Boldly Go Solo

Boss out of town? The beach beckons? Got vacation days? Okay, then. Jump on a plane and get out of town. Or country. When it’s just you, you don’t have to coordinate with anyone. You don’t have to wonder if both of you can get the time off.

I subscribe to a site catering to last-minute travelers called, cleverly enough, lastminute.com. I’m armed and ready, just in case the mood strikes.

I get emails signed, "Live every minute," followed by the name Patty Griffin. On Wednesday, she wrote how much she loves traveling to other countries and getting those stamps in her passport. Me too, Patty!

For the first time, I noticed that there was a bilingual list of specials: one for the double-occupancy people. Another for the "solo traveler." Specials included packages to the Bahamas, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The site may have been pricing packages for solos for awhile, but I’ve been too busy traveling lately to check in with all my travel Web sites.

On the one hand, woo hoo. Again, the
industry is sitting up and taking notice. On the other hand, the per-person price still is higher for solo travelers.

As I mentioned in an earlier post,
my goal in life (okay, one of many) is to shake the travel industry out
of its complacency with the status quo and figure out how to cater to
the rapidly growing solo travel market. I’ve only got about 50 years
left to work on this, so I’m looking for all the help I can get. Start
speaking up, people!

Complaints, combined with our purchasing power, may get us somewhere some day.

P.S. (Is a P.S. on a blog entry legal?)

The lastminute.com website has a hilarious feature at the top right: The "boss key," which some of you may already know about. It’s meant to change the screen quickly if your boss is coming your way.

This one says, "The boss is watching – look busy."  This is what happens when you click.

The funny thing for me is, that bar graph ain’t gonna fool no one in my office. I’m a writer in my day job. I don’t DO graphs. Least of all ones with lines such as, "recontextualize B2C e-markets." I’d get shot for including a line like that in ANYTHING I write.

Photos: Ellen Perlman