions are included in the cruise fare, which starts at £2,995 (about R32 000) per person for 18 days and includes tips, flights and some drinks.

Read more at:  http://www.iol.co.za/travel/travel-news/exotic-east-not-so-far-1.1132796

This video by TheLuxuryCruiseCo shows off the details of the Aegean Odyssey.

Tour Price Drops ex-Shanghai

Tour price in September fell two percent in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea are price line - Shanghai Station News

Looks like tour prices are dropping for tours to Southeast Asia from Shanghai.  This will enable more options for Chinese tourists to on tours during their golden week holidays (30th September to 7th October). Read the link above on the survey done.  Do note that in this article, the translation is not very smooth from Chinese to English.