Group Travel Scoop - Groople.com

Group Travel to New York is more popular than ever

New York is on a roll. Think of it as sorta like the NYC was voted most popular in the High School year book. Like New York doesn’t have to buy itself a drink. New York…

Ok too much on the NY popular bit. But there is some real information here, New York is more popular than ever. From January to March 2008,  NY’s visitors are up 1 million people. From 8.5 million visitors to 9.5 million visitors.

More numbers... In just these three months visitors spent $6.3 billion dollars. Interestingly enough 19% of total visitors were from international destinations – a 20% rise from this time last year. The weak dollar is good for something!

What all this means is NYC requires more planning than it used to. A very popular destination means you will need extra planning time in booking group travel. You’ll also need to look for package deals. More travelers means more travel vendors selling more packages. Better deals for you and your group.

Your group can still get reasonable rates but the lead time is very important and you’ll want to enlist expert negotiating help like that found at Groople.

So if you’re taking your group to New York, you’re not alone. Plan early, and plan often.

Travel Myths to Share with your Group

I’m always searching the net and magazines for the latest news that has an impact on the people closest to me, Group Travelers. Recently I’ve showed you how your group can bypass security at the airport, best locations to host youth sporting events, a tip on religious travel, etc, etc…today I’ve found something a little more fun for my Group Travelers to ponder- Travel Myths.

First things first, giving credit where credit is due I found these ideas on ForbesTraveler.com in an article written by Peter Greenberg.

I’ve picked out three of the most interesting travel myths for you: using cell phones can make planes crash, Cruise ships are all-inclusive, X-ray machines at airport security checkpoints have the ability to erase your laptop’s hard drive.

Cell phones and planes falling from the sky

False! The plane will fly safely if you sneak in use of your cell phone or even the deadly Blackberry. The FAA says so! They have tested personal electronic devices, including iPods, phones, and laptops. The FAA scientists for more than 25 years have boosted the RF interferences on these devices up to 100 times their normal levels, at distances of less than three feet from sensitive cockpit avionics. What happened? Nada.

In fact, under the current federal air regulations, the FAA simply states that it was unable to prove any connection or link between operating these devices and airplane system interference. It haven’t made a rule about the devices, instead it leaves it up to the individual airline and they have banned them.

So if you’re a rebel and sneak to a dark corner of the plan to send an email from your Blackberry, rest assured you’re not putting the lives of everyone on the plane at risk.

Cruising all-inclusive

You know how the airlines are charging you for Cheetos these days…something similar is now going on with Cruise ships.

Not to long ago, cruises where all inclusive – even liquor was included. No longer. Instead, cruises now even charge a flat fee for soda. Lots of charges everywhere. A new rule of thumb for budgeting your next cruise: Take the basic fare and multiply it by 1.75 / person.

X-Rays and your Laptop

Laptops are scared of magnetism, not the electromagnetic energy that X-rays use. Electromagnetic energy is akin to light so it can still expose film (for you old school photographers out there) but it won’t hurt hard drives.

Something to be aware of is the "wand." Waving that beeping wand around your laptop does carry the risk of damaging it as it does use magnetic energy.

This entry into the group scoop won’t change your group traveling lives, but I think will give your group some fun dinner conversation.

GroopVine 2.0 Above and Beyond

It’s here!

GroopVine part duex. GroopVine platinum edition. Or just, GroopVine 2.0. What we are talking about is simply a new and improved GroopVine.

The GroopVine design team has responded to your feedback and its new design is a direct result of listening to what you want. The new GroopVine does more. The new GroopVine is sleeker. The new GroopVine is more intuitive and easy to use. The new GroopVine is what you’ve been looking for.

GroopVine Old and New

Before we say more on how the GroopVine has evolved, I’ll remind you what it’s always done. GroopVine is the only place to plan, share, and book group travel online. GroopVine is the group travel planning site with a social networking twist. GroopVine has a community of groups planning trips who allow their trips to be public so other groups can view their page for ideas.

GroopVine is a place where you can come together with your guests be they friends or colleagues to compressively book and plan group trips. Book with Groople’s web-standard group booking engine that directly integrates with GroopVine.

Plan with GroopVine tools like the discussion forum or wiki sections that can be edited by anyone in the group. Get details about your destinations with GroopVine tools like weather, destination specific RSS feeds, google searches, and pictures / video uploads. Plan in style with trip pages that have customizable colors, personal picture banners, trip icons, and sections where you can paste in HTML gadgets like a YouTube video or a web gadget.

And now introducing the highlights of GroopVine 2.0

The Wizard – The wizard helps a new user create their trip page with ease. The wizard walks you through each aspect of setting up your trip page, step-by-step. The coolest gizmo is the preview image that shows the look of your page as you build it. The last page of the wizard allows the creator of the trip to set a series of “permissions” that will allow or won’t allow access by other users to certain portions of the trip page. In its most liberal permission form, GroopVine allows all guests of the trip page to edit almost any of the content- watch out Wikipedia. After completing the wizard your new trip page is loaded exactly as you specified in the wizard.

The Demo – The demo is not actually one demo of GroopVine, its several mini-demos that demonstrate how to use it. The demo page is set up like a FAQ with common “how-to” topics and answers. When you click on a topic, up pops a video demonstration explaining that feature of GroopVine.

The bottom line is GroopVine is now undoubtedly the most powerful user-friendly group travel planning site on the net. If you hear a faint murmur, that’s us telling our friends to go check out GroopVine…

Beating The Remaining Heat

We here at the group scoop are mavericks, bucking trends at every corner. Bringing you the information you need just not when you expect it. Keeping with this tradition, we present to you a practical users guide to staying cool. Yes, summer is almost over. Yes, today, ironically, it is cool where I live. None of that matters to you, if you live in the Southwest or major parts of Texas where it is still "hot as blazes" and looks to be that way for at least a few more weeks to come. Without further ado, your unseasonable, seasonal look at:

Practical Tips For Staying Cool Without Air Conditioning

Watch what you eat- eat smaller meals and stay away from meals that are high in protein. Both will help you reduce your body’s metabolic heat which is a major factor in how hot you’re feeling.

Drink lots ‘o water- The cooler the water, the better. If a drink is cool it saps some of your body heat and transfers it into bringing the temperature of the drink inline with your body temperature.

The 'ole wet your wrists trick- wrap your wrists with a soaked icy towel. This is almost a magic trick as your whole body will feel almost instant heat relief. Studies have shown that this bit of wizardly can reduce your core body temperature as much as 3 degrees!

The new wet your sleeves trick- wet the ends of your short sleeved shirt and the bottom cuffs of your pants for a surprising feeling of heat relief.

Get low, get low- remember the whole idea you hear about "heat rises" well that’s true! If there is a bottom floor or a lower point in any place you’re at, hang out there for a break from the high temperature (unless you’re in a heat sink like a hot ravine....).

Keep it flowing- make sure you’re in a place where the air is moving, moving air grabs heat from your body and whisks it away.

Don’t keep it flowing- do not use a hand fan to cool yourself. Whatever amount of coolness is achieved from that moving air will be more than equaled by increase in your body temperature from the exercise of fanning yourself.

Take off your shoes- taking off your shoes is not only a way to keep a cleaner home, it’s also a way to keep cool. Shoes and hats can trap a surprising amount of heat from escaping your body.

And there goes your practical guide to staying cool without air conditioning. These tips will help you beat the heat whether you’re on the road with a group of people or at home alone. It may not be hot where you are now, but it will be soon, print this guide and heed its words for some relief.

Now you have no reason not to take your group down to Phoenix or Hotlanta- heat is no foe for the prepared!

The Countdown Has Begun!

America’s Pastime...

Football.

On Saturday, college football rules. Nothing is more exciting than college football gameday. Where every game is a playoff and failure is not an option for the top 25. Outside of the top 25, every game is an event. When rivals clash, they need only the one victory over their foe for a successful season. Surrounded in pomp and circumstance, college football always entertains.

In other words, college football is kinda fun. Every week, all over the nation, loyal fans and motivated spectators make the journey to watch their team play a game, home and away. Speculation leads to anticipation, anticipation leads to action, action leads to gameday.

Legends of those who take the action of traveling to a big time college football game can be found in local neighborhood bars nationwide. Many things happen when you decide to make the journey to watch your favorite team on the road, most of them positive, all of them noteworthy.

Groople wants to help build the hype! Groople wants to help get you in a proper college football frame of mind. They have created a free college football gameday countdown clock. Simply pick your favorite team and select all the games on the schedule you’d like to keep an eye on. As soon as you select a game, the seconds will begin ticking away- leading to the unmistakable crescendo that is kickoff.

Search in google or yahoo widgets to get your own Groople college football countdown clock, or simply get yours here. These countdown clocks are desktop widgets so you’ll need to install the google or yahoo software first.

To help get you to your college football gameday of choice, the Groople college football countdown clock allows you to groopvine your trip. You’ll be taken to the groopvine gameday launch pad and be shown how to set up your own gameday planning webpage powered by the group travel savings experts at Groople. Here you can plan your trip, share your plans with fellow fans, and book all the travel arrangements.

Marching bands are waiting to form a line. Cheerleaders are waiting to tumble and scream for their team. The teams are waiting to rush the field. The clock is counting down to gameday, are you coming?

The New Kid on the Block

Harry Potter got us all to read again. iPhone is getting us excited about cell phones again. In this fashion, Groople wanted to get us all excited about traveling again. It’s hard to get animated about the destination and the journey these days when you’re bogged down by a heap of mundane details. My fellow travel enthusiasts here at Groople knew there was a better way…a way to get us thrilled about being “on the go” ago again. But how? Long story short and many inspirational walks through the park and upside down yoga training later we know we came up with the answer.

Moving straight ahead to the point- I’d like to sing the praises for a moment of our newest service, GroopVine.

GroopVine is a social networking site dedicated to group travel. In the vain of sites like myspace, but instead of comedians and music you will find resources galore to aid you in group travel planning. The site really is very cool. It’s one stop for all things group travel- ideas, creating a trip page, and shopping. Let’s take a more in depth look into those three concepts:

Ideas-

GroopVine makes it easy to find ideas for your trip from the most reliable source possible, your fellow travelers. This way you know you’re getting real organic wisdom, not bought and paid "advice." GroopVine allows you to "copy" a trip of one of your peers and incorporate some of their travel genius with yours to come up with the perfect group trip. There’s some smart folks out there and there is no shame in sharing in their inspiration.

Creating a trip page-

this is the real meat and potatoes of GroopVine. It’s a free webpage planning tool that gets you your own web address to act as a central planning headquarters for you and your group. It has all the tools one could need to plan and execute a truly fabulous group trip. First off, it is what’s known as a "wiki," it allows all invited persons to edit the content, so planning can become a group process. It’s practical in that it has booking engines to shop for hotels, cars, and airfare. Beyond that practical aspect, it has all sorts of bells and whistles that make it very fun. One of my favorite options is the ability to change the color of the trip page to literally hundreds of different choices. You can also upload photos, videos, weather info, rss feeds, tons of extras!

Shopping-

GroopVine directly interfaces with the powerful Groople.com hotel search engine which brilliantly displays the most relevant hotel results tailored to your group type. Not to mention, GroopVine takes advantage of Groople.com’s exclusive deal with Avis and Budget car rental as the only online provider of discounted group car rentals. Don’t forget about the discount-minded air travel searches GroopVine employs.

Are you sold??? Probably not quite yet…and that’s only because you probably haven’t logged in to check out what the fuss is over. Check it out and you’ll see why I’m sipping this fine glass of Crystal. And singing "he’s a jolly good fellow(s)" to the minds behind GroopVine.

See you there.

The New New 7 Wonders of the World

As many of you fellow travel aficionados know, recently announced was the new 7 Wonders of the World as voted on by millions of online voters. This announcement came to us on 07/07/2007, or 777. 7’s are wild!

I’m sorry to report to you that this online contest was slightly misguided… I say this based on at least two factors. One, this was really the 8 wonders of the world contest…how so? Well they snuck in The Great Pyramid of Giza as a grandfathered automatic selection but still selected 7 more sites. Making the Great Pyramid some sort of multidimensional structure existing both in and out of the 7 new wonders at the same time.

Beyond that, I have questions about the results because clearly they got it wrong! I’m mostly kidding but I would like to submit to you the Seven Wonders of the World that we here at the group scoop selection committee would have chosen.

Review.

The Ancient 7 Wonders of the World:

The Temple of Artemis, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Lighthouse of Alexandria, The Pyramids at Giza, The Statue of Zeus

Review.

The elected new 7 Wonders of the World:

The Great Wall (China), Petra (Jordan), Christ The Redeemer (Brazil), Machu Picchu (Peru), Chichen Itza (Mexico), The Roman Colosseum (Italy), The Taj Mahal (India)

Peer Review.

The Group Scoop 7 Wonders of the World:

We here at the group scoop selection committee agree with most of the selections of the online voters- The Great Wall, Petra, Machu Picchu, The Colosseum, The Taj Mahal to be specific.

Here is where we part ways with the online voters. First, Angkor in Cambodia should have made it. Angkor Wat is the closest thing to an Indiana Jones style relic of man made majestic architecture existing. No finer example of architectural style and exotic setting is to be found in the world. So replace Christ the Redeemer which is an interesting yet somewhat pedestrian wonder with Angkor in Cambodia.

The second bit to change is to include at least one example of a modern, as in right now, wonder of the world. I can think of no better example of this than the newly deployed Palm Island in Dubai, UAE, the Palm Jumeirah. Palm Jumeirah is truly a man made wonder…the last frontier of man made construction, literally creating land. This island represents the first major combination of art and land creation, while it will not be the last, it is the first. And History loves the first. So does this space. Hence, replace Chichen Itza, which is impressive but too similar to the Great Pyramid. Replace it with a true trail blazer, the Palm Jumeirah.

Now we have that settled.