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Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams uses this hour of the "Travelers411" Radio Show to explain how travel can be more than a tropical getaway; it can help you open yourself to the way that other people live their lives. For example, in Europe, Stephanie says, "work is something you plug in around living; in the U.S. living is something you plug in around work. That's why so many people get hooked on going to Europe again and again." She emphasizes that you don't have to be wealthy to travel to your dream destination—"you just have to set priorities accordingly." "You can have anything you want; you just can't have everything you want," Stephanie adds.
Stephanie recently heard about a BP executive who, in his apology for the company's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, said that although BP was a big firm, they were really concerned about the "small people." Many in the media took this as an elitist statement, adding insult to injury, but Stephanie suspects that the executive simply made a mistake in English, his second language. "One thing you can learn while traveling is how you can do or say something offensive and not even know, because it's very well-intentioned on your part," she explains.
For example, Stephanie studied French from 8th grade through her second year of undergrad. "I could ace an exam, but I couldn't speak," she says. "So, as an adult, I decided to actually learn to speak French." She put an ad in the paper and found a local conversation group of Francophones, mostly wives of local executives. At one meeting, Stephanie wanted to describe a cathedral she had just visited in Spain. She wanted to talk about the statue of the Virgin Mary and said, in French, "Dans cette eglise il y avait une statue de la verge." What she meant to say was not 'la verge,' but 'la vierge,' the Virgin.
Unfortunately, 'verge' is a colloquial term for male genitalia, so Stephanie's sentence came out as, "in that church, there was a statue of the male genitalia." Luckily, this happened in Stephanie's own home during the conversation group's meeting, but it could have been a different story had it happened on the air. "That's what happens when you're speaking a second language," Stephanie says. "People make mistakes. So when the BP executive was talking about 'small people,' that's probably his interpretation in English of the phrase 'small people' in Swedish or 'little guy' in English, which is a standard expression in corporate circles."
Stephanie thinks it's unfair to criticize BP for this mistake. "I don't want to give BP a break," she says, "but if you want to nail them, nail them for something real, not a mistake in English. Goodness knows there are plenty of reasons!" She also reminds listeners that many people who own BP-branded gas stations are, in this case, the 'little guy.' "The BP gas stations are owned by franchisees—local folks, your friends and neighbors," she explains. "The oil may not even come from BP, but from a distributor who buys it from someone else."
As an executive with a large travel company, Stephanie went on a dozen trade missions with the U. S. Department of Commerce to Mexico, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, Thailand, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and several other destinations. "Every participant was given information on the culture of the destination country so we could avoid the 'small people' speech," Stephanie explains. "But that's why companies go to countries and find native master franchisees—you really need to live there all your life to know how to do business somewhere."
For example, in Asia and the Middle East, trade mission participants were advised to always bring presents to meetings, even with total strangers. "The first thing that happens in Asia is the formal presentation of gifts," Stephanie says. "In the Middle East, you're going to have a whole lot of meals together before you ever talk business. In other parts of the world, people want to know you, want to have a relationship with you. In the U.S., it's about the bottom line—who can do it cheapest."
Respect and relationships even play a role in the exchange of business cards in Asian countries, she continues. "If you hand over your card with one hand, it's a big insult," Stephanie says. "Instead, you hold the card in each corner with your thumb and index fingers, facing the other person so they can read it, and present the card with both hands. If you're going for the whole act, you can bow a little bit in the process. It's all a way to show that you respect the person you're about to talk with."
Pointing is another thing to avoid in Asia, Stephanie says. "When you cross your legs, if your toe is pointing at anyone in the room, you've insulted them," she explains. "If you tend to use a lot of hand gestures when speaking, especially with your index finger, you can insult someone unintentionally." She jokes that on business trips to Asia, she learned to sit with her feet flat on the floor and her hands under her knees.
Superstition can also play a role; Stephanie learned that in Italy it's not appropriate to shake hands diagonally. "Say you have four people saying goodbye, two on one side, two on the other," she explains. "Two from one corner reach out to shake hands diagonally, so two from the other corner do the same, making an X. In the U.S. we would never think anything of this; it's an efficient way to shake. In Italy, it's not okay. Supposedly, shaking diagonally brings bad luck, which is the last thing you want to do after a successful business meeting."
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Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams kicks off this hour of the "Travelers411" Radio Show with some observations about how travelers can avoid gaffes by paying attention to cultural differences. In the first hour, she mentioned the recent use of the phrase 'small people' in a speech by a BP executive. Stephanie thinks there is plenty to criticize BP for without focusing on the mistake of an executive whose first language is Swedish, not English. But the incident is a good example of what can happen when the culture or language is not your own.
For example, Stephanie knows of one big American bank that started operations in Taiwan. The bank quickly developed a strong client list and sent out Christmas presents after a successful start. "The day after the presents were received, they started flooding back into the bank's headquarters, along with letters from clients who wanted to close their accounts," Stephanie says. What could have gone wrong with the Christmas presents? Unfortunately, the bank sent travel alarm clocks, which seemed like practical gifts, but in Asian cultures imply that the recipient's time is up.
Stephanie herself once made a similar mistake on a business trip to Barcelona as the executive vice president of a $1.5 billion travel company. "Somebody in the room asked whether we had high turnover, I said no, and we went on from there," Stephanie recalls. "I watched every face in the room wilt. I asked the translator if we could back up a bit. For us, high turnover means that employees are lost or travel agencies close on a regular basis. In European markets, turnover means sales volume. So you learn quickly in foreign environments that you can really put your foot in your mouth."
Stuart Chase, Executive Director, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA.
www.berkshiremuseum.org
Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams and the "Travelers411" Radio Show stay close to home to talk with Stuart Chase, Executive Director of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Stuart welcomes listeners to "downtown Egypt in Pittsfield," thanks to the opening day of the exhibit Wraps: Search for the Essential Mummy and a camel-focused show by Nancy Graves. "It's all focused on the African continent," Stuart explains. "When you think of Egypt, you think King Tut, mummies, palms, papyrus, camels."
Wraps: Search for the Essential Mummy opened in June 2010 at the Berkshire Museum and runs through October 31, 2010. Since the museum is focused on natural history and art, the Nancy Graves exhibit complements the mummy exhibition. Graves traveled to North Africa in the 1960s and developed an entire show focused on camels. For the opening of the exhibits, the Berkshire Museum even hosted a few live camels.
How did the Berkshire Museum get wrapped up in mummies? The museum was founded in 1903 by Zenas Crane, owner of Crane & Co. Paper, which still produces the paper on which U.S. currency is printed. When the museum opened as the first museum in Berkshire County, Crane bought a mummy for its collection. The mummy, called Pahat, has been on display ever since. In recent years, however, the museum has been able to find out more about its Egyptian inhabitant.
"Four years ago, Dr. Jonathan Elias of the Akhmim Mummy Study Consortium realized that we had a mummy," Stuart explains. "He discovered that it came from Akhmim, a city in the mid-Nile region that's about 300 miles south of Cairo. At the time the museum was founded, the Egyptian government allowed excavation and pillaging of the tombs and even set up sales halls in Cairo where museums or wealthy collectors could purchase mummies and artifacts. So our mummy was purchased by an Egyptian dealer, then sold to a dealer in Buffalo, New York, and finally sold to Zenas Crane."
As part of Elias's research, the Berkshire Museum mummy had CAT scans in 2006 and 2010. "The things you can learn from these scans are absolutely mindblowing," Stuart says. "We have recreated busts of what the mummy looked like. You can even do a fly-through to see what it looks like inside. But the best thing about the research was that we were able to reunite Pahat with his son, Shepenmin, who was owned by the art museum at Vassar College."
Museums usually use the hieroglyphics on sarcophagi to identify the mummies inside. "Vassar made a mistake and thought they had Pahat," Stuart explains. "They didn't decipher it well enough to realize that they actually had Pahat's son. Through Jonathan's research, we realized that we had the father at the Berkshire Museum. So the father and son have been reunited for the first time for this special exhibition."
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Travelers411 Community Forums - This interview's thread:
http://www.travelers411.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1675
For more information visit www.berkshiremuseum.org
Bill Miller, Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, CheapOAir.com, USA.
www.cheapOAir.com
www.cheapOStay.com
Bill Miller, Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at CheapOAir, jets back to the "Travelers411" Radio Show to tell Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams about summer fares to international and domestic destinations. All fares quoted are round-trip base fares for a week-long trip in mid-July, taxes and fees not included.
Bill has tickets from Miami to Barcelona for $800; Los Angeles to Cancun for $373; Ft. Lauderdale to San Juan for $218; Atlanta to Port-au-Prince for $310; Las Vegas to Orlando for $256; and New York City to Cartagena for $309. "We've seen a lot of fares to Europe for $1000 and up, so this is pretty good," he says. "There are still good fares out there, even if some of these markets, like Cartagena, are not in really high demand."
Bill also has a few hotel deals to share. Prices quoted are per night. Listeners can stay at the 3-star Orlando Radisson Worldgate for $42, the Las Vegas Riviera for $77, and the San Diego Four Points Sheraton for $114. "It's an opportunity for a great summer getaway," he says, adding that CheapOAir searches 18 million unique fares, giving travelers the best combination of fares for the lowest price.
For more information visit www.cheapoair.com or cheapostay.com or call toll-free 866.592.9685.
Travelers411 Community Forums - This interview's thread:
http://www.travelers411.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1674
Travel Tips:
Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams recently heard that U.S. passport prices may be going up in October. "I'm not supposed to mention it, because the last thing they want to do is start a flood at passport offices," she says. "They will give 30 days' notice when prices increase. But just be aware that there has been discussion on the subject."
There was recently a flap over the use of "commoner" in news reports on the wedding of Princess Victoria of Sweden to Daniel Westling. "In Europe, there is still a lot of class-consciousness," Stephanie explains. "She is royalty; he is not." Stephanie uses the opportunity to suggest that travelers spend the money to buy first-class tickets on European trains, though. "Even teachers who don't make a lot of money buy first-class tickets," she explains, "because they're not second-class people."
Fun Facts:
What do you call a personal who speaks many languages? A polyglot. What do you call a person who speaks one language? An American.
Frogs act as 'canaries in the coal mine' for the environment. When frogs have problems in their natural habitats, it's often a sign that humans, too, could have problems.
Guests Include:
Stuart Chase, Executive Director, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA.
www.berkshiremuseum.org
Bill Miller, Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, CheapOAir.com, USA.
www.cheapOAir.com
www.cheapOStay.com
