Author: Charlotte Gill

The tourist appeal of communism

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

More than 25 years on from the end of the Cold War, the portion of the world that is still under the control of self-proclaimed communists is little more than a rump of what it once was. By the mid-20th century, a third of the planet abided by the rules of the hammer and sickle – now, while China’s leaders may still officially adhere to Marxism-Leninism and pay homage to its ideological founders, its guiding ideology seems to reflect a more nationalist development agenda, with a rule that is legitimated on the idea of returning China to its supposedly rightful place as a great political and economic power.

To China’s east, the Democratic Republic of Korea seems to have become thoroughly dynastic, relying upon a slew of outlandish threats and military skirmishes with its neighbour in order to secure its international repute. Further south, Laos and Vietnam have also gone the way of China, dropping most of their ideological baggage and opting instead for a mix of free markets and state intervention in order to provide economic development. Both countries now retain their red flags simply as a matter of decorum. Cuba, meanwhile, still maintains many of the communist ‘planned economy’ ideals that it adopted in the 1960s, but has gradually liberalised over time – a process that looks set to accelerate, given its recent rapprochement with the US.

Communism’s deterioration as an ideological force has extracted it from the sphere of politics and repositioned it in the sphere
of tourism

What was once a global movement and a significant threat to the capitalist West has been reduced to a scant few regimes run by political parties whose names now seem little more than a 20th century quirk. Furthermore, the death of the communist era has unexpectedly opened up a new trend in tourism: from those wishing to see Cuba before it turns into another capitalist island of inclusive beach resorts, to Westerners who simply have a curiosity for yet another lost civilisation, communism’s deterioration as an ideological force has extracted it from the sphere of politics and repositioned it in the sphere of tourism. No longer a challenge or a fear, it now forms a key part of that market, where its remnants and relics can be observed free from political influence – as is part of the appeal of any other ruined civilisation.

The new society
Inbound tourism to communist states was once a sort of subversive and politically charged act. In the 1930s, as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was embarking upon its crash industrialisation schemes, many Westerners visited the new, strange country, often returning with a rather rose-tinted image. As Owen Hatherley noted in Landscapes of Communism, “There is a large and mostly disreputable history of those from Western Europe going east to see what they want to see, and finding it. In the 1920s, and especially the 1930s, sundry now-ridiculed communists, Fabians, pacifists and the merely curious visited the USSR, most of them returning from their heavily choreographed prepared trips with a skewed vision of the USSR as a model of a future society”.

Sidney and Beatrice Webb, co-founders of the London School of Economics and early Labour Party members, centred their 1935 book Soviet Communism: a New Civilisation? on their experiences of touring the country. The American journalist Lincoln Steffens, meanwhile, famously proclaimed after his trip to the USSR, “I have seen the future, and it works”. However, by the 1960s, the thrill of the Soviet Union had mostly dissipated: for a new generation of political radicals looking for societal inspiration beyond their own shores, it had come to be seen as a rather drab, bureaucratic society. No longer a blueprint for the future, it failed to excite the New Left.

For many, however, the revolution in Cuba during the 1950s provided a new, exotic and exciting alternative for politically charged and so-called ‘revolutionary’ tourism. One such tourist was the British writer Christopher Hitchens, who recounted in his memoir, Hitch 22, his experience of travelling to Cuba in 1968. “The Cuban Government had announced that any young leftist who wanted to break the embargo and could get to the island would be a guest in a special camp for ‘internationalists’”, he recalled. For someone such as himself, this, “with its chance to mingle with revolutionaries from all over the globe, was an unmissable invitation”. Wide-eyed young leftists from all over the world made the journey to see the revolution in action – a brand of tourism designed to offer a look at the model of a new society. But according to Hitchens, “those who went in search of socialist fatherlands” were ridiculed and dubbed as “Tourists of the Revolution”.

Relics of old regimes
With communism now dead and little belief in it being revived, the nature of tourism to countries that have at some point resided under its faded colours has changed: within Europe, those countries that once fell on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain have become a renewed object of interest. According to Hatherley, “Most recently… tourism has been directed towards the relics of the USSR and its satellites, to half-ironically admire the edifices left by a civilisation which it is hard to imagine died as recently as 25 years ago”.

Certain relics and remains of the communist era have become thoroughly trivialised, being reduced to little more than interesting historical quirks for Westerners to explore. In her book Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West, Polish writer Agata Pyzik lists several examples of this: the CIA spy base of Teufelsburg in West Berlin “is lauded as an exciting tourist attraction even in Ryanair’s in-flight magazine, confirming that any historical artefact can become banal in contemporary Berlin”, she wrote, just as the Mauermuseum at the site of the old Checkpoint Charlie crossing is full of souvenirs regarding the now defunct German Democratic Republic. In a separate article, Pyzik notes that Berlin, once the most potent symbol of the division of Europe, “has in recent years become a playground for creative types (from the former West, especially) who consume the remnants of the radical chic of Karl-Marx-Allee, Checkpoint Charlie souvenirs or play a little more ‘dangerous’ tourism, like going to derelict embassies or to the ex-CIA site”.

At the same time, many statues and monuments from communist regimes across Eastern Europe have been relocated to public parks, which are particularly popular among tourists: for instance, Grutas Park in Lithuania and Memorial Park in Budapest. “The past history has become a theme park for us”, according to Pyzik, who also recounts an encounter in Ukraine: while visiting an art gallery, she was asked whether she planned on visiting Chernobyl, with the question-asker evidently planning to do so themselves. “They obviously were [intending to go]: you could tell that with the same enthusiasm they’ll put on the famous silvery protective uniforms, as when they penetrated the galleries in New York or any other ‘hot’ place on the art map”, she wrote. “It didn’t occur to me that by then, in 2010, the sightseeing of the ruined ex-Soviet Union had become somewhat an industry, a kind of still-a-little-bit frightening type of tourism.”

According to Pyzik, such tourists are “scavenging some of the USSR’s darkest places, and Pripyat – the city in northern Ukraine, then USSR, [and] the nearest town to Chernobyl, where the reactor in a nuclear power plant erupted in 1986 – is their holy grail”. In many ways, due to being blamed upon bureaucratic mismanagement and by transpiring during the Soviet Union’s twilight years, the ruins of Chernobyl are the archetype of the remnants of the lost world of communism: according to the Soviet Union historian Sheila Fitzpatrick in London Review of Books, Chernobyl in particular has now become “a tourist destination for those with a ‘ruin chic’ sensibility”.

Before it’s too late
This sentiment can also be seen in relation to Cuba. Tourism on the island has gradually grown since the 1990s, due in part to liberalisations that were driven by a desperate need to secure a source of hard currency. For years, European holidaymakers have been strolling down the streets of Havana, marvelling at the old cars lining its streets – and they may soon be joined by American tourists, as the US’ ban on its citizens travelling to the country has now been lifted. While many Americans openly defied this ban for years, the laws nonetheless succeeded in reducing American tourism to the island to a mere trickle.

The recent ban lift has raised a lot of questions about whether now is the time to visit Cuba. One article in The Daily Telegraph extolled readers to “see Cuba now – before the tourism revolution takes hold”, referring to the potential for the island to begin to lean towards capitalism once the American tourists turn up. The article continued, “You have to wonder how long… Cuba will survive [as an area with] no advertisements. No high-rises. No malls, no ‘donut’ joints, no flagship stores, no chain coffee shops”. Similarly, The Independent offered its readers the following advice: “Don’t wait – enjoy this beautifully peculiar time capsule before it changes forever”.

Business Insider quoted one Israeli tourist who, when visiting Cuba’s Revolution Square, said, “I wanted to see it before… the modern, Western world comes here”. This is a sentiment that has boosted bookings to the country of late, with the first half of 2015 seeing tourist numbers rising by 17 percent. Cuba, then, is arguably seen as the last remains of the ‘other’ kind of communism: while the grey concrete regimes of Eastern Europe have long since dissolved, Cuba’s own brand of socialism remains unwavering, and so acts as the last chance for people to glimpse into the world of the hammer and sickle.

Curiously, however, this view of Cuba being the last place to see communism’s ideologies in practice is also prevalent among younger people in the former Soviet Union. Natalie Labina, who was born in Ukraine in the year that the USSR’s rule collapsed, was too young to remember the communism of her homeland. With the experience of communism being a memory that only the older generation can recall, many young Ukrainians have taken a new interest in it. She told Business Destinations, “[They want] to see how it all was, as they cannot believe what actually happened – such as when you go to the shop, and you [could] buy only one type of something”. As a result of this curiosity about life in the Soviet Union, “Lots of young people are trying to get [to Cuba] now while Castro is still in power – to see how it was – including myself”. Even in the areas where the ruins of communism remain, there is a wish to see the last living scraps of the failed social system.

Countryside to city
Although it is still ruled by the Communist Party, China has capitalised on the sentimental wish of its citizens to experience the ‘good old days’ that existed before capitalism, special economic zones and skyscrapers moved in. Internally, the Chinese Government has been developing so-called ‘red tourism’, which has involved setting up a National Coordination Group for Red Tourism and convening a red tourism conference.

This unique brand of sightseeing involves tours around parts of rural China where some of the more significant events from the communist revolution under Chairman Mao Zedong took place. As a Der Spiegel article explained, these tours allow people to “feast on braised pork, Mao’s favourite dish, in the leader’s birthplace of Shoashan”, as well as to drink from a well in Ruijin that Mao himself is alleged to have dug.

The military guerrilla aspect of the Communist Party’s history in China is also featured. At the Cultural Park of the Eighth Route Army, a theme park located in Shanxi province, visitors are presented with fake rifles and costumes that allow them to re-enact the war against Japan. It is, as Der Spiegel noted, “the great amusement park of communism”. As China’s communist regime has not yet collapsed, the park offers less of a chance to see the ruins of an expired regime, as one might find in Eastern Europe, but more a chance to see the remains of the former humble, rural and peasant-based communism that has since been traded for modernity, markets and urbanisation.

Yet the Chinese are also partial to viewing the actual remains of collapsed communist societies. In May 2015, tourism chiefs from Russia and China signed an agreement to develop red tourism in both countries: 2014 saw nearly half a million Chinese visit Russia; more than any other nation. One of the most popular destinations for the Chinese is the Gorky Estate, a site just outside Moscow, where the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, died in 1924. “We have quite a lot of Chinese tourists coming to Gorky”, Igor Konyshev, Director of the Gorky Museum, told eTurboNews. “The interest is growing – last year we had 10,000 tourists from China.”

A failed experiment
While each type of tourism to former communist sites has its own unique dynamic, all are related to an attempt to experience the ruins of this lost civilisation for oneself. This society, which rapidly conquered a third of the world, ground to a halt and disintegrated almost completely within a few decades. Communism was unique to the 20th century – or to modernity, at least – in that it was an attempt to completely and consciously uproot the past and replace it with a new civilisation altogether.

Within a single generation, the undertaking had been totally discredited and given up on by its leaders. It is for this reason that it can be classified as a civilisation, albeit one that scarcely existed for much more than a human lifespan. Communism’s attempt to completely pave over the past and resurrect a new society on top of the old is part of the reason why its once-heated politics faded, being replaced by mere curiosity. Whether it be from the imposing concrete buildings of the Eastern Bloc or the frozen-in-time feeling of Havana, the exhilaration that comes with witnessing the final breaths of a system that has outlived its time is something that extends across human history: just as 19th-century travellers marvelled at the structures that were erected by the Romans, tourists today wonder – albeit in a less reverential fashion – at the ruins left behind by communism’s failed attempts at creating a new world.

The end of German hegemony

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Without anyone quite noticing, Europe’s internal balance of power has been shifting. Germany’s dominant position, which has seemed absolute since the 2008 financial crisis, is gradually weakening – with far-reaching implications for the European Union.

Of course, from a soft-power perspective, the mere fact that people believe Germany is strong bolsters the country’s status and strategic position. But it will not be long before people begin to notice that the main driver of that perception – that Germany’s economy continued to grow, while most other eurozone economies experienced a prolonged recession – represents an exceptional circumstance; one that will soon disappear.

In 12 of the last 20 years, Germany’s growth rate been lower than the average of the other three large eurozone countries (France, Italy, and Spain). Although German growth surged ahead during the post-crisis period, the International Monetary Fund predicts that it will fall back below that three-country average – and far below the eurozone average, which includes the smaller high-growth countries of Central and Eastern Europe – within five years. To be sure, Germany still has some apparent advantages. But a closer examination shows that they are not quite as positive as they seem.

Germany is now, for the first time, in the position of having to ask its EU partners for solidarity

Hiding behind numbers
For starters, Germany is close to full employment – in sharp contrast to the double-digit unemployment rates that prevail in much of the eurozone. But the combination of full employment and low growth rates actually points to an underlying problem: very slow productivity growth. Add to that a shrinking pool of workers capable of meeting the needs of Germany’s labour market – the country’s population is aging, and the arriving refugees lack the needed skills – and the German economy seems set for a protracted period of sluggish performance.

Another apparent advantage is Germany’s large financial reserves, which not only cushioned it from the crisis, but also conferred upon it considerable political sway.

Indeed, because German funds were indispensable in bailing out the eurozone’s deeply stressed periphery, the country became central to all efforts to address the crisis.

Germany’s consent was needed to create Europe’s ‘banking union’, which entailed the transfer of supervisory powers to the European Central Bank (ECB) and the creation of a common fund to resolve failing banks. And German resistance contributed to a delay in the ECB’s intervention in bond markets: when the ECB finally did launch its bond-buying program, it did so with Germany’s tacit approval.

But now that interest rates are at zero, Germany’s large savings are no longer doing it much good – and with the financial storm having largely abated, Germany lacks new opportunities to demonstrate its political clout, both within and outside the eurozone.

Power shift
Indeed, whereas Germany, owing to its deep involvement in Central and Eastern European economies, was a key player in the Minsk agreements that were meant to end the conflict in Ukraine, it has little influence in the Middle Eastern countries that are occupying the world’s attention today. While many have highlighted Germany’s political leadership in the refugee crisis, the reality is that being thrust into the front line of that crisis, without having much influence over the factors that are driving it, is placing considerable strain on the country. Germany is now, for the first time, in the position of having to ask its EU partners for solidarity, as it cannot absorb all the newcomers alone.

As usual, however, perceptions are lagging behind reality, which means that Germany is still widely viewed as the eurozone’s most powerful force. But, as the global business cycle accelerates Germany’s return to the ‘old normal’, the power shift within Europe will become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Germany, which exports a large volume of investment goods, benefited more than other eurozone member countries from the investment boom in China and other emerging economies. But emerging-economy growth is now slowing considerably, including in China, where demand is shifting from investment toward consumption. This tends to undermine German growth and benefit southern European countries, which export more consumer goods.

Rough waters ahead
The ongoing shift in Europe’s economic and political power dynamics is likely to have a major impact on the EU’s functioning – and especially that of the eurozone. For example, without a strong Germany to enforce the eurozone’s fiscal strictures and urge the implementation of difficult but necessary structural reforms, countries may lose their motivation to do what is needed to ensure fairness and stability in the long term. If inflation remains low, the ECB might feel freer to pursue further rounds of monetary stimulus, undermining fiscal objectives further.

In short, we may be headed toward a less ‘Germanic’ economic policy in the eurozone. While that might enhance the EU’s popularity in the periphery, it could increase resistance to EU membership in Germany – a country that, despite its waning economic strength, remains an important piece of the integration puzzle.

© Project Syndicate, 2015

Daniel Gros is Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies

The crisis that Europe needs

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

It’s hard to be optimistic about Europe. Last summer, a political cage match between Germany and Greece threatened to tear the European Union apart. In country after country, extremist political parties are gaining ground, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine, in the EU’s backyard, has turned the common European foreign and security policy into a punch line.

Now comes the refugee crisis. The EU’s 28 member states are quibbling over how to distribute 120,000 refugees, when more than three times that number crossed the Mediterranean in the first nine months of 2015 alone.

At a time when Europe is struggling to boost productivity and competitiveness, reinstating border controls would come as a
serious blow

A lack of agreement
Refugees are coming by land as well as sea: Germany alone expects as many as one million asylum-seekers this year. It is risible to think that European governments will be able to deport – or ‘repatriate’, in diplomacy-speak – any substantial fraction of these arrivals. Like a rubber ball, they will only come bouncing back.

Nor is there agreement on how to handle this flood of humanity. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, first declared that her country had a historical obligation to absorb refugees, before backing down in the face of political criticism. Hungary opened its borders, hoping that the human tide would flow onward, but then erected a razor-wire fence when it turned out that there were too few welcoming destinations.

The EU’s Eastern European members initially resisted taking their share of the 120,000; but, dependent on fiscal transfers from the EU’s wealthier members, they fell into line after a diplomatic arm-twisting similar to that administered to Greece. Besides raising doubts about European leaders’ competence and solidarity, this crisis jeopardises the EU’s signal achievement: the single market, which ensures freedom of movement for goods, services, capital – and people.

The Schengen Agreement, providing for passport-free transit, is what makes freedom of movement for people meaningful. But, given the inability of participating states to control their borders with non-EU countries, Germany and other Schengen members have temporarily reinstated controls. Indeed, this move could be more than temporary, with influential voices now calling for Schengen’s demise.

Closing the open borders
Dismantling Schengen would be a significant economic setback. Allowing trucks and trains to cross the EU’s internal borders without interruption not only facilitates trade; it also encourages the development of regional supply chains and production networks. Motor vehicle parts can be produced in one member state and assembled in another, after which the final product can be delivered to market. At a time when Europe is struggling to boost productivity and competitiveness, reinstating border controls would come as a serious blow.

The irony is that this is precisely the type of crisis that the EU was created to address. Solving the border-security problem requires European countries to work together. Individual countries like Greece have limited incentive to invest in controls insofar as refugees are only passing through. At the same time, unilateral action by countries, like Hungary, that are unprepared to countenance even transiting migrants, merely ends up diverting the flow.

Shouldering the burden
The EU has an agency called Frontex to coordinate and strengthen national border-control policies. But governments have not allowed it to issue directives to national agencies – if the crisis is to be solved, this will have to change. The same goes for resettlement: Germany and Sweden cannot be expected to be the only destinations for all refugee arrivals. Burden sharing is essential if the costs are to be tolerable.

In principle, the outlines of a deal are not difficult to formulate: Germany can provide money and manpower to secure the EU’s external borders. Its neighbours can then agree to accept more refugees and to offer them real economic opportunity as an incentive to stay.

Creating institutions to enhance border security and resettle refugees will require Europe to take another step towards deeper political integration, with decisions made at the EU, not the national, level. There may be a reluctance to contemplate this, but there is no choice if Europe is to have a hope of solving the problem.

At the source
More razor wire at the border is not an adequate answer – Europe also needs to address the conditions driving residents of war-torn and poverty-stricken countries to flee. So far, the EU has been singularly ineffectual in deploying aid, diplomacy and boots on the ground to address conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.

In particular, Germany, the EU’s largest country, has hesitated to contribute forces, funds, and even strategic advice, reflecting its dark military history. Merkel, her involvement in negotiations over Ukraine aside, has deferred to the German public’s historically rooted objections to deeper foreign entanglements.

Such reticence is no longer acceptable. One rationale for the European project has always been to allow Germany to project diplomatic and military force in the context of a larger, EU-wide foreign policy. That way, both Germans and other Europeans can trust Germany to be a positive force for change. If not now, one might ask, then when?

© Project Syndicate, 2015

Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley

William Dalrymple: one of the world’s most celebrated travel writers

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

The art of travel writing has helped to both uncover parts of the world that few people have visited and add a new perspective to previously well-trodden paths. Throughout history, people have been writing about their trips and recounting their stories to others, but it was only during the last century that travel writing became a finely tuned skill.

The British have been perhaps some of the most enthusiastic travellers of this period, with notable names like Wilfred Thesiger, DH Lawrence, Freya Stark, Evelyn Waugh and Patrick Leigh Fermor regaling their readers with incredible adventures and remarkable insights into far-flung lands.

However, a figure to emerge only during the last 25 years should also be mentioned as part of that illustrious literary company: historian and travel writer William Dalrymple has carved out a career as one of his generation’s most insightful writers. Born in Scotland in 1965, he went on to study history at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Dalrymple’s work is written with his own style of relaxed humour, often transforming a regular scene into one far more vivid and intriguing

Dalrymple’s career has been somewhat unique, in that he has combined his skill as a historian with a deep-rooted enthusiasm for world travel. In fact, his career has seen him write three major works of travel literature, each of which has been littered with real history, followed by a further trilogy of history books.

During his career, Dalrymple has perhaps become most known for his passion for all things to do with the Indian subcontinent. He is now widely regarded as his generation’s foremost expert on the history of British rule in the region.

Following the Silk Road
Dalrymple’s first book was written while he was still at university. Titled In Xanadu: A Quest, the book recounts the summer he spent following in the footsteps of the 13th century Italian merchant Marco Polo, who was famous for travelling along the Silk Road between Jerusalem and Shangdu (also known as Xanadu) in Inner Mongolia.

Beginning at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Dalrymple’s aim was to transport a vial of holy oil all the way to Mongolian King Kubla Khan’s summer palace in Shangdu. The journey stretched across the breadth of the Middle East, including across a then extremely hard to access Iran, up through Pakistan, Central Asia, and into China.

In total, the trip took four months to complete and saw 22-year-old Dalrymple encounter many different landscapes, cultures and religious ceremonies. He also explored the histories of the ancient cities that he passed through, while comparing them to their current political climates. The book itself is written with his own style of relaxed humour, often finding ways to transform a regular scene into one far more vivid and intriguing.

The book was widely praised upon its release, winning a number of literary awards. Leigh Fermor, one of the most acclaimed travel writers of the last century, heaped praise on it in a review for The Spectator, making it his book of the year: “William Dalrymple’s In Xanadu carries us breakneck from a predawn glimmer in the Holy Sepulchre right across Asia”, he wrote. “It is learned and comic, and a most gifted first book touched by the spirits of Kinglake, Robert Byron and Evelyn Waugh.”

An exploration of India
Dalrymple would follow up In Xanadu with the 1994 book City of Djinns; an account of his time spent living in Delhi. Although Dalrymple himself lived in the city for six years, the narrative covers only a single year so as to show how the capital changes with the seasons. Such is his love for the city, Dalrymple has lived partly in Delhi since 1989, travelling to London and Edinburgh for the summers.

In the past, he has described Delhi as having a “bottomless seam of stories”. The book is spent exploring the many different fragments of Delhi’s history and culture, meeting a number of colourful characters along the way, from whirling dervishes to eunuch dancers.

Dalrymple also delves into the various historical events that have struck the city, including the violent 1857 mutiny against the British Empire, the massacres that hit during Partition in 1947, and the riots that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.

Throughout the 1990s, Dalrymple’s writing assignments and expeditions in India led to his third book, The Age of Kali. Over several years, Dalrymple travelled throughout the country exploring a number of controversies and troubles occurring across the Indian subcontinent, collating a series of travel essays based on his experience. These were tied into a period known as the Kali Yuga, a Hindu belief that there will be a time when the world will be consumed with strife.

Among the stories recounted in the book is the 1992 massacre of high caste Bihar citizens by those from the lower caste. Another is the murder of a teacher in Lucknow’s La Martiniere College. Dalrymple also looked at an Indian rapper, Baba Sehgal, who came from Bombay, as well as the glitzy music and film business that thrives in the city. An exploration of the Portuguese-influenced city of Goa and its Christian heritage also follows.

Some of the most interesting tales from The Age of Kali involve Dalrymple’s time spent in Pakistan meeting high-profile political figures. Profiling then Pakistani Prime Minister Banazir Bhutto in 1994, he provided a fascinating account of her extremely glamorous lifestyle. In 1989, he interviewed former Pakistani cricket legend Imran Khan, at a time when Khan was still playing but approaching the end of his illustrious sporting career. Dalrymple interviewed him again in 1996, just as Khan was embarking upon a new career in politics.

Drawing from the past
Dalrymple’s later work has involved a number of historical studies based around stories and events that took place within the Indian subcontinent: White Mughals is his account of a true love story between a British army officer and a Hyderabadi noblewoman, while The Last Mughal explores the fall of the Mughal dynasty in 1857. As with many of Dalrymple’s other works, White Mughals has since been developed into an acclaimed BBC documentary, titled Love and Betrayal in India: the White Mughal.

Dalrymple’s latest book, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, investigates the British Empire’s failed attempts to conquer Afghanistan between 1839 and 1842, with a keen focus on the parallels that can be drawn between that period of time and the more recent war in Afghanistan.

In a 2014 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Dalrymple spoke of the similarities between today’s situation in Afghanistan and what occurred in his book. “President Karzai, the man we put in this time, is from the same tiny sub-tribe as Shah Shuja, the guy we put in the 1840s. We more or less put the same guy in twice. And the guys who brought down Shah Shuja in 1839, the eastern Ghilzai tribe, are today the foot soldiers of the Taliban. There is this extraordinary sensation of the same war being fought, and refought.”

Throughout his literary career, Dalrymple has been able to carefully investigate moments of a country’s past with the precision of a skilled historian, while at the same time drawing important parallels to more recent events. His passion for India and the surrounding region has brought to Western readers an insight that had previously not been achieved, and so his place among the world’s top travel writers is surely assured.

TriFan 600 looks set to revolutionise air travel

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Vertical take off and landing (VTOL) aircraft have existed and been in operation for some time now, with the British Harrier Jump Jet and US-made V-22 Osprey among the most iconic iterations in this class of vehicles. Sadly, both are reserved for military purposes only, so the chances of a CEO acquiring one in order to get to his or her next business meeting on time are slim to none.

This leaves those that are strapped for time, but not for money, with a decision to make: buy a helicopter, which may not need a runway to take off or land, but is unable to traverse large distances, or purchase a private jet, which offers exactly the opposite.

But thanks to XTI Aircraft, a Denver-based aerospace start-up, a third option could be on its way: the TriFan 600, a six-seat business jet that has been designed to fly as fast, as high and as far as the majority of other private jets currently on the market, but that also possesses the added benefit of being able to take off and land vertically, just like a helicopter.

The company is in the process of striking up discussions with potential vendors, which will ultimately lead to the completion of a prototype

Start your engines
XTI believes that the aircraft, which is still in development, will revolutionise private air travel by greatly reducing total trip time and increasing overall convenience. Currently, no private business jet or helicopter in existence is capable of serving the needs of the executive traveller completely, because neither possesses the ability to transport passengers from point A to point B with the combination of speed, range and operational flexibility afforded by the TriFan 600.

“We could see that developing another traditional jet or helicopter in an already crowded market was not the answer”, a spokesperson for XTI Aircraft told Business Destinations. “But a new type of aircraft – with an entirely new combination of capabilities — was the key. With TriFan 600, executive travellers will have the ability to bypass highways and runways, lifting up from any helipad-sized paved surface and jetting out directly to their destination. They could potentially save hundreds of hours a year, achieve more, and avoid missing what’s important.”

The revolutionary aircraft is the brainchild of XTI’s founder and Chairman, David Brody, whose passion for aviation, science and technology has been crucial, not only in helping with the overall design of the TriFan 600, but also in the manner through which the project has been funded. From the get-go, Brody was a strong advocate of crowdfunding for the project, viewing “equity crowdfunding as a creative way to involve everyone as true stakeholders working together to pioneer this all-new way to fly”, Brody was quoted as saying on XTI’s website.

He added, “It’s a way to turn all of our supporters into potential stockholders, by providing the public [with] a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get in early on something truly revolutionary.”

Raising interest
So far, XTI has managed to raise more than $11m in non-binding indications of interest, according to its crowdfunding campaign page. Investment of this kind is almost as revolutionary as the aircraft itself, as up until recently only accredited investors (that is, individuals with an annual income exceeding $200,000 or possessing over $1m in assets) were permitted to invest in US start-ups.

That all changed in June 2015, when the final Regulation A+ rules under Title IV of the JOBS Act were approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), allowing companies like XTI to raise up to $50m from accredited and non-accredited investors. This was not only good news for non-accredited investors, who for the longest time had been unable to invest in start-ups even if they possessed the necessary disposable income to do so, but it is also great news for companies eager to get their projects up and running. Such a change in protocol has opened up a whole new channel for attracting the capital that businesses require.

“All members of XTI’s management are shareholders in the company, so they are highly motivated and incentivised to increase the company’s value and create a path to liquidity and a market for all shareholders, including those who will invest if the company moves forward under this Regulation A+ crowdfunding financing”, the XTI Aircraft spokesperson explained. “Therefore, over the next two or three years, the company will be analysing and exploring various approaches to achieving liquidity for all shareholders, such as strategic relationships with publicly traded aircraft companies, and examining whether an initial public offering should be part of the company’s financing strategy within the next few years.”

XTI’s crowdfunding campaign has been extremely successful, especially considering that it has only been up and running for a couple of months. However, it isn’t the only channel that the company has sought investment from: the aerospace company has also managed to raise funds from venture capital, private equity and accredited investors. Furthermore, as this fundraising period continues, the company is in the process of striking up discussions with potential vendors, which will ultimately lead to the completion of a prototype.

The planned interior of the TriFan 600 private jet
The planned interior of the TriFan 600 private jet

Market takes off
For those who have already indicated an interest in the campaign, the chances of seeing a return on their investment are better now than in previous years, as the private aviation market is becoming far more accessible to corporate travellers, with low oil prices cutting the overall cost of travel.

“Since the recession of 2008, the UK’s private aviation industry has been improving”, Patrick Margetson-Rushmore, Chief Executive of London Executive Aviation (LEA), explained in an interview with the publishing house Raconteur earlier this year. “The market as a whole has never returned to pre-recession levels, but last year LEA recorded its strongest-ever financial and operational performance, reflecting stronger charter demand and growth in our aircraft management revenues, as well as an increase in flown hours, number of sectors and employee numbers.”

Not only is the private aviation market returning to its pre-recession glory, but with more and more aviation companies offering chartering services, allowing corporate travellers to hire aircraft as and when they require it rather than forcing them to do battle with scheduled commercial travel, the industry now offers the flexibility it needs in order to create sustainable growth over the coming years.

The TriFan 600 is likely to disrupt the market: according to the company, XTI expects the preliminary retail price for the aircraft to come in at around $10m to $12m, compared to the price tag of around $18m on equivalent models that are currently available. However, private aviation is not the only market that the company is targeting: XTI believes that the medical and tourism sectors could also potentially use their aircraft, because of the speed, flexibility and convenience that it offers.

The TriFan 600, as the name suggests, uses three ducted fans for take-off and landing. It then rotates two fans that are located on its wings to propel it forward, with a maximum cruise speed of 400mph and a range of up to 1,200 miles. For now, however, those looking to take a trip in the aircraft will have to wait, as an official launch date will only be announced once the company has received the necessary capital it needs.

The rebirth of Iranian tourism

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Closed off to much of the world for more than 35 years, Iran’s reputation as a tourist destination had all but disintegrated. Being portrayed in the mainstream media as a flag-burning, West-hating nation – an image that did very little to persuade the world’s tourists to visit – for the better part of that period, few people are now aware of the country’s dazzlingly rich cultural and natural history.

However, now that there has been something of a rapprochement between Iran and the West – most notably in the use of ‘the Great Satan’, as the US has been referred to in Iranian foreign policy statements – the country is gearing up for an influx of tourists eager to discover this land that was once so difficult to reach.

Approved this summer, the nuclear weapons deal that was struck between the US, several European governments and Iran over its nuclear ambitions has proven hugely controversial around the world. However, the subsequent lifting of long-standing sanctions will have a dramatic effect on a number of industries. Indeed, many businesses are now looking to the Middle Eastern country as the next big untapped opportunity.

There are many ancient sites that still need excavation or extensive restoration, and hopefully the influx of tourist dollars will help to ensure their preservation

Building begins
Perhaps more so than any other industry, the tourism sector in Iran is set to get a massive shot in the arm, and the renewed interest in the nation as a destination, with its beaches, mountains and ancient cultural sites, reflects the country’s huge tourism potential.

Speaking after the nuclear deal was sealed in Vienna last July, Iran’s Vice-President for Tourism, Masoud Soltanifar, enthused about the potential impact it will have on tourism: “No other industry in Iran will see a bigger boost than tourism as the result of this deal. The news about the nuclear agreement and lifting of economic sanctions has delighted our tourism industry”. However, the country’s infrastructure is extremely outdated and has seen little in the way of upgrades for decades – if Iran is to meet this increased demand from tourists, considerable investment is needed.

As luck would have it, many of the world’s biggest hotel chains are already scrambling to get in on the action and build the requisite accommodation for this influx of travellers. The government has sought to build more than 200 new hotels across the country, while visa restrictions for certain foreign visitors have also been relaxed.

In September, French hotel group AccorHotels became the first international hotel chain to venture into Iran for 35 years, after the Islamic revolution led to a number of prominent chains being banned from the country and their hotels being nationalised. The group has announced plans to open Ibis and Novotel branches near to Tehran’s international airport before the end of the year, and signifies the first move by a leading hotel group into the market. Another group, Abu Dhabi-based Rotana hotels, also announced plans to open four new hotels in the country in the coming months.

Altering preconceptions
Business Destinations spoke to British-born travel writer Cyrus Massoudi, whose recent book, Land of the Turquoise Mountains, highlights his three-year exploration of Iran; the country of his ancestors. Massoudi explained how the country is readying itself for this unprecedented wave of visitors: “Iran’s tourism sector has been growing for a number of years now. The country’s image as a fundamentalist state made it popular with more adventurous tourists keen to find the next ‘unspoilt’ hotspot, but now that the political situation appears more stable, Iran’s appeal is becoming more universal”.

Changing the global image of the country has been a strong part of the strategy to bring Iran into the fold of the international community. The controversial and outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad departed from office two years ago and was replaced by the apparently much more moderate and conciliatory Hassan Rouhani. The changeover brought to an end eight years of political posturing by Ahmadinejad, during which it seemed as though the country was determined to rile its two great enemies, the US and Israel.

However, the country’s change in image has also happened organically as a consequence of technology. Social media has granted Iranians access to the outside world, which has in turn given reticent Westerners a far greater insight into the country than may have been possible through the usual filters of the mainstream media.

Indeed, there is a growing online presence that promotes everything from Iran’s nature and culture to its food, fashion and film industry, clearly reflecting an increasing interest in the country. “With the recent political rapprochement, where it was once in both sides of the divide’s interests to portray Iran as the… bristling adversary, now both sides are working to promote a positive image”, said Massoudi.

Business fuelling growth
Iran’s economy is set to get a huge boost from the lifting of the sanctions, signs of which can already be seen in the global oil and gas markets. However, tourism is also set to play a significant role, both economically and in forcing a shift in attitudes within the country.

Many businesses are in the process of dipping their toes into Iran’s economy, according to Massoudi, and this will only enhance the country’s tourism sector. “A number of established global brands have already made plans to step into the economic void left by the country’s isolationist foreign policy and the resultant years of sanctions. While some will see this globalisation as a negative, it will certainly only help to attract foreign visitors and act as a fillip for the tourism sector and the economy as a whole”, he explained.

Several car manufacturers, including Peugeot, Citroën and Bentley, have already made moves to re-enter the Iranian market, while other countries have been quick to send delegations of their leading business figures to Iran in the hope that they will forge new and lucrative deals with the country.

In August, German industrial conglomerate Siemens told reporters of the potential for the Iranian market: “We are talking here about 80 million people who need energy supplies, who naturally also need healthcare, who want to get back off their knees in the oil and gas businesses. There are opportunities and chances.”

While businesses are helping to boost tourism, the industry itself could play a major role in the country’s economy in the coming years. With such a wide variety of attractions to offer visitors, Iran can expect to see the industry rapidly grow and contribute much-needed income to its flagging economy.

The hope is that as many as 20 million tourists a year will flow into the country as a result of sanctions lifting. Currently, the country sees just six million visitors each year from around the world, thanks in large part to concerns over safety by tourists and restrictive visa rules for entering the country. Many of these existing visitors are religious pilgrims, and might not spend as much money as traditional tourists. According to official figures, tourism contributes around $7.5bn a year towards the country’s economy, or two percent of GDP.

It is this diversity that gives the country’s tourism sector such huge potential, says Massoudi: “It’s not often that a country can offer something for nearly every type of tourist: culture, history, cuisine, natural beauty, adventure sports, mountain, desert and plenty of coastline are all on offer. At the right time of year, you could be skiing in the morning and lying on a beach in the afternoon.”

Rediscovering its past
Before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran was very much a Westernised country that welcomed visitors from afar. It had luxurious hotels, a plethora of ancient historical sites, and it was well known for its contribution to high culture. However, in the aftermath of this period, the regime attempted to play down much of the country’s cultural heritage.

Indeed, many of the country’s historical sites, such as ancient city of Persepolis, were largely left to rot. Massoudi said, “The pre-Islamic period is considered Jahiliyya, the Age of Ignorance, and had long been disparaged by the regime, but World Heritage sites such as Persepolis and Pasargadae are the country’s biggest tourist attractions and have recently been enjoying more favour. There are many ancient sites that still need excavation or extensive restoration, and hopefully the influx of tourist dollars will help to ensure their preservation.”

Because of this partial rejection of much of its history, visitors to Iran are likely to be shocked at the scope of the country’s history and size. Massoudi added, “People seem to be familiar with the names of the two Achaemenid Greats, Cyrus and Darius, without knowing too much about that period of Iran’s history. I think the size and grandeur of their empire, showcased perfectly at Persepolis, will be a surprise, but it was the more ancient Elamite civilisation, based around Shush, that really bowled me over.”

Many of the sites – such as Persepolis, Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan and the historic gardens in Shiraz – are where most travellers to the country head first when arriving. However, there are many hidden parts of the country that are often overlooked by travellers. Massoudi noted that “the existing tours do a good job of taking in the key historical sites, but they do entail long bus journeys. Khuzestan Province is often overlooked, but with the Chogha Zanbil ziggurat and Darius’ Susan Palace, I’d say it’s a must for lovers of ancient history.”

He added, “I was astounded by the diversity of the landscape on the Gulf island of Qeshm in the south. The northeast was also a highlight, with the beauty of the Turkoman plain and the staggering pilgrimage site of Imam Reza’s tomb at Mash’had.”

Natural splendour
Iran is a vast territory with all manner of natural landscapes, including the deserts in the Yazd province, the mountains north of Tehran, the beaches in the Persian Gulf to the south, and the lush tropical forests in the north. “Picking the right time of year to visit Iran is vital”, according to Massoudi. “In winter, many of the roads in the north are covered in snow, and in summer the south is too hot to even contemplate. Spring is a great time to visit because the country’s famous gardens are at their best and the foothills of the Alborz and Zagros are alive with blossom and wildflowers.”

Just a short trip north of Tehran, the country’s capital, a number of ski resorts can be found. While they may not have many of the luxuries that can be found in European resorts, the snow in Iran is as good as anywhere else. However, much of the infrastructure and equipment in these resorts is outdated, and so there is likely going to be a considerable upgrading effort over the coming years. “The existing resorts are being developed and there is scope for more to come. The dry air and peaks of over 4,000m ensure first-rate powder skiing”, according to Massoudi. “Safety and maintenance are still a way short from European and North American resorts, but both the Alborz and Zagros mountain ranges offer fantastic opportunities for skiers with the necessary safety equipment and knowhow.”

There are also numerous beaches on both the Caspian shoreline in the north and further south in the Persian Gulf, with the islands of Kish and Qeshm said to be some of the country’s best seashore locations. However, visitors are warned that Islamic dress is still very much required for women on the beaches, and so, despite the white sands, the experience will be somewhat different from a ‘typical’ beach holiday.

A taste of Iran
While the perception of Iranians that has developed in the media over the last few decades might cause visitors to be apprehensive, the reality is that they are some of the most welcoming people that a tourist could hope to meet. According to Massoudi, “Iranians take serious pride in their hospitality and will go to great lengths to ensure a guest leaves with a smile on their face.”

Of particular importance is their cuisine, with visitors often being treated to never-ending meals from their eager-to-please hosts. Indeed, food in Iran is very different from what is found elsewhere, and many first-rate restaurants have sprung up in the country in recent years. While there are some international restaurant groups opening in Tehran, the authentic local cuisine is what Massoudi recommends: “Although there are more and more international restaurants opening in Tehran, it is all about eating authentic Iranian cuisine. While most locals will go out for chelo kabab (kebab and rice), it is the stews and pulaus (rice dishes with the sauce cooked into them) that are the real gems.”

He added, “If travelling through Iran in the colder months, keep an eye out for bowls of ash – a delicious, hearty soup. The ash-e dough, a speciality of the Azeri region in the northwest, is delicious. In Iran, it’s all about eating seasonal produce. Luckily you can’t miss it, as it’s being hawked on the side of the road everywhere you go.”

The tentative steps being made to reintegrate Iran into the international community are long overdue, and have so far been welcomed by most of its citizens. However, there has also been considerable scepticism over whether the Vienna deal is sustainable in the first instance, as well as whether the Iranian regime will adhere to the strict conditions imposed by it.

However, while the regimes of Iran and the West go about reacquainting themselves with one another, it is the travellers from abroad that are likely to jump at the chance to visit a land that has for far too long been cut off from the rest of the world. Rediscovering the cultural heritage of this once great empire and uncovering its natural splendour is sure to be at the top of most travellers’ lists in the coming years.

Sean Conway: ‘Once I’d been run over, I had to find a new focus’

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Extreme endurance adventurer and owner of one of the most impressive beards known to man, Sean Conway finished the final leg of his ‘length of Britain’ triathlon by running a total of 1,011 miles, completing the epic on-foot journey from John O’Groats to Land’s End in just 44 days. Previous adventures have seen him attempting to break the world record for circumnavigating the globe on a bicycle – an attempt that was thwarted when he was hit by a car travelling at 50mph, resulting in a fractured spine.

Business Destinations got the chance to catch up with Conway as he recovered from his mammoth triathlon, where he explained that his greatest fear is failure, and how if you’d told him five years ago that one day he would become the first person to ever swim, cycle and run the length of Great Britain, he would have “slapped you and gone back to the pub”.

The monotony of the rat race, and the monotony of how we think we need to live our lives, depresses me and scares me

Does every great adventurer need an even greater beard?
Of course! It’s my super power.

You say that you grew the beard to shield yourself against jellyfish while swimming. Did it do the job?
Yeah – 100 percent. It’s kind of the ‘adventurer’ thing to do, to grow a beard. Along the swim [along the length of Britain] I wasn’t planning on having a beard at all because of the obvious disadvantages for swimming, but I kept getting stung on the face and it was only after a couple of weeks that I realised that where I had facial hair, I wasn’t getting stung as much. So, I thought it a good idea to let it grow.

You had a hard time attracting sponsors because many were worried that you would die – was there ever a moment when you thought you might?
Might die? No. Well… yeah. There was a moment at the end [of the swimming portion] when I was rounding Cape Wrath, when we lost the kayak and the rig. Stuff got pretty dangerous then, so that was pretty sketchy. But thinking that I just wouldn’t finish happened a lot. It was just so hard. Four and half months at sea is about as much fun as it sounds – that’s longer than people take to row the Atlantic. It was tough.

For somebody who admits to having a fear of the open ocean, do you ever question the path you have chosen to pursue?
I get scared, but I’m more scared of failing. I try to put a lot of stuff out of my mind, but I have a wild imagination – picturing things swimming below me, especially when you’re swimming at three in the morning and it’s pitch black. I just wanted to prove that it could be done, but while I was doing it, the motivation went from trying to prove [the naysayers] wrong, to trying my best not to fail.

In 2012, after you were hit by a car, you somehow still managed to cycle 12,000 miles with a fractured spine. What compelled you to carry on?
Once I’d been run over, I knew that the world record was out of my reach, so I had to find a new focus. My focus after I got run over was just trying to get back home to London in time for the Olympics. A school in East London had made me a replica Olympic torch to take around the world and get back to London with, so that became my motivation.

I had already failed in my goal, so I had to find a new one, and that became my new challenge – which was quite hard, considering the injuries I had.

What are some of the best memories you have from all these challenges?
Oh my god, that is impossible… I guess swimming with phosphorescence in the Irish Sea. Have you watched The Beach, with Leonardo DiCaprio? It was exactly like that. Just millions and millions of phosphorescence in the water, and every time I kicked a massive explosion of light would just erupt. That was probably one of the best experiences of my life, because I had no idea that they existed in such quantities in the UK, but there are millions of them here.

You were born in Zimbabwe. How did growing up there help to fuel your appetite for adventure?
I’m the oldest out of two – my sister came along a couple of years [after me]. She was always too young to play with, and a girl, so I spent a lot of time playing on my own in the middle of the bush before I went to school. I guess I just got used to dealing with my own company.

How important are the relationships you develop with your team when undertaking these adventures?
Mostly, I do everything completely self-supported. Even my next adventure, which has a swim in it, will be a self-supported trip – I will be dragging a raft behind me in the water with my camping gear and food. [However], it is important to surround yourself with the right people: people who are positive and who will help you get to where you want to get.

Though that is generally just in the lead up, with sponsors and people sharing your story for you while you are away – while I am actually on the adventure, I prefer to be alone.

On your blog, you mention how you “don’t [cope] with the cold all that well”. Why then do you dream of competing in an Arctic triathlon?
Because I like the challenge. I’m not particularly good at anything, really – I’m just stubborn, and that’s why I end up finishing [things].

I’m just fascinated by the human body and how it adapts to different situations. On the swim – for not really being a good swimmer – my body, without very much training, learnt how to swim properly by itself. It became more efficient. The same is true with running and cycling… It’s amazing what the human body can do when it’s pushed.

Do you think that pushing yourself to such extremes has altered your outlook on life?
Totally. It made me more confident in everyday life. If you’d asked me five years ago if I’d become the first person ever to do the length of Britain triathlon, I would’ve slapped you and gone back to the pub. We’re all a lot more mentally and physically strong than we think we are, and it is only when you go out there that you actually realise, “Damn – I actually did that”.

You have set up a scholarship programme to help others who dream of adventure. Why do you believe that living adventurously is so vital?
You don’t have to climb a mountain or row an ocean – you can just live everyday life adventurously. Think adventurously – you’d be surprised what you will discover.
For me, the monotony of the rat race and the monotony of how we think we need to live our lives depresses me and scares me, because I did that, and I was miserable. And you don’t have to.

I’m not saying everyone should quit their job and go off travelling. If you have a job and you love it, that is fine. It’s absolutely fine to have that security – some people need it. But you can find ways to be adventurous within everyday life, even if you do have a nine-to-five. You shouldn’t be doing stuff you hate for an extended period of your life, purely to earn money. That just seems daft to me.

Skiers head to Spain

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

When thinking about the Spanish tourism industry, it is usually sun-soaked Mediterranean beaches and dazzling architecture that spring to mind. It is not, perhaps, strings of button lifts trailing down snow-capped mountains. However, on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, a burgeoning ski resort – one that rivals the overpopulated locations found just over the French border – is challenging such preconceptions.

The many beach resorts and holiday homes that litter Spain’s coasts have so far dominated international opinion of its tourism credentials. Such is the attractiveness of the country to visitors that the World Economic Forum (WEF) placed Spain at the top of its Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index 2015, ahead of neighbouring France, as well as Germany, the US and the UK. It is the first time that the country has topped the index, and represents a resurgence for Spain as a destination for global travellers.

Spanish tourism authorities had concerns that falling visitor numbers during the summer would exacerbate the country’s already struggling economy

More than a beach break
According to WEF’s report, Spain is the third most visited country in the world, welcoming around 60.6 million people each year. This figure is being fuelled by an increase in visitors from newly affluent economies, such as Brazil, China and Mexico. The report added, “With beautiful heritage sites throughout the country, it boasts top marks for its cultural resources, and also scores highly for business travellers with a significant number of international conferences. It has a high ranking (fourth) on online searches for entertainment – restaurants, nightlife and attractions – as well as prioritisation of the travel and tourism industry (sixth) and tourism service infrastructure (fourth)”.

However, while the country is obviously a highly desirable location for tourists, it still requires work in attracting business travellers, according to WEF. The report noted that “there is room for improvement”, adding that “the low rank for business environment (100th) reflects red tape related to construction permits and an inefficient legal framework, while the labour market is still assessed as somewhat rigid (113th) and sees a mismatch between workers’ rewards and productivity (125th)”.

The news of Spain topping the index comes after a sluggish few years: just a few years ago, there was concern among Spanish tourism authorities that falling visitor numbers during the summer would exacerbate the country’s already struggling economy. As a result, in recent years there has been a concerted effort to develop Spain’s tourism infrastructure and expand it so that it may entice travellers to visit year-round, rather than just in the summer months.

The importance of tourism to Spain’s economy was highlighted recently in a report by Euromonitor International, which suggested that last year had been a slow year for travel in the country: “After a complicated time for the Spanish economy and the travel market over the review period, 2014 was a better year and a slow pace of recovery was witnessed in many categories. Inbound arrivals in particular posted positive results in 2014, enabling the travel market to regain strength. However, the average expenditure per visitor did not increase at the same level, reflecting a new trend in which travellers have begun to take trips again, albeit with a more limited budget.”

This price-conscious attitude among travellers is leading to many traditionally high-end destinations beginning to suffer, as travellers are instead seeking out new and undiscovered – and so usually cheaper – destinations for their holidays.

France meets Spain
Not widely thought of as a destination for skiing, Spain is in fact the second most mountainous country in Europe, and within its Pyrenees Mountains sit some of the country’s most popular skiing destinations. While these resorts have been popular with Spaniards for decades, the Val d’Aran (Aran Valley) is still relatively unknown to those outside of the country’s borders.

Keith Kirwen from the Pyrenees Mountain Experience – a company that arranges tours of the Baqueria Beret Ski Resort in Val d’Aran – spoke to Business Destinations about how this part of Spain has grown to be one of Europe’s most treasured, yet still largely undiscovered, destinations. With regular visitors including the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, who has a magnificent holiday home in the region, Val d’Aran has established itself as the country’s premier winter tourism destination.

Having recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, Val d’Aran has served winter sports enthusiasts in northern Spain ever since it opened in 1964. However, before the resort opened, this part of Spain was a relatively modest and remote community, according to Kirwen: “Prior to the opening of the Baqueira Beret resort, the Val d’Aran was a remote mountain community based on agriculture and farming. There was also a decent amount of contraband activity, given that the valley is on the French border. Many people back then had to go to France to find work.”

Indeed, the valley has only really opened up to winter visitors because of its unique geography. Kirwen said, “The Val d’Aran is a unique mountain valley in the Pyrenees for many reasons. One principal reason is that it faces north: this means that during the winter months, the valley was closed off to Spain for centuries due to the snow. It has a significant, historical French influence as a result of this.”

All four seasons
As a result of the French impact on the valley, Val d’Aran is a melting pot of cultures, with Spanish, French and traditional local Aranese influences. The cuisine, language and Romanesque architecture give the place a truly distinct look and feel – indeed, according to Kirwen, during the 19th century the French began to refer to the valley as ‘the Switzerland of Spain’.

The Val d’Aran has now become one of Spain’s most profitable tourist regions, and one not just limited to winter tourism. Kirwen noted, “Now, 50 years later, the Val d’Aran is one of the regions in Spain with the highest income per capita. Baqueira Beret is the principal economic motor of the valley, no doubt. Over the years, the majority of tourists came in the winter, but now there is strong year-round tourism activity.”

The rise in interest in the area has also led to economic benefits for the local community, with around 80 percent of the local population now working directly or indirectly in the tourism sector. “The locals have been able to make good lives converting their homes and businesses into tourist-related enterprises, such as shops and restaurants, and many have also done well selling their property for building”, Kirwen added.

The reasons for the increase in interest in the region are the level of snowfall during the winter; the relative quality difference when compared to other similar locations; and its commitment to maintaining that same quality throughout the season. Kirwen explained: “What makes Baqueira stand out is the quality and quantity of snowfall and the massive grooming programme put into place every night: Baqueira is the resort [in] Europe that grooms more kilometres per night than the rest.”

The region’s best
Val d’Aran has continued to expand in recent years by opening yet more slopes to skiers, with an additional 21 due to open this year. This means that the resort now has a collection of downhill slopes stretching 146km in total, while there are also plenty of cross-country skiing routes on offer.

The skiing at Val d’Aran has been heralded as some of the finest in Europe, with a number of runs, including Mirador, Blanhibla, and Dossau, proving to be particularly popular. Another unique activity that is drawing guests to Val d’Aran is heli-skiing, which is popular for both its guaranteed excitement and its relative cheapness – the thrill of going up in a helicopter to locate the perfect slope, and then jumping out onto the mountain itself is something that is not available to many skiers, but in Val d’Aran it is both affordable and easy to arrange.

The valley is also well known for the annual Marxa Beret cross-country skiing event, which will be celebrating its 37th edition in 2016. It acts as Spain’s principal cross-country ski competition, and last year saw 1,300 competitors from countries all over Europe, including Finland, Norway, Estonia, Russia, Germany, Italy and France. And, while the winter months are certainly the most popular for welcoming tourists into the valley, during the summer there is also plenty to do: camping trips are popular, particularly those in the untouched and peaceful forest within the Valley of Toran.

Welcoming business
Skiing has become not only the pastime of winter sport enthusiasts and holidaymakers alike, but it is also a useful activity for those looking to arrange unique work retreats. For many businesses, short corporate excursions provide the perfect opportunity for teambuilding and networking, as well as for providing a unique place in which to develop new ideas. According to Kirwen, Pyrenees Mountain Experience recognises the ability of such an environment to have a positive impact on overly stressed workers. “We know the soothing and rejuvenating power of these mountains, and work closely with companies to build a holiday business development programme any time of the year”, he said.

As a result, the organisation has now developed an array of programmes for business visitors. “What is great about the Val d’Aran in this regard is the amazing landscape and fresh mountain air, as well as the countless types of programmes we can build,” Kirwen explained. “We can do five-star spa, caviar and champagne events, or rugged teambuilding, mountain-climbing types.”

The resort is also ideally located for business people looking to get away from their hectic work lives in major European cities. With Toulouse Airport only an hour and a half away, the valley has easy access to frequent flights to and from major hubs across the continent, while other parts of Spain are also relatively close by, including Bilbao to the resort’s west and Barcelona to its southeast.

Near and far
During the winter, the vast majority of visitors to the region come from Spain, with around 34 percent coming from Madrid and 24 percent from the Basque and Catalan regions. A further 15 percent also arrive from across the border in France. Visitors from much further afield currently don’t account for a significant proportion of Val d’Aran’s tourism, however. For the rest of the year, arrivals come mostly from the Catalan region, although visitors from further afield – notably France – are increasing each year. Kirwen added, “Every year there are more. The majority come for the Midi Pyrenees region or the southwest of France.” Indeed, the increased interest from the French has led to Baqueira opening up offices in both Bordeaux and Toulouse.

For the many Europeans that ski, the most popular locations tend to be in the Alps mountain range, such as Val d’Isère, Chamonix and Meribel on the French side, or Verbier and St Moritz on the Swiss side. However, skiing has been popular throughout the Pyrenees for many years now, partly because of the smaller crowds and lower prices.

Despite it not having the high-profile reputation of its Alpine rivals, the resort of Val d’Aran is at an advantage because it is relatively undiscovered. As a result, prices are comparatively low, and the most popular slopes are by far less congested. “The price/quality ratio and size of the resort, along with the fact that there are rarely any lines to wait in, make the resort a remarkable place to ski”, Kirwen explained. He added that during weekdays in the off season, the slopes are practically deserted, guaranteeing some unique skiing opportunities.

Going the extra mile
In order to encourage tourists from further afield to come to Val d’Aran, the local tourism board is playing a key role in promoting the region, according to Kirwen. However, the resort still remains mostly unknown to the majority of European skiers, and it is only recently that there has been an active strategy to promote the resort beyond the traditional
Spanish market.

Kirwen said, “People from all over Europe who have come here on holiday, and with whom I have had the opportunity to work, always seem shocked that no one knows about this place. They ask why more isn’t done to get the word out. I always respond that, up until very recently, there was no need to do any marketing because the people of Aran have been so busy building, creating and catering to its Spanish and French tourists that it was never needed. Now, however, we have this huge infrastructure, and we know that the future is north of the Pyrenees.”

It not just the skiing that is attracting visitors, but also the entertainment afterwards: “The après ski and everything the Val d’Aran has to offer makes it very different to many other European resorts”, according to Kirwen. “The last few years we have seen a significant increase in live music, and this is getting better and better. Where the Val d’Aran really shines with the après ski is the food and drink: tapas, pinchos and rioja (at great prices) are what really make the place amazing. In Baqueria, there has also been a steady increase in the number of high-end restaurants and bars, including the recently opened Moët & Chandon Lounge.”

Val d’Aran has in recent years vastly expanded its infrastructure in order to cater for more visitors, and now has more than 12,000 beds across the valley, plus around 200 restaurants. Accommodation ranges from basic bungalows, hostels and hotels to high-end, five-star resorts and apartments. Among those at the top end of the scale is the Val de Neu in Baqueira, which was recently hailed as Europe’s first five-star grand luxury mountain resort. It includes 120 indulgent rooms, a spa and a wide range of dining options.

The region as a whole has been praised in a number of different areas, including for its environmental sustainability strategy, with National Geographic naming it as a finalist in its World Legacy Awards. And, as more skiers begin to realise that they don’t need to spend small fortunes and do battle with the crowds at more high-profile resorts in order to experience a unique skiing holiday, the region’s popularity – and, with it, Spain’s reputation as a winter holiday destination– is only set to rise further.

Brazil scores extra points in event tourism

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Since 1723, tourists have flocked to Brazil’s famous Carnaval every spring, enticed by the famous parades and the chance to experience the vibrant celebrations that take place on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Others travel to Brazil to immerse themselves in the wonder of the Amazon rainforest, to witness spectacular wildlife and be amazed by the grandness of the Iguazu Falls. Yet, despite such attractions, Brazil is not the tourist hotspot that some may presume. The cost of a trip has would-be visitors travelling to neighbouring countries instead, while the lack of adequate tourism and travel infrastructure is also off-putting for many.

In a bid to promote the country as a travel destination, Brazil is investing heavily in major events and has now become a popular host for numerous business conferences and international functions, such as the Rotary Annual Convention in 2015, the World Water Forum in 2018 and the Congress of the International Union of Architects in 2020. The push seems to be working, with Brazil climbing the ranks to become one of the top 10 most popular event destinations worldwide in 2014, according to the International Congress and Convention Association.

There are two notable super events that form that core of this drive: they are, of course, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. And while a similar strategy has worked in South Africa and Barcelona in the past, Brazil’s drive to host increasing numbers of large-scale events has not yet yielded the same impact. Although there is still time to make the most out of the Olympics, it can be argued that the focus of event tourism is itself misguided.

Football frenzy
When Brazil won the bid to host the biggest tournament in football back in 2007, the economic and political landscape in the country was somewhat different from what it is today: the economy had been expanding at an impressive rate, while the prospect of further growth and the added boost of the World Cup had captivated the nation. In the years that have since passed, however, the South American state has been embroiled in corruption scandals, economic crises, growing unemployment and plunging commodity prices. Thousands have taken to the streets in protest on numerous occasions, starting most notably during the run-up to the Confederations Cup in 2013. Public outcries against insufficient health and education services have been broadcast around the world, highlighting the anger of millions who are contending with one of the world’s worst housing crises just as their government spends billions on sporting events.

$11.63bn

The estimated cost of the 2014 World Cup

$2.7bn

Was spent on new and upgraded stadiums

$13.2bn

The expected cost of the 2016 Olympic Games

While the World Cup was undoubtedly a disaster in terms of Brazil’s athletic performance, the government boasts that, as an event, it was actually a huge success: the number of tourists visiting the country reached around one million, far exceeding the 600,000 expected, and according to Brazil’s Ministry of Tourism (Embratur), 95 percent of those visiting for the World Cup indicated that they intend to visit again.

“Another interesting fact in terms of the impact, is that the international tourists that were visiting Brazil during the World Cup were spending more than the regular international tourists that visit Brazil – actually, they were spending around 30 percent more”, André Coelho, Tourism Specialist at FGV Projetos – an advisory unit to public and private institutions in Brazil, including Embratur – told Business Destinations. “This has everything to do with the profile of the international tourists that visited Brazil, because most of them had higher education and they were from higher economic backgrounds in their home countries, so basically, they were a little richer than the regular visitors”.

The World Cup and Olympics have also acted as a catalyst for various long-overdue infrastructure projects in Brazil. Perhaps the most noteworthy example is the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, which is drastically reducing the commute for thousands. A neglected tunnel through Rio’s mountains is also now being renovated in order to create an expressway with dedicated lanes for the BRT, and is expected to cut transport time between Olympic stadiums by up to 60 percent. Then there is the once-derelict Porto Maravilha, which is currently being developed into a modern, sustainable urban space that finally connects to the rest of Rio, with the aim of becoming a new business and cultural hub for the city.

A game of two halves
Despite the markers of success, there is another side to the legacy of the 2014 World Cup. According to the Brazilian Airline Association, the total number of flights actually fell between 11 and 15 percent in comparison to the same period in 2013. Internal flights plummeted by up to 40 percent, as routine travellers refrained from flying in order to avoid masses of football fans and hiked-up prices. Even more worrying is a report from Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry, which states that the country’s industrial production fell to the lowest levels since the study began in 2010. Some suggest that the decline was an outcome of the public holidays granted for the tournament, particularly as on days that were not officially given, many skipped work to watch the matches. Furthermore, while the government stated that the event generated one million jobs, the Labour Ministry’s database shows that job creation during the month of the tournament was the slowest since 1998, which can be attributed to a drastic drop in consumption levels.

The heightened media attention, rather than shining a positive light on the country and its government, actually had the opposite effect: news of the protests travelled across the globe, as did that of the unsuitable living conditions in the favelas, many of which were destroyed to make way for stadiums. “A product of these events is that they had to raze or eliminate 169 favelas, so they had to relocate tens of thousands of families to more distant parts of Rio and Western Rio – taking them away from their communities, taking parents away from their workplaces and children away from their schools”, said Dr Andrew Zimbalist, Economics Professor at Smith College and author of Circus Maximus. “That’s all very costly, socially and economically.”

An Olympian task
Now, reports about extreme pollution at the sites of the 2016 Olympics’ water games have also captured unwanted and widespread attention. However, during a recent visit by the International Olympic Committee, President Thomas Bach assured the public that the necessary measures were being undertaken in time for the tournament.

Zimbalist told Business Destinations, “Part of the problem for Brazil is that both of these events come at a point of time in their economy that is very fragile. When you run a $20bn cost on a mega-event and you have a federal government budget deficit of something like $200bn, you’re contributing 10 percent to the budget deficit, that’s a very substantial contribution.” Considering that Brazil spent more on its World Cup than any other host nation, it still has a lot to prove to its citizens and to potential tourists around the globe. Much also remains to be done in time for August’s opening ceremony, and only doing so can cast aside the negative publicity currently presiding over Brazil – a difficult task, considering the country’s current economic situation.

Yet, there is still scope for optimism, given the legacy that the Olympics are set to leave Rio de Janeiro: a city that is easier and faster to travel around, and a once dilapidated and forgotten-about port town that has since been rejuvenated. What’s more, the media limelight could very well entice more visitors. “For instance, the rowing is going to be in the lagoon in the middle of the city, in a beautiful place surrounded by mountains. Nature together with sports and the urban texture – this is something really special that Rio has to show the world”, said Coelho. “Winter in Rio is around 20 degrees in temperature, so we have very sunny days, which again connects with the image of the city. The Rio way of life is very outdoor – the beach is part of our life! So this image is a big boost, not only for leisure tourism, but also business tourism.”

It is crucial for Brazil to not focus too much on the games themselves, as these are one-off events and do not necessarily attract the kind of tourist that will visit the country again. As such, Brazil must play to its strengths – of which there are many – when promoting itself as a unique destination during the upcoming Olympics. Its beaches, the Amazon, its capacity for business events, the culture and, of course, the Carnaval – those are the reasons that people will want to visit Brazil in the long term, and by investing in these is how the country can boost its tourism industry indefinitely.

Why everyone’s moving to Singapore

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Although the phenomenon of travelling far and wide in order to secure a better financial future for oneself still occurs, people are now moving abroad for various other reasons as well.

According to HSBC’s recent Expat Explorer analysis, which surveyed 21,950 expats from around the world, 37 percent moved abroad to experience new challenges, and 37 percent did so to improve their quality of life. The research also found that earning more money and career progression are no longer the two dominant factors driving the expat community.

“There seems to be a definite trend of people choosing to move abroad for very personal reasons and to become expats in a wider sense of the word”, said Malte Zeeck, Founder and Co-CEO of InterNations, the largest global network and information site for expats. “Even career motivations are more individualist nowadays.”

The city-state has become an Asian hub for a number of global industries, including finance, communications and shipping

Of the most popular cities for expats to move to – a list that includes London, Hong Kong and Dubai – Singapore was rated as the world’s best in the report’s overall league table. Not only does the city-state boast a stable economy, it has excellent career opportunities, a safe environment for children to grow up in and world-class healthcare facilities. In fact, 67 percent of those surveyed said that Singapore provided them with a better way of life than they experienced at home.

Better quality of life
Fast-flowing traffic, thanks to the limited number of cars on the road, sparkling clean streets and vigilant renovations provide an idyllic urban space for residents in Singapore, while architectural icons, museums, art spaces and numerous parks add further appeal to the modern city. Known for low levels of crime, the streets of Singapore are extremely safe, which – together with a supply of leading international schools and healthcare facilities – make the city an ideal place for expats to raise children. Of those with families, 65 percent agreed that their children’s wellbeing had improved since moving to the Southeast Asian island.

Naturally, attractive employment opportunities must be present for any destination to attract expats and their families in the first place, and it is in this particular field that Singapore excels: the city-state has a reputation for attracting top talent, with no short supply of leading industries for individuals to excel in. The Expat Explorer report found that 28 percent of expats in Singapore earn more than $200,000 per annum, compared with only 13 percent who do so globally. Furthermore, over half believe that they learn more new skills in their Singapore-based careers than they do back home.

Helping to entice more top talent is the expediency with which individuals can make the move to Singapore. With a multitude of employment categories and a streamlined system in place to simplify the process, it is relatively easy to obtain a work permit, known as the ‘employment pass’. Furthermore, the extremely large expat community, which comprises close to a quarter of the entire population, makes establishing community ties somewhat less formidable than elsewhere.

“Moreover, when one takes a look at the ease of settling in, respondents find it comparatively easy to get used to the local culture and feel welcome in their new home. They also appreciate the lack of a language barrier, as English is one of the official languages here”, Zeeck told Business Destinations.

A pricey trade-off
Of course, no place is a utopia, and there are some drawbacks to Singapore life. “If there is one downside to expat life there, then it’s probably the work/life balance”, according to Dean Blackburn, Head of HSBC Expat. “Only 39 percent feel this is better than at home, compared with 50 percent of expats globally.”

The cost of living is also incredibly high, from accommodation and food to luxury items – in fact, Singapore is one of the world’s most expensive cities to live in. Being so densely populated, rent varies in correlation with proximity to the centre: according to InterNations, a three-bedroom apartment can cost between SGD 3,000 and SGD 7,000 a month, (around $2,100 and $5,000 respectively). Many expats instead opt for luxury condominiums outside the centre, which can be significantly more affordable.

What’s more, owning real estate in the country is particularly difficult, as the government hinders foreigners’ attempts to purchase properties or vacant land. Car ownership is an even pricier affair: aside from the exponential price tag of automobiles in Singapore, maintenance fees, petrol, parking and road tax are also extremely high. To discourage residents from owning a car even further, there is a mandatory 10-year permit, which comes at an eye-watering cost of $43,000.

With all of this in mind, however, it is worth noting that Singapore’s high living costs are offset by one of the lowest tax rates in the world: only when earning over $320,000 do individuals pay 20 percent in tax, while expats are exempt if they spend less than 183 days a year in Singapore. Furthermore, capital gains tax is simply nonexistent.

City of entrepreneurs
Singapore’s geographic location, coupled with its international transport infrastructure, makes it an excellent base to cover the entire region, for both companies and individuals with far-reaching ambitions. For this reason among others, the city-state has become an Asian hub for a number of global industries, » including finance, communications and shipping. “Of the expats we surveyed in Singapore, nearly a third work in banking, insurance or financial services. That reflects Singapore’s prominence as an international financial hub and also explains in part the high average incomes on offer from living there”, Blackburn told Business Destinations. The state also acts as the region’s centre for the oil industry and has invested heavily in entire districts dedicated to the field. In addition, it houses world-leading research facilities that specialise in areas such as microelectronics and biomedicine, thereby making it a mecca for STEM professionals.

Moreover, Singapore has a regulatory framework in place that enables people to start a business in the country within a matter of days. “The strong economy, the excellent transport connections and the fact that English is the language of business and bureaucracy may also make it far easier to get started in Singapore than in other destinations”, Zeeck explained. As such, business-starters surveyed in the Expat Explorer study rated Singapore’s viability for starting a business at 87 percent – the highest score across the board, followed by Dubai, Hong Kong and London. “It’s very much a sought-after destination for budding expat entrepreneurs”, said Blackburn.

As specialised industries continue to seek out the world’s best talent, making life better for expats is one sure way to draw them in. And this trend is certain to continue: “More and more countries are introducing or increasing policies to encourage the immigration of applicants with certain skill sets. This is a response to issues like occupation shortages, talent mismatch, and demographic shrinkage and more people with advanced skills and professional experience see this global fight over talent and human resources as their chance to seize”, Zeeck added. “Therefore, we assume that the importance of highly qualified labour and skilled migration is going to increase significantly in the next few years. Finaccord, for example, forecasts that the number of expats worldwide will reach around 56.8 million in 2017, as compared to 50.5 million in 2013.”

As the world becomes smaller through additional channels of communication and more affordable transportation, more people will make the life-changing decision to move away from their home country. Of the many trends of the 21st century, having greater freedom to live somewhere based upon personal preference must be one of the most fortunate.

Travellers become experts in exploiting frequent flier programmes

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

In the 2009 movie Up in the Air, the main protagonist, businessman Ryan Bingham, is obsessed with reaching 10 million air miles. When he finally achieves this feat, Bingham is granted access to a number of special perks, including front-of-the-line access at airport queues, a selection of lavish treats including expensive wines on board his flights, and cheap journeys to luxurious destinations.

Bingham, however, is able to rack up his air miles and the said benefits that accompany them as a result of being required to travel, often and far, as a part of his business.

Nonetheless, there exists an online community that is loosely organised around the principle of accruing as many air miles and frequent flier points as possible. Those who partake do not necessarily do so as part of job-mandated travel, but as part of a wish to take advantage of the ever-complex deals and rewards associated with regular airline travel.

The myriad offers created a new clutch of people who were dedicated to maximising the number of free perks they could receive

The Hobby
The community itself coalesced around the website FlyerTalk, where tips and hints for how to squeeze the most out of airline companies – usually in the form of cheap, or even free, travel – are shared. Some have referred to this new online community, rather opaquely, as ‘the Hobby’.

Rolling Stone recently interviewed one such member of the online community: Ben Schlappig, an enthusiast for gaming and taking advantage of the various offers given by airlines, has been a minor online celebrity in this group for nearly 10 years. At the age of 14 he began learning to navigate the complex bureaucracy and dizzying array of deals offered by flight operators, allowing him to criss-cross the US and, eventually, the world. “In the past year”, the article explained, “he’s flown more than 400,000 miles, enough to circumnavigate the globe 16 times.”

Documenting his travels on his popular blog, ‘One Mile at a Time’, Schlappig details how his frequent flier miles, which are obtained from both regular travel and loopholes, are scarcely paid for. However, Schlappig is just one of many involved in this game of cat and mouse between airlines and those wishing to travel for free; a competition that has existed for almost as long as airlines have been providing loyalty offers.

Freeing up flights
For much of the 20th century, the US’ commercial air flight industry was seen as a public good and so was heavily regulated, beginning with various acts in the 1920s and 1930s that controlled market entry and the routes that operators could take. However, during the 1970s the industry laws began to be relaxed: the Airline Deregulation Act, passed in 1978, removed state control over fares, routes and the entry of new commercial airline operators into the market. For years, America’s airline giants had lumbered along as protected oligopolies in a market characterised by barriers. Suddenly faced with the threat of new competition, they were forced to innovate.

In response, many airlines introduced frequent-flier programmes in order to secure customer loyalty in the newly competitive market. American Airlines was the first to launch such a scheme in May 1981. The brainchild of advertising executive Bill Bernbach, the company determined a roster of 150,000 of its most frequent and high-paying customers, who were invited to join its AAdvantage programme. Delta Airlines and United Airlines soon followed suit.

At first, frequent flier programmes were the exclusive preserve of business passengers, based solely on the number of miles that had been traversed. However, such programmes were soon rolled out to the public at large, where miles could be accrued in a number of ways, including as part of credit card spending. This complex myriad of offers and rewards soon created a new clutch of people who were dedicated to maximising the number of free perks they could receive from airlines.

According to Rolling Stone, the first person to take this seriously, at least publicly, was Randy Petersen of Sioux City, Iowa. In 1986 he launched a publication called InsideFlyer, detailing how to make the most of airline offers and offering tips to frugal fliers. “I kind of figured out how to earn free travel when these programmes were just starting out”, he told Rolling Stone. This print magazine “featured stories on deals from obscure carriers; instructed fliers on how to duck airline countermeasures; and showed readers how they could win a thousand free miles by subscribing to magazines like Esquire”. The premise proved popular, and InsideFlyer reached a subscription of 90,000 by the early 1990s. By the middle of the decade, Peterson had launched FlyerTalk, one of the main hubs for those who partake in the Hobby.

Turbulent techniques
While Peterson’s projects collated obscure deals that were not easily accessible in the days before the internet, the extent and methods of some frequent flier enthusiasts have since reached bewildering proportions. The methods of the Hobby are, as one would suspect, closely guarded: a favoured scheme is to take out as many credit cards that offer air miles as possible, racking up spending on them, with the hope of recuperating the spending costs through what was purchased; a technique known as ‘manufactured spends’. One infamous example of this is to buy freshly minted coins from the US treasury, only to pay off the credit card payment with said coins – spending without spending, but still earning flyer points.

Other favoured methods include booking flights that are known to be overcapacity, leading to the customer being unable to board and so receiving a ticket for another flight and an apology voucher worth around $400. These apology vouchers can also be acquired from operators if anything on the flight is broken or damaged.

The Hobby continues to innovate: the community now includes people who are dedicated to writing code, allowing them to scan airline websites for tickets that have been priced wrong – which happens more than one might expect. Another popular method is known as using the ‘hidden city’ technique, which takes advantage of layover flights: customers find out whether the city that they wish to travel to is being used as a layover stop on any other, longer flights, with the hope that the ticket cost is lower. If it is, then the customer can simply depart the aircraft and airport at their desired layover city, resulting in a cheaper ticket and, of course, more air miles.

Airlines, however, are beginning to crack down on such antics. Increasingly, they threaten to cancel the frequent flier miles of any individuals they suspect of engaging in illicit attempts to ‘game’ their offers, and have dedicated entire teams to trying to end the practice. The Hobby, however, has yet to be beaten, according to Schlappig. “Every year, we find new opportunities”, he said at a recent conference. “We’re one step ahead of them.”

Ape appeal: Tourists flock to see Rwanda’s mountain gorillas

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Wild mountain gorillas can now only be found in one area in the world: amid the mountain range that straddles Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. Years of poaching and human encroachment, which have been exacerbated further by civil wars and economic crises, had once brought these mighty creatures to the brink of extinction – however, a decade of conservation efforts, plus a strong drive by the Rwandan government to promote tourism, has given them a lifeline and ushered in a new phase of development in the East African state.

As the globe’s largest concentration of mountain gorillas continues to steadily grow in size in Rwanda, so does its positive impact on local communities, thanks to a pioneering revenue-sharing contribution scheme.

Tourism has now become the country’s top export earner and a pillar of Rwanda’s growing economy

Diversifying tourism
Following the devastating aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, Rwanda’s government set about resuscitating the economy through its tourism industry. A clear strategy was devised with the help of the UN and private corporations, which focused on high-end tourism, intermingled with conservation. Diversification of Rwanda’s tourism sector thus began, which included promoting activities such as bird watching and conference spaces for the international business community. Hotels and leisure businesses were soon privatised, while a marketing campaign was launched to improve the country’s image abroad, as well as to inspire local acceptance of visitors. The result has been nothing short of remarkable: tourism has now become the country’s top export earner and a pillar of Rwanda’s growing economy.

Increasingly successful conservation has raised the number of tourists visiting Rwanda’s national parks exponentially: according to the World Bank, the numbers rose from a mere 417 in 1999 to 43,000 in 2008, with year-on-year growth continuing ever since, according to the Volcanoes National Park website. Part of this success can be attributed to the Kwita Izina Festival, an annual newborn gorilla-naming ceremony that began in 2005. Although the ritual is a long-standing tradition in Rwanda, formalising the event and shining the international spotlight on it has raised awareness of the sub-species considerably and made the country’s efforts to sustain the endangered population known worldwide.

Over the course of the last decade, 161 gorillas have been born and named, each of which has attracted visitors from around the globe to witness these creatures in their natural habitat. During the most recent anniversary celebration in July 2015, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) announced that there are now over 600 gorillas living in Rwanda’s mountains, an impressive upsurge from the 254 that were recorded in 1981.

Giving back
In Rwanda, 10 out of 19 gorilla families are ‘habituated’, meaning that they have grown accustomed to people and allow visitors to revel at them. Time slots for tourists are restricted to one hour, however, with a maximum of 10 groups allowed per day, as regular contact with humans raises the risk of disease for the creatures. Visitors are also asked to keep a distance of seven metres from the animals and must not participate in the excursion if they are feeling unwell. If fit and healthy, however, the privilege to meet silverbacks and blackbacks comes at a hefty rate of $750 per person for non-nationals – but this cost comes with good reasons.

“The cost of the gorilla permit is high and as a result [it] is a vital revenue stream for protecting these endangered animals”, explained Eleanor Dunkels, General Manager for the specialist travel company Expert Africa. “The fees cover the costs of the rangers who patrol the national park to protect against poachers, which is extremely important.”

The conservation programme is a huge source of employment in the region, creating jobs for guides, rangers and vets. In fact, an entire sub-industry has emerged to facilitate tourists travelling from far and wide to see mountain gorillas in person, from accommodation and transportation to the hire of hiking equipment. And, of course, a trip to Rwanda is not limited to this excursion alone: “Along with seeing the gorillas, the private guide might also take our travellers to see markets, towns, genocide memorials – all of which help build a rounded picture of what Rwanda is like as a country”, Dunkels told Business Destinations. According to the World Tourism Council, travel and tourism contributed 174,500 jobs to the economy in 2013, which is equivalent to 8.1 percent of the country’s total employment.

Although gorilla experiences are also offered by Uganda and DRC, Rwanda’s agenda holds several advantages over its neighbours’: aside from the greater number of gorillas living within its borders, the Volcanoes National Park is just two hours from Kigali International Airport by a well-developed road, whereas the Virunga National Park in the DRC is several hours from Kigali and also involves crossing the national border and possible delays. “It is difficult to see gorillas elsewhere, due to access and low population numbers”, according to Dunkels. “Rwanda is one of the few countries that is safe to travel to, and also home to good numbers of habituated gorillas. As a result it is often the first place that people think of when they decide they want to see these primates. It is also well organised in Rwanda – the rangers are well trained and the walking is quite manageable.”

Local impact
The local community is heavily involved in helping to restore the habitat of the gorillas, which had long suffered as a result of human encroachment and deforestation. Involving locals is actually a vital aspect in the process; as is ensuring that they also benefit from the growing tourism to the area. As such, in 2005 the Rwandan government introduced a scheme whereby five percent of the revenue earned from the national parks is shared with villages that are proximally located. According to the RDB, $1.83m has been disbursed to support community initiatives so far, including the provision of a reliable water supply, tools and seeds for agriculture and equipment for small factories. Individuals have even been given assistance in purchasing farmland, which has raised many above the $2-a-day poverty line.

Over the past decade, the scheme has also funded the construction of 57 schools, 12 health centres and numerous roads and bridges, thereby having a drastic impact on the local population. “It is this infrastructure and stability that has restored faith in the country as a safe and friendly tourist destination”, Dunkels said. Sustainability also plays a large role in the programme: a beekeeping project, for example, has successfully discouraged locals from collecting wild honey, which can have a detrimental impact on the area’s fragile ecosystem. The RDB’s Kwita Izina Awards, which acknowledge individuals and organisations for their assistance in the conservation programme, further enhances the spirit of community and cooperation in the area.

People from across the globe are enticed by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness first-hand the spectacle of the mountain gorillas – grand creatures that share 98 percent of their DNA with humans and are known to have similar characteristics. As experience holidays become more popular and environmental issues receive growing attention, the number of visitors making the trip to see mountain gorillas in their natural habitat will certainly increase. Rwanda therefore has a unique opportunity to use its wondrous asset to grow tourism revenue even further, and in turn speed up its rate of economic development. By doing so, the Rwandan government will be able to offer greater protection to the very creatures that people are willing to pay a fair amount to see.

By placing local economies at the heart of this initiative and implementing a tremendously beneficial revenue sharing scheme, the Rwandan government is lifting its citizens out of poverty sustainably. The system has thus become co-nurturing, healing the wounds of both animals and people in Rwanda after years of devastation.