Travelblather

There's an interesting story in the Guardian. It's a news piece about the annual invasion of several lovely beaches in Cornwall by unruly teenagers who hang out there all night, get steaming drunk and make loads of noise and mess. It's become a real problem for locals in places like Polzeath and Rock, potentially damaging the tourist trade too. In 2006 dispersal orders were issued to 274 people banning them from
Polzeath for 24-hour periods. Shopkeepers and bar owners confiscated
more than 400 fake identity cards from underage drinkers.

The solution? Apparently it's an ultrasonic device that emits a high pitched tone called the Mosquito which takes about eight to 10 seconds to be heard by the human ear, so if people are walking past it will not bother them, but if people hang around it will. That all makes sense... but get this: according to the Guardian. "The devices... emit an annoying high-pitched sound that can only be heard by young people."

Seriously? Does the human ear differ that much between the old and the young? It must be a wind up. I'd have thought it's the younger kids who blast their eardrums with their iPods all day long who are least likely to have damaged hearing so won't hear this noise...

Well... apparently not. It seems that there is a very real medical phenomenon known as
presbycusis or age related hearing loss which, according to The Merck
Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, "begins after the age of 20 but is
usually significant only in persons over 65". It first affects the
highest frequencies (18 to 20 kHz) notably in those who have reached 20
years of age". Apparently it is possible to generate a high frequency sound that
is audible only to teenagers. Awesome... let's install it on the top deck of every bus right now!

I just came across this brilliant piece of video. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary in typically outspoken fashion describing plans for a transatlantic low-cost airline service...

You have to hand it to the Dutch. They know how to add
value. Here's the latest tour option for visitors to Amsterdam. The Beer Bike.
You cycle around with 9 of your mates drinking beer on tap from the built-in
keg on the cycle. Guaranteed to make sightseeing that bit more entertaining. I
bet after the first 20 minutes they have to stop for a wee break every couple
of blocks!

I found this as a top-voted travel story on digg.com It's a list of stories shared by travel agents (though unfortunately none are properly attributed.)

My favourite: (or should that be 'favorite' seeing as the stories are all about Americans?):

A nice lady just called.
She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit
left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am.  I tried to explain
that Michigan was an hour ahead of llinois, but she could not understand
the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast,
and she bought that!

Here are a few more that made me laugh:

A woman called and asked,
"Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know
who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied,
"Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage
that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting
her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually laughing)
I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that
the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

I just got off the phone
with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked
him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was told my flight number
is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

A woman called and said,
"I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked
if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yeah,
whatever."

A woman called to make
reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York"
The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure
that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied
the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry,
ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find
a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly.
Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map
of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo,
do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"

Another great example of PR flannel in action. I've started a
separate category for these. 

It's titled: Press info: Strewth! Drivers Down Under risk huge excess charges on car
hire damage from kangaroo crash hazard, warns Insurance4carhire.com

"Holidaymakers hiring a car Down Under are
presented with the biggest excess charges for car hire compared to anywhere
else in the world, according to independent excess cover provider Insurance4carhire.com.
A recent underwriter’s claims report reveals that motorists in Australia incur
the highest excess charges in the event of damage to their vehicle, with sums
reaching almost £2,000."

... begins the release. It's backed up with some decent stats showing
average excess claims figures in other parts of the world are £558 in the UK, £605
in Ireland and more. All well and good.

  Table of average excess claim amounts by I4CH customers

      Source: Insurance4carhire.com Dec 2007 - May
2008

I can see the PR 'consultants' at their desks now. Excess
claims, insurance – all rather dull stuff. We need to sprinkle this with
creative PR juice to make those lazy journos wake up! We need an 'angle'! Hmmm.
Australia.?... Of course! KANGAROOS!

Here comes the rest of the release:

"Whilst motorists driving rented cars in European countries
such as France and Italy are likely to have more minor scrapes and bumps, the
hazards of driving in the Antipodes are on a somewhat bigger scale. It may
sound like a stereotypical joke but the risk of colliding with a kangaroo whilst
driving in Australia is actually quite common and this can cause a great deal
of damage to the vehicle. However unlikely you think it is that this will
happen to you, the chances of hitting an animal on the road are very real and
the cost of repairing the damage can be enormously expensive."  (underlining is mine)

And the statistic to back this up?

Recent figures from Australian motoring authority NRMA
show that of 9,000 claims for animal–related collisions in 2007 in the state of
New South Wales, 7,000 of them involved kangaroos.

How does this statistic show that the likelihood of
colliding with a kangaroo whilst driving in  Australia is 'quite common'? All it tells me
is that IF I hit an animal it's highly likely to be kangaroo. The figures are
completely out of context. For them to mean anything I need to know how likely
it is that I will hit an animal in the first place – what proportion of insurance
claims in NSW in 2007 involved collision with an animal?

I've not been able to find out. But NSW is one of Australia's most built-up states. I've driven around it quite a bit and I didn’t
see many kangaroos. (If you were in the Northern Territory with its miles and
miles of unfenced roads in the bush, maybe you'd see a few more). NSW is Australia's most populous state with a population of nearly 7 million so there
will be literally millions of car journeys taking place there each year. And
there were 7000 collisions with kangaroos in NSW in 2007. I'd say that's not a huge number
at all. Is it really that likely that if you drive a hire car in NSW you
will be involved in a collision with a kangaroo?

In my opinion… NO

I do wonder sometimes if people in PR think of this kind of
stuff as a bit of a game. Have some fun pushing a product at the journalist
community; dress up dry stats to make them more palatable… But this is a
serious issue. It happens far too much in my opinion, plucking a statistic from
nowhere to illustrate the point you want to make rather than providing proper,
contextualised data. It's also an indictment on journalists for being lazy
enough to publish this kind of stuff in the first place. PRs wouldn't do it if
each time they did, they got a follow up call asking them to justify their
numbers. I called the PR consultancy concerned and they couldn't provide supporting
information. I wonder if they'll offer some in the comments to this post?