An iPhone or iPad can be a handy tool to finding your way around an unfamiliar city, but now it can also be used to check in at your hotel – as our feature about hotel tech in this month’s issue of PC Pro reveals.

If you have an iPhone or iPad, these are the ten apps to download before your next business trip.

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Passengers wait to be picked-up after two commuter trains collided in Bridgeport, Connecticut, causing one to derail and injuring up to 70 passengers, May 17, 2013. Michelle McLoughlin / Reuters

A commuter train traveling eastbound from New York City derailed near the Connecticut suburb of Fairfield during the evening rush hour on Friday and collided with a westbound commuter train, injuring up to 60 people, three critically, officials said.

The collision of the two Metro North trains forced Amtrak to shut down service indefinitely between New York and Boston, the national railroad said.

Three people were critically injured and 60 people were transported to area hospitals, police said.

“It’s pretty devastating damage to a number of cars,” Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy told a news conference. “These cars came into contact (and the impact) ripped open the siding of one of the cars. There is extensive damage in the front and the wheels.”

The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT), authorities said.

“All of a sudden the train started to shake a little bit … like something was bumping into it,” passenger Rowana Shepherd told CBS television. “One entire compartment from the other train was completely ripped open. The whole side was gone and people were lying in between the trains.”

The eastbound train was headed to New Haven, Connecticut, when it derailed and collided with the westbound train that was running to New York’s Grand Central Station, said Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs the commuter railroad.

“The head end of both trains, the front end of both trains, collided and received sustained damage. … But it was not a full head-on collision,” Donovan said.

Metro North is a commuter railroad serving the northern suburbs of New York City. It is operated by the MTA, a New York State agency. Fairfield is about 50 miles north of New York City.

The number of injured could rise because hospital officials were told to prepare to receive up to 180 patients total. Metro North trains can carry up to 300 passengers when full.

Thirty-three people were transported to St. Vincent’s Medical Center and 27 to Bridgeport Hospital, police said.

Bridgeport Hospital had two patients with critical injuries, and the others could be described as “walking wounded” with a variety of lesser injuries, spokeswoman Anita Shrum said.

One person had serious head and neck injuries at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport and the others had minor injuries, spokeswoman Dianne Auger said.

The cause of the derailment was not immediately known. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to Connecticut to look into the accident.

Malloy said the collision would have a big impact on the vital rail corridor between Boston and New York City for days.

The Westport and Fairfield stations will be closed to commuter rail and Amtrak service at least through the weekend as workers repair the damage and investigators probe the derailment, he said, adding that there was no reason to believe that it was anything but an accident.

Reporting by Sharon Bernstein, David Bailey, Kevin Gray and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Philip Barbara.

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Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions calls its small shops the "original boutiques" in its new ad. Screenshot / YouTube

Trave ads seek to inspire and excite viewers into booking a trip. The methods used to elicit such sentiments include fast-paced music, flashy images, and emotional voiceovers; and ultimately they aim to convince viewers that a better time is just a plane ride away.

This week Holland defends its traditional way of life as the ‘original cool,’ while Thomson revamps its brand with a free running routine. Portland takes its time to convince viewers that it never settles for boring and an Italian tour company pushes food and wine instead of its services.

FOR ALL OF OUR SKIFTADS OF THE WEEK COLLECTION, CHECK OUT OUR ARCHIVES HERE.

Holland appeals to Americans’ inner hipster with a new multi-year campaign. The ad scoffs at Brooklyn, stating that it doesn’t consider its meals as artisanal or its small shops as boutiques because that’s the way they’ve always been in Amsterdam.  The ad quickly became one of the most watched videos on YouTube this week and one of the top videos on Reddit video after its debut on Tuesday.

Holland, The Original Cool was created by New York-based Mustache with sponsorship from the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions, Amsterdam Schipol Airport, KLM, and Amsterdam Marketing.

Thomson Holidays uses the freerunning trend to take viewers through one of its cruise ships at high speed. Freerunning team 3RUN stars in the campaign that’s meant to rebrand Thomson Cruises with a more contemporary, youthful image. The ship shown is the Thomson Dream, which just went underwent a multi-million pound makeover.

Travel Portland‘s new tourism campaign is too heavy on the text and too light on images that show what truly makes Portland unique. Images of Portland’s serene shoreline, biggest brands including Colombia and Nike, and famous Voodoo Doughnut shop are mixed in with generic shots of wine glasses and restaurants. At two minutes long, the video could afford to cut some length for a more direct and powerful campaign.

This new ad for Roman tour company Carrani does as much to draw tourists to Italy as it does to convince them to choose the established brand’s services. The video seamlessly connects the brand with the city’s finest food, people, and architecture. Italian videographer Gabriele Rivoli created the video.

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The TWA system timetable from 1974 looks fine, but US Airways' Scott Kirby argues that TWA got "out-competed" in the territory on the map in the background. Jeremy Keith / flickr.com

Pan Am and TWA, two iconic airlines that were grounded for good in 1991 and 2001, respectively, got “out-competed” domestically by rivals such as United, American, Delta, Continental and Northwest, and that contributed to the duo’s demise.

To be sure, the reasons Pan Am and TWA went bust are complex, but US Airways president Scott Kirby, a key member of the US Airways-American Airlines transition-planning committee, seized on the weakness of the Pan Am and TWA domestic networks as the beginning of the end despite the fact that they were the “preeminent” carriers of their era.

The importance of domestic networks often gets short shrift, said Kirby during a presentation May 15 at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2013 Global Transportation Conference in Boston.

Kirby argued that domestic networks are “incredibly important” as a feeder to airlines’ global networks.

There is a punch line, of course.

Kirby presented a slide showing that the combined US-Airways-American Airlines would be the #1 carrier on the East Coast, #1 in the central part of the country, and #3 in the West.

Pointing to the new American’s projected East Coast dominance, Kirby said the East Coast “is the largest, most lucrative travel region in the world.”

“This network,” he added, referring to the reach of the new American, “without question will be the strongest domestic network in the country.”

It’s not as if United and Delta are about to roll over and play dead, however.

United, for one, argues that it likes its competitive position in relation to the new American Airlines despite “overlaps” in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and New York.

Nervousness subsiding

On other merger-related matters, Kirby conceded he had been “nervous” about how the transition would go with American executives “given how we got here.”

He was referring to American’s initial reluctance to consider a merger with US Airways.

“We are working [together] quite well so far,” Kirby said, confirming he believes the merger will get completed in the third quarter, pending Department of Justice approval.

Kirby said the merged airline would get off to a quick start in producing $1 billion in expected synergies, pointing to the brisk financial performance of the merged America West and US Airways in their maiden quarter together despite operational difficulties.

Shamelessly copying Delta

The new American looks at the success of the Delta-Northwest Airlines merger as a case study in a successful merger integration, said Kirby, without mentioning the disastrous United-Continental integration.

“We’ve tried and shamelessy copy some of the things that they’ve done,” Kirby said, referring to how Delta and Northwest opted to transition to Delta’s larger reservations system rather than the reverse.

He said the transition team is studying Delta’s steps and is implementing an “adopt and go” strategy.

“We know we won’t be flawless, but we think we will do pretty well, and we’ll minimize the bumps,” Kirby said.

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Airlines collected record baggage fees in 2012. / Associated Press

Grouse all you want about airline baggage fees, but the numbers don’t lie: You are slowly learning to accept them as a painful but necessary part of the flying experience.

In fact, the overall satisfaction with air travel has increased to the highest level since 2006, according to the J.D. Power & Associates airline satisfaction study for 2013.

On a 1,000-point scale, satisfaction with airlines reached 695 points, up 14 points from 2012, according to the survey of more than 11,800 airline passengers.

And it seems the fury over bag fees has cooled because the gap in satisfaction between passengers who pay for baggage and those who do not has narrowed over the last three years, according to the survey.

“Charging for bags still has a pronounced negative impact on passenger satisfaction, but with each year, passengers are increasingly more accepting of carriers unbundling baggage and other fees,” said Ramez Faza, a senior manager at J.D. Power & Associates.

Barbara Snowberger, a retired claims adjuster from Hollywood, is not one of those passengers who accepts baggage fees. She still vents about the charges, calling them frustrating and unfair.

“I will drive 1,000 miles one-way, if necessary, to avoid the hassle of the TSA and luggage charges,” she said, referring to the Transportation Security Administration. “Flying used to be a joy, and now it’s just a tremendous hassle and costs far more than it should.”

Most of the nation’s major airlines began to charge baggage fees in 2008 in response to a surge in the cost of fuel, which has become the industry’s biggest expense, accounting for 25% to 30% of all operating costs.

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A course at Ryugin restaurant in Tokyo. Andrew Kim / Flickr

In 2007, Michelin published its first-ever restaurant guide to Tokyo and awarded the city more stars than even Paris. Jean-Luc Naret, Michelin’s editorial director at the time, was emphatic: Tokyo, he said, was “by far the world’s capital of gastronomy,” a comment that seemed as much an indictment of Paris, and of France, as it was a nod to Tokyo.

Back then, it was no secret that the French had lost their edge in the kitchen, Bloomberg Pursuits will report in its Summer 2013 issue. “The fear is that the muse has migrated,” The New Yorker magazine’s Adam Gopnik wrote of the perceived crisis in French cuisine as early as 1997.

In 2009, I published a book on the topic called Au Revoir to All That, which chronicled the many ways in which France’s food culture had deteriorated over the preceding two decades — from the disappearance of traditional bistros and brasseries to the country’s seemingly insatiable appetite for Le Big Mac. (By 2008, France had become the second-most-profitable market for McDonald’s Corp., after the U.S., according to the company.)

With its 2013 guide, Michelin has again affirmed that the “muse” has relocated to Tokyo: The French food bible awarded three stars, its highest rating, to 14 restaurants (compared with only 10 in Paris) and dished out a total of 323 stars — more than to any other city in the Michelin firmament — to 281 establishments overall.

Capital of gastronomy

“Japanese gourmet cooking is even more creative, inspired and inventive than in the past,” declared Michael Ellis, Naret’s successor.

I traveled to Tokyo to see for myself if it deserved all those stars — if it really was “the world’s capital of gastronomy.” Many thousands of calories later, I have come to understand why Michelin’s famously anonymous inspectors might have felt such an affinity for the city.

It turns out that the same qualities that put French cuisine on top — impeccable ingredients, dedication to craft, an unwavering quest for perfection — are also the cornerstones of Japan’s food culture.

For a disillusioned Francophile, Tokyo is an exhilarating discovery. It’s not the new Paris; it’s Paris the way it used to be. And the Gallic connection runs deeper than you might imagine.

Distinctive style

It’s the end of my first full day in Tokyo, and all that neon has left me in a vaguely hallucinatory state — a feeling amplified by the otherworldly sushi I am eating at Sushi-Sho, a minuscule restaurant of just 10 seats arranged around a brightly lit bar.

Chef Keiji Nakazawa is one of Japan’s foremost sushi masters, having helped revive a distinctive style of sushi called edomae, in which the fish is aged — sometimes for as long as two weeks — before being served. “Completely fresh fish doesn’t have any taste,” he explains.

Nakazawa, an energetic 50-year-old dressed in crisp chef whites, his undershirt visible just below the neck, maintains a spirited dialogue with diners as he nimbly fashions each piece of sushi — gently shaping the warm rice, swiftly applying a dab of freshly ground wasabi, laying the fish on top and lightly coating it with soy sauce.

Upon placing each piece in front of me, he tells me where that particular fish came from (the tuna was caught near Nagasaki; the eel, off Osaka) and how it was caught (line or net). Nakazawa says he needs this information in order to properly age and serve the fish.

Obsessive attention

To illustrate the point, he mentions another fish he’s using: golden eye snapper. He prefers to serve it with the skin on, but to do that, he says, he has to know the depth at which the snapper was caught; below 200 meters (655 feet), the water pressure renders the skin too tough. What I don’t yet realize, but am about to discover, is that this obsessive attention to detail is nothing out of the ordinary in Tokyo. It’s typical — and not just of the high-end restaurants.

One morning, I have dessert for breakfast at Patisserie Hidemi Sugino, which is rightly considered Tokyo’s finest pastry shop and whose namesake chef is so protective of his ineffably delicate creations that he will sell only to those who agree to consume them within 90 minutes of purchase. Some pastries he won’t even let out the door; they must be eaten in the adjacent tearoom.

Later that day, I go to Toritama, a basement-level yakitori joint in Tokyo’s Kagurazaka district. Yakitori is skewered grilled chicken, and there’s a lot of it in Tokyo. But in contrast to most yakitori restaurants, Toritama performs its own butchering and makes full use of the bird.

First-rate ingredients

In fact, it serves 37 parts, including six different cuts from the thigh alone. (The restaurant helpfully provides an anatomy chart so that diners can pick out the parts they want.) It cooks the chicken over bincho charcoal, considered the gold standard, and the results are sensational.

First-rate charcoal, first-rate ingredients — the quality of the fish, fruits, poultry, meats and vegetables in Tokyo is extraordinary; $100 melons and $180 mangoes are not unheard-of. What’s more, in contrast to the sometimes absentee chefs of Paris — presiding over restaurants that span the world — Tokyo’s top chefs are generally tethered to their kitchens. Not only that: You get to watch them work. Counter seating is the norm — and not only for sushi.

No meal better captures the essence of Tokyo dining than the lunch I have at a tempura restaurant called Raku-tei. It has two Michelin stars, but you’d never guess that from its appearance.

Understated appearance

It’s located on the ground floor of a beige, five-story eyesore of an apartment building on a quiet side street in central Tokyo. When I walk in, Shuji Ishikura, its 77-year-old chef, is on his hands and knees, pushing a case of wine under the small wooden bench that passes for the waiting area.

For two hours, I quietly watch this elderly master, aided only by his sister and a single apprentice, ply his craft — gently depositing each vegetable and piece of fish in the batter, then the cooking oil (which he changes after every service) and finally onto hand-cut tempura paper.

Ishikura has raised fried food to the level of haute cuisine. But my lunch at Raku-tei begins with raw fish: a sashimi appetizer consisting of flounder and toro (tuna belly). When I compliment Ishikura on the astonishing quality of the fish, he volunteers that he’s about to replace the flounder with sea bream. That’s because flounder mating season has commenced and many of the nutrients in the fish will now be devoted to reproduction, which means the flesh won’t be as flavorful, he says.

Cross-pollination

The quality of Tokyo’s ingredients and the singular dedication of its chefs rival Paris of old. But Tokyo also resembles the City of Light in another way: It’s a source of fabulous French food, the result of a half-century of culinary cross-pollination between France and Japan.

This exchange began in the 1960s, when leading French chefs such as Raymond Oliver, Paul Bocuse and Jean and Pierre Troisgros regularly traveled to Japan and came away with ideas about cooking, presentation and service that helped inspire France’s nouvelle cuisine revolution. Other French chefs went to Japan and stayed.

Thanks to this beneficent invasion, the Japanese developed a passion for French food, which ultimately led many young chefs to pursue careers in it. By the 1990s, the finest restaurants in Paris were teeming with Japanese trainees, and there are now several Japanese chefs cooking Michelin-starred French fare in France.

Second home

Others who trained in France returned to Japan and opened French restaurants, bakeries and wine bars there. Most of these are in Tokyo, which has become a kind of second home for French cuisine.

That point was dramatically underscored when Michelin, in its inaugural Tokyo guide, awarded three stars to a restaurant called Quintessence, whose chef, Shuzo Kishida, now 33, thus became the first Japanese-born French chef to receive Michelin’s highest rating.

Although my meal at Quintessence is good, it isn’t the best French food I have in Tokyo. That distinction belongs to a restaurant called L’Effervescence. It currently has one Michelin star; it ought to have two, and possibly three. Shinobu Namae, the 40-year-old chef, trained under the brilliant French chef Michel Bras and also did a stint with the even more esteemed Heston Blumenthal at three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray, England.

Duck breast

Namae’s food shows Bras’s influence (a beautifully composed salad containing 37 different vegetables) but also has some playful, Blumenthal-like touches (a demitasse of tea in which one side is cold and the other hot, with nothing separating the two sides).

The dish that floors me, though, is duck breast served with blood orange, girolle mushrooms and daikon radish. The duck is flawlessly cooked and seasoned, and its interplay with the citrus, mushrooms and radish is masterful. It’s a dish that would stand out even at a top-tier restaurant in France.

Which raises a delicate question: Having already eclipsed Paris in Michelin stars, could Tokyo chefs one day eclipse the French at their own cuisine?

I put the question to pastry chef Sugino, who trained in France and is one of only four Japanese members of the prestigious Relais Desserts, an association of the world’s top pastry makers who meet regularly to exchange ideas.

’Losing the basics’

Choosing his words carefully, he notes that pastry shops in France are having difficulty finding young people willing to put in the time and effort required to learn the craft. He also says that even top French patisseries are now taking shortcuts — by using stabilizers in their desserts, for instance.

“They are losing the basics,” Sugino says. “It is possible that, 10 or 20 years from now, the French will have lost the art of pastry but that it will live on in Tokyo, in Japan.”

For this disillusioned Francophile, it’s a strange but gratifying thought.

After a week of gorging myself on Tokyo, I am persuaded: It is the most dynamic food city in the world. And the only outstanding question is: How soon can I return?

10 Most Wanted

No culinary tour of contemporary Tokyo is complete without a trip to these dining destinations.

Ginza Kojyu A three-Michelin-starred restaurant specializing in kaiseki, the most refined form of Japanese cuisine. Chef Toru Okuda’s presentations are as spectacular as the food. 81-3-6215-9544; kojyu.jp

Ishikawa Hideki Ishikawa, 48, adheres to the kaiseki protocol (appetizers, sashimi, soup, grilled fish, meat, rice, pickles and tea) but eschews the ornate plating typical of the genre. He calls it “Ishikawa style”; whatever you call it, the food at this three-star spot is sensational. 81-3-5225-0173; kagurazaka- ishikawa.co.jp

Kaduya Ramen is more than a food; it’s a Japanese obsession. This small, brightly lit restaurant is renowned for its homemade noodles and subtle, deeply flavored broth. 81-3-3716-2071

L’Effervescence Shinobu Namae’s one-Michelin-starred dishes illustrate the Japanese mastery of French cuisine. The setting, cater-cornered to a Shinto temple, is elegant and convivial. 81-3-5766-9500; leffervescence.jp

Patisserie Hidemi Sugino It’s perhaps the finest pastry shop in Tokyo — better, even, than celebrated French imports such as Pierre Herme. 81-3-3538- 6780

Raku-tei Shuji Ishikura, 77, produces ethereally light tempura dishes at his tiny, serene two-starred eatery. 81-3-3585-3743

Ryugin At this three-starred restaurant, Seiji Yamomoto updates the traditional kaiseki format with avant-garde flourishes — a frozen candy apple filled with apple powder, for instance. 81-3- 3423-8006; nihonryori-ryugin.com

Shima Chef Nabu Oshima is a wizard with hand-rubbed Wagyu; he also cures his own salmon at this small, clubby steakhouse. 81-3- 3271-7889

Sushi-Sho Keiji Nakazawa is among Japan’s most innovative sushi masters, aging the fish for up to two weeks. Forget what you think you know about sushi. 81-3-3351-6387

Toritama Unlike most yakitori joints, Toritama butchers its own chickens, uses every last part of the bird and grills them over top- quality bincho charcoal. 81-3-6457-5131; toritama.net

Michael Steinberger is author of Au Revoir to All That. The opinions expressed are his own.

Editors: Joel Weber, Laura Colby. To contact the writer responsible for this story: Michael Steinberger at mhsteinberger@gmail.com. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ted Moncreiff at tmoncreiff@bloomberg.net. To write a letter to the editor, send an e-mail to bloombergmag@bloomberg.net. 

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In the A4A’s crosshairs is the recent CBP agreement with Abu Dhabi Airport to establish a preclearance facility at the airport.

At a briefing today on its summer travel forecast, A4A displayed a slide showing that Abu Dhabi Airport ranks 80th in average daily passenger arrivals in the U.S., with 573 passengers per day, compared with airports such as London Heathrow, Toronto, and Tokyo Narita, the top 3, with each sending more than 10,000 passengers per day to the U.S.

Yet, although London Heathrow and Tokyo Narita don’t have a preclearance facility (Toronto does), Abu Dhabi, with direct Etihad Airways service recently announced to Washington Dulles Airport,  is getting a preclearance operation.

Then came the dig at CBP, with the trade group stating: “CBP has a huge opportunity to better align its resources and improve the travel experience for the 90 million airline customers who arrived at U.S. airports in 2012.”

A4A, which represents Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, United and US Airways, noted that the average wait time in the U.S. at customs was one hour in 2012, and that maximum wait times, conservatively speaking, were “as high as three hours.”

In a follow-up question from Skift, A4A spokesperson Katie Connell, stated:

“Using U.S. taxpayer dollars and resources, DHS has agreed to the establishment of a preclearance facility in Abu Dhabi that would allow passengers traveling from Abu Dhabi into the U.S. to be pre-cleared for entry into the U.S. by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Abu Dhabi (versus when they arrive in the U.S.) to the benefit of a foreign government and a single foreign airline competitor. Our point/position is pretty simple: customs lines have been and remain an ongoing issue for our customers who are traveling into the U.S. from around the world and continue to wait in exceedingly long and completely unacceptable lines at many of our own U.S. airports.

 

“DHS needs to focus its resources and U.S. taxpayer’s dollars on fixing the long customs lines our passengers endure here in the U.S. first before considering opening preclearance facilities in other countries, particularly those that are not served by a single U.S. carrier. We have started a campaign, DrawTheLineHere.com to allow the public to voice their opposition to such an agreement as it negatively impacts the U.S. economy, its travel and tourism, and the global competitiveness of the U.S. airline industry.”

The United Arab Emirates may be an emerging market, but A4A is arguing that the DHS and CBP have their priorities misaligned because there are just not that many passengers traveling today from Abu Dhabi to the U.S.

The A4A is challenging the right of the DHS to enter into such agreements.

In other news, the A4A projects that U.S. airline passenger numbers will hit 208.7 million in the June through August period in 2013, the highest market since 2008, and a 1% increase from 2012. Most of the increase comes from international passengers, with their numbers rising 2.5% to 27.4 million passengers, a new record.

The passenger growth, the A4A says, is driven by a healthier economy, including “improved” financial condition of U.S. airlines.

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Aussie airline Qantas is asking consumers to ditch their Kindles and curl up with a good book — one that’s been specially penned by the airline so that fliers they’ll manage to finish just as their plane touches down. Droga5 Sydney, which won the client’s business last year, teamed with publishing house Hachette to create a push geared toward Qantas’ most traveled flyers. It’s called “Stories for Every Journey,” and is a collection of bespoke books, each of which promises to last only for the duration of one of the airline’s routes.

Stephanie Tully, CMO Qantas Loyalty, said the tactile experience and custom-created books are meant to reflect the sophistication of the brand. It’s a trait that’s Qantas is focusing on more than ever thanks to its recent partnership with luxury airline Emirates, which makes Dubai a key travel hub and opens the airline up to 65 destinations. The effort is aimed at the brand’s high-frequency travelers but is “just one of many conversations we’re developing with our members, from Bronze to Platinum One,” she said.

“It occurred to us that, in this world of Kindles and iPads, the last bastion of the humble, paperback novel is actually at 40,000 feet,” said Droga5 Sydney Creative Chairman David Nobay. “Just take a look at the bulging shelves at any airport bookstore. But, for all its relative clumsiness, there’s an unmistakably reassuring charm about thumbing through a good book as you recline amongst the clouds.”

Each book’s cover was designed by award-winning art director/designer Paul Belford, who was behind memorable campaigns for The Economist, Sony Playstation and Waterstones. What’s more, every book has a customized with a special foreward from Qantas and is packaged with a personal note from the CEO Alan Joyce.

The agency worked with Hachette to choose themes especially suited to Qantas Platinum Flyers, who skew male. Based on research, that means non-fiction, thrillers and crime-based short stories are the most popular choices.

So how did Droga5 managed to time the actual books to match the length of the flights?

“According to our literary friends at Hachette, the average reader consumes between 200 and 300 words per minute, which equates to about a page per minute,” said Mr. Nobay. That idea was applied more specifically to the shorter novels and flights, but “for the longer flights, we accommodated some napping time and meals,” Mr. Nobay said. “After a few hours with a fine Qantas in-flight meal with Australian Shiraz, most people need a break from reading.”

This story originally appeared on AdAge, a Skift content partner.

Additional links from AdAge:

• How Fenway Became About Much More Than Baseball
• Newsweek.com Redesign Aims to Be ‘Snow Fall’ on a Weekly Basis
• TBS and TNT to Stream All Their Programming Live

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The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Science and Technology Conference held in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. Marianne Weiss / Flickr

The number and frequency of meetings held by international associations, and the business travel they generate, is on the rise. The International Congress and Convention Association estimates that the number of conventions increased by more than a thousand to 11,150 meetings in 2012.

Europe is the most popular destination for international meetings with 12 out of the 20 top countries and 14 out of the top 20 cities located in the region; however, ICCA spokesman Mathijs Vleeming tells Skift that European destinations are slowing giving way to a rise in popularity of Asian destinations.

“We do see that there is a trend of the market share of European countries as meeting destinations are declining at the cost of meetings taking place in Asia Pacific, though” says Vleeming.

The greatest growth in an international meetings market took place in Copenhagen. The Danish capital hosted 137 meetings in 2012 earning it the eighth spot on the list, 39 spots higher than it ranked in 2011.

Vienna played host to the most international conferences (195) in 2012.

ICCA CEO Martin Sirk attributes the growth of the international meetings market to three factors:

1. the necessity for international associations to meet on a regular basis
2. the growth of science, healthcare, and technology sectors that such associations are commonly affiliated with
3. the increased economic strength of certain regions, especially Asia and Latin America, stimulating the growth of regionally rotating association meetings

These international groups likely live online via newsletters and chat boards making annual or semiannual conventions the only time that a large number of members come together; thus the conventions begin to serve as the lifeblood of the organization and pinnacle in the annual activity of each.

U.S. cities’ missed opportunity

The U.S. has been the top ranked country in terms of meeting numbers for more than a decade, but not a single U.S. city made it into the top 20 in this year’s list.

ICCA pegs the country’s success on the sheer size of the U.S economy as well as the proliferation of U.S. associations organizing conferences, but blames individual city marketing organizations for not identifying the lucrative sector.

“U.S. cities have an opportunity to make huge progress in the growing market of international association business, if they decide to proactively focus on this sector,” opined Vleeming in a 2011 post.

ICCA is made of 950+ suppliers responsible for the handling, transporting, and accommodating international meetings from 88 countries, making it no surprise that it advises destinations and companies involved in the international meeting sector to tap into this growing niche market.

The ICCA database does not include all association meetings taking place worldwide. All association meetings in the ICCA Association Database must rotate between at least “three countries, attract at least 50 participants, and be held with a certain frequency.”

ICCA country and city ranking measured by number of meetings organised in 2012 are below:

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Visit Florida announced Wednesday that preliminary numbers show that 26 million visitors came to Florida in January, February and March.

It’s an increase of 4.7 percent over the same period in 2012.

Direct travel-related employment in the first quarter of 2013 was also a record high, with 1,087,700 Floridians employed in the tourism industry. That’s a 3.4 percent increase, adding 35,700 jobs since this time one year ago.

Visit Florida officials say that in 2012 visitation numbers to the state were about 91.4 million — that figure includes 77.6 million domestic visitors, 10.2 million overseas travelers and 3.6 million Canadians.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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