According to a TV Guide interview, Bertram van Munster, the executive producer of the show, revealed that the countries of the People's Republic of China and Russia will be visited as he states that the racers in this season will be "suffering through blizzards in Central Siberia" and will be involved with "Olympic-themed challenges in Beijing".[3]
Furthermore, he also promised that this season will feature "less airports".[3]
When he says "less airports", does this actually mean their will be less airports visited during the race, or during the episodes, will they just show less of the "airport scene" and focus more on the actual tasks, because there have been some past episodes where up to 15 minutes were based in the airports?
Here's my take on this, fwiw....
I have heard from more than one source that the "purse strings" are being tightened and that there will be some budget changes this season. One of the easiest ways to do that is to minimize the number of flights taken.
As we saw last season, there were two legs in the same locations (Moscow and Delhi), which eliminated 2 flights. I am being told that we may see that sort of leg again...
We already have Switzerland/Austria which may involve train instead of plane, which could be a huge cost savings especially early in the season when there are still such large numbers of racers and production staff to move from place to place.
There could also be a double leg later on still, perhaps in Thailand or Siberia or (less likely) even in China. Every plane not taken is a huge $$ savings.
There have also previously been a few flights that while it appeared to us as viewers that they were being booked, they actually may have been "reserved" by production ahead of time, which would also be a cost savings. If racers are told they can only fly "X" airline from "X" airport during a small time window, they are often in actuality limited to one or two flights, and sometimes those could be booked/reserved ahead...
So my thoughts are that that statement just may be BVM's way of putting a positive spin on some budget constraints.
But gosh knows that I would LOVELOVELOVE more clues like "make your way to the water that thunders" not take this prearranged flight to Victoria Falls in South Africa and then this arranged car/taxi, etc. Anything that makes the racers have to THINK about how to get from point to point (train vs bus vs ferry vs plane) is all good, as far as I am concerned. I would love more let the racers figure out how to get there on their own sorts of clues. Self driving, self navigation, all that is a great travel skill and some teams would do really well at that. That was the worst part of TAR 13 for me...I really missed self-navigation and the fun that ensues when things go screwy.
TARA 3 was billed as "the toughest race" this year, and it was in great part, I think, tough because there were fewer flights. Teams were stuck on long local bus rides, had long tasks in each place, and were exhausted from that, and I certainly never ever missed any airport drama. It was nicely done... Flight booking is never that exciting to watch,