All Things Travel: Travel Pros Stranded In Boston
BOSTON (CBS) – Not even the travel pros can get out of town after The Boston Globe Travel Show last weekend.
About a hundred travel executives are stranded at the Seaport Hotel trying to get home to The Caribbean, Europe and Florida after the three day show closed Sunday evening. Most of them hope to able to depart Logan Airport on Wednesday.
Logan Airport reported Monday morning that about 70 percent of its 996 daily flights had been cancelled so far. A look at the Massport.com web site appeared to show a larger number.
The estimated revenue loss for Massport in landing fees, parking, concessions, car rentals and taxis total about $800,000 a day.
Sunday morning, service on the MBTA Green and Blue Lines were running on schedule with light traffic heading to the show.
The Silver Line buses going to the airport were crowded. An ominous sign at South Station was the airline electronic departure schedule board for Logan Airport was shutdown.
Exhibitors at the show were busy booking trips, especially for cruises to the Caribbean. One of the trends in that industry is more all-inclusive packages of liquor and activities while on the cruise.
Cruiseport Boston, in conjunction with The Globe, put on a luncheon Friday for Travel agents titled "Destination Cuba, The Changing Landscape".
Opening speakers included Globe CEO, Mike Sheehan, Massport CEO Tom Glynn and Port Director Deborah Hadden. A panel discussion was lead by Micho Spring, President, New England, Weber Shandwick; Michael Eizenberg, President, Educational Travel Alliance and Steven Lembke, Vice President of Road Scholar.
"Whatever is happening today will change tomorrow," said Eisenberg. The panel was very optimistic that travel will increase within a year to the island.
Last year Road Scholar took 3,000 people to Cuba on scheduled tours, up from 2,000 a year earlier. About 90,000 U.S. citizens visited Cuba last year.
The next major travel event in New England is scheduled to take place in Providence Tuesday morning.
Rhode Island state officials and T.F. Green Airport will welcome Condor Airlines that will begin international seasonal flights to Frankfurt, Germany on June 18. The airline has flights to Europe from 10 U.S. gateways.
Condor will compete with Logan Airport which is served by Lufthansa with two daily flights to Frankfurt and one to Munich in the peak summer season.
All Things Travel reports with Bob Weiss can be heard on WBZ News Radio 1030