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Travelers are steadily getting ruder, according to an informal survey of travel-industry workers and air travelers. The biggest sore spots, the poll found, are stressful travel conditions, a general decline in values and parents who don't control their children.

Results of the survey by Public Agenda, an opinion-research company, and Travelocity, an online travel site, found:

• 65 percent of passengers said rudeness is a serious problem in travel these days.

• 54 percent of travel employees said passenger rudeness is a top cause of their on-the-job stress and tension.

• Nearly half (49 percent) of travel workers say they have personally seen a situation where disrespectful behavior threatened to escalate into physical confrontation.

• And an additional 19 percent say disrespect had led to a situation actually getting physical.

Visiting Frodo land

With the opening of the latest in the series, "The Return of the King," and ever since the first "Lord of the Rings" movie appeared two years ago, tourists are flocking to places in New Zealand where the movies were filmed — glaciers, volcanoes, fjords, forests and mountain peaks.

The films have at least partly motivated about 10 percent of New Zealand's foreign visitors to come to the country, say tourism officials. One newspaper recently pictured visitors wearing cloaks like that of the films' hobbit hero Frodo huddled under a tree reenacting a scene.

City officials of Wellington said the region is set to make $160 million from "Lord of the Rings"-related activities over the next 10 years. "Welcome to Wellington, home of 'Lord of the Rings,' " employees at city hall say as they answer the phone.

Price cuts for luxury cruises

Yearning to take a luxury cruise? Some upscale lines are marking down voyages by up to 60 percent. "The discounts have never been this steep or this far in advance," said Mike Driscoll, editor of Cruise Week, an industry newsletter.

Behind the deals is a glut in capacity caused by the arrival this year and next of an armada of luxury vessels ordered during the cruise-travel boom of the late 1990s. In April, Radisson Seven Seas unveiled the 700-passenger Voyager. In July, Crystal unveiled the 1,080-passenger Serenity. Still, those ships almost seem puny compared to what's coming next month: Cunard's Queen Mary 2, the largest luxury ship ever built. It carries 2,620 passengers.

"The arrival of the Queen Mary 2 has really upset the balance at the luxury end," Driscoll says. "A lot of people who take a luxury cruise each year are signing up to try it, and they're not booking the lines they normally do, which has left the other lines with empty cabins."

Another factor contributing to luxury line woes: unrest around the world. Though mass-market lines like Carnival generally stick to close-to-home destinations such as the Caribbean and Alaska, luxury lines are known for globe-trotting. But with terrorism and unrest from Turkey to Bali, the deluxe companies such as Silversea, Crystal and Seabourn have been forced to retreat to safer waters, putting them head-to-head with the less expensive lines such as Norwegian, Princess and Holland America.

Unhealthy meals for air travelers

Chips, a chocolate bar and a ham sandwich. That's the type of meal many airline passengers are buying these days, now that in-flight food service has been replaced with goodies for sale.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine rated major airlines on the availability of healthy food — especially vegetarian options — and found that only Delta's Song Airline consistently provided "healthy options." The group found healthy meals could be special-ordered ahead of time by calling Alaska, American or United, but the doctors' organization recommended that passengers who want low-cholesterol, lowfat and high-fiber food from other airlines "will want to pack a lunch or purchase a meal (before boarding)." Details: www.pcrm.org

— Seattle Times staff and news services

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company