Airport Security Agents Find Sex Toy But Miss Handgun

US airport security agents are better at finding sex toys in luggage than firearms, according to two recent cases.

A female passenger has reported that agents at Newark Airport apparently discovered her vibrating sex toy when they searched her checked luggage.

She learned this on arriving at her destination when she opened her bag and found a worker had written the cryptic message “Get your freak on girl” in black ink on the back of an official inspection notice printed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The passenger told US media outlet ABC News that she found the note “offensive” and had decided to file a complaint with the TSA.

“I hope they do see the complaint, they’ll look into it and remind their staff that going through people’s personal belongings is a responsibility that should be treated with some modicum of professionalism,” she said.

Vibrators are apparently easier to spot than handguns. A number of those have slipped through the system. TSA screeners missed a loaded gun inside a checked bag at Los Angeles International Airport this week.

Newspaper USA Today reported that a luggage ramp crew was loading an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Oregon, when – surprise! – a loaded .38-calibre pistol tumbled out of a duffel bag.

It turns out that the TSA screens for firearms in carry-on bags but is not responsible for screening for firearms in checked luggage – an apparent loophole.

Meanwhile, complaints about pilfering of valuable items in transit, like laptops and jewellery, are on the rise. Some 67,000 passengers have filed loss claims against the TSA since 2003. Some of the missing items may be handguns.

Written by : Peter Needham

(Source: egloblatravelmedia.com.au)

Virgin to Build First Hotel in Chicago

Virgin Hotels plans to open its first hotel in Chicago in fall 2013.

Virgin Hotels, a brand launched by Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson in 2010 has partnered with John Buck Co. to redevelop the Old Dearborn Bank Building in Chicago’s City Loop and transform it into a 27-story hotel with 350 rooms.

John Buck is an experienced hotel developer having being involved with Chicago’s Palomar Hotel and New York’s Standard Hotel, and has big plans for this structure which was built in 1928.

Virgin Hotels aims to develop urban hotels with150 to 400 rooms each.

Other potential destinations for future Virgin Hotels include Los Angeles, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Washington and London.

Hilton LightStay Program Cuts Hotel Energy Use by 6.6%, Saves $74M

Hilton Worldwide and its portfolio of 10 hotel brands announced the 2010 results of LightStay, its sustainability measurement system.

Since the introduction of LightStay, the company continues to improve sustainability and economic performance and saved more than $74 million in utility costs as a result of the following reductions:

6.6 percent reduction of energy use;
7.8 percent reduction of carbon output;
19 percent reduction of waste output;
and 3.8 percent reduction of water use.

To date, Hilton Worldwide's efforts are equivalent to the removal of more than 50,000 cars from the road, water savings that could fill more than 1,000 swimming pools and energy conservation that could provide power to nearly 20,000 homes a year.

"Sustainability is a priority to Hilton Worldwide and a central part of how the company does business," said Christopher J. Nassetta, president and CEO, Hilton Worldwide. "LightStay has provided us with a platform to measure hotel performance and economic improvement, proving to be invaluable given today's increased operational demands and resource constraints."

Hilton Worldwide is the first major multi-brand hospitality company to make sustainability measurement a brand standard. Also as a brand standard, Hilton Worldwide properties are committed to making continual improvements to their overall sustainability results each year. All of the more than 3,750 properties are required to use LightStay by this December, bringing the company even closer to its long-term goals.

Ability to Share Best Practices

To further support these efforts, new features were recently built into LightStay to allow hotels to track projects, share best practices and communicate with one another through a "social network" dashboard. Thus far, LightStay has more than 1,200 projects in the system, which is expected to double by next year, conserving additional resources.

As a result of these actions, Hilton Worldwide recently earned ISO 14001 certification for Environmental Management Systems, achieving one of the largest ever volume certifications of commercial buildings -- with more than 3,750 properties across 10 brands and 85 countries. As part of the Hilton Worldwide certification process, DEKRA Certification, Inc. performed a series of audits and will continue ongoing assessments to monitor compliance.

Over the next three years, Hilton Worldwide will continue to invest in their owned assets to improve building performance, illustrating the company's commitment to both long-term cost and energy savings. Projects will include the installation of energy-efficient chillers, boilers, motors, building automation systems, water reclamation systems, high-efficient windows and white roofs. The Hilton New York, for example, with be installing an on-site cogeneration system, which will offset 54 percent of its electrical needs and 33 percent of its thermal needs.

By 2014, Hilton Worldwide is committed to reduce energy consumption, CO2 emissions and waste output by 20 percent, as well as reduce water consumption by 10 percent from direct operations within the company's owned hotels and corporate properties.

This article originally appeared on Green Lodging News.

Tourism Australia and Jetstar Launch New Agreement to Boost Visits From Asia

Tourism Australia has signed a $10 million marketing deal with Jetstar aimed at boosting Japanese inbound tourism and further expanding brand Australia's presence in Asia Pacific.

The three year agreement runs to mid 2014 and will see Tourism Australia and Jetstar each contribute at least $1.6 million per year on a range of joint marketing, digital and social media activities.

The partners will work cooperatively to leverage more affordable air travel and Australia's unique attractions to increase arrivals from Japan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand.

The first tranche of $2 million will be directed to rejuvenating the Japanese market, which has slipped from Australia's second to fifth largest source market for international tourists over the past ten years.

Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said the deal was an extension of Tourism Australia's ongoing focus on Asia but also represented a new approach to Japan and working with airlines partners.

"It unlocks real value by leveraging the combined skills, expertise and resources which both our organizations have long demonstrated in Asia. We aim to use our well-established and successful There's nothing like Australia campaign messaging alongside Jetstar.com to drive bookings and inbound travel," Mr McEvoy said.

"Jetstar broke the mould in the Japan market with the launch of their low fare operations to Australia in 2007, which stimulated a new generation of travellers to visit Australia. With Jetstar Japan launching domestic services within the world's third largest economy in 2012, Australia will become more accessible than ever to holidaymakers from some of Japan's key cities.

"Like Tourism Australia, Jetstar has ambitious expansion plans for wider Asia and sees sustained and large growth opportunities, led by the greater China market, and numerable South East and North Asian markets including Japan, which will clearly remain in the top half dozen of Australia's tourism export markets. There's strong alignment and a real natural fit."

Tourism Australia has now secured long-term cooperative marketing relationships with most of the largest international carriers by capacity serving Australia.

"Our global campaign, There's nothing like Australia, is travelling very well in Asia, with growing levels of marketing activity carried out in partnership with airlines to extend our reach and impact to the Asian consumer," Mr McEvoy said.

Jetstar Group CEO Bruce Buchanan said the expansion of Jetstar's low fares network across Asia had the ability to stimulate fresh demand by putting air travel to key Australian leisure destinations within reach for many more people.

"Jetstar is now the largest low cost airline in the Asia Pacific by revenue and we're recognized as a top 100 brand in Japan even before launching our domestic airline there," Mr Buchanan said.

"This partnership will leverage Australia's attractiveness as a destination for international tourists with Jetstar's leading low fares as a means to convert this into actual arrivals. The potential flow-on benefits for Australian tourism will be significant."

Mr McEvoy said markets covered by this agreement are critical to us achieving Australian tourism's year 2020 goal of doubling overnight visitor expenditure to A$140 billion.

"This new strategic alliance will be a hugely important platform from which to take our marketing message further into Asia, and on the back of significant increases in aviation capacity," Mr McEvoy said.

Japan is currently Australia's fifth largest source market for international tourists, spending approximately $1.5 billion in 2010. There were 350,200 visitor arrivals from Japan for the twelve months ending August 2011, a drop of 11 per cent.

Tourism Australia believes this market has the potential to grow to between A$2.7 billion and A$3.3 billion in total expenditure by 2020.

(Source: travmedia.com)

Auckland, Wellington score RWC Hotel Growth

Auckland and Wellington hoteliers have welcomed an influx in visitors carried over by the Rugby World Cup.

According to STR Global figures, the event which commenced 9 September this year saw Wellington experience strong ADR growth with a 300 percent growth through the quarter finals which were held on 8 October this year.

Following the event, hotel performance dropped 16 percent compared to the same time last year and ADR retracting back to NZ$158, 0.6 percent less than it was two days before the quarter finals.

The report said that the trend indicated that people were visiting overnight for the matches but left the cities they were held in to continue their journey across New Zealand.

"We are very excited to monitor how hotels will benefit from this global event on both the short and long term,” STR Global managing director Elizabeth Randall said.

This Is Why You Should Pray Justin Bieber Never Stays at Your Hotel

Imagine going on vacation and having your long-awaited, hard-earned days of rest interrupted by this? That's yet another, in a long list of, crowd of screaming girls hoping to get a glimpse of Justin Bieber at the W Santiago. Except...Justin wasn't even inside!

TMZ reports:

We know Justin decided to stay in Buenos Aires an extra day ... so he wasn't even in Chile when the fans stormed the hotel. According to our sources, the mob scene prompted local authorities to contact Bieber's camp and order him to come to the hotel by helicopter ... because they feared they couldn't control the crowd.

The same thing also happened in Buenos Aires at the Faena Hotel when 600 fans stalking Biebs in front caused major congestion in the streets and forced the hotel to call the police, who later brought in barricades and closed off the entire neighborhood. And how could we forget the pandemonium that happened in March at the Hard Day's Night Hotel in Liverpool (of all places!)

Girls (and some boys), please give it up. Justin is totes dating Selena Gomez right now. And she loves him like a love song so you know it's totes for reals. Sorry! Leave us paying hotel guests alone now.

Hot Air: Why Flight Attendants Are No Longer Cute, Apparently

A recent article postulates that the dearth of “hot” flight attendants is a direct result of airline deregulation. Really.

Using the relatively new (and somewhat tenuous) ABC-TV program Pan Am as the basis for this hypothesis, blogger Glen Whitman bemoans the fact that he can no longer expect to see a cute flight attendant when he boards a plane these days. No, because of deregulation that took away the power of the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1978, men were subsequently relegated to looking at not-so-hot women who were now serving passengers coffee, tea and…oh, whatever.

According to Whitman’s theory, the airline travel industry, prior to deregulation, existed by providing airfares that were too high for the “Average Joe.” Due to a standard supply-and-demand model, the airlines were content in offering more flights at these high prices than customers were willing to buy. Not being able to compete on price, the airlines competed on quality instead, offering better service, food and equally importantly – “hot” stewardesses (as they used to be called).

The theory continues with the idea that deregulation made it difficult for male customers to fork over those extra bucks just to look at the cute stewardesses – apparently these chicks just weren’t worth the extra fare. Because of the now democratized air travel industry, this once luxury privilege – traveling on a plane – was open to the most common of citizens. And these citizens were looking for deals and discounts on their airfares.

The mass availability of flight to an even larger consumer group dictated – perhaps surprisingly to some – that the “bells and whistles” that heretofore included “hot” stewardesses were at once discounted.

While this hypothesis is interesting, its veracity is questionable. The same article that outlines Glen Whitman’s theory expounds an equally viable reason as to why there is an apparent dearth of hotness at 30,000 feet.

Megan McArdle, senior editor for The Atlantic, posits a few reasons behind the change in the profiles of flight attendants in recent years. Following deregulation, factors such as feminism, seniority, union demands and anti-discrimination laws gave women more power and subsequently less reason to leave a job that paid the bills. Unlike the stewardesses of previous eras, the new complement of flight attendants (as they were now called) demanded an equitable workplace and one that did not focus upon their physical assets.

With the evolution of laws that supported women in the workplace, there came a comfort level that allowed these same women to for once perhaps enjoy their jobs and stay in their positions – for the long haul. Union rules in many cases provided the stability and fairness that many of these women were looking for in previous years.

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