Flying Report

The Latest (aviation gifts) Trends in Autos

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By Isaac Small

 Fads come and go, sometimes on a whim, other times because of outside forces. Here at the halfway point of the new millennium’s first decade, car culture has sure taken some interesting turns.

Those of you who innocently took a test drive of a plain-Jane Nissan Altima when it was new in 2002, floored it, and nearly sprained your necks upon discovery of 240 horsepower, may have suspected that the standards of speed had risen a tad since the 90s. Turns out that was only the beginning. Nowadays, the Volkswagen Passat raised that same family car bar to an excessive 280 horsepower. We have little $30,000 Mitsubishis that can leave Camaros for dead. The 500-horsepower Dodge Viper suddenly seems ordinary, and the once-acclaimed Acura NSX is a joke. Whether or not you’re a speed freak, there are two trickle-down benefits: the minimum standard of horsepower has risen from 55 (Geo Metro) to 103, and very few cars in any segment are truly underpowered anymore. Not a bad development.

Cars just won’t stop growing. Every redesign has to be bigger than the last one; the new Toyota RAV4 is 14 inches longer than the last, and current Civics now dwarf Accords of years past. It’s an inevitable force of marketing; no one wants to pay the same money for less car, right? Bigger also means heavier; our cars pack more pounds than ever.

And there’s no rule that contradictory trends can’t coexist. Apparently Americans expect their cars to compete with the speed of sound while also using less gas than their walking shoes. The Toyota Prius hybrid heads into its third year with unsatisfied demand, a long line, and a price premium. All this despite an ample supply of the perfectly serviceable Corolla at the same dealers. No automaker wants to be caught with their pants down, and all are rushing to market with a hybrid, even if it means using systems developed by competitors (Nissan’s Altima will use Toyota hardware).

We seem to want our cars with more stuff and more personality. The 90s banality in our styling is gone, even on the most banal cars like the Accord and Camry. And notice how almost every car has power windows and locks standard, and how even the Kia Rio comes with six airbags and a powerful stereo. Is it any wonder that the average car now costs $28,000?

Speaking of “cars”, we may be moving toward the day when that word will again apply as a general term. SUVs are suddenly for the foolish. They always have been, but now everyone seems to know it, too. Ford’s Explorer and Expedition are going down the drain, and the Excursion has already expired. The bigger the SUV, the bigger the sales drop. Little cars are selling better than ever, even old-timers like the Sentra and Neon.

Lastly, we’re going foreign, and fast. The Big Three’s market share was 60% at the early part of this decade; that will stand at or below 50% by the end of it. This is hardly a new trend, but its recent acceleration is alarming. One thing for sure is that in terms of the players, the market has matured. Only two major automakers set up American bases in the 90s (Kia and Daewoo), and the 2000s have brought none.

Cars can’t get bigger or faster forever, yet no one can stand still. Hybrids are hot, but the long-term experiences remain to be seen. What will become of all this automotive craziness? Check back in ten years.

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Shopping for Car Insurance

By Isaac Small

 Car insurance protects you against any financial loss that may happen due to an accident or theft of your car. It is a car insurance company that issues car insurance to you. A car insurance company will work up a car insurance policy for you after evaluating the various options like the make of your car, the premium that you are willing to pay, your insurance risk, etc. A yearly premium has to be paid by you to the car insurance company so that the company can pay for your loses that you may bear in the future. All the terms and conditions are mentioned in the contract and it is your duty as a car owner to look over all the points and ask the insurance agent any questions that you have in mind. It is only after all the terms and conditions are clear to you that you should sign on the dotted line and pay the premium.

Normally all car insurance companies have the same insurance policies. The premium to be paid and the percentage of losses to be covered in case of any accident may vary slightly. Since the car insurance market is very competitive, the premium rates and other terms and conditions almost remain the same.

A car insurance policy may provide property, liability and coverage depending on the type of policy. The property coverage covers losses for damage of the car or the theft of the car. Liability coverage pays for any legal liabilities to other people for bodily harm or property damage. And medical coverage covers expenses for treating injuries, medicine expenses and funeral expenses in case of a car accident. You may buy the different types of coverage depending on how much you want to spend on your policy.

A car insurance policy usually consists of 6 types of coverage. As mentioned before a customer can select from the different types of coverage. Most of the car policies last from 6 months to a year. Your car insurance company will bill you when it is time to renew your policy and be prepared for a rate hike.

The different types of coverage are :-

1) Bodily Injury Liability

This type of liability covers the expenses of injuries that you may cause to someone else while driving your car. Also the coverage includes injuries caused to a person while driving other person’s car.

2) Medical Payments and Personal Injury Protection

This type of liability covers the expenses for the treatment of injuries to drivers and other passengers. The liability also covers medical expenses and funeral expenses in the case of death.

3) Property Damage Liability

This type of liability covers for damage to the other person’s car and your car. It may also include damage to lamp posts, telephone poles, fences and other public property.

4) Collision

This type of liability covers expenses for damage to your car or the other person’s car. Even if you are at fault, then also you will be reimbursed for the expenses of repairing the car.

5) Comprehensive

This liability covers loses due to theft or damage to the car by something other than collision with another object or damage to the car due to fire, falling objects, explosion, earthquake, etc.

6) Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage

This liability covers damages to your car by another driver who is uninsured.

The coverages mentioned above are offered by all car insurance companies. In almost all states, car insurance is mandatory. Therefore, it is your responsibility as a car driver to have a policy.

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Get Your Flight Report Before Heading To The Airport

The Olympic Effect in England

By Arnoldo Watson

 The European Tour Operators Association is calling for careful planning and marketing around the Olympics to avoid a tourism downturn in London and the UK around the time of the Olympics. The ETOA has released a report countering previous claims that countries see tourism benefit from hosting the Olympics.

The European Tour Operators Association report, published a year after London won the Olympic bid, demonstrates that countries who host the Olympic Games suffer a drop in tourism growth in the years surrounding the event. Further to this the report claims that there is no long-term boost to tourism, as has been widely asserted.

In the case of Australia, a trend of over 10% growth in visitor arrivals turned into a decline two years before the Sydney Olympics. The stagnation persisted for more than two years after. By comparison, New Zealand experienced steadily improving tourism growth throughout the past decade. In the five years prior to the Olympics, Australia’s and New Zealand’s tourism was growing at the same rate but Australia’s growth lost ground significantly straight after the Olympics.

A similar ‘Olympic Effect’ is also apparent for four out of the last five Olympics - in Sydney 2000, Atlanta 1996, Barcelona 1992 and Seoul 1988.

ETOA’s research also disproves claims that the beneficial impact of the Olympics needs to be measured over a longer period of time. Taking Barcelona as an example, longer-term tourism growth since the Games has been outstripped by other comparable European cities, such as Prague and Dublin.

Official statistics for the years after the Athens Olympics are not yet available. But the pattern appears to be the same. The ETOA says that in 2002, two years before the Olympics, arrivals in Greece were 8.2% up on the previous year but in 2003, numbers fell by 1.5%. This decline continued until the first part of 2004. One month before the start of the Games, visitor arrivals were 12% down.

The EOTA Has suggested the following measures be taken:

*A commitment not to burden the tourism industry with any additional tax

*A national marketing campaign with an appropriate budget to smooth out the inevitable Olympic dip

*Specific communication to make the point that London is able to absorb the Games without difficulty and that it will be open for tourist business as usual throughout 2012

*Initiatives and marketing communication in the years running up to the Games to counteract fears that London will be full, over-priced or ‘otherwise engaged’, possibly detailing how much is open and the bargains available

*Arrangements to give ‘Olympic visitors’ a full tourism experience whilst they are in the UK for the Games

ETOA suggested that many of the prior reports have been based on aggregated opinion looking forward to the future rather than on objective fact, looking back on past experience and have been funded by organizations wishing to promote the Games.

The International Olympic Committee’s claims about media exposure have been “hyperbolic” too, ETOA suggested. IOC president Jacques Rogge said on CBS in October 2004 that the total cumulative world television audience - with viewers counted each time they watched - was around 40 billion for the Athens Olympics.

Such numbers do not stand up to scrutiny, according to ETOA. There are roughly 6.5 billion people on the planet. Of these, 1.6 billion have no access to electricity and a further 400 million are less than five years old. To achieve a cumulative audience of 40 billion involves nearly three billion people (or 60% of the available world) watching every single day of the games. Detailed viewing data from the IOC itself for Sydney suggest that the total number watching “peak time” was 280 million. Even if this number is multiplied up by the number of days the games is open, the audience size would only be a tenth of that claimed by enthusiasts.

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Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.