Survey: Online booking exceeds off-line purchases

Survey: Online booking
exceeds off-line purchases

NEW YORK — The year 2007 was the first in which more travel was bought online than off-line in the U.S., according to the PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey.

The study said that 51 percent of U.S. travel was booked online in 2007, and it projected that percentage to increase to 56 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2009.

The survey also said that travel products with multiple components, such as vacation packages, are being bought less frequently online, while simple components — plane tickets, for example — are being purchased more frequently.

The report also found that travel Web sites are evolving, with more of them offering features such as group travel planning and booking, along with content generated by a community of readers and users.

Oregon Truffle Festival
offers variety of events

EUGENE, Ore. — Winter is truffle season in Oregon, and the Third Annual Oregon Truffle Festival is scheduled for Friday through next Sunday in the Willamette Valley in and around Eugene, Ore.

The festival offers opportunities to meet other fans of the delicate mushroom at workshops, dinners, a truffle-growers’ forum and a truffle market.

For more information, visit www.oregontrufflefestival.com or call (503) 296-5929.

For 2008, Atlantic City
plans openings, building

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — In the face-lift that will gradually transform the way Atlantic City looks, 2008 promises to be the year the surgery begins.

The new year will see three new hotel towers open, the Tropicana Casino and Resort will get a new owner, work will pick up on a new $2 billion casino, details on yet another new casino will be unveiled, and gambling halls may finally start to recover from the beating that out-of-state slots parlors put on them last year.

The three new casino hotel towers opening this year will add more than 2,500 rooms to a city where it can be difficult to book a room at a casino hotel on a weekend.

Construction work will pick up this year on the $2 billion ocean-themed Revel casino at the end of the Boardwalk next to the Showboat. And by spring, Pinnacle Entertainment will reveal details about its Atlantic City casino.

Grand Canyon gift shop
to close in September

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — A century-old gift shop at the Grand Canyon will close in September, ending a family’s three-generation run that began with its patriarch selling souvenirs out of a tent in 1905.

The family-owned Verkamp’s Curios gift shop, which is on the more popular South Rim, did not reapply for a concession contract with the National Park Service, according to agency spokeswoman Pamela Walls.

A request for proposals for a concession contract was issued in July, and proposals were due Oct. 22.

Walls said the Park Service was considering whether to continue having another business run the gift shop or use the space for some other purpose.

Among the items sold at the gift shop were items from American Indian artists and regional traders.

For more information about the store, visit verkamps.com.

Associated Press