Gabriel Aguirre was born in Mexico, educated in the United States, and lives in Paris. He’s an IT profession by trade, but a highly skilled photographer, too. His wonderful series—Dépliage Du Soi, or Unfolding Self—is a thought-provoking riff on identity and the personal journey through the world. Using Paris as a backdrop doesn’t hurt either.
The online reputation management company TrustYou has just released this neat infographic (see below) that examines the impact of web reviews and social media on travel booking decisions.
Would you book a hotel that had no online reviews? Well 49% of hotel guest won’t even consider it. While 52% of travelers have changed their plans because of social media comments. Do you trust your friends’ online reviews? Do online reviews have a significant impact on your travel choices?
If you’ve ever tried to hail a taxi in an unfamiliar city, or just didn’t know where to find a cab and not get ripped-off, then the Hailo app is right up your alley. After a quick sign-up process, you’re ready to go. Just open the app (iOS & Android) and it shows the closest available taxi. Drivers respond to your request and you can even lock-in the fare, and you can then track the taxi’s progress to your location. You can quickly and safely pay using a registered credit card and add a tip as well.
Hailo is currently operating in Chicago, Boston, Toronto, London , NYC, Dublin and Madrid. Coming cities include Washington D.C., Cork and Barcelona.
One of the Europe’s most visited cities, but also famous for its purported rudeness, Paris has launched a campaign to improve its reputation and better meet the needs of tourists.
Restaurant servers, taxi drivers and retail sales staff in the French capital all too often perceived as impolite, unhelpful and unable to speak foreign languages say local tourism officials, who are distributing a manual with guidelines on better etiquette.
The six-page booklet, entitled “Do you speak Touriste?”, contains greetings in eight languages including German, Chinese and Portuguese and advice on the spending habits and cultural codes of different nationalities.
France is the world’s top destination for foreign travelers, with Paris visited by 29 million people last year. The income that tourists bring to hotels, restaurants, attractions and museums accounts for 10% of jobs in the region and is an important lift to the economy at a time of depressed domestic consumption.
The Paris tourist office has warned that growing competition from “friendlier cities” like London meant Paris needed to work harder to attract visitors, especially from emerging market countries.
More than 30,000 copies of the handbook on friendly service are being distributed to taxi drivers, restaurant servers, hotel managers and sales people in tourist areas, with a focus on the 1st through 9th Arrondissmement and the Monmartre area.
I’ve visited Paris three times in the last two years and each time I’ve found most people to be friendly and helpful despite my atrocious French language skills. From my subjective perspective, the stereotype of the rude Parisian is outdated and contributes to visitor hesitation to interact with locales. What do you think?
Sergio Miranda is an Argentina-born, Bahrain-based photographer usually known for his work in fashion and advertising. So, his series called Ombligo is a bizarre departure. The amusing project is based on photographs of maps printed on stomachs. Each image prominently features a location on the map where Miranda has lived. Who said that cartography is boring?
On Departure is a marvelous, minimalist short animated film by Vancouver-based, Irish filmmaker Eoin Duffy that captures the disconcerting, otherworldly feel that seems to pervade airports.
After spending too many hours, in too many airports over the past few months, I think that Duffy’s emotive video manages to incorporate that ineffable airport mood of disconnection and lassitude. Take a look:
Station to Station: A Nomadic Art Happening is a rare and exciting transcontinental arts event that will connect visual artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers and even chefs this September. The ten stop train trip/public art project is the brainchild of the ever inventive artist Doug Aitken and is funded by Levi’s.
During the three week journey, the Aitken designed train will make ten city stops where site specific art happenings and cultural interventions will take place. Station to Station aims to embrace unexpected cultural collisions and serendipitous discoveries.
The Aitken curated project will bring together such diverse participants as Kenneth Anger, Liz Glynn, Urs Fischer, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rick Moody, the Dirty projectors, Alice Waters and Fiery Furnaces. And will be supported by cultural institutions like SFMOMA, the Carnegie Museum of Art, SITE Santa Fe, MOMA and more.
Station to Station jumps off in NYC on 9/6 and concludes in Oakland/San Francisco on 9/28, with stops in Pittsburg, Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City, Santa Fe, Winslow, Barstow and LA.
Weller Book Works was founded over 80 years ago in Salt Lake City, Utah as Zion Bookstore. Over the decades the shop, which sells new and used titles, has remained in the Weller family, but has been known as Sam Weller’s Books and Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore. Now the third generation of Wellers is celebrating the store rebranding as Weller Book Works and new location with Operation Book Drop. The event centers on the release of 878 free books around Salt Lake City wrapped in seven custom designed book jackets. What a great idea.
An expert team of creative food artists and bakers from the UK collective Eat Your Heart Out were commissioned to build an edible train replica to celebrate the 15th anniversary of London’s Heathrow Express . The amazing confection—measuring 1.5 x 4 x 2 meters—took the crack team 30 hours to put together, but only survived one day at London Paddington Station. Train travelers were offered samples yesterday until the last crumb was consumed.
Photos © Nathan Pask
Here’s how it came together:
Whether he is going by Seth Globepainter , Julien Seth, or just plain Seth, the globetrotting French street artist is always surprising, entertaining and challenging art lovers around the globe with his original and imaginative wall paintings. I was recently in Place Emmanuel Levinas, in the 5th Arrondissment, where one of Seth’s newest Paris murals has appeared. (see below)
Travel Between The Pages 