Airstream Inc. and Kampgrounds of America partner up

Three campgrounds across America are getting some new tenants, but campers need not be jealous of their shiny silver neighbors — the Airstream rigs are for rent.

Kampgrounds of America Inc. and Airstream Inc. are placing 25 of the company's most popular model trailers at KOA campgrounds in Las Vegas, Bar Harbor, Maine, and Key West, Fla., letting travelers rent the recognizable trailers like hotel rooms.

"A lot of people, frankly, don't know we're still in business because the trailers have looked largely the same over the years," Airstream chief executive Bob Wheeler said. "We know there's a demand — so it's just a matter of providing it in an easy and successful way in a great setting."
Airstreams are instantly identifiable by their long, rounded shape — imagine a giant aluminum Twinkie — and have been a historic part of American culture since the company began manufacturing trailers in the 1930s.

Wheeler said the company has been looking for years for ways for introduce potential customers to the iconic trailers. Until now, people have had to purchase an Airstream or know someone who owns one to sleep in its silvery confines.

The models at the campgrounds — the 25-foot Flying Cloud — retail for about $67,000, Wheeler said.

"It's a trial experience," he said.

Wheeler and Shane Ott, chief operating officer of Kampgrounds of America, said the Airstream rentals do more than just familiarize customers with the cushy amenities of a high-end recreational vehicle.

Read the entire story in the Yahoo Travel News.

Tennessee is the No. 1 state for motorcoach travel in 2009.

The designation comes from Byways Magazine, a bimonthly publication aimed at motorcoach charter and tour planners. It means the state is projected to have more motorcoach travel in 2009 than any other state.

Helping attract motorcoach travel are the Smoky Mountains, Bristol Motor Speedway, the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, music attractions in Nashville and Memphis and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

Following Tennessee in the 2009 projections are Virginia, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania.

Sweet sorghum as the next great fuel?

Pass the biscuits and fill up the car.... ~Corey



The hardy sweet sorghum plant could be the miracle crop that provides cheap animal feed and fuel without straining the world's food supply or harming the environment, said scientists working on a pilot farming project in India.

"We consider sweet sorghum an ideal 'smart crop' because it produces food as well as fuel," William Dar, Director General of the non-profit International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) said in a statement.

Sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is the world's fifth largest grain crop after rice, corn, wheat and barley.



Read the entire story HERE.

Holiday Inn Changing to be Competive Again

by Joe Sharkey



The early years of Holiday Inn, when it defined the middle-class Eisenhower-era version of the open road — consistent, safe, clean and as reassuring as the new Interstate System itself. Later, the highways were still dotted with those huge blazing neon-festooned Holiday Inn signs, which always looked to me as if they fell off a truck on their way to Las Vegas. But by the 1980s, the signs were flashing a different message: inconsistent, indifferent, left behind on the wrong side of the interchange.



The so-called Great Sign was abandoned in 1982 in favor of less ostentatious displays. In recent years, Holiday Inn, now owned by InterContinental Hotels Group of London, has recovered from its decline and is expanding aggressively. There are now more than 3,100, including over 500 abroad.

Quietly, the hotel chain has been weeding out underperforming properties. “We were removing 100 to 150 hotels a year,” mostly older properties in the Unites States that “for a variety of reasons weren’t living up to expectations,” said Stevan D. Porter, the president of the Americas division of InterContinental. Hotels that lose their brand license often affiliate with other chains or become independent.



“Baby boomers and older Gen-Xers have an emotional connection” to the brand, he said. “For many people, it might evoke the first time they were ever in a hotel swimming pool, for example. This is a way to recapture that connection” while broadening the appeal, he added.


Read the entire article in the New York Times.