Tuesday Travel Ticker: Stevie Wonder suits up for Super Bowl

Stevie Wonder is headlining an outdoor concert near New Orleans’ Wyndham Riverfront Hotel on Saturday, the evening before the big game. Also that night, Justin Timberlake is appearing in his first concert in more than four years during “DirecTV Super Saturday Night,” an invitation-only concert . . . . . Mostly sunny skies and temps in the upper 60s are forecast for New Orleans through Sunday. Lows will be in the 40s . . . . Passenger volume at LAX increased 2.9% to 63,688,121 passengers in 2012, from 61,862,052 passengers in 2011. Domestic passenger volume grew 3.1%; international traffic, 2.5%. LAX is the sixth-busiest airport in the world, and third busiest in the U.S. . . . . Hawaiian Airlines says it has reached a deal with its pilots union to operate new Airbus planes as part of a plan for expanded routes between the West Coast and the islands. The deal comes as the airline makes plans to add 16 new A321neo jets between 2017 and 2020 . . . . Los Angeles hotels finished low on the list of travelers’ favorites, according to a study by www.trivago.com. Portland, Ore., finished first. L.A. finished 91^st . The site put together an online reputation index of the top 100 cities, compiling data from over 34 million hotel reviews worldwide from 140 booking websites.. . .. Mammoth Mountain’s new Threedom Package is now on sale: a three-day ticket for $199 or $66 per day. Lift tickets usually run $99 per day. Must order online or by calling (800)-MAMMOTH before noon on the first day, not available at the ticket window. Through Feb. 10 . . . . Jim Benes of Countryside, Ill., topped a field of 455 to win the $750,000 first-place prize and an Eclipse Award as handicapper of the year at the 14th annual Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship at Treasure Island in Las Vegas over the weekend. The 50-year-old Benes, a professional horseplayer, amassed a winning score of $268.40 from 28 mythical $2 win-and-place wagers and two mythical $4 win-and-place “best- bet” wagers over the two-day tournament . . . . Travel quote of the day: “Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” (Freya Stark)

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chris.erskine@latimes.com