Starwood Hotels posts quarterly loss

Chain warns future profits will fall short

The company, which like the rest of the travel industry is also being hurt by the outbreak of the SARS virus, warned its future profit would fall below Wall Street forecasts. White Plains, New York,-based Starwood reported a loss of $117 million, or 58 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $32 million, or 16 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding impairment charges from the expected sale of some hotels, the company said its quarterly loss was 8 cents a share.

Hit by a travel downturn which also led rivals to slash outlooks, Starwood on March 24 withdrew its forecast of about a 4-cent per share profit. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call had seen anywhere from a 10-cent loss to a profit of 2 cents per share, with an average estimate of a loss of 2 cents.

Revenue fell to $1.07 billion from $1.09 billion a year earlier.

The company said the effect of the SARS outbreak and geopolitical instability on the travel industry have made it difficult to forecast financial results.

But Starwood said it expects second-quarter profit excluding special items to reach between 20 cents per share and 25 cents per share and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization between $230 million and $240 million.

For 2003, the company said in a statement it expects profit excluding special items between 70 cents per share and 80 cents per share and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization between $930 million and $950 million.

The average First Call estimate was a second-quarter profit of 35 cents a share and a full year profit of 83 cents a share.

Shares of Starwood are up about 12 percent for the year, compared with an 8 percent rise by the Standard & Poor’s hotel index (.GSPHOTL)

Investors have been waiting for Iraqi situation to stabilize, which they hope will improve the outlook for travel. But industry executives have steadily reduced earnings outlooks for months, pointing to continued economic weakness.

For detailed Financial Highlights, Click Here

Upscale Parisian Hotels

Midscale Parisian Hotels

Regional Hotels

News@PATA

DE JONG AND TRAVEL INDUSTRY TO MEET WHO DIRECTOR

PATA President and CEO, Mr. Peter de Jong, and other travel industry leaders, will meet with the WHO Executive Director Mr. David L. Heymann at a press briefing tonight at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in Bangkok. Mr. Heymann will meet with ASEAN leaders at the emergency summit on SARS in Bangkok tomorrow (29th). Mr. de Jong said: "It will be a good chance for PATA and the travel industry to request that countries which have made progress containing SARS should be removed from the WHO’s advisory list. It is important we make the WHO understand the severe economic hardship which our members are experiencing as a result of its advisories."

WHO INVITES FAQs ON SARS

PATA ATTENDS IATA SARS MEETING

On April 23 senior PATA executives attended an IATA seminar in Bangkok on SARS. Senior airline executives from around the world heard testimony from airline leaders, executives from the World Health Organization and the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After attending the event, PATA President and CEO, Mr. Peter de Jong, said he was deeply concerned. "Our carriers, airport, hotel and tour operators are hurting very badly. The public debate needs perspective. For example, out of about 200 million airline passenger trips since SARS began there have only been five confirmed cases of in-flight transmission ­ and these occurred before screening procedures were put in place at check-in."

BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR PATA

Despite the outbreak of SARS, PATA executives are continuing travelling as usual. PATA President and CEO will this week deliver the keynote address at a major industry function in Dubai organised by Emirates. On return he will fly to Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 5-8, for talks with the country’s President, Prime Minister and Tourism Minister. PATA Vice President Mr. Peter Semone will visit Macau SAR and Hong Kong SAR this week to talk to tourism leaders on what PATA can do to help destinations badly affected by SARS cancellations.

TIMOR LESTE BECOMES PATA GOVERNMENT MEMBER

The youngest country in the world, Timor Leste (formerly known as East Timor), has joined PATA following PATA Vice President, Mr. Peter Semone’s trip to Dili last week. Mr. Semone met with Prime Minister, Mr. Mari Alkatiri and Secretary of State of Tourism, Environment and Investment, Mr. Jose Teixeira. Mr. Semone said: "Timor Leste has world-class beaches and scuba diving plus numerous land-based attractions. The destination needs investment, but it has a very bright tourism future ahead of it."

TRAVELRADIO HOSTS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Mr. Russ Johnson of Travelmedia has uploaded three audio interviews and a visual clip of a cultural performance at PATA Annual Conference in Bali, Indonesia, to the PATAradio Web site at http://www.travelmedia.com/PATAradio/. By simply clicking on the links you can hear PATA Strategic Intelligence Centre Managing Director, Mr. John Koldowski, analysing the impact of SARS, Tourism Tropical North Queensland Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bill Calderwood, on communicating with governments, and Accor Senior Vice President Asia Pacific, Mr. Brian Deeson, on how small companies can win the PR battle without breaking the bank. The link to PATAradio is also available from www.pata.org.

KOREA (ROK) IMPRESSED BY BALI CONFERENCE

PATA HQ-based Consultant, Mr. Kim Kwang-Nam, said delegates from Korea (ROK) were impressed by the 52nd PATA Annual Conference in Bali, Indonesia. The 53rd PATA Annual Conference, Jeju Island, in April 2004 will be jointly organised by the Jeju provincial government and the Korea National Tourism Organization (KNTO).

FIRST REAL-TIME CONFERENCE MEDIA CENTRE

During the 52nd PATA Annual Conference in Bali, Indonesia, the PATA media centre utilised network technology to provide real-time information flows to journalists. When a speaker’s presentation or speech arrived at the media centre it was held on the master workstation for cosmetic touch-ups. The moment the speaker’s session ended, the speech was uploaded electronically on to eight media workstations. Images taken by the Conference photographer were also uploaded onto the media workstations after professional scanning and captioning. Conference speeches are currently available online to all PATA members at www.pata.org.

JERRY PICOLLA WINS FIRST PRESIDENT’S STAFF AWARD

Mr. Jerry Picolla received a standing ovation during the PATA Annual Conference closing session when he was announced as the first winner of the PATA President’s Staff Award. Former PATA Executive Vice President, the late Mr. Marvin F. Plake, hired Mr. Picolla as a consultant 30 years ago. Mr. Picolla later took charge of marketing and chapter development and created the PATA Travel Mart concept. "Jerry can truly be identified as the father of chapter development on a world-wide basis," Mr. de Jong said. "He is one of the most respected PATA staff members in the history of our Association."

PATA EDIT SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS ANNOUNCED

PATA is pleased to award four scholarships to the Executive Development Institute for Tourism (EDIT) Programme, operated by the School of Travel Industry Management, University of Hawaii at Manoa. The Jerome A. Keller Memorial Scholarship went to Western Australian Tourism Commission Director of Industry Development, Mr. David Etherton. Fiji Visitors Bureau Senior Marketing Officer, Ms. Sala Toganivalu Lesuma, received the PATA Foundation Scholarship. The two remaining scholarships went to Journey Plus's Mr. Taufiq Rahman from Bangladesh and SriLankan Airlines Industry Affairs Executive (MICE), Mr. Chinthaka Weerasinghe. For further information contact aye@pata.th.com.

CONFERENCE SPEECHES AVAILABLE TO PATA MEMBERS

Twenty-six PATA Annual Conference speeches and presentations are now available in the members-only area of www.pata.org. They are in MS Word or MS PowerPoint format.

MEETINGS INDUSTRY MARKETING AND RESEARCH MEETING

The International Congress and Convention Association’s (ICCA’s) fourth Regional International Congress and Convention Researchers Meeting (ICCRM) will be held in Auckland, New Zealand, August 7-9, 2003. The ICCRM focuses on research and marketing in the meetings industry. For more information, please visit www.iccaworld.com/iccrm2003/auckland.

PATA STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE CENTRE WORLDWATCH

** The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) are pressuring airport authorities in Hong Kong SAR and Japan to reduce landing and other fees to help airlines weather the SARS outbreak. Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Dubai, Cyprus, Athens, Melbourne and Brisbane airports have already cut user charges.

** Singapore hotel employees now have to pass a temperature test before starting their shift as part of the local industry’s SARS prevention strategy. Employees who pass must then wear stickers that declare them fit to work. The Singapore Tourism Board is expected to announce a complete hotel certification scheme this week.

** Thai Airways International has prepared a "total solution" to the problems it faces in the current industry crisis. THAI’s plan involves cutting costs for almost everything except publicity about its SARS prevention measures

Sharp rise in SA hotel investment

This represents an increase of 76% over the previous year.

At the same time, according to GHIC managing director Joop Demes, a survey of 25 of the major hotel operators in the industry in the centres of Cape Town and Johannesburg reflected an average increase in revenue per available room of 25% to 35% for the 12-month period ended December 2002, compared with the previous year.

This greatly increased traffic in the main centres is having a positive spillover effect into other areas such as the Cape Winelands, and the eco-tourism or game farming areas of Mpumalanga, as well as the Garden Route area.

"While global instability is placing global hotel operators under tremendous pressure, the industry in South Africa is bucking this trend aggressively, further boosted by increased tourism and high-profile events such as the World Summit and Cricket World Cup," Demes said. "Delegates and visitors to two recent major international trade shows - the International Trade Show in Berlin and the World Trade Market in London - reconfirmed the huge interest in and popularity of South Africa as a tourist destination."

Demes added that while it was still more cost-effective for foreign investors to buy an existing operation than to build, it was exciting to see a growing trend towards new buildings being constructed, which include two
5-star country boutique hotels in the Cape Winelands, a 5-star resort hotel soon to commence on the Garden Route, and a boutique niche hotel operation - a new concept popular in the US and Europe that was soon to be introduced in Cape Town by a UK investor.

"An added attraction is the government's incentive for the hospitality industry of up to 30% rebate on capital expenditure for the construction of new buildings or the expansion of existing operations. This of course has
further advantages in terms of creating employment and boosting the economy."

He said that due to supply and demand Cape Town is attracting a large share of the greenfields projects, while Gauteng, being more a corporate market, is also enjoying significantly increased investment in the hospitality and leisure industry.

As a result, and identifying a gap in the market, GHIC recently launched an office in Gauteng under Hennie Nasveld, who is also covering the Mpumalanga area.

Recent transactions concluded by GHIC include:

• A boutique hotel operation in Cape Town CBD sold to an investor from the UK;
• A country hotel near the Kruger Park sold to a US investor;
• Country hotel on the Garden Route sold to a German investor;
• Sale and lease back of a large five star hotel in the Cape to an international listed hotel company;
• A new boutique hotel development on the Garden Route being launched by an investor from the US;
• Two new exclusive hotel operations to be launched on prestigious wine estates in the Cape Winelands; and
• A country hotel on the outskirts of Johannesburg sold to an investor from Cyprus.

He added that foreign investors in the South African hospitality and leisure market incorporate mainly two different buyer profiles.

First there was the emergence of owner/manager investors from the main countries which feed South Africa from a tourism point of view, typically the UK and Germany, who find their home markets overcrowded and are seeking a guest house or country hotel at an investment of between 4 and 5 million rand up to 20 million rand.

Then there were corporate investors from America, the UK and further afield who are prepared to invest from 20 million rand upwards, he said.

Deadly bug crushing Queensland’s  tourism

The Mercury  -  Queensland’s (Australia) bookings attributed to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

International airline passenger arrivals from Asia are plummeting, with some inbound markets down by more than 60 per cent and falling.

Tourism Queensland yesterday described short-term expectations of visitors from three key Asian markets – Singapore, China and Hong Kong – as "disastrous" and "non-existent". It also warned of downturns in other markets including Japan.

A spokesman for Cairns-based reef operator Sunlover Cruises said business had been affected dramatically by the SARS outbreak, with 700 cancellations last week.

"Our two ships would normally take out 600-plus passengers a day between them. This week, we've been taking out 100-a-day total on one ship," managing director Terry Russell said

Sunlover had put staff on a four-day-week.

On the Gold Coast, Asian visitor bookings for the major theme parks were understood to be down by as much as 40 per cent.

"Singapore, China and Hong Kong have come to a standstill, and what is holding them back is the hysteria this disease is creating," Tourism Queensland's marketing executive director Alex de Waal said.

Industry figures showed international arrivals at Brisbane Airport for the week to April 20 down 22 per cent for China, 28 per cent for Japan, which is Queensland's biggest market with 430,000 visitors a year, 61 per cent for Malaysia, 64 per cent for Taiwan and 46 per cent for Singapore.

But arrivals increased from New Zealand (up 13 per cent), the UK (30 per cent) and Germany (29 per cent).

While the tourism industry attempts to hold tight, Australian scientists have joined an international race to develop a diagnostic test for SARS.

The virus has been imported to Australia, with scientists planning to infect live chickens, pigs and cats with the virus in a bid to identify a relationship between animal diseases and SARS in humans.

Overseas, in the worst-affected nation of China, cinemas, theatres, karaoke bars and internet cafes have been shut down.

State-run media reported yesterday all "entertainment businesses involving mass public gatherings" would be closed in Beijing.

More than 4000 people have been quarantined in the city with schools, universities and libraries closed.

In Singapore, authorities plan to issue about 500,000 primary school students with thermometers and force them to take their temperatures twice a day.

And from today, all food handlers – from street hawkers to coffee shop workers – will have their temperatures checked twice daily.

Deaths at the weekend of a Canadian man, 44, and a Hong Kong resident, 28, proved healthy, younger people were also at risk from SARS.

In Canada, a World Health Organisation statement warning people not to travel to Toronto may be lifted after Canadian authorities claimed it was both unwarranted and damaging to the economy.

Canadian officials have complained long and loudly that WHO officials acted without due consideration for WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the warning would be reconsidered.

He said Canada had provided his Geneva-based agency with more information about the outbreak in Toronto where 20 SARS deaths have occurred. 

Jebel Ali International Hotels surges forward with nationalisation program

AME Info  -  At the UAE Careers Fair 2003, Jebel Ali International Hotels has reiterated that it is constantly working to recruit more UAE nationals into its management training program, thus increasing its already high number of UAE national employees

Jebel Ali International Hotels currently employs the highest number of UAE nationals in the UAE hospitality industry, both on a management and trainee level.

During the Careers Fair, which took place this week, Jebel Ali International Hotels exhibited its training and employment opportunities within the Group in order re-confirm its desire to maximise local talent and provide training for future managers and directors of the hospitality industry.

His Highness Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan – UAE Minister of Higher Education & Scientific Research and Chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology, visited the Jebel Ali International Hotels stand at the Careers Fair and congratulated Gerhard Hardick, General Manager of Jebel Ali International Hotels on leading the local hospitality market in promoting, training and employing UAE nationals.

Ghanim Al Marri, Assistant Manager Human Resources, Jebel Ali International Hotels said, “We have been recruiting UAE nationals into our management trainee program since 1998 and since this time have put our recruits through six months of initial management training before placing them into the area they are best suited to. We currently have these employees working in a variety of departments, including front office, accounts and sales.

“The purpose of our road shows is to offer students, both male and female, an insight into the hospitality industry, offering exciting, challenging and rewarding careers. With their knowledge of the local market, combined with the international standards of training provided by Jebel Ali International Hotels, we are convinced that many of our UAE nationals will go on to take senior management positions in the future.”

The Jebel Ali International Hotels Group works closely with higher colleges, universities and schools in the UAE, presenting its careers opportunities to students and introducing them to the hospitality industry. Educational institutions such as Dubai Women's College, Zayed University and Sharjah Women's College are all involved with the Group's recruitment road shows.

Hotel searches a tricky Web process

Consumer group calls travel Internet sites 'confusing'

Independent Study Reveals Pros and Cons of Wide Variety of Travel Sites and Reveals Potential for More Complexity and Bias

Consumer WebWatch, a project of Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, today unveiled a study that shows the number of unregulated, integrated travel sites on the Internet has grown, and the complexity of booking rooms and subjectivity of information has similarly increased. The study on hotel-booking Web sites compares and contrasts rates and services available through a variety of popular travel sites.

As part of its mission to improve the credibility of service-oriented Web sites, Consumer WebWatch undertook its first independent examination of online hotel-booking services in late February of 2003. The February 2003 project aimed to determine which sites offer consumers the best services as well as to provide consumers with guidelines for getting the most out of the popular sites.

As part of the evaluation process, several of the leading integrated travel sites were analyzed in controlled, real-time, head-to-head testing, in order to determine which sites offered the most thorough displays and lowest rates for hotel rooms. The sites tested included Expedia, Hotels.com, Lodging.com, Orbitz and Travelocity, as well as several branded sites maintained by national hotel chains.

Methodology:

The testing was benchmarked with Sabre, the leading global distribution system (GDS) used by travel agencies in the U.S. of hotel booking sites. All testing was performed by trained individuals and statistical analysis provided by Consumers Union led to the creation of five separate tests, each consisting of 30 entries, across all seven sites. The testing simulated a variety of trips in 30 cities throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean. Consumer WebWatch's research detailed the best and worst sites for searching for hotel rooms by price, location star ratings, and specific brands and properties. The findings of the testing were grouped into four major categories: lowest raters, closest rates, lowest rates by test and lowest average rates.

"For better or worse, the Web has most definitely revolutionized the travel distribution system," said William McGee, a travel journalist and consultant to Consumer WebWatch and the Editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter from 2000 to 2002. "As more and more consumers turn to the web to book hotels, it is important that they understand the limitations of hotel-booking sites."

The research project was completely funded by Consumer WebWatch. Outside consulting and GDS benchmarking were provided by New York-based Harrell Associates, Inc., an independent consulting firm.

Among the most significant findings presented by this testing of hotel sites:

-- Overall, Travelocity provided the highest number of lowest rates: 29% in 150 tests, outpacing its nearest competitors, Orbitz (21%) and Expedia (17%).

-- The advent of "Web rates" was a potent factor. In 85% of the tests, one or more of the six Web sites provided lower rates than Sabre, the largest GDS used by travel agencies. Sabre and all other GDSs are regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation to ensure fair and unbiased listings. Although Consumer WebWatch included Sabre as a benchmark for these tests, the lowest rates provided by the GDS were consistently beaten by one or more of the Web sites, sometimes by hundreds of dollars. The poor performance posted by Sabre, however, does not mean that travel agencies have lost a competitive edge. Some travel agents employ a variety of tools to find the best fares and rates, both online and offline.

-- The lowest average rate was provided by Travelocity. Hotels.com, which did not perform very well overall, provided the second-lowest average.

-- Overall, the "branded" sites maintained by hotel chains and specific hotel properties performed rather poorly. But there was one significant exception: the branded sites outperformed all competitors except Travelocity and provided the lowest rates in one out of three cases.

-- Orbitz was especially capable of coming quite close to providing the lowest rates. In 14 separate queries, Orbitz provided rates that were no higher than $5 per night compared to the lowest rates provided.

-- Expedia, in particular, proved to be quite adept at beating competitive rates by a very small margin. In several cases, Expedia edged the nearest competitor by less than $1 per night.

Regarding increasing complexity, one problem common to all five integrated travel Web sites is that, overall, their search tools are not very intuitive in the manner of traditional branded search engines, such as Google or Lycos. These travel sites are quite intolerant when the user incorrectly inputs information; the slightest mistake in spelling or punctuation can render the search useless. In addition, when these intolerances are coupled with slight variances in the listings of specific hotel properties from site to site (e.g., "Four Points by Sheraton St. Louis Downtown" vs. "Four Points by Sheraton Downtown St. Louis"), searching can be even more difficult. It's worth stressing that consumers need to engage in extensive trouble-shooting when searching for hotel rates on these sites. Multiple queries are sometimes necessary to obtain the proper rates.

Bias and usability concerns were also unearthed by the study. For example, even though the integrated travel Web sites tout the power of sophisticated tools to assist in searching for rates and availability, it's quite clear that the sites are not offering consumers simple, easy-to-use functionality that would allow them to search for hotel rates in lowest-to-highest rankings.

In fact, none of these five integrated travel Web sites--Expedia, Hotels.com, Lodging.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity--offered easy functionality to obtain lowest rates during the first search. Obtaining lowest-to-highest listings by price required more advanced searches, when available. Further, these lowest-to-highest search tools were not always clearly labeled for consumers to find.

This was one of the most disturbing findings to evolve during this testing. The supposed value of an integrated site lies in the inherent choices it offers a consumer, rather than the limited choices offered by branded or "dealership-model" sites. Although there is little doubt that these integrated sites have the technological capability to deliver easy-to-use listings of lowest-to-highest hotel rates, they are not readily doing so.

Consumers may well feel that they are not controlling the interface, and that in fact these integrated travel Web sites are pushing preferred suppliers at them.

"The depth and intensity of the testing and investigation of these sites is unprecedented, and the takeaway for consumers is clear: The convenience and exclusive Web fares offered by these sites come with a responsibility to dig deep, and make sure you are really getting as good a deal as you think, at the property, location and time you want," said Beau Brendler, Director of Consumer WebWatch.

These questions will likely remain unanswered. In an effort to help consumers seeking deals on the Internet, Consumer WebWatch has developed practical tips for consumers shopping for a hotel room on the Web.

Consumer WebWatch Tips for Booking Hotels Online

-- Keep shopping around. Yes, Consumers Union has issued this warning before--more than once. But it remains the single most important piece of advice to help you find the best travel bargains online. For context: After extensive testing and analysis, Travelocity emerged as the winner in this session of hotel testing. And yet Travelocity's strong performance needs to be put into context. Simply put, Travelocity failed to return the lowest hotel rate more than 70% of the time. All the other sites performed even worse. If it's important to you to find the best rates and fares, you need to consult more than one site.

-- Always ensure that the rate you've found is available for immediate booking. The better sites will provide explanations of their booking policies.

-- Before booking a hotel room online, make sure you've determined the final rate. There may be additional charges, including federal, state, and local taxes; security and lodging fees; and booking or service fees from the hotel and/or the web site.

-- Beware of potential bias. The screens on the leading independent travel web sites are inundated with banners, pop-ups, pop-unders, and even rate listings that are bought and paid for with hotel advertising and marketing dollars. Make sure that you've examined all the choices before booking.

-- Never book a hotel room online until you've read and understood the cancellation policy. Many independent travel web sites charge additional fees for changes and cancellations, in addition to fees levied by the hotel.

-- If you know the specific hotel property you want to visit, conduct an online search and find the branded web site for that hotel (which may be maintained by either the chain or the property itself). The chances are good that you may find a lower rate there. In fact, when Consumer WebWatch queried rates at specific properties, lower rates were returned by the branded sites in 1 out of 3 cases.

-- When shopping for hotel rates online, always ensure that you are extremely accurate about the information you input. For example, many hotel chains maintain properties with similar-sounding names (e.g., "Marriott Downtown" vs. "Marriott Midtown" or "Holiday Inn Airport" vs. "Holiday Inn Airport North"). If you're comparing rates for a specific property, determine its full address and zip code before comparison shopping on other sites.

-- Be very careful when comparison shopping from site to site. During the course of this testing, Consumer WebWatch found numerous problems with the default functions on some travel sites. Each site may not store and "remember" the information you input as you shop, so the data you entered may be lost and the search engine may revert to incorrect dates or locations.

-- Use a credit card for online purchases. Credit cards generally provide the most federal consumer protections in the United States. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, your liability for unauthorized charges is limited to $50 -- if you report the billing error to the credit card company in writing within 60 days after the bill was mailed to you. Credit card companies and e-merchants may cover this fee in certain situations. Some credit card companies also will let you use a temporary "throw-away" credit card number when making purchases online, so that payments are credited to your actual credit card but without your needing to share electronically your real account number or password. Inquire with your credit card company about this option. You may also want to consider setting aside a single credit card for online use. That way, if a security breach occurs, you will still be able to use your other credit cards.

e-Ratings of hotel-booking sites, based on the results of this report, will be available to consumers later this year. For the near term, consumers can go to www.consumerreports.org to access an article that summarizes the findings from the research report. The full results from this study can be found at www.consumerwebwatch.org.

Consumer WebWatch Also Takes A Closer Look at Search & Health

In addition to the hotel-booking study, Consumer WebWatch today unveiled findings from four new research reports on search engines and health sites at its first national summit on Web credibility, entitled "Building Trust on the Web."

Consumer WebWatch commissioned Context-based Research Group, a Baltimore-based anthropological firm, to conduct an ethnographic study that examined consumers' attitudes toward the pay-for-placement practices employed by some search engine Web sites. The study revealed that all 17 of its participants were surprised to learn commonly used search engines are paid to list some results and sites more prominently than others and changed their search behavior as a result. Specifically, many respondents claimed that they were less likely to trust the first result listed, or even the entire first page of listings, upon learning about the pay-for-placement practice.

While some said they had no real aversion to the practice, they did stress that paid links and ads should be more clearly marked to distinguish them from "pure" search listings. These findings among others prompted some study participants to speculate that the practice would become less tolerable as consumer understanding of pay-for-placement marketing increases. The ethnographic approach enabled Context researchers to spend a significant period of time with each participant in their natural setting, observing what they actually do versus relying on what they say they do.

In January of 2003, the Health Improvement Institute (HII) and Consumer WebWatch initiated a research project to examine the credibility of health Web sites by first looking at guidelines available from various entities. The study found that there are no criteria readily available to consumers or to professionals that allow them to assess the credibility and reliability of health Web sites. In the next phase of the project, the Institute intends to develop, test, and apply such a tool that will produce independent ratings of health Web sites. The tool will allow a user to judge a site's ease of use as well as its purpose, sponsors, currency and sources.

The Consumer WebWatch mission is to investigate; inform; and improve the credibility of information on the Web. ConsumerWebWatch.org is home to research and analysis on issues of credibility, usability and content, along with news of use to consumers navigating the Web.

Consumer WebWatch is a project of Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine and ConsumerReports.org. The project is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which invests in ideas that fuel timely action and results; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities; and the Open Society Institute, which encourages debate in areas in which one view of an issue dominates all others.

The material above is intended for use by legitimate news entities only; it may not be used for commercial or promotional purposes. Consumer Reports(R) is published by Consumers Union, an independent, nonprofit testing and information-gathering organization, serving only the consumer. We are a comprehensive source of unbiased advice about products and services, personal finance, health, nutrition, and other consumer concerns. Since 1936, our mission has been to test products, inform the public, and protect consumers.

IT&CMA 2003 Gets Strong Support From ICCA

The International Congress and Conventions Association (ICCA) will be holding the 7th ICCA Congress & Exhibition in the city of Busan, Korea on 26 – 29 October 2003. As one of IT&CMA’s Endorsing Association, ICCA has declared its strong support for IT&CMA 2003 by ensuring that the dates of ICCA Congress does not clash with those of IT&CMA 2003. Delegates of the Congress will hence be able to attend IT&CMA 2003 the following week, 4 – 6 November 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The prestigious ICCA Congress & Exhibition only takes place in Asia Pacific every three or four years, and is a great opportunity for Asian MICE specialists to learn more about international meetings, as well as to network with senior directors and specialist managers from the world's leading meeting venues and specialised service providers.

"We strongly believe that Asian meetings professionals can benefit enormously from attending both the ICCA Congress and the IT&CMA Show, and we hope that many delegates take up both opportunities. Both events offer critical yet complementary business opportunities for our members, and in this year of business and economic uncertainty it is vital that no such opportunities are missed,” said Martin Sirk, ICCA's Chief Executive Officer.

This year there is a distinctive Asian flavour to ICCA's educational programme, which will be showcasing "Asian Expertise" for CEO's and other senior delegates, and "Critical Skills" for senior and middle managers. Case studies, client panels and interactive sessions will all be featured.

ICCA's Congress also offers unique business opportunities, with a business-to-business exhibition, Business Leads Exchanges, Data Workshops for research specialists, and specialist sessions run within ICCA's sector-specific Category structure.

To find out more about ICCA and its Congress, go to www.iccaworld.com/7congress .

Travel trade launches ‘We love HK’ campaign to boost spending

Forrester: Don't Ignore The Small Business Traveller

Opportunity knocks in the small business travel sector but many of the larger travel companies aren't listening

Micro Enterprise Journal  -  On the whole, much of the travel industry ignores what it considers "small" accounts — companies that spend less than $1 million annually on business travel. Forrester Research, in a recently published brief entitled Exploiting Small Firms' Focused Travel Tech Needs, concludes that this is a market that deserves more attention.

While they are smaller businesses than the huge corporate accounts, these businesses are big enough to have designated travel managers and fairly beefy travel budgets. When Forrester conducted a survey of 380 of these travel managers, they discovered that these "small" accounts spend an average of more than $725,000 a year on airline tickets, Amtrak, accommodations and auto rentals.

Meanwhile, these companies may or may not use travel management companies (TMCs) like American Express, WorldTravel BTI or Rosenbluth International, but Forrester found that neither TMCs nor booking engines meet both the needs and the budgets of these smaller firms.

Generally speaking, booking engines (software applications used by travel managers to manage the company's travel requirements) are optimized for larger accounts. For a TMC to meet their travel needs, they would have to provide the small business travel manager with good advice to help them with some key tasks: saving money on travel management fees, finding technological solutions to improve productivity of traveling personnel, and evaluating new travel technologies.  

Without that kind of customer service, and without the will to make themselves more attractive to the small account customer than the big three of Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, Forrester envisions that most TMCs will abandon any attempt to shave off a cut of this market.

Another trend that may be worthy of note is that, while these customers are not likely to be spending a lot of their budgets on fancy travel-related software applications, they will be spending on communications technologies. For microbusinesses serving this market, real opportunities exist in mobile and wireless communications, mostly in the form of service packages, and in videoconferencing.

With the travel industry in general, and the airlines in particular, taking a beating as one thing after another takes a bite out of industry stability, microbusiness travel agents may be doing themselves a favor to target the smaller of these "small account" businesses. It may be worthwhile, for example, to use a bit of ingenuity and savvy to put together a package of services for these customers. In such an ailing industry, taking advantage of market opportunities like this are just the kind of thing that help microbusinesses to ride out the storm.

Le Méridien’s Madrid Ritz sold to Orient-Express JV

e-tid.com  -  Orient-Express Hotels and Spanish investment group Omega Capital have agreed a €125m (£86.5m) deal to purchase the Hotel Ritz in Madrid from Le Méridien.

The 167-room hotel will be operated by Orient-Express under a long-term management contract.
Commenting on the acquisition Simon Sherwood, president of Orient-Express Hotels, said: ‘We are proud to have been able to acquire this world-famous landmark property together with Omega and to manage it within Orient-Express Hotels.

‘We have agreed with Omega on a €25m improvement plan that will include a conservatory type dining terrace, additional and better conference, spa and banqueting facilities, upgrade of technical aspects and enhancements of the garden.’

The Madrid Ritz takes Orient-Express’ hotel portfolio to 42 in 17 countries worldwide. It is the company’s second property in Spain after La Residencia in Majorca, acquired from Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Hotels in February 2002. Orient-Express also operates tourist trains, restaurants and a river cruiser.