I was interested to see though that in Bali, a destination that has been suffering from low tourist numbers mainly as a result of negative Travel Advisories like this one from the Australian Government, RevPAR actually rose 17.5%; and this during a low-season month. At the other extreme Singapore dropped 30%.

No doubt there will be many intense discussions taking place in Berlin this week when representatives from the world’s travel and tourism industry meet at ITB.

By their nature those that work in the industry are an optimistic lot and, whereas there will be some wringing of hands, they will apply their collective brain power to find a way of moving forward. ‘Down but not out’ will be the mood.

For example, Accor Hotels announced last week the development of 4 more hotels in Thailand: 3 in Bangkok and one on the island of Samui. I appreciate these deals might have been set before the crunch started to bite but I still see it as a positive move.

Incidentally I do realise that this blog is beginning to read like a spin-off from Accor Hotels press department but it is entirely coincidental: they happen to be pushing out a lot of positive news at the moment. And that I think is a good thing. In my opinion there is too much talking down of our economies. We know it’s bad but let’s keep looking for the good bits and eventually we will spot a few green shoots.

Many of us might be down but we are most definitely not out!

Some of the conditions are that you must book direct on the Accor Hotels Super Sale web site, the offer is valid for stays 01 April – 31 July 2009 and of course there are only a limited number of rooms set a side for the promotion. The marketing hype says “1 million rooms throughout 13 countries”. You will notice that pricing is not totally clear: in one area of the site it says prices are plus additional tax and service charges and in another it says they are included “unless otherwise stipulated”. This can make quite a difference to the final price paid with between 15 and 22% potentially being added on top. Nevertheless it is worth checking out.