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By KEN HOFFMAN
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
May 12, 2003
The world's first all-nude, pay-per-view tennis tournament on the
Internet will be available for gawking starting 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Click on
www.tennisinthebuff.com, have your credit card ready to pay $14.95,
and watch four hours of mixed doubles matches.
The matches were taped last weekend at the Lake Como Nudist Resort in Land
O' Lakes (like the butter), Fla.
"This is our first pay-per-view event and it's real tennis," said Elf
Anderson, marketing director for the nudist resort. "We picked some of our
best players so the matches would be competitive."
Who exactly will nude tennis appeal to?
"We're wondering that ourselves," Anderson said. "I think tennis fans will
have fun watching, also people who are interested in nudism. Our players
are all different body shapes and sizes, which is the true nature of
nudism."
If tennis in the buff clicks, get ready for pay-per-view naked volleyball.
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USA Today
Chris Woodyard
May 7, 2003
Is flying better in the buff?
There's a case to be made for it, in this era of security fears. If
passengers and crew got naked when they stepped on a plane, we wouldn't
ever have to worry about armed hijackers.
I don't seem to be alone in thinking about nude flights. A couple of
episodes in the past two weeks have called new attention to nudity on
planes — and, in my opinion, the possible benefits of being bare in the
air.
Castaway
Travel in Spring, Texas sold more than 80 seats on a charter jet
that flew Saturday from Miami to Cancun. The agency dubbed the charter
"Naked-Air." Their slogan: "Fly naked…fly nude….fly in the buff."
Talk about traveling light! Once airborne, passengers were allowed to take
off all their clothes. The flight attendants remained fully uniformed. For
safety's sake, no coffee, tea or any other flesh-destroying hot beverages
were served. Thankfully, passengers followed proper nude etiquette by
sitting on towels when undressed.
The nude flight comes only a week after USA TODAY disclosed that a
Southwest Airlines pilot and co-pilot, embracing the Naked-Air credo long
before the Saturday's flight, were fired in April for "inappropriate
behavior." They're accused of doffing their uniforms in the cockpit and
flying fully or nearly nude.
Like, where were they going to pin their little gold wings? On a thick mat
of chest hair? It's no wonder passengers are told not to congregate near
the cockpit door. They might try to peek in.
But what if they did? Those pilots have nothing to be ashamed of. Some
suggest that nudity on planes is an idea whose time has come.
"If I were a passenger on a flight, and they said the pilots were flying
nude, I would say ‘Go for it!'," says Carolyn Hawkins, spokeswoman for the
American Association for Nude Recreation. "It would tell me they want to
be very free and relaxed when they are flying the plane."
Southwest is, after all, the airline that advertises that it wants people
to feel "free to move about the country."
Naked passengers and crew would make terrorist fears a thing of the past.
Who would ever take a nude hijacker seriously? There's no place to conceal
a concealed weapon anyway. And airport security lines would evaporate, as
passengers skipped through metal detectors in their birthday suits.
Air rage? When people literally let down their pants, they figuratively
let down their hair. Suddenly, the aircraft cabin becomes a more relaxed
place. About the only complaint passengers might have is keeping those
restrictive seat belts fastened.
"One good thing about being with a bunch of nude people is you know the
person from within," Hawkins says. "You wouldn't be able to tell whether
your fellow passenger is rich or is poor. You would, however, be able to
tell if they had their gall bladder removed."
Getting naked on planes isn't a new thing. The Mile High Club, the
fraternity of airborne lovemakers, still gets a steady stream of new
recruits, judging from the tales recounted on the
milehighclub.com
Web site. Whether it's the backseat of a Cessna 172 or the lavatory of a
Boeing 757, these swingers have never had any inhibitions about shedding
their togs for a few moments of unbridled lust.
Sure, I recognize that the more inhibited might take some time to get used
to the idea of flying nude. Until then, airlines can help people relax by
screening comedies in flight. I'd recommend The Naked Gun.
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Forbes Magazine
Christina Valhouli
May, 2003
Earlier this month,
Castaways Travel,
a Spring, Tex.-based travel agency specializing in nude trips, announced
it was offering an all-nude charter flight from Miami to Cancun in
May--the first of its kind. Passengers will be invited to disrobe once the
plane hits cruising altitude, and the cabin crew will remain dressed. For
safety reasons, no hot beverages will be served and, in case you were
wondering, all passengers will be sitting on towels.
Castaways co-owner Donna Daniels says that so far she has sold about 70%
of the plane's 172 seats. The flight costs $499 (this is one flight where
passengers won't have to worry about excess baggage charges) and
participants will be staying at the El Dorado Resort and Spa, where room
prices start at $910 per week. Castaways selling tag line is, "Fly nude,
dude!"
The nude travel business, while skimpy on clothes, is covering itself with
profits. The Kissimmee, Fla.-based American Association for Nude
Recreation estimates that nude travel is a $400 million global
industry--up from $300 million in 2001. Carolyn Hawkins, a spokesperson
for the AANR, says the organization has 50,000 members and about 260
affiliated nudist resorts. Most of the resorts are clothing-optional,
which means that guests can choose their level of nudity.
The skies are not the only place where people are going au naturel.
Looking for a gimmick to increase sales in an increasingly tight market,
some cruise lines are also taking it off. For the second year in a row,
Carnival (nyse: CCL - news - people ) is offering a clothing-optional
cruise on its 2,000-passenger ship Ecstasy. Other cruise lines offering
similar cruises include Cunard and Windstar (both owned by Carnival), as
well as privately held Star Clippers.
Hollywood, Fla.-based International Lifestyles is the parent company of
Super Clubs, which runs some of the best-known clothing-optional resorts
in the Caribbean, such as
Hedonism II and III, as well as the five-star Grand Lido, and the
Breezes chain of resorts. Super Clubs' vice president of sales, David
Hancock--who likes to point out that he is not a nudist himself--says that
each resort has a nude section as well as a "prude" section for people who
would not rather disrobe entirely.
Hedonism II debuted in 1981. Hancock says the inspiration for the resort
came from capitalizing on the "fun, free, laid-back feeling" of Jamaica.
While Hancock will not disclose the company's revenue, he says that
business has been so good that International Lifestyles opened three new
resorts under the Breezes chain last year.
"The nude market is very strong, and we are definitely looking to expand
into Mexico and other Caribbean areas," he says.
Hancock says that the two Hedonism resorts are the most profitable in the
company. "The whole market is growing so much that a lot more hotels are
considering having a nude week," he adds.
Some uninhibited people would argue that from an economic point of view,
it makes more sense to have a clothing-optional beach rather than a
traditional one.
Dr. George R. Harker, a former professor at Western Illinois University
and nude enthusiast based in Hawaii, calculated the economic impact of
transforming a nude beach. Kaloko-Honokohau, a former nude beach on the
island of Hawaii, was converted back to a traditional beach in late 1998.
Harker, citing the Hawaii Travel Authority statistics, says that in
January 1999, the island of Hawaii had a 4% drop in visitors, while the
rest of the state saw an increase.
"I can't think of any other reason for the drop in visitors than the
closing of the nude beach," says Harker. "The island of Hawaii doesn't
have a lot of great beaches, so people would come to Kaloko-Honokohau."
Harker says the 4% decline in visitors translates to 2,873 people, who on
average spend $1,700 apiece on hotels, food and (one hopes) plenty of 30
SPF sunblock. His estimation is that closing the nude beach costs the
local economy $4,941,904 per year.
Pure economics also motivated Donna Daniels to start offering nude travel
services. Daniels, who has been a nudist for 22 years, started Castaways
with her husband, Jim Bailey, as a traditional travel company nearly ten
years ago. In 1995, when airline commissions were cut, they had to find a
way to increase profits and thus started booking nude vacations. Now, the
nude side of Castaways far exceeds the traditional bookings, accounting
for 70% of the $5 million in sales from 2002.
But according to PricewaterhouseCoopers lodging consultant Sean Hennessey,
some resorts better keep their clothes on. Hennessey says nude travel
isn't as big as the naturists would have you think.
"Nude travel is just another niche travel trend, such as gay travel or
adventure travel or safaris," says Hennessey. "It's not sizeable enough
that we would track it." Hennessey says that if the $400 million revenue
figure provided by AANR is correct, "it's an extremely small segment of
the overall travel industry." According to Houston-based market research
firm Plunkett Research, the travel and tourism industry generates $462.2
billion per year worldwide.
Small profits or not, many people who go bare never go back, citing the
feeling of freedom and the lack of tan lines as their motivation. And, as
nudists know better than most, size isn't everything. |
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