Lucky for me - I'll be joined by my esteemed colleagues who will be posting about a variety of topics in addition to my regular news and updates about tourism.

I hope you'll keep reading and bookmark our new site: www.pe.com/blogs/business

See you there.

- Kim

So apparently we Southern Californians are partly to blame for Las Vegas feeling a little down and out economically.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently wrote that the city's convention and visitors authority had greenlighted a $12 million marketing campaign dubbed "Vegas Right Now" to appeal to folks who may otherwise look at their bills and think, "now might not be the best time to go to Vegas." Already, the tourist destination that garnered 39.1 visitors last year is seeing a slowdown. In January, the city saw less of almost everything (see the stats here)

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Research presented during the authority's monthly meeting, however, showed declines in arrivals and departures at McCarran International Airport, decreasing traffic from Southern California and a dip in casino gambling revenue.

Non-stop flight from Ontario to Las Vegas: $98 one way, average.

Cost of the shuttle to and from the airport: $12

What? You want to drive instead? (470 miles roundtrip from Ontario to Las Vegas, average cost of regular gas $3.63 a gallon, I'll be generous and say you get 25 miles to the gallon): $68.24

Gambling money: $100 to more debt than a four-year college education

Hotel room: $100 a night, if you're lucky. (I was indeed lucky recently and traveled to Vegas with my roommate who also is a member of a slew of casino card clubs. Two weekend nights in New York, New York: $80 total)

But when it comes down to it -- what would get you to go to Vegas? And is there really any need to go, what with numerous tribal casinos nearby?

Links:
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Jaunted's take on Vegas' new campaign

Construction of the Hyatt Place in downtown Riverside won't start until June according to developer Siavash Barmand with MetroPacific Properties, the same firm revitalizing the downtown Fox Theater.

While the city and the developer expected a groundbreaking this month after the project was delayed since last summer (click on the link below to read more), Siavash said Friday that the project's environmental impact review still needs to be finished.

I had spoken to a few hotel industry experts for this story regarding the state of hospitality in this wild economy of ours.

Most felt the same way -- that if a hotel developer hadn't started contructing a hotel yet, it wouldn't necessarily be hard to finish but it would certainly be unlikely. Part of the challenge is initial construction loan financing. At least one hotel broker noticed that projects trying to pay off their contruction loans with permanent financing are having difficulty getting lenders to loosen enough cash to cover their debt. Others said hotel developers with well-established relationships with lenders who can prove their project is viable shouldn't have too much trouble getting financing.

Siavash said he already has about 95 percent of his funding in place, and rather then get a construction loan first that has to be paid off later, "we're locking in our permanent financing up front."

RIVERSIDE -- Construction on a hotel touted as one of the keys to revitalizing Riverside 's downtown is months behind schedule, a development firm executive and city officials said last week. Work was supposed to begin this summer on the 125-room hotel, set to go on Market Street at Fifth Street, just south of the Riverside Marriott. Now, officials are saying it won't break ground until March.

"We were hoping it would be this summer," said city Development Director Belinda Graham. MetroPacific Properties is developing Fox Plaza. Top executive Siavash Barmand said the delay in building the hotel is because MetroPacific took its time to cut a deal with a hotel chain.

"We wanted to make sure we got the right brand," he said. He is still under a confidentiality agreement with the chain, Barmand said, but Graham and Councilman Dom Betro said it's their
understanding the hotel will be a Hyatt Place . It should take 14 months to build, Barmand said.

Hyatt Place is a new line of contemporary-style hotels, but the exterior of Riverside 's hotel will feature a Mediterranean/mission revival style to match the rest of the Fox Plaza project, Graham said. MetroPacific, a Bay Area firm, is buying the hotel as a franchise, which also delayed construction. The first phase of Fox Plaza is expected to occupy the eastern side of Market Street between Fifth Street and Mission Inn Avenue.

The multistory project would mix upper-floor condominiums and live/work lofts with ground-level restaurants and stores. The condominium and retail portion of the project are on track,
officials said. Fox Plaza is meant to attract "empty nesters" - suburban couples whose children have left home and who are looking for a smaller, more urban home close to entertainment and dining - as well as young professionals, Barmand said. City officials, including Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge, have repeatedly stressed the importance of projects like Fox Plaza. They
are meant to boost the number of downtown residents with disposable income in order to attract more upscale restaurants and stores.

In addition to the hotel, the block between Fifth and Sixth streets would include 40 condominiums wrapped around a parking garage. The condos should be ready for move-in by mid-2009, Barmand said.

Originally, there were only going to be 23 condominiums on this block. The redesign adds one floor and a mezzanine, Barmand said.

The block between Sixth Street and Mission Inn Avenue would have 160 living units - condominiums and live/work lofts - and two levels of underground parking as well as street-level space for stores and restaurants. The living units would range from 750 square feet to 1,200 square feet, Barmand said.

This portion of the project's first phase should be done by Christmas 2009, he said. The timing might be favorable to MetroPacific since projections show the flagging Inland real estate market isn't likely to rebound until the last quarter of 2009, Riverside -based real estate broker
Scott Chappell said.

The second phase of Fox Plaza would occupy the square block that contains the Fox Theater and would include almost 200 more residential units.

Barmand said he was unsuccessful in acquiring property for this later phase and would need the city Redevelopment Agency's help, which might require the use of eminent domain.

Chani Beeman, chairwoman of the Downtown Area Neighborhood Alliance, said most downtown residents see the Fox Theater renovation as paramount to the neighborhood's revitalization while Fox Plaza and other residential or mixed-use projects are secondary, although people understand they would add vibrancy to downtown, she said. If it took too long to build Fox Plaza, "it does risk discouraging people," Beeman said, because the track record on similar downtown revitalization projects hasn't been so good.

Villaggio, a proposed redevelopment project that would have gone where Fox Plaza would now go, fell through in 2004 when high construction costs prevented it from making economic sense.

Reach Doug Haberman at 951-368-9644 or dhaberman@PE.com

LA/Ontario International Airport will hike its parking rates a couple bucks starting April 1 with the hope it will net $2.6 million more in revenues each year for a total of $23 million.

So what price should you expect next time you park at Ontario after April 1?

Lots 2 and 4
Current rate: $15 per day/$2 per hour for first 7 hours/$1 for the eighth hour
New rate: $17 per day/$2 per hour for the first 8 hours/$1 for the ninth hour

Lot 3
Current rate: $11 per day/$2 per hour for the first 5 hours/$1 for the sixth hour
New rate: $12 per day/$2 per hour for the first 6 hours

Lot 5
Current rate:$7 per day/$2 per hour for the first 3 hours/$1 for the fourth hour
New rate: $8 per day/$2 per hour for the first 4 hours

Lot F
Current rate: $6 per day/first 2 hours free/$2 per hour for third, fourth and fifth hours
New rate: $7 per day/first2 hours free/$2 per hour for third, fourth and fifth hours/$1 for the sixth hour

For the full reasoning behind the price increase, check out the staff report here from the March 3 board meeting of the Los Angeles World Airports group (pages 56 to 62).

Park 'N Fly, an off-site lot near the airport, has taken the price hike opportunity to tout their parking rates -- $9.50 per day which includes a shuttle ride to your terminal, a copy of USA Today and a pair of booties to wear through security.

JetBlue has an ingenious plan to make more money in the coming year as airlines hemorrhage from rising oil costs. Charge folks sitting in the front of the plane or in the exit row a little bit more for the luxury of leg room.

I'm not sure how much they'll eventually charge for the wiggle room but the airline's CEO told folks at a New York investment conference that that's his revenue plan going forward.

It's not entirely new. Other airlines like recently launched Virgin America charge a premium too.

Personally, I like the exit row's roominess, but a little part of me always gets a little on edge thinking "what if I really DO need to assist in case of an emergency this time?" And that is why you deserve the roominess because you MAY be called on to provide a serious service. It's like you're paying your boss for the privilege of working for him/her.

The casino announced it had installed an air purification system dubbed Bio-Oxygen that doesn't rely on perfumes and chemicals. Casino officials claim its the only casino in California to have such a system. Personally I've never smelled chemicals or perfumes in any of the other Inland casinos, but I have smelled cigarette smoke.

The casino's director of facilities, Jake Britton, said their system that was installed about six months ago makes the casino "virtually smoke free."

“If you walk into a casino and you pass someone who is smoking, within seven to 15 seconds that smoke is absorbed by oxygen clusters," he said.

I'm hoping to check out the casino soon to see if it has made a difference, but in the meantime any Inland casino-goers noticed an air-quality difference yet?

The Federal Aviation Administration appeared a little less regulatory and a lot more humbled recently when it was discovered that Southwest Airlines hadn't had about 50 of its planes undergo required FAA inspections for two years, largely because the FAA inspector assigned to Southwest didn't hold the airline to task.

The FAA fined Southwest $10.2 million, and Southwest looked a little closer at its maintenance records. As a result, last week they grounded about 40 planes and found a few that needed minor repairs near the cabin windows.

Now the FAA has ordered a review into every U.S. airline's maintenance records. Will it affect your favorite airline? Perhaps, if they've been flying older Boeing 737 jets. Also, the order doesn't mean other airlines will need to ground their planes too, potentially cancelling flights.

That will only occur if inspections hadn't been conducted before, as they should have.

More reports:
Forbes: FAA to order spot check of maintenance records at all U.S. carriers

Last year after the first night of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival was finished, I remember wearily walking back to the parking lot past the onsite campground. Behind a chain link fence was tent city and I thought, for a moment, that if I lived in tent city I'd be home by now. But then home would lack air-conditioning, involve lots of dirt and a less than private shower.

Coachella camping ain't what it used to be. Tent city still exists but festival organizers have added luxury tents to folks wanting a few more creature comforts when they arrive.

For $700 (2 people), $1400 (4 people), $2100 (6 people)
Four nights spent sleeping in a tent already set up for you with air beds inflated, sleeping bags unfurled and pillows fluffed.

For $4,000
You and one other person can rent one of 50 fully-furnished Shikar style tents from Thurs. April 25 through Sunday night which will include:
- a king bed
- table
- carpet
- pillows
- chairs
- air conditioning
Posh amenities for camping, but nothing different from what you'd get by staying at a hotel.
What organizers are likely counting on are folks who want to be close to the venue (literally a short walk across the street), two VIP backstage passes to the festival itself and (something worth its weight in gold) in and out priveleges. The regular campers and festival goers can't leave the show early unless they don't want to get back in.

For more info check out Coachella's official site

Here's my brief:

ExpressJet Airlines said it will reduce the number of its daily departures across the country from 200 to 172 starting April 1 because of rising fuel prices and a slowing economy, according to a statement. The airline had already cut the number of its daily departures from 220 to 200 in the fourth quarter.

The Houston-based regional airline launched in April and added 15 destinations to LA/Ontario International Airport's schedule.

The airline's parent company, ExpressJet Holdings Inc., reported a net income loss of $31.7 million in the fourth quarter and total net income losses of $70.2 million for the year.

The airline had 392,694 passengers in 2007 out of the 7.2 million that used LA/Ontario International Airport.

Here's my addendum:

I spoke with ExpressJet's president and chief executive officer, Jim Ream, and the company's spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas who said that only a handful of flights out of Ontario will be affected. Whereas there are two daily flights between Ontario and Kansas City and Ontario and Omaha, there will only be one starting April 1.

Why less flights? Simple. Oil prices are too high, Ream said.

Not so in the case of the TSA's relatively new Evolution of Security blog.

Anonymous said... Ever since you started x-raying our shoes, I've been forced to carry all my plastic explosives in my pants which I find most inconvenient.

January 31, 2008 4:36 PM

Here's a taste of how some of the TSA's bloggers (largely Chance, Bob and Christopher) have taken to responding to the hundreds of comments they moderate:

From Chance: In response to a commentor who didn't take too kindly to Chance explaining the reason TSA may screen an elderly, wheelchair bound traveler who outwardly appears to be of no threat, to a recent incident in Iraq where a wheelchair bound suicide bomber attacked a base. The commenter mentioned other methods of sucide bombing have included using donkeys too.First point: we don't (to my knowledge) allow donkeys through passenger screening, while we do allow wheelchairs through. If, to use the example you yourself called absurd, we did let donkeys through, then yes it would make perfect sense to take into account a suicide attack that used a donkey, and screen the donkeys accordingly. I'm not going to make the obvious wisecrack here.

From Christopher: In response to a guy by the name of Dave Nelson who claims to be in the Intelligence community and expressed doubt regarding the credentials of TSA's guest blogger, Keith Kauffman, director of TSA's Office of Intelligence in the comments section:
Okay Dave. You're in intel and so is Keith, we get it. That doesn't mean Keith is in intel to your detrement or you're better because you've written a President's Daily Brief (PDB for those not "in the know") I don't personally know if Keith has or not but we are confident enough in his abilities and experience that we've hired him and put him in charge of intel for us. We get it, you're smart too. Welcome to the blog.

So now that Airborne has been proven to be as effective as a glass of orange juice in preventing colds mid-flight or in any other crowded setting, what are some other options for remaining ever vigilant against catching a nasty virus?

- BYOB&P: Bring your own blanket and pillow.

- Remember SARS? Act like you never forgot it and rock the face mask fashion statement.

- That in flight catalog tucked into the seat pocket in front of you that's been manhandled by legions before you? Don't touch it. I know you want to see how much your own personal hot dog stand might cost you but it will never be worth it.

First, be sure to exclaim to TSA agents: "Yes, I'm transporting a monkey!" like a man who was in line for security in Pennsylvania heading to Ft. Lauderdale.

Second, remove your monkey from its cage. Let the cage go through the X-ray machine.

Third, embrace your monkey and walk through the metal detector.

*or any other pet. Also, be sure to talk with your airlines and local agriculture officials to find out if what your transporting can, indeed, be transported on a commercial flight.

I sure wouldn't want to be sitting next to me on a plane today.

If traveling were in my cards today, would I have had any recourse? Doubtful with the symptoms at hand. "Geetings seatmate! Don't mind me if I cough up a lung on the tray-table. I've got antibacterial hand soap. It cures all ills."

But if I were a bit more seriously out-of-it and a doctor said traveling would not be possible it may pay to ask the customer service agent nicely or to travel in my way-back machine to buy a refundable ticket.

That's what happened when a customer of Hotwire tried to cancel his car reservation.

Granted that's not what immediately happened when a customer of United Airlines tried to get a refund for his extensive European vacation for his 50th wedding anniversary when, sadly, his wife died.

JetBlue recently started offering refundable fares for a higher price. For $50, its nonrefundable tickets can be cancelled and the amount booked for the flight is stowed away for the passenger to use within a year.

Restauranteur of the Year
Andres Delgado, Las Casuelas Nuevas

Business Attraction Person of the Year
Mary Dungans, Desert Adventures Jeep Tours

Outstanding General Manager for Hotels 200 Rooms and Less
Bruce Abney, El Morocco Inn and Spa

Outstanding General Manager for Properties 201 Rooms and More
Victor Woo, Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa

Salesperson of the Year
Rick Leson, Palm Springs Convention Center

Front Line Employee of the Year
Cornelia Balmer, Hampton Inn & Suites

The Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach, SC is opening this summer and who has a ride based on their iconic single from baby boomer heyday? That's right, the theme park includes a "Night In White Satin - The Trip" ride. Click here for a recreation of what they think the ride will likely resemble. You have to click on the interactive park map and find the "British Invasion" area. Essentially the ride looks very trippy, very psychadelic. Very Moody Blues.