10 Great Vacation Getaways

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Phoenix/Scottsdale

The six-month-old W Hotel Scottsdale is the poster child for the excesses of building booms in places such as Arizona and Florida. The 225-room hotel came in over budget, a year late, and with unsellable condos in a market that already had too many resorts and vacation homes. Both the property's lender and its general contractor are trying to foreclose, and guestrooms with a published high-season rate of about $750 are selling for around $250 a night. And as was reported here over the weekend, resorts elsewhere are already renting rooms at summer low-season rates.

Florida

The travel equivalent of the neutron bomb has hit the tourist-dependant Sunshine State. Hotels and resorts are still standing, but visitors have disappeared. During the last week of February, the heart of Florida's winter high season, Smith Travel Research reported that year-over-year average daily room rates were down almost 15 percent in Miami, 13 percent in Orlando, and 11 percent in Tampa-St. Petersburg. It's anybody's guess what the rate structure will look like next month, when the "shoulder season" begins. Except for the Easter/Passover period, it'll probably be name-your-own-price.

Las Vegas

Sin City has become Pubic Enemy No. 1 among crusaders who rail against excessive corporate travel spending. Even President Obama recently called out Vegas. Everything I mentioned about Las Vegas in January is true now, except that the discounts have gotten better. And if you want to stay off the Strip, the sumptuous (but bankrupt) Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas is selling rooms for as little as $219 a night, including breakfast for two and free parking.

Australia and New Zealand

Global bad times, a falling Australian dollar, and an untimely (for the airlines, at least) increase in flights make the land Down Under a standout vacation choice. Over the weekend, Qantas sent an email to travelers offering roundtrip coach flights to Sydney, Brisbane, or Melbourne for as little as $675 from Los Angeles or $875 from New York. United Airlines recently sold business-class seats for less than $5,000 roundtrip, which is about 75 percent lower than the previous going rate. And with the Australian dollar worth only about 65 cents against the greenback, lodging, dining, and other ground costs are a bargain. The same can be said for New Zealand, except that business-class airfares have always been lower than those to Australia and the New Zealand dollar is now worth less than 51 U.S. cents.

Lisbon

The 20 percent upswing in the U.S. dollar's value against the euro makes anywhere in the Eurozone a better bargain today than last year, but the cognoscenti have focused on Lisbon lately. Compared with other European capitals, Lisbon's marvelous dining scene is inexpensive, its lodging rates are lower, and its human-scaled, frozen-in-time city center isn't overrun with global retail chains. Coach fares to Lisbon are higher than to London, Paris, Madrid, or Munich, of course, but the summer business-class fare sales knock roundtrip prices down to about $2,200 from the East Coast.

The Fine Print…

A follow-up to my column about Lufthansa's unique First Class Terminal building at Frankfurt Airport: The German carrier has duplicated the building's services and amenities in a sybaritic new 13,000-square-foot lounge located inside Frankfurt's main terminal complex. It's part of a $190 million investment in clubs that Lufthansa is making at airports around the world. The airline recently opened lavish new lounges at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, Washington's Dulles Airport, and Detroit/Metro Airport.

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