Holiday travel: Here's an idea of what to expect

U.S. airlines expect essentially flat passenger traffic during the holidays, a rather meek forecast for an industry nearing the end of a year marred by record delays and rising fuel costs.

Domestic airlines are expected to carry 47.2 million passengers globally during the three-week holiday travel period ending Jan. 2, compared with 47 million last year and 46.8 million in 2005, according to the Air Transport Association of America.

The ATA expects Christmas and Christmas Eve, each with an average of 1.9 million passengers, will be the least busy days.

The trade group advised passengers to plan for longer-than-usual security lines, and to pack any gifts unwrapped to ease inspections.

Blame flight delays, bad weather, whatever, but if you get stuck in an airport, the important question: How are you going to get comfortable in those hard plastic airport seats? Check out www.sleepinginairports.com and get prepared. What's hot: It has tips on how to bed down in an airport, rates the best and worst airports for sleeping based on reader surveys and includes a packing list for items to make yourself comfortable.

Hotels

Outlook: Room rates to rise again in 2008

NEW YORK — Be prepared to pay more for a hotel room next year, according to the annual lodging industry report from PricewaterhouseCoopers' Hospitality & Leisure Practice, which was released Dec. 13.

Hotel rates increased 7.5 percent in 2006, and are likely to finish 2007 with a 5.7 percent increase, according to spokesman Bjorn Hansen. For 2008, the price of a hotel room is forecast to go up another 5.6 percent, he said.

Cambodia

Government studies luxury hunting park

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The Cambodian government is studying a Spanish company's proposal to convert a huge tract of jungle in the country's wild northeast into a game hunting park for big-spending tourists, a wildlife protection official said.

The Madrid-based NSOK Safaris company wants to use 247,100 acres in Rattanakiri province, which is home to an abundance of wildlife, including several endangered species, as well as several indigenous tribal minorities. The province is about 200 miles from the capital Phnom Penh.

The project envisages bungalows and luxury lodging built "for high-class, VIP tourists ... or professional hunters," said Dany Chheang, deputy director of the Wildlife Protection Office of Cambodia's Agriculture Ministry.

Chris Greenwood, a spokesman from the World Wildlife Fund in Cambodia, called on the government to release more information about the plan. "Anything that threatens the survival of already endangered species is not a good thing for conservation in Cambodia," he said.

Tourism is now one of Cambodia's major foreign-exchange earners. But land disputes have become common between the rich and indigenous people, who are under pressure to give up their ancestral land to commercial developers.

New Orleans

Crime fears hurt Big Easy tourism

NEW ORLEANS — Amid misperceptions about New Orleans 27 months after Hurricane Katrina, the cold hard fact of a crime wave is creating headaches for tourism officials.

Just over half of respondents to a University of New Orleans poll rated the city a 1, 2 or 3 in crime on a scale of 10, with 1 being "the worst city in the U.S." So far in 2007, New Orleans has at least 200 murders, nearly 40 more than all of 2006.

Roughly one-third of respondents to the UNO poll said they were "extremely unlikely" to visit the city for "business or pleasure" the next two years.

The poll found that one-third of respondents believed the French Quarter was among areas hardest hit by Katrina. In fact, the area emerged virtually unscathed. And 26.5 percent of respondents also wrongly believed parts of the city remained under water.

Germany

Coming next year: smoke-free Oktoberfest

MUNICH, Germany — The German state of Bavaria has approved plans to introduce the country's toughest smoking restrictions in January that should see Munich's famed Oktoberfest go smoke-free.

Unlike other states that have introduced bans, Bavaria will not allow for special rooms to be set aside for smokers at restaurants, and also will not exempt beer tents — including those at the Oktoberfest, Munich's annual celebration of the national brew.

Compiled by Times staff and news services.