The US Department of Transportation has released it’s current figures for both domestic and international airline travel for 2008.

Thursday, April 23, 2009 – The number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines and on flights to and from the United States on foreign airlines declined in 2008 by 3.5 percent from 2007, dropping to 809 million, the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today reported.

BTS, a part of DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration, in a release of preliminary data, reported that U.S. airlines carried 3.7 percent fewer total system passengers in 2008 than in 2007.  U.S. airlines carried 4.3 percent fewer domestic passengers in 2008 and 1.2 percent more international passengers than in 2007. Passengers to and from the United States on foreign carriers decreased 1.5 percent from 2007.

Source: http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/2009/bts019_09/html/bts019_09.html

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the top US airline for traffic is Southwest. The top airline for international flight travel traffic is American Airlines.

The busiest airport in the US is the Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta Georgia.

To read the full report, please go to http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/2009/bts019_09/html/bts019_09.html

It’s been a lot of hard work, but we are excited to finally unveil our brand new logo for The Palmetto Travel Club.  We hope you like it as much as we do!

With the new logo comes a whole new line of apparel, mugs and other goodies. You can find the link to our new Palmetto Travel Club line on the right hand side of your screen in our shopping category.

We are also excited to open our store for business. Here you’ll find travel guides, foreign language learning, luggage, and plenty of other travel accessories to make you next trip easier.

Happy shopping everyone!

Apparently, tourists have been experiencing difficulty getting up into the most famous landmark in Paris. So, if you’ve planned a wonderful spring getaway to The “City of Lights”, you may be forced to skip a visit to the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower

Workers for the company that runs the Eiffel Tower have been on strike for two days now, complaining over stalled pay increases. As a result, the tower was essentially closed Wednesday and Thursday. Negotiations with union workers was ongoing today, but the tower remained closed Friday morning.

Around 300 workers completely blocked the Eiffel from tourists on Wednesday. Yesterday, after more protests in the morning, one of the tower’s four pillars briefly opened to visitors before security workers shut it down again. Tourists were left in line for hours without any indication whether they’d get a chance to go up.

Basically, the workers’ beef is that while the price of going up the Eiffel Tower has increased this year (tickets now run roughly $18), their salaries have not gone up. Security workers and ticket takers are demanding pay increases and bonuses.

Source:  www.gadling.com

Hopefully, company officials will be able to iron out the problems with the workers so that tourists can experience the Eiffel Tower experience. C’est magifique!

Everyday we are bombarded with ads that encourage us to “join our travel club”. With most of those travel clubs, you pay a membership fee to get discounted prices on hotels, cruises, airfare and car rentals.

So you may be asking then “Well, how is the Palmetto Travel Club different?”

We are a group of travel lovers who enjoy visiting different places around the world. It’s more like a travel fan club.

We don’t charge membership fees to belong to our club. Anyone can join at any time, and to participate in any trip. We are a group of like minded individuals who wish to experience different cultures, different cuisines, arts, architecture and places beyond our own backyards.

The group size for a given trip ranges from 15-40 or more.

Aztec ruins in Mexico

So, what kind of people participate in the group vacations? All kinds. We have:

*Retired couples

*Young couples

*Working professionals of all ages

*Sisters or girlfriends who are looking for a great girl’s getaway

*singles of all ages who are looking to travel, but who are uncomfortable traveling by themselves

*People who just love to make new friends and experience the fun and excitement of traveling abroad with a group

*We even have families and individuals who don’t want to bother with planning the details of a trip abroad.

With our trips, most of the details are planned for you.  You won’t have to worry about transportation, accommodations, many of your meals, or knowing which sites to visit. You will be able to visit the most popular tourist sites by bus, train or boat. And we will have a tour guide who speaks English who will guide us along the way.

Of course, for the very adventurous, you will have plenty of free time to explore different cities at your leisure. We make sure of that. And we can give you some really great ideas of different sites to check out, and restaurants to visit.

Now, if you’re not so adventurous, that’s okay too. We will have plenty of optional excursions that you can participate in if you’d like.

The Tuscan Landscape from the Town of Cortona

This club has been a labor of love for me. I had the love of travel introduced to me at a very young age. And I am certainly no stranger to group travel. Being a singer is the perfect training ground for an education in group travel!

My group travel experience started in high school. Every summer I traveled with my church youth choir all over the US and Canada to sing.  That continued into my college years.

Some of the places I’ve been to on group trips (both singing and leisure) include: Washington DC, New York City, New Orleans, Orlando, Miami, Toronto, Quebec, Chicago, Rome, London, Vienna, Salzburg, Paris, and Edinburgh just to name a few.

You can expect that a group vacation will be filled with laughter, new friends, a new extended family, and loads of fun! And we will make sure that you have a lot of pictures to document your trip!

Some of the additional perks of belonging to the Palmetto Travel Club are an official club t-shirt or tote bag, a picture DVD of photos from the trip, and an 8 x 10 group photo of all of your new traveling family.

I hope you will join us so that we can help you discover the joys of group travel. Explore the world with us and become a part of our travel community!

The Spanish Steps in Rome

Our 2010 tour schedule will be out soon! We already know that one of the planned trips will be to the beautiful country of Italy. We will visit Rome, Florence and Venice as well as a few other beautiful Italian towns. Look for more information on our 10 day Italy trip by the end of April!

If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at 803-790-7381

You can get in touch with me, Kathy Milliron, your Tour Organizer there.

The Death Toll from the Italian earthquake, which was centered in the small mountain town of L’Aquila has risen.

The official death toll in the Italian quake has reached 287, including 20 young people, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said.

The government has also increased the sum allocated for emergency aid to £90 million and Mr Berlusconi said quake reconstruction would cost billions.

Strong aftershocks rattled residents, nearly 18,000 of whom are living in tent camps around the stricken central region.

A particularly sharply felt tremor rocked the quake-stricken area, lasting a minute and was felt in Rome some 70 miles away from L’Aquila.

Italy’s National Geophysics Institute said the aftershock registered 4.9 on the Richter-scale.

Source: The Press Association

So far, however, the destructive quake has seemingly had little to no impact on tourism in Italy.

While the Italian Government Tourist Office in New York said it would be too early to tell what the full impact will be on travel, Ester Lorusso, a marketing director for Italy specialist Central Holidays said that the tragic quake should have little or no impact on Italian travel. “So far we have had no cancellations,” Lorusso said. “The epicenter in L’Aquilo is well outside of Rome, high in the mountains, far from any tourist areas.”

Source: Travelpulse.com

Here is the latest news from United Airlines.

United Airlines reported its preliminary consolidated traffic results for March 2009. The company reported a March consolidated passenger load factor of 78.7 percent. Total consolidated revenue passenger miles (RPMs) decreased in March by 13.6 percent on a consolidated capacity decrease of 9.9 percent in available seat miles (ASMs) compared with the same period in 2008. For more information, visit www.united.com.

Source: www.travelpulse.com

Here is the latest news from Southwest Airlines.

Southwest Airlines will start its New York service June 28. The Dallas-based airline will offer a total of eight daily nonstop departures — five daily nonstop flights between Chicago Midway and LaGuardia and three daily nonstop departures between Baltimore/Washington and LaGuardia. Southwest is offering these new flights with fares as low as $89 one-way for Chicago flights and $49 one-way for Baltimore/Washington flights with a 14-day advance purchase. For more information, visit www.southwest.com.

Source: www.travelpulse.com