Features| Travel Predictions for 2008

From Borat and Khmer cuisine to James Bond Tours and Beijing

	Travel Predictions for 2008 From Borat and Khmer cuisine to James Bond Tours and Beijing

Words by Jim Algie

Travel predictions are usually about destinations, but that was just too predictable for us, so we decided to delve into different activities, movies and even states of mind on the road.

10. Angkor's Reign Continues
In 2007, Cambodia topped the two million-tourists mark for the first time. Most flew straight in and out of Siem Reap to gawk at Angkor’s tons of temples. But Phnom Penh is undergoing a rapid-fire transformation from a rough-and-tumble backwater to a more sophisticated city of three- and five-star pleasures that still resembles a mélange of Khmer-style spirituality-made-concrete and French colonial architecture. What’s really newsworthy is that magazines like Gourmet are predicting that Khmer food will be the hottest new cuisine of 2008. Many dishes like red and green curries thought to have originated in neighboring countries actually date back to Angkor. The main difference is that Cambodian dishes do not rely on chili, so they’re more palatable to sensitive palates. Along the riverfront, head for the Frizz Restaurant, which serves up authentic Khmer food. It’s owned by a Dutchman but the cooking classes he organizes are taught by a local lady who survived the genocide.

9. On Top of Asia
Thailand will continue to be the most-visited destination in all of Asia. And its legend as the laboratory for first-time travelers to test out Asia continues to swell. Maybe the biggest shift we’ve seen is that more families are coming. It’s not only because Thais are so family-friendly, and because places like Phuket offer an array of activities that can entertain everyone from teething toddlers to the nearly toothless, but as one backpacker on Khaosan Road pointed out, “Look at all these young couples with their kids. I’ll bet they met in Thailand at a Full Moon Party or somewhere on the backpacker circuit, came back for a honeymoon, and now they’re bringing their kids here.” This is love in the time of globalization and a truly new travel tradition. Or is it more like Humphrey Bogart says to Ingrid Bergmann in Casablanca? “We’ll always have Paris.”

8. License to Thrill
At some point, usually in his adolescence and then again in the reincarnated teenager of middle-age, what man hasn’t wanted to be James Bond (other than say Boy George or Salman Rushdie)? Now you can. Never Say Never Ltd in Hong Kong has put together a remarkable array of packages that allow you to live the life of the secret agent, like a high-speed boat tour of Hong Kong harbour, a trip to a shooting range to practice your marksmanship with one of 007’s weapons of choice (a Walther PPK pistol), and a leap from the 230 metre-colossal Macau Tower. But you’ll have to find and seduce your own sexy double agent from Russia or North Korea. Writing of Bond-style entertainment, Singapore’s reputation as the “safe house of Asia” will be left in the dust as the first-ever nighttime Formula 1 Grand Prix is gearing up for the Lion City in September.

7. Laos Goes Ballistic
By far the most controversial list of predictions for the travel world in 2008 came out in The New York Times. Some of the writer’s choices and his obvious bias towards destinations for the super-wealthy like the Maldives sparked fiery comments from many flame-throwers on the newspaper’s website: “Thanks for clueing me in to the places to avoid in 2008.” But the most positive shocker was that Laos came in first on the list. Many of us may disagree with the writer’s claim that Cambodia and Vietnam are “so 2007,” but it is cool to see one of the orphans of Southeast Asia finally become adopted by the parental guardians of the mainstream media.

6. Ego Tourism
Not so many years ago, people would return home from their holidays and give a slideshow of all their travel photos and a little lecture about the places they’d visited. Thanks to thousands of travel blogs and photo-sharing sites like Flickr, far too many travelers think they’re Marco Polos-in-progress when they're actually just recreating the boring slideshows of yesteryear. What’s pitiful is that a lot of this loser-generated content is mediocre at best, and misinformed at worst. There are some excellent blogs and web boards but in general, go with the pros and leave most of the amateurs by the wayside.

5. From the Beach to Borat
As The Beach exercised a tidal pull on tourists fantasizing about Thailand, and the Lord of the Rings’ trinity was sheer magic for New Zealand’s economy, movies are some of the best tourism advertisements a country can get. This year, Australia (starring Nicole Kidman) should send many holiday-takers to kangaroo and koala country, fair dinkum. Closer to home, the interest in Kazakhstan stirred up by the mockumentary Borat has given flight to a new air route operated by the country’s national carrier (Air Astana) between Bangkok and the country’s largest city, Almaty. Just remember that washing your face in the toilet is not really a Kazakh custom.

4. Slow Travel
Speed is of the essence these days. This is why so-called “slow travel” has become an emerging trend. Which could mean a leisurely package tour through Vietnam’s World Heritage Sites or a train journey through Myanmar, savouring the sights and sounds instead of gulping them down, while enjoying the inward journey which Alain de Botton, in his splendid book Art of Travel, summed up: “At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves – that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves.”

3. A Room of One’s Own
The term boutique hotel actually dates back to the incredible Morgan’s hotel opened in New York back in 1984. For the most part, boutique hotels are independently owned and run, have less than 100 rooms and design elements that fuse the classical and the avant-garde. As travelers look for more niche experiences, they check out and into more boutique hotels. Southeast Asia has an array, from the Scarlet Hotel in Singapore (an Art Deco wonder built in 1924) to Bangkok’s ritzy Dream Hotel with bonuses like the “Dream Bed” and pre-programmed iPods.

2. Ecologically Correct Travel
Since terms like “carbon footprints” and “climate change” have become buzzwords, travelers are increasingly ecology minded. So “eco-tourism,” “responsible tourism,” and “voluntourism” (different branches of the same green tree) are gaining ground. Road hogs and frequent-fliers should look into buying “carbon offsets” (often in the form of having trees planted) from various websites.

1. Olympian Voyages
With the 2008 Olympics being held in Beijing this August, no one needs a fortune-teller to tell you that China will be the “in” spot this year. To see this mammoth country, where travel can be an endurance test and the language barrier is as imposing as the Great Wall, you really need to book a tour. On the itinerary should be some of the essentials like the aforementioned wall and Beijing’s Forbidden City, with its 900 rooms of Oriental Splendor in the Palace Museum. Still other marvels beckon like Xi’an’s Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wild Goose Pagoda, as well as Shanghai’s sci fi-like Oriental Pearl Tower.

Keep checking back to see how many of these predictions come true, but the most fun part of any trip can still be the sheer unpredictability of how events unfold and plans become unraveled.