TRAVEL WATCH	FEBRUARY 9, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 5
	Fasten Your Seat Belts, Airfares Are Falling By LEAH KOHLENBERG alk to Asian airline officials these days, and you'll hear that the skies are all cloudy and gray: staff cuts, route cancellations and deferred airplane orders are in the air everywhere. For travelers, though, that cloud has a platinum lining: the cheapest fares to hit Asia in years. "Prices will definitely continue to go down for the next three to six months, excluding holidays," says Murray Bailey, a travel industry analyst in Hong Kong. "There may be an attempt to go up in the summer, but it will be shaky. Prices will stay down for a year." For years, air tickets in Asia have typically been pricier than in other parts of the world: demand has been high and competition largely unknown. The industry has grown steadily since the 1970s, along with the region's booming economies. But in the past few months, a combination of currency devaluations, stock-market jitters and overall pessimism has finally made a dent in traffic, especially among tourists. Though business- and first-class cabins are still crowded and fares are holding steady, economy seats are 25% emptier since the start of the year. "Everyone is flying bigger planes now, so as soon as there is a drop in passengers, the airlines are in trouble," says Jim Eckes, director of consulting firm Indoswiss Aviation. Some of the best deals involve travel to Thailand and South Korea, where the baht and the won have plummeted but tickets are still priced in the local currencies. (Bargain basement fares to Thailand may evaporate, however, as that country is now allowing carriers to change prices with only one day's notice, down from 45.) A round-trip economy ticket from Hong Kong to Bangkok, for example, is about $260, down from $570 last July, while Bangkok to New York and back costs around $530 economy class, half what it did last year. "Most prices have decreased by at least 30%," says Jacko C.F. Yeung, sales manager for Bond's Travel in Hong Kong. Lower-priced economy fares are also appearing for flights to and from Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan. Even flights to Britain and Australia are less expensive. Generally, the more popular routes from any Asian city are likely to be more heavily discounted than the less-traveled routes--prices for flights from Hong Kong to Singapore, for example, are more likely to decline than those for flights from Hong Kong to New Delhi. Don't expect low prices forever. Analysts predict that fares will keep falling at least for the next few months. Eventually, when the region's economies start to rebound, so will the cost of flying. "Airlines aren't like computer makers, which can lower prices forever," Bailey says. "At some point they need to come up." Fly now, because you'll pay later. HOT TIP Does walking around in a foreign country with a guidebook in your hand make you feel like an obvious target for criminals--or, perhaps worse, like a tourist? Try this trick to downplay the foreigner look: photocopy the pages of the book needed for your sightseeing jaunts and paper-clip them inside a local newspaper. Want to know the history of that quaint old temple, locate the cheapest silk market or find the best Uzbek restaurant in town? Just surreptitiously peak at the pages while pretending to peruse the day's headlines. One caveat: don't pick up a newspaper that obviously looks as if you can't read it. A foreigner in India, for example, who seems to be studying a Tamil-language newspaper intently, might attract unwanted attention, rather than deflect it. WEB@TRAVEL TRAVELOCITY (www.travelocity.com) Flashy it's not, but Travelocity offers valuable services as online travel agent, atlas, fact book and tutor. Want to price a round-trip air ticket to Paris? Need to know what to wear to a business meeting in the Philippines? Or how to renew your U.S. passport? Efficiently arranged, the site also provides one of the best flight-schedule services on the Web. Travelocity is not an aesthete's haven--its name may be its most imaginative element--but for travel rudiments, few sites are better. JOURNEYWOMAN (www.journeywoman.com) If globe-trotting was once mainly a male pastime, Journeywoman proves times have changed. Though femsites can seem trite, this one, where women describe canoeing through Honduran rain forests and ranging solo across Turkey, has a sense of adventure. The site's bulletin board approach, though uneven, is packed with reader tips and accounts of past journeys that should encourage timid travelers. And searching for such gems is half the fun. SHORT CUTS COINING TROUBLE Asia's currency crisis, along with the region's tourism woes, has reached all the way to the South Pacific. Fiji last month devalued its currency by 20%. The reason, officials say, is to boost Fiji's ailing tourist trade, as the island nation has been struggling to compete with ever-cheaper destinations like Thailand and Indonesia. Vanuatu's vatu, Samoa's tala and Tonga's pa'anga might be next to bite the devaluation bullet. GROUNDED? An American women's group is using an unusual tactic to help force U.S. anti-abortion activist and congressional candidate Randall Terry to pay millions of dollars in court-ordered penalties: the group has asked airlines to freeze his frequent flyer accounts. "It's about time [Terry and his followers] had their wings clipped," said the group's lawyer. [BOX] DETOURS The flight into Phonsavan, Laos offers a view of beautiful green rice fields, verdant pastures--and ugly red slashes of earth. Though the U.S. never declared war on Laos, a bomb was dropped on it every eight minutes on average for nine years during the Vietnam War. Most of the ordnance lies unexploded underground in Phonsavan and surrounding Xieng Khouang province, killing nearly 200 people a year. For the intrepid traveler, the area offers intriguing sights. In the frontier town of Phonsavan, residents use bomb casings for planters and supports for their houses. The nearby Plain of Jars is a stunning field of 2,000-year-old clay containers, some three meters high--no one knows their origin or purpose. A good guesthouse is Vinhtong's, with basic, cheap rooms, a porch and a garden. (You'll find Vinhtong easily enough. He usually greets incoming planes.) Phonsavan can be quite an education. Just stick to the main paths.
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