Producing a TV series and website dedicated to the joy of business travel means that our creative team spends a lot of time traveling. I am sure that comes as no surprise to anyone. But it definitely means that you have to love your job. Travel is a wonderful gift and an enlightening experience but it can also be exhausting. Our Senior Producer and Writer still recounts with horror one particularly long flight from Korea in Economy, sandwiched amongst a mob of overexcited school kids (shudder). It’s a cautionary tale that all road warriors can relate to.
However despite the trials and tribulations of life on the road our creative team still loves visiting new destinations and returning to old faves. We think most in our community are united by this passion for work, travel and exploring the world. That’s why you visit this site, watch our TV show and connect with us on Twitter and Facebook. We get a lot of questions from viewers about how often we travel, where and why, so over the last year our show’s Director has carefully documented most of his trips. We think he forgot a few but the results are still impressive.
In 2012 our Director spent 111 nights in hotels and logged over 152,000 airline miles which equals six trips around the world or more than 340 hours in the air. Of his 68 flights, 12 were domestic and 56 international. And after this year’s travels he’s filmed on all seven continents and visited over 100 countries. This is tiring and exhilarating all at once and makes us excited about the year ahead.
We think 2013 will be a banner year for international travel and we know everyone in our community is anxious to get out and explore. Frequent Flyer EQMs and Hotel Night tallies all reset to zero on January 1st and so all us intrepid travelers have renewed inspiration to get back on the road to enjoy current elite benefits while building the qualifications for next year. To aid in your mileage or mattress runs we’ve polled our sponsors (some of the world’s leading airline and hotel groups) to get their sense of what the year ahead will look like. The consensus is quite upbeat.
Most travel companies think that the economy will continue to improve leading to more travel which should translate into more opportunities for airlines to add new routes and hotels to add new properties. Boeing plans to speed up the rollout of their 787 Dreamliner while Airbus is counting on increased deliveries of the A380, and this means global airlines are planning on better in-flight products and more long distance routes. We’ve also been told by a couple of the large hotel groups that new improvements are on the way for hotel loyalty programs and even to watch for a couple exciting brand enhancements. We can’t divulge any secrets but our team is excited and they’re a little jaded.
Of course 2013 will also have the usual share of weather delays, price increases, devalues in loyalty programs, route changes and long security lines. But after consulting with those in the know, we’re pretty excited about the year ahead. It should be another great year for high end, luxury, international travel.
So what about you, what are your plans for travel in the year ahead? Let us know if you plan to travel more or less and what destinations/travel experiences are on your radar and we’ll share them with our community.
