Word: expedia
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...more ads than those trying to accomplish a specific task. Even when we're on a mission, we're still fairly willing to stop and look at an ad. However, there was one sort of website where ads rarely registered: pages built around search boxes. Think Mapquest or Expedia. Google's tribute to white space on its home page might be sleek design - or it might have something to do with knowing that no one would look at an ad there anyway. (See 10 ways Twitter will change American business...
...nation's long reign as the world's most visited country, you'd expect the French to know a thing or two about insufferable tourists. It turns out they do - and are proving it to the rest of the world. In a poll carried out by online travel site Expedia and released on Thursday, July 9, French tourists were viewed as the orneriest for the third year running. (Read TIME's story on last year's poll...
...what specifically are French voyagers faulted for? The Expedia poll says French travelers are the biggest skinflints, the worst tippers and the least able or inclined to speak foreign languages. They also finished next to last in terms of their politeness and behavior. (The worst offenders in both those categories were - wait for it - Americans, who were also designated most likely to complain...
...chagrined French reaction (and TIME.com's coverage of the 2008 poll) shows, the Expedia survey gets a lot of attention. This year's best-ranked tourists - the Japanese were followed by English, Canadian, German and Swiss travelers - are likely to point proudly to the outcome as a paragon of scientific accuracy. But this third annual bruising of French pride should be taken with a pinch of salt. There are several aspects of the survey that make its methodology suspect - and results significantly skewed. The poll ranks 27 nations' travelers over nine behavioral categories. But it questioned just 4,500 respondents...
...While the dire economy has taken some of life out of the party - travel website Expedia estimates that flights to spring break destinations in the Caribbean are down as much as 20% this year - the collegiate rite of passage, which traditionally occurs between the first weekend in March and Easter Sunday in April, is still very much in full cry: according to student discount-travel agency STA Travel, the average spring breaker spends $1,100 for their seven-night trip (many of which they will be too drunk to remember). In Florida, while annual visitor numbers dropped for the first...