Travel Calendar

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star Kevin Love sat Thursday night against the Los Angeles Clippers, and coach Rick Adelman said it was too soon to tell if Love would return to the court at any point this season.

Love was cleared to return to Minnesota on Thursday after spending the night in a Denver hospital. He sustained a mild concussion and a neck strain when Nuggets forward JaVale McGee inadvertently elbowed him in the head in the first quarter Wednesday night.

Once Love arrives back in Minnesota, he will be further evaluated by Timberwolves doctors before his status is determined for the six remaining games on the schedule. New NBA concussion rules require him to pass an exam from an independent neurologist before he is cleared to play again.

“You’ve got to wait and see. I have no idea,” Adelman said when asked if Love could miss the rest of the season. “He’s got to get back here, have our doctors look at him and see how he feels. With the situation we’re in right now, if he’s out five days he’s going to miss three or four games so the season is pretty well gone by then anyway. They’ll give us a better inclination of that when he gets back tonight.”

Love is fourth in the NBA in scoring at 26 points per game, second in rebounding (13.3) and second in minutes played (39). He is the heart and soul of the team, and when he went down on Wednesday night it was the latest in an incredible list of injuries that gutted the Timberwolves’ once promising playoff hopes.

The Wolves were right in the playoff race in the West when point guard Ricky Rubio tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee on March 9. What followed were injuries to starting center Nikola Pekovic (ankle), forward Michael Beasley (toe), point guard Luke Ridnour (ankle), point guard JJ Barea (groin) and now Love – the team’s six best players.

Adelman said he’s never seen anything like it in his 20-year coaching career.

“It’s just been one thing after the other,” Ridnour said. It seems like the way this season has gone, as a coach I took the first 40-something games and saw the progress we made and now I’m seeing it go in the other direction quickly.”

The Wolves lost seven in a row heading into the game against the Clippers. Love was due to arrive back in the Twin Cities on Thursday night and would be evaluated further in the coming days. The Wolves host the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night.

By Eileen Gunn

NEW YORK |
Fri Apr 13, 2012 9:35am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – During a recent trip to Colorado, jewelry designer Alicia Mohr planned another vacation from an unusual spot – a hot tub at a Starwood hotel, where she is a platinum-level preferred customer.

Enjoying some beer with her husband and some friends led to a spontaneous decision to travel to Munich for Oktoberfest this fall. To make plans, Mohr simply called the private concierge that comes with her coveted platinum status. Quicker than you can say “oompah,” they had guaranteed suites at a hotel at the entrance to Oktoberfest. “And we paid with points,” Mohr says. “It doesn’t get easier than that.”

Hotels, airlines and other travel service providers are trying hard to win the loyalty and dollars of sophisticated and extremely lucrative road warriors like Mohr and her strategy consultant husband, Chris, who book a combined 100-to-150 nights a year in hotels (Starwood, whenever possible), racking up points and perks along the way.

Airlines are succeeding in getting business travelers to upgrade. Small businesses spent an average 5.8 percent more on first and business class tickets in last year’s fourth quarter than they had a year earlier and big companies spent 8.8 percent more, outpacing the growth in economy tickets, according to American Express Business Insights.

High-end hotels haven’t seen the same growth, according to American Express, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. Eighteen percent of hotels surveyed at the end of 2010 by the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Foundation said they have a club floor or lounge, up from 10 percent in 2004. Eighty-nine percent of those hotels classified themselves as luxury or “upper upscale.” Sheraton announced that it has spent more than $100 million upgrading 120 lounges worldwide.

Here is a round-up of some of the more interesting and helpful perks you can take advantage of if you have the money or points to travel first class.

PACKING

New York-based Garde Robe has found a way help travelers avoid packing and schlepping suitcases to the airport.

The company, which is expanding this year to include Florida and London, stores a portion of its customers’ wardrobes for them. Before a trip, a customer chooses items from his online “closet” to be shipped anywhere in the world. When he heads home, a valet retrieves them so they can be cleaned and pressed for the next time.

One-quarter of customers are business travelers who keep a stash of suits, pants, business dresses and shoes, the company says. Mastercard and Neiman Marcus’ customers can cover the fees, which start at $350 a month plus shipping and dry cleaning, via certain rewards programs. Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan offer the service as perk to their executives.

GETTING TO YOUR FLIGHT

An “upper class” ticket on Virgin Atlantic earns you VIP treatment at Heathrow in London. It starts with a limousine ride to the airport and a guarantee that you’ll get from curb to lounge in 10 minutes.

A Virgin “host” meets your car, checks you in and handles your luggage while you pass through a private security check. Then you can cool your heels with spa services, workspaces, dining options and multiple lounges for catching a pre-flight nap. Not that you’ll have to wait long. The service lets you check in only 45 minutes before departure, even for international flights.

Similar door-to-plane services are available through other airlines and airports. At several Asian airports including Singapore’s Changi, the Jetquay program provides expedited VIP check-in and exclusive lounges plus extras such as a personal shopper and valet parking at prices that start at about $65 and run to more than $1,100.

Upscale hotels have gotten in on the act, too. At the Peninsula Beverly Hills, where room rates begin above $500, airport transfers ($100) include access to a LAX concierge and his multilingual staff who meet guests at the curb or gate to help with whatever might ease their departure or arrival. “Our job is to set the tone for their hotel experience when they arrive, and to leave them with a fond memory of it when they leave,” says concierge Jimmy Bardolf.

IN FLIGHT

Book a “diamond first class” ticket on Etihad airline (about $9,000 from Abu Dhabi to London and $15,000 from Abu Dhabi to New York) and you have access to an “in-flight chef” who will prepare dishes on board from an extensive array of options, including breakfast options like salmon lox or eggs any style and a steakhouse-inspired “grill” menu as well as the expected Middle Eastern fare. Moreover, you get to decide when you want to eat, a handy plus on Etihad’s long-haul flights.

AT YOUR HOTEL

Marriott is another chain that has been investing in its lounges. In Chicago, platinum- and gold-level preferred members have access to an executive lounge that includes 60-inch televisions, access to a conference and media room, a dedicated concierge, complimentary breakfast, afternoon snacks, evening hors d’oeuvres and special events such as wine tastings. Other guests buy access to the lounge for $60 a night.

Similarly, a room on the “club” or suite floors at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore comes with access to a lounge that offers free champagne breakfast, afternoon tea and evening cocktails and canapés, free meeting space and teleconferencing services, all with stellar city views.

Other hotels are finding high-tech ways to deliver high-touch service. At the Plaza Hotel in New York, The Berkeley in London and the OPUS Vancouver in Canada, guests are handed iPads when they check in. At the Plaza guests can use the iPad to order room service or print their boarding passes.

At the Berkeley, concierges map out personal recommendations for things to do, see and eat for guests in the top suites, which start at about $2,000 a night. At Hotel32, a boutique hotel within the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas, guests can use their own iPod Touches or the hotel’s to reach out to their “suite assistant” with special requests.

Here’s one last perk that’s unique and potentially quite fun: Guests who book a suite at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California ($750 to $3,600 per night) can borrow items including the trendiest belts, necklaces and cocktail purses from a lending closet that’s stocked by the legendary Fred Segal store nearby.

(Editing by Lauren Young)

Earlier this month, Census Bureau data from the post-depression period was made publicly available for the first time in 72 years. Personal records of 132 million Americans who participated in the 1940 census can now be accessed online.

With all of this newly released information at our fingertips, it is an ideal time to do some digging. And what we find could be the impetus for a bit of travel to locations previously not considered.

Suppose you find where your grandparents lived in 1940. Wouldn’t it be interesting to explore the spot 72 years later? Additional research can provide you with photographs and drawings of what the area looked like back then, and help you pinpoint the churches, post offices, libraries, schools, and local markets they used. Armed with a trusty map, a journey to the old homestead can be a history lesson for younger family members and perhaps even a nostalgic moment.

Expect big changes along the way. Many sites probably look nothing like they did when your ancestors stood in the same spots decades ago. My father took my mother back to North Dakota in an attempt to locate the farm he was raised on back in the 30s and 40s. It took a while to find the area because 70 years of change altered many places my dad remembered. But the journey was half the fun. Eventually they found that the familiar fields were replaced by highways. But, along the way, they also got a chance to relive some fond memories at his old high school.

Maybe in your searches into your family history you will discover where your parents first met, went on their first date, or planned their wedding. Searching for the locations of proposals, weddings, first dates, and special events of all kinds can add to the fun of your trip.

We have a family tree on my father’s side that goes back to 1640 and places our ancestors as fur trappers in Quebec, Canada. My father has traveled there to investigate graveyards in various areas in search of more ancient relatives and to take in the countryside that was once home to his great-great-great grandfather. As is the case with most locations, the many quaint towns and shops and their friendly inhabitants add to the ambiance and enhance the experience. Your retirement travels can feel more meaningful when the destination holds personal significance far beyond just a spot on the map.

Dave Bernard is not yet retired but has begun his due diligence to plan for a fulfilling retirement. With a focus on the non-financial aspects of retiring, he shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement–Only the Beginning.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in upcoming time travel movie “Looper.” (TriStar Pictures)

After three days of what is becoming a new trend in Hollywood advertising – trailers for a trailer – Apple.com unveiled the first official teaser for time travel movie “Looper.” The action flick stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and is directed and written by Rian Johnson, who introduced the film in three vignettes that counted down to Thursday’s preview release.

The film looks to be a time-jumping, mind-twisting thriller with Gordon-Levitt portraying a contemporary hit man working for clients 30 years in the future – they send the victims, bound and hooded, back through time for a “quiet” disposal. Where things get complicated is when his next victim turns out to be his future self, played by Bruce Willis.

To look more like Willis, Gordon-Levitt spent three hours in makeup each morning, altering parts of his appearance, most notably his eyebrows, lips and eye color.

“It kind of freaked Bruce out,” the actor said in the third vignette on Apple.com. He also told fans at WonderCon in Anaheim last month that a close friend who visited the set was so unsettled by his slightly altered appearance that the friend avoided spending much time around him.

In another of these vignettes, Johnson called the movie “very gritty, grounded action sci-fi” and compared it with Willis’ 1995 time travel movie “Twelve Monkeys.” Gordon-Levitt said the new film is “sort of a down-to-earth ‘Blade Runner’… it feels real. It’s that style of sci-fi that could actually exist in 30 years.”

Watch the teaser below to see for yourself whether the new film could stack up to those two sci-fi greats.

For any trailer music fans curious about the electric guitar-driven music backing the preview, it’s a track called “K.I.L.L.” by Nick Murray and Mark Moore.

“Looper” marks a reunion for Gordon-Levitt and Johnson, who first teamed up on 2006 neo-noir film “Brick.” There’s good reason to hope “Looper” won’t be their last collaboration, as Johnson said at the WonderCon panel moderated by Hero Complex’s Geoff Boucher, “I hope to be working with this guy for the rest of my life.”

“Looper” also stars Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, Paul Dano and Piper Perabo and is slated to hit theaters Sept. 28.

– Emily Rome

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For the first time in human history 1 billion tourists travel the world — that’s one in seven of us! From 25 million just 60 years ago to 1 billion: Clearly the globalized world is being realized by those that travel.

So how to explain The Global Scavenger Hunt?

The Global Scavenger Hunt is simply an amazing once-in-a-lifetime travel adventure. It is an annual around the world competition that pits two-person teams against each other in a friendly international contest that tests their inter-cultural literacy, street smarts, endurance and Travel IQ, as they circumnavigate the globe over 23-days trusting strangers in strange lands.

The 2012 event, the eighth such travel competition, begins in San Francisco on April 13 and ends with the crowning of The World’s Greatest Travelers on May 5 in Washington D.C.. In between, 10 teams from Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia, will be taking what we call A Blind Date with the World in 10 super-secret nations, all while being tasked to complete a series of culturally-oriented and highly participatory sight-doing scavenges that earn them points.

The event has been called the Olympics of Travel. It has been described as a Magical Mystery Tour and one of the 50 Most Amazing Trips in the World. It has kindly been reviewed as “like Survivor, The Amazing Race and the Eco-Challenge all rolled into one except with much more cultural interaction.”

Indeed, The Global Scavenger Hunt has become a type of annual performance art filled with exotic backdrops, great cuisine, awe-inspiring art, action and drama among the participants it draws from around the world.

“Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” — Kurt Vonnegut

Welcome to the 2012 edition of The Global Scavenger Hunt travel adventure competition. My name is William Chalmers and I have been asked to provide some insider insight into how this annual event takes place; and I hope that over the next three weeks I can fulfill that mission in conjunction with my official daily duties as the Event Director of this event. I will be busy — but not as busy as our competitors! By the way, some have unofficially labeled me as the ring master — seeing that this event is a movable feast, a roving international circus of sorts full of clowns, animals and exotic food — but I don’t take that too seriously.

So fasten your seat belts and enjoy the trip, because over the next 10 blog entries, I will be reporting to you (sending you PostCARDS as it were) from 10 still top-secret countries, giving you color commentary about how the teams are holding up and how the event is progressing, along with some, hopefully witty albeit irreverent analysis into our world at large as we travel the world at large!

Over the next 23 days, the 2012 event will present over 650 possible scavenges in 10 different nations for our competitors to contemplate completing. Having so many scavenge options allows for our participants to maximize their freedom, flexibility and spontaneity. We like to think of the competition as a rally, rather than a race, because it is broken down into nine separate segments with various degrees of difficultly — some lasting six hours, some five days! This event is not about doing things lickety-split and mindlessly fast, but more about local interaction and being in the moment as they attempt to complete their scavenges. (One of the events unofficial mottos is “He who runs cannot walk with dignity!”)

The teams know they are in for an extraordinary marathon-like adventure, that will have to locate items, do things, try things and eat things. Teams will have to travel from Point A to Point B — easy enough unless you are in a less-developed nation with no infrastructure in the throes of a national holiday, travel creatively from Point A to Point B but via Point D, K and Q — all while utilizing alternative local modes of public transportation from donkey cart to bullet train and from felucca to hot air balloon. Teams will have their travel skill sets challenged in urban settings, rural settings and spaces in between. And over the course of the event we will have clear front runners leading the way … and I suspect a few dark horses that stay close until the homestretch near the finish line.

Here is a sample of a few scavenges from last year’s event:

• Visit and learn ancient meditation techniques from a (specific) yogi master in India.
• Visit and learn the art of making baklava in (a famous) Turkish bakery.
• Play Taxi Cab Roulette by eating your taxi-drivers favorite dish at his favorite hometown restaurant.
• Donate your time and energy helping out for a day at an orphanage in Cambodia.
• Learn the complete Cyrillic alphabet over a pint of beer with a new-found friend in Bulgaria.
• Play Bartender Roulette by drinking their favorite drink at their favorite local watering hole.
• Locate and re-enact a scene from the movie “Gladiator” at its Sahara desert location in Tunisia.

By the end of the event, participants will have become part cultural anthropologist, part historian, part sous chef, part transportation specialist, part currency trader, part art critic, part diplomat and global ambassador and a 100% true Indiana Jones-like adventurer. They will become adept at mingling with locals, crashing parties, enjoying exotic cuisines, exploring different cultures and getting from destination to destination seamlessly. They will have the confidence and travel chops to go anywhere anytime. We like to label The Global Scavenger Hunt as a Travel3 event that is all about partaking in an experience-filled travel adventure that includes: authenticity, challenge and participation. Mostly, our competitors will be truly alive and engaged in a travel rapture of sorts for the next three weeks.

The Global Scavenger Hunt is all about fun and engaging. It is about novelty — day in and day out for 23 days as you circumnavigate the globe. It is about challenges, being creative, learning, being open and trusting strangers in strange lands because if there is anything we have learned doing seven previous events, it’s that they will really need to

By the way, we haven’t actually met all the 2012 participants yet. We have interviewed them all and have corresponded — with some for years — but when we all meet at a formal Rules n’ Regulations meeting today in San Francisco, it will be our first meeting. It should be interesting. Demographically speaking, we have seven participants who have competed before and competitors ranging in age from 17 to 64. We have a sister team, two father-son teams, a team made up of two total strangers (but great travelers who have checked their egos at the door to compete together), along with the usual boyfriend-girlfriend and significant other teams. We also have our defending champions, Zoe and Rainey, who are tanned and rested from a cross the Malaysian Peninsula Tuk-Tuk rally — ready, willing and able to take on all comers who hope to capture their crown and become The World’s Greatest Travelers for 2012!

Okay, enough about the event set up. Over the coming posts we will introduce you to our competitors and the places we are visiting — the good, the bad and the ugly. We will comment on the state of travel in the 21st century in the post 9/11 world as well as on the state of human nature within our Global Village. We will be posting video and photos along the way too. You will get the inside track straight from the horse’s mouth — me, the Event Director.

There you have it. Stay tuned. And please visit the official event blog at GlobalScavengerHunt.com and follow us on Facebook too. Enjoy the journey!

Enlarge image

Airline Fee Disclosure

Antoine Antoniol/Bloomberg

Passengers use Air France-KLM e-ticket machines at Orly Airport, near Paris,.

Passengers use Air France-KLM e-ticket machines at Orly Airport, near Paris,. Photographer: Antoine Antoniol/Bloomberg

U.S. airlines are trying to prevent
the federal government from forcing them to provide data to
travel agents about the extra fees being charged to check a bag
or pick an aisle seat.

Consumers need those details so they can see all costs of
booking a trip, according to companies such as Sabre Holdings
Corp. (TSG), which provide fare information to travel agents and
websites. AMR Corp. (AAMRQ)’s American Airlines (AMR) and its allies say the
U.S. Transportation Department should stay out of the dispute.

The fight is reaching Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s
desk after raging on Capitol Hill and in courtrooms and private
negotiations. Airlines want to supply data directly to travel
agents and customers, tailoring their offerings to individual
buyers. Distributors’ systems are based on masses of people
being able to quickly compare prices across multiple carriers.

“It’s a very complex debate that has been building over
the past three or four years, particularly as ancillary services
and fees have become increasingly important to an airline’s
bottom line,” said Douglas Quinby, senior director at travel
researcher PhoCusWright in Sherman, Connecticut.

Airline fees generated $8.69 billion in the 12 months that
ended Sept. 30, 10 percent more than a year earlier, according
to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The total
includes bag and rebooking charges and excludes payments for
seat assignments, pillows, blankets and food, according to BTS.

Single Price Displayed

The charges aren’t included in data AMR provides to
distributors such as Sabre and Travelport LLC, which sell the
information to traditional travel agents and online outlets such
as Expedia Inc. (EXPE) Agents are unable to make quick fee calculations
in the single price they display for consumers.

“We do not support government regulation that requires us
to give content, of any sort, to the global distribution
systems,” AMR’s American said in a statement.

Sabre, a former AMR unit, wants the Transportation
Department to require carriers to provide “core” fees for
seats, bags and priority boarding, Chief Executive Officer Sam Gilliland said in an interview.

The rule may go forward in light of LaHood’s willingness to
regulate an airline industry “the consumer isn’t real happy
about,” said George Hamlin, president of Hamlin Transportation
Consulting in Fairfax, Virginia. “We have sort of creeping
reregulation.”

LaHood’s History

LaHood imposed a 2010 rule that fines carriers for failing
to let customers off planes stuck on the tarmac for three hours.
A second round of rules raised payments for involuntarily bumped
passengers, applied tarmac fines to overseas flights and
required fare advertisements to include government taxes.

Fee-disclosure requirements are under consideration for the
agency’s third round of rulemaking, General Counsel Robert Rivkin said. The proposed rules are due in August.

“Our general principles are that we want consumers to be
able to easily determine the full price of their air
transportation before they travel,” Rivkin said.

Expedia, the biggest online travel agency by gross
bookings, wants the information published alongside fares by the
Airline Tariff Publishing Co., or ATPCO, which provides fare
data for more than 450 carriers worldwide, said Glenn Wallace,
Expedia’s vice president of transport strategy. It doesn’t want
the government involved, Wallace said.

‘Need a Spreadsheet’

Fees are so numerous “you need a spreadsheet” to keep
track, said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of Radnor, Pennsylvania-
based Business Travel Coalition, a trade group for corporate
travel managers. Consumers are frustrated not knowing charges,
and businesses can’t track costs, he said.

Airlines have urged the Transportation Department in
meetings not to force sharing of fee data, and American and US
Airways Group Inc. (LCC) brought antitrust lawsuits against
distributors in 2011. Southlake, Texas-based Sabre and
Travelport denied the charges and some claims later were
dismissed. Trials are pending.

“This is essentially a contractual relationship carriers
have” with distributors, said Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice
president of policy at the Airlines for America trade group,
whose members include Fort Worth, Texas-based American, Delta
Air Lines Inc. (DAL) and United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL)

That argument helped persuade senators to keep a fee-data
provision out of Federal Aviation Administration legislation
earlier this year, she said.

‘Antiquated System’

US Airways is “happy” to have distributors and online
agents sell its products, President Scott Kirby said. “The
problem is, they don’t want to sell it. They want to keep their
antiquated system because it works well for them. We’d love to
change it and have them help us change it.”

United Continental declined to comment and Delta referred
calls to Washington-based Airlines for America. They are the
largest full-service U.S. airlines, followed by American and
Tempe, Arizona-based US Airways.

Travel agents would prefer using distributors to get fee
data rather than creating separate technology channels with each
carrier, said Henry Harteveldt, chief research officer at
Atmosphere Research Group LLC in San Francisco.

“The DOT is going to tell the airlines, you may want to be
able to withhold these, but they are so critical that someone in
the travel agency channel has to have access,” Harteveldt said.

American last year reached an agreement to provide flight
and fare data directly to Priceline.com. Even with such
arrangements, 58 percent of tickets sold last year were through
agents using distributors, according to PhoCusWright.

Former AMR CEO Robert Crandall said that while he opposes
government intervention, airlines should provide fees to
distributors and “avoid unnecessarily irritating customers.”

Jay Sorensen, a former Midwest Airlines marketing director,
suggested that airlines and data distributors may be able to
thrash out their differences as the technology to reach
consumers evolves and carriers seek new ways to stay profitable.

“It is an industry and a marketplace in transition and
that makes for a messy situation,” said Sorensen, who is now
president of consultant Ideaworks in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
Government should “step out of the way for a while and let this
stuff settle.”

To contact the reporters on this story:
John Hughes in Washington at
jhughes5@bloomberg.net;
Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at
maryc.s@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Ed Dufner at
edufner@bloomberg.net;
Bernard Kohn at
bkohn2@bloomberg.net

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Several local and regional officials were on hand for the show

POUGHKEEPSIE – Congregating the best sightseeing venues the Hudson Valley has to offer, the Group Travel Show was held Thursday at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie.

Hosted by the Destinations of New York, the expo attracted 70 group tour and international receptive operators, as well as 180 group leaders to see where they should be booking their future tours up to five or more years from now.

As well as attending the show, the groups spent a couple of days on short
tours of participating venues, meant to entice them into booking trips.
Director of Dutchess County Tourism, Mary Kay Vrba, said that adding to
groups that come from all over the country, 24 are international. And
they’re not all senior citizen groups.

“The person getting on the bus is getting younger and younger. And that 25 to 35 age is about 40 percent of the clients that are now traveling on motorcoach,” Vrba said. “A lot of the tour operators are recognizing this and trying to make up packages like you’d have on a cruise ship, so you could go kayaking, hiking, go to a historic site or an art function.”

In 10 counties throughout the Hudson Valley, tourism is a $4.2 billion industry that generates $272 million in taxes and over 80,000 jobs, according to Dutchess County Tourism.

Motorcoaches equipped with Wi-Fi and all the amenities of a flight for half the cost shuttle vacationers to hotels, restaurants and other entertainment venues. The American Bus Association has the largest fleet, with over 1,000 motorcoach owner and tour company members in the US and Canada.

David Thornton of Destinations of New York explained the appeal of their travel show.

“We’re bringing potential new visitors who will be traveling on motorcoach to the Hudson Valley, wining and dining. But the nice thing about their visit: they’re leaving all their money behind. Every nickel stays back in the counties and we support that loudly,” said Thornton.

Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro said that, “Tourism is about celebrating a sense of place,” adding that, “The Hudson River Valley has among the richest and most vibrant of histories to celebrate, and is populated by people who absolutely understand the value of homes and communities.”

Congresswoman Nan Hayworth said she is a co-sponsor of the National Historic Areas Act, which federally supports historic areas like the Hudson River Valley.

“This is such a treasure to have this Hudson Valley within an hour or two of the greatest city in the world. The synergies are extraordinary. And that’s what everybody here is talking about today and rightly so,” said Hayworth.

By Chris Erskine

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 13, 2012, 5:00 a.m.