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Published on March 15, 2008

War is a bore. Transported into your Armani living room in highdefinition detail by 24-hour television news channels, it is terrifying. Small wonder the sight of rockets streaking towards Gaza and mushroom clouds over Afghanistan have given travellers pause, while the seeming demise of the economy in the US, where every home is a house of maxed out credit cards, has delivered a knockout punch. Fencesitters have opted out of travel, preferring to quake in front of CNN watching the Obama Clinton slugfest while those whose business demands they travel are, in turn, sitting on the fence. Yet, people are still travelling. Just try to get a room in Bangkok, Beijing, or Phuket during the high season.

But on many routes, travel has slowed. You can open up your slinky titanium MacAir - once you've ostentatiously fished it out of your shirt pocket - safe in the knowledge that it won't get squashed under a reclining seat. You can drink all the beer you like inflight and saunter in dignity to an empty toilet.

An empty toilet becomes a precious commodity - even above a firstclass seat with lap dance thrown in - when the captain commences descent and the biological imperative of 300 people with peas for bladders suddenly becomes evident.

Imagine empty aeroplanes. You could run wild with the stampeding wildebeest on the inflight video (until you get collared and trussed by an irate stewardess). And you will probably be served real food instead of those mindboggling creations by visiting chefs who fail to realise air travellers just want simple tucker that looks like tucker and not a mishmash of salmonwithgamehenandadollopofmarmalade. 

If you are a savvy male traveller, you will have already taken the first step - found yourself a smart wife. She will do all the research on cutprice travel. That's unless you live in the US and are still ironing out your forlorn Amex. Alpha Males should not venture into this area. It sim¬ply isn't leftbrain activity. Well, it might be. If you didn't like the flight you could always punch the captain and attempt to fly the plane to the nearest Irish pub.

Hotels continue to sprout. Selfstyled small boutique hotels - some of them monstrously large - small luxury designer hotels, twee hotels, wee hotels, pinkhotelswithaspa and more. Travellers say service is improving all the time. Instead of inquiring snootily whether you have just come in from a police lineup, some hotels may even attempt to upgrade you.

But there's a downside to all this growth. Costcutting. And it's not just the disappearing toiletries. Sensible travellers know better than to use hotel shampoo unless they want their hair standing on end, attracting envious looks from the resident guard dog. Nor is it the diminishing breakfast buffets - where the only thing remotely "American" is the waiter's twang. Whatever happened to good oldfashioned arteryclogging eggs?

I'll tell you what's really scary. It's the disap¬pearing staff. With mushrooming hostelries slurping up all the best talent, resorts all over Asia are feeling the pinch, lacking the one thing that makes a hotel great. People. Hotels have got to a point where if the occupancies suddenly jump five per cent, the system breaks down. Southeast Asian economies could fold like dominoes through one mistimed sentence like, "Waiter, I'd like a boiled egg."

The funny thing about people is they not only make a product, they often are the product. This is particularly true of airlines and hotels where the experience is worth as much if not more than the hardware. Everyone from United to Timbuktu Airways has B747s. Regardless of what Airbus advertising might lead one to believe, no one has ever walked up to a checkin desk and refused to fly Boeing. They may refuse to fly with their kids, or mothersinlaw, or Aeroflot. Not Boeing.

So what makes the difference? People. Any perception of a travel experience is the sum total of three to four contacts with airline or hotel staff. If they smiled, were courteous and went that extra mile - perhaps even offered to marry you, anything to get you to check out on time - you'd come back for more. Take away the stewardesses and all you've got left is a plane and empty seats. And empty toilets. And bewildered wildebeest. Smart travellers should do the smart thing - watch CNN, quake, and then head to where the deals are.

Vijay Verghese is an editor of Smart Travel Asia - an online travel magazine. Visit http://www.smarttravelasia.com