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There’s a subgenre of tourism. The tacky name, invented by marketers to create a buzz, or to create demand for some sort of niche travel that no one really considered a niche before.

There was the mancation. Then the procreation vacation. And now: the staycation.

“Staycations” are just “trips” which locals take to resorts in their own area, thereby avoiding travel, or even much of a change of scenery. “In-town vacation” was what this used to be called, no? But “staycation” just sucks as a name.

Sure, it’s friendlier on the environment to skip the carbon-guzzling travel side of the equation, and not everyone is game for a vacation that involves staying on a hotel’s compound. But few people live close enough to a real destination to make this worth their while.

Will this trend take off? Maybe, but I hope the name doesn’t.

Update: “Staycation” is already in the Urban Dictionary! Since 2006, no less! Crikey.

Flashback to 2001… Enron was making big money trading energy, and (not entirely coincidentally) California was experiencing blackouts. Hotels across the country, but especially in California, were tacking on energy surcharges of $2 or $3 every night, instead of raising the actual rates.

Thankfully, that practice slowly disappeared, as hotels raised rates to incorporate the higher energy costs. (Airlines, on the other hand, subsequently embraced the practice of fuel surcharges, but that’s another issue…)

At this point, there’s no sign of the hotel energy surcharge coming back. Largely, that’s a function of how electricity is priced: Despite increases in fuel costs, electricity costs haven’t gone up for consumers, due largely to state and local regulation.

But hotels are feeling the pinch of higher energy costs another way, it seems, since they’re resorting to fuel-themed gimmickry to attract customers. Apparently fearful of reduced bookings, they’re encouraging guests to stay (and burn fossil fuels to get there) by offering gasoline credits.

The conference and visitor bureau in Costa Mesa, Calif., home to popular Southern California beaches and Disneyland, is offering a $25 gas or airfare rebate for travelers staying at select Orange County hotels, plus a food voucher worth $25 per night, through its “Drive and dine on us” program.
[…]
In New Hampshire, the state visitor’s bureau has a whole page of “gas saving offers” on its Web site.

They include a gas credit of as much as $50 for drivers headed to the The Highlands Inn in Bethlehem - 25 cents a mile or 30 cents a mile if you drive a hybrid.

I realize that hotels run on electricity, not regular unleaded, but the different approaches to increased fuel costs, 2001 vs. 2008, are somewhat ironic.

That said, energy is getting more expensive across the board. And I wouldn’t be surprised if energy surcharges start to reappear on hotel bills in coming months.

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Hooters Hotel & Casino is packing up the 1985-era orange shorts, the Reebok sneakers, and the chicken-wing-and-Dom-Perignon combo platter.

The hotel that was more strip mall than Las Vegas Strip will soon shutter, to be remodeled, rebranded, and reopened later this year as a luxury boutique hotel. Alas, we hardly knew ye.

A Hooters Hotel was always a questionable proposition. Vegas isn’t exactly short on supply, so to speak, for those in the market for skin. A Hooters-themed hotel might work elsewhere, say, for those channeling their inner Dan Marino while driving the highways of Indiana, but not in Vegas.

And yes, I admit, I really posted about this so I could use that headline.

Related:
- Hooters’ wings clipped; chicken wings still available at earthbound locations

The Gideon Bible is getting harder and harder to find in luxury hotels. According to recent numbers, the onetime mainstay of the American bedside table is found in around 73% of luxury hotel rooms, down from near-ubiquity.

It’s not that the books are being “removed by Satan,” as one Georgia hotelier suggests may be happening. Rather, it’s a business decision, driven by perceived decline in customer demand.

Some hotels are instead offering a range of religious books (much as you might find the teachings of Buddha in a Thai hotel room), or a note pointing you toward their library of spiritual readings in the lobby.

Marriott hotels have long offered the Book of Mormon alongside the Bible. But some go beyond religion. Hiltons may feature the Conrad Hilton autobiography Be My Guest in there, too — hardly a “spiritual” text. (I failed to look for it when I stayed at a Hilton this past weekend.)

Some cheekier hotels are replacing tales of creation with tales of procreation: the Kama Sutra.

Others are making social or political statements, such as including Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Others are making a statement by simply leaving the drawers empty.

Bedside table drawers aren’t always filled with reading materials at all. A friend of mine, a former federal prosecutor, once flew to Cuba on official business. Before going, he was briefed that one drawer would likely be stuck in place. Why? That’s where the recording equipment was located. Sure enough, one drawer wouldn’t move.

But the question goes to you: What’s your take on hotel bibles, or other religious tracts? Should hotels include them, or should they be optional? Are they an offense to non-believers, or is their absence an offense to believers? Vote in the poll, and hit the comments.

(Viewing this in a feed reader, or getting an error when you vote? Go to the source and try again.)

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What if you could arrive in a distant location and yet be assured that you wouldn’t suffer from miserable jet lag?

Pipe dreaming, perhaps. But it’s encouraging that hotel chains are working to help travelers in getting on the right time zone quickly and comfortably. For example:

[Westin] has partnered with Philips and a group of sleep doctors to create a “concept room” aimed at aiding sleep deprivation and cutting jet-lag recovery time in half. This hotel-room laboratory is currently being tested at the Westin Chicago River North […]

The concept room is equipped with Philips’ ActiViva lamps — revolutionary new blue-light lamps that provide high-quality lighting and directly affect the way people feel by supposedly making them feel more alert, awake and energized. […]

The lights, along with other cutting-edge amenities such as a guided-meditation TV program (it actually walks you through into a sleep experience) and a room-service menu filled with calming snacks such as a banana-milk smoothie, are being tested by Westin through a series of evaluations with travelers who have recently crossed two or more time zones. Window shades are custom blackout models. Other white-noise machines are also in the room. […]There are oscillating fans, calming tea, and [a shower with] a high-intensity light that its manufacturer claims will reset your body clock.

I appreciate the fact that hotels are thinking about this, and not just by offering customers cherry pie or offering jet lag advice like their airline counterparts. But this takes it up a notch. It’s very welcome.

And I kinda want those shower lights for home.

Staying awake until a “normal” time for the local time zone is often a struggle, so travelers need all the help they can get. These innovations are welcome, even if some of them, individually, are corny. (Talking meditation machine, anyone?) Anti-jet-lag features would especially be a great feature at airport hotels — particularly since airport hotels are rarely inspiring spaces.

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New York bedbugs, beware: The K-9 squad is on the prowl.

A company that employs dogs with keen noses says numerous New York hotels have called on them to sniff out bedbugs that have infested many businesses.

Carl Massicott, head of Advanced K9 Detectives, said his company’s six dogs have been kept busy by a high volume of requests from hotels seeking to rid themselves of bedbugs amidst a citywide infestation…

Alas, they’re not saying where the dogs have been sniffing. Or where they haven’t. But anything to combat New York’s bedbug surge is welcome. (Especially at the rates hotels are charging in NYC these days.)

For the first time, I think I might actually prefer to have had a dog in my hotel room before I move my stuff in.

The tide continues to turn against smokers at North American hotels. Sheraton and Four Points, both part of the Starwood group, are the latest to ban smoking at all properties in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, much as their corporate cousin Westin did a few years earlier.

This isn’t just about the market responding to a smaller population of smokers, or a kindly gesture designed to improve your longevity. It’s also a way for the hotel to cut costs, since cleaning a smoky room is more time-consuming and expensive than cleaning a non-smoking room. And minimizing the variation between hotel rooms, by eliminating an entire class of rooms, makes it easier to manage inventory.

Nonsmokers are celebrating. Smokers are inevitably planning their boycott.

Related:
- Nicotine jitters: Another hotel chain goes non-smoking
- Smoking prohibitions: Hurdles and tradeoffs
- Marriott hotels to eliminate smoking in all its North American brands
- The captain has turned on the smoke-’em-if-you-got-’em sign…

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Upgraded: Your chance to vent at the TSA
Homeland Security first got a blog, but now the TSA has one too. And it’s not just staffed by the man at the top. They asked for your honest opinions. Give ‘em hell. Just keep it civil. (Thanks, Stephen!)

Upgraded: Nude Aviation
Who could forget Naked Air, the chartered “airline” that transported “naturists” to sunny destinations. Now, a German travel agency will make naked flights a regular option. But for those longing for a long overnight trip in the buff, you’ll have to keep waiting. It’s just a short trip within Germany. (Seriously, why bother?)

Upgraded: Business travel blogging
Hirsute frequent flyer kingpin Randy Petersen has gathered a number of blogs related to business travel into one place — BoardingArea.com — and you’ll find Upgrade: Travel Better syndicated there, too. You’ll find some familiar names there as well, plus some spunky newcomers. The site’s launch was featured in the New York Times, too, including a photo of the hirsute proprietor. Check it out.

Upgraded: Hotel thieves
If you’ve ever stolen stuff from a hotel room, you can return those towels, glasses, bathrobes, and … punch bowls? In any case, if you’ve been a pilferer from the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, your day of amnesty is here. Bring back the contraband, no questions asked. (Thanks Dr. Vino!)

Upgraded: JetBlue’s alliance prospects
Perhaps you remember my prediction from February 6 last year, that jetBlue and Aer Lingus would try to sync up in an alliance? Looks like the prediction was right, according to WSJ reports. But Aer Lingus might find some competition from jetBlue shareholder Lufthansa, who is also looking into an alliance of sorts with the ‘blue.

Upgraded: Short runways, long flights, 2-year old sarcasm
British Airways has announced another luxury initiative, aimed squarely at its all-business class competitors. The new all-business class service will fly from London’s City airport — a tiny airport with a short runway — to an as-yet unnamed New York area airport. The flight will feature only 36 seats on an Airbus A318. Not A319. Not A320. A318. The shortest in the family, and the biggest plane legally permitted to depart from London-City. The Cranky Flier has a nice post on the logistics of the proposed service. But jeez, it looks like my sarcastic comments from April 2006 were taken seriously: “What’s next?: Will someone determine that London City airport needs nonstop business class service to White Plains or Islip?” I guess life imitates snark?

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Family friends recently returned from a trip to the Wynn Las Vegas, but the first story they had to tell wasn’t about luxurious accommodations, gambling, restaurants, or shows. It was about the snacks on top of their minibar.

The motion-detector minibar wasn’t new to me. Those are bad enough: You move any item in the minibar, and if you don’t put it back within 60 seconds, you’ve bought it. So much for making room to store your own food or beverages in there.

But what the friends told us was about the outside of the minibar. Snacks were placed on a tray. Not inside anything, but out in the open. (Here’s a link to a photo of the display.) There’s a warning that the food is on an electronic scale, and moving the item means you bought it.

This is just absurd. What if you wanted to look at the nutritional information on the back? Or, as one Expedia review noted, what if you have kids who inquisitively pick stuff up? (Best not to take the kids to the Wynn!) And check your bill: As one TripAdvisor reviewer learned, after getting hit with $100 of minibar fees, even though they didn’t consume anywhere near that much, you need to watch your charges, to make sure you didn’t accidentally budge anything.

What’s next, a tripwire that triggers a fee if you use the bathroom?

Related:
- The hotel minibar is dead! Long live the hotel minibar!
- Upgrades and Downgrades: Pizza delivery to your plane, wi-fi minibars, why airport security wants to sniff your armpits, and more

With everyone talking green these days, and with many environmental groups squarely putting the travel industry in its crosshairs, European mega-tourism conglomerate TUI has announced that it will use its size to make good on the green mandate. The tour company is putting pressure on hotel companies to make their operations more environmentally sound.

“In five years we want minimum standards in all our hotels,” said Dermot Blastland, managing director for TUI UK and Ireland, which carries 30 million passengers a year across Europe to 200 destinations. “We will not feature hotels that do not comply.” He said that he expects other companies to follow its lead, as customer demand drives the move to more sustainable travel.

No specifics on what those green standards actually are, and five years is a long time for companies to catch up.

I’m hoping that the standards include more than putting a card in the hotel room to tell you how to notify housekeeping whether or not you want your sheets washed or your towels changed.

But it’s a start, and if a 600-pound gorilla like TUI gives its standards teeth, then they’re very likely to gain global relevance.

Some may be crying hypocrisy, since TUI operates airplanes after all, which aren’t known for their carbon-neutrality. But it’s a smart business move, even if hoteliers may be crying environmental blackmail. A company that’s willing to step forward and make a move like this signals to consumers that they’re taking the environmental impact of travel a smidgen more seriously than their competitors, and that could tip the scales for some folks weighing vacation alternatives.

Note to airlines: This is how you get in front of bad PR. By taking a stand that improves the greater good, and demanding that others follow or get left behind, the company comes out looking like a knight in shining armor, even if it’s not really a selfless act. There’s got to be a way for airlines to spin their less-than-stellar environmental reputation — or their less-than-stellar passengers’ rights reputation, for that matter — in a way that benefits the masses and simultaneously makes the company look good.

Pod, cube, or capsule — there are more and more mini-hotels popping up around the world, offering tiny rooms with no frills at low prices. Brands like easyHotels (from the makers of easyJet), Yotel, Qbic, Podhotel, and others are following the trend made famous by Japanese hoteliers. (No sleeping in drawers.)

At the same time that luxury properties are fighting for bragging rights on who can be the most over-the-top, the pods are aiming at the opposite end of the market.

The pods have their place. If you’re looking for a few Z’s at an airport? Perfect. City tourism for the go-go-go traveler who just crashes for the night? Sure. Backpackers looking to upgrade from the hostel for change of pace? You betcha.

But how big is this market, really? Will it succeed in the US? After all, America is still the supersize society, despite some slight recent pullback.

So, the question goes to you, the traveling consumer:

Downgraded: Hotel-room glasses
I’m always a little wary of those glasses in hotel rooms, but now we’ve got hidden-camera proof that we shouldn’t be using them — or washing them ourselves before every use. Fox Atlanta planted cameras in several hotels, including Holiday Inn, Sheraton, and the Ritz-Carlton. In each hotel, housekeepers don’t remove the glasses for cleaning in the dishwashers downstairs. At best, they simply rinse them. At worst, they spray them with poisonous household cleaners, handle them with the same gloves they wore when cleaning the toilet, or dry the rinsed glassware with the same towel you used as a bathmat that morning. Disgusting. (Thanks, James!)

Upgraded: Ways to contact Skybus
Skybus, the notoriously hard-to-reach airline that tries to tell its customers that there’s no working phone number at the airline, has been exposed. How to contact Skybus, according to Skybus? Write an e-mail. After seeing far too many boilerplate e-replies that don’t address the problem, Chris Elliott has posted the executives’ contact information, including e-mails.

Upgraded: Advertisers’ unwitting sense of irony
Skybus again: CapitalOne is shelling out the big bucks to paint pigs all over a Skybus A319. It’s a savings account ad — a piggy bank theme — plus a riff off “When pigs fly,” leaving you, the consumer, with hijinks and hilarity. But if you’re an airline, do you really want your plane looking like a pig? Skybus, the flying pig? Wallow aboard!

Upgraded: Paris wine
Where to find a good wine bar or wine retailer in Paris? Look no further. Dr. Vino hits the scene with yet another installation of his wine maps. The Paris wine map features both stores and bars.

Upgraded: Getting on the bump list
The Cranky Flier notes that United has started asking for volunteers on overbooked flights at the time of check-in. Talk about getting in front of the problem. Unfortunately, the net effect for travelers is negligible, because you can’t (yet?) be guaranteed a bump by registering for one online. You still have to drag your butt to the airport and wait at the gate. Registering online only gets you an early spot on the list, if that’s your bag.

Upgraded: Smokin’ hot suitcases
The joke luggage insert (ahem, the Citizen’s Insertable Swiftness Manifest) posted last week included several jokes about smoking luggage. Now life imitates art. Phoenix SkyHarbor Airport was actually shut down after a smoking suitcase was discovered.

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