Tampa Travel Guide

Most recently the host city for the Super Bowl, Tampa is now an official part of the Travel Ape team. Boy oh boy did the big Ape have fun down in Tampa getting the information to form the new Tampa Travel Guide. There's no doubt about it , I think our symian friend has a great affinity for the Sunshine State, although he never likes to play favorites publicly.

So what made Tampa such an appealing place to cover, at least, go to the extent of gathering up all the juicy bits and pieces to make a Travel Ape branded travel guide for the city? Quite simple. Tampa is all about fun. It's a big city, but the city embraces fun in almost everything it does. From the business district area to the marinas the people of Tampa want to have fun.

There are so many great things to do in Tampa and something for any one to enjoy. Let's start with Busch Gardens Tampa. This theme park is flat out a perfect excursion for the entire family, and excursion is the perfect word to define Busch Gardens of Tampa because its over all theme reflects the adventure of Africa. For the adults Tampa has a hot nightlife. If we had to choose one place to see on a visit, the Hyde Park Cafe is a must. Hyde Park Cafe offers three diverse areas in one establishment. Last, but not least, if you have a refined palette the restaurant of choice would have to be Fetishes Restaurant located at 6690 Gulf Street in St. Petersburg.

So we welcome Tampa to the Travel Ape Family. Currently Spirit Airlines has some great deals from several destinations to Tampa. Check them out today.

A Time for Excellence in a Dying Economy.

Recently a friend of TravelApe's spoke to him about the utter frustration he had with the site Hot Wire. Hot Wire, for those of you who may not know, is a site that offers a unique pricing mechanism while looking for travel services. Specifically, as it relates to this post, we'll be discussion the booking of hotels.

Well to eliminate much of the waste in the story I'll provide some big facts. First, the friend was looking to book a reservation for a hotel for a destination in Florida. To that end, it took him 6 tries to book the reservation during which time his reservation was not confirmed, but either a hold was placed on the cash in the account being used to make the purchase or actually removed from the account where a refund was necessary.  All totaled the friend had about $1200 "out there" that needed to be accounted for and where services were not delivered. 

In this day and age, where the economy is tumbling, where consumer confidence is dwindling by the day the major brands in the world need to pay attention even greater than they ever have before, to help reverse these trends. Poor service, confusion on the web sites, frustrated consumers only magnify the situation. The trend is a familiar one and scary. First the economy is bad anyway so people stop making purchases. Then those that do make purchases run into the bad issues with Hot Wire that I spoke about above in this post. What comes next, the obvious, less people use the service. The effect then is that Hot Wire as a business loses credibility and there goes the dynamite !!

Travel conglomerates like Hotels.com, Priceline and Travelocity, in addition to smaller brands like TravelApe.com and Reserve Vacations need to seize this opportunity to show greatness in a declining market. The markets, God willing, will rebound, and consumers will return. That being said, those brands and companies that stand the sizable tides in front of them and weather the storms will be those that survive for a long time to come.