| Industry
News
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ECONOMIC INSIGHTS ---
TIA REPORTS
RECORD NUMBERS EXPECTED TO TRAVEL THIS SUMMER
Despite rising prices, Americans will be traveling in
record numbers this summer with Florida, California,
Nevada and New York the top preferred destinations. "Every sector of the travel industry will be up,
up, up," according to Dr. Suzanne Cook, senior
vice president of research for the Travel Industry Association
of America. "The momentum in travel recovery that
began in earnest last year is continuing into the summer
with a 2.3 percent increase in leisure travel. That
means that Americans will take 328 million leisure person-trips
during June, July and August 2005." While the number
of trips is up, the number of nights away from home
continues to decline from 7.6 nights last summer to
7 nights this summer on their longest leisure trip.
Travelers plan on spending an average of $1,019 on their
longest leisure trip this summer, a decrease of 7 percent
from summer 2004 ($1,101). "Again, what we see
here is a trend to take more trips during the year of
shorter duration. So while the spending per trip is
down, the number of trips is up," continued Cook.
WEEKEND
VACATIONS TOP POPULARITY AT 56% OF ALL TRIPS
Weekend vacations (4 nights or less including a Saturday)
continue to reign as the most popular and now represent
56% of all vacations taken by Americans, although there
has been an increase in the incidence of vacations lasting
more than five nights, according to the 2005 National
Leisure Monitor. Other survey results include: 30% of
adults are planning to take fewer vacations in the year
ahead (roughly equivalent to the percentage observed
last year), and "not able to get away from my job/work" is the most frequently-cited reason why; Trips that
include a naturalistic element remain very popular,
with the incidence of beach/lake vacations rising significantly
over the previous year (cited by an estimated 27% of
leisure travelers, up from 21% last year).
FLORIDA,
CALIFORNIA, HAWAII ARE TOP CHOICES FOR VACATIONS
Florida (40%), California (36%), Hawaii (22%), New York
(19%), Colorado (17%) and Nevada (17%) remain the states
U.S. adults say they would like to visit most during
the next two years, according to the 2005 National Leisure
Monitor. Other survey notes include: National parks
now top the list of specific destinations of interest
to American leisure travelers (66%), followed by the
Neighbor Islands of Hawaii (63%), Honolulu (59%), the
Florida Keys (53%), the mountain resorts of Colorado
(46%) and Lake Tahoe (46%). New York City is mentioned
by 45% of adults, Orlando by 44% and Las Vegas by 43%.
E&Y
SURVEY SEES WARMING TREND FOR HOSPITALITY SECTOR
The hotel sector is expected to continue a warming trend,
according to a new lodging survey report by Ernst & Young. Continuing improvement in lodging fundamentals
has also resulted in more investor interest in hospitality
stocks. Condominiums are no longer just for primary
housing. With current interest rates, condos that meld
into resort and retirement concepts are by far the most
in demand product. Meeting planners are favoring destinations
that offer the variety of options now demanded by convention-goers.
Improved occupancy and increased rates are more than
being matched by higher costs. Insurance rates have
doubled in only three years, at least partially because
Mother Nature has taken a bigger than usual toll on
the Southeast.
HOTEL
REV PAR EXPECTED TO RISE 6.9% TO $57 IN U.S. IN 2005
After regaining pricing power in mid-2004, hotels can
expect further improvement in average daily rates on
the order of a 4 percent increase this year to $90,
according to a new Ernst & Young lodging report.
U.S. RevPAR will rise 6.9 percent to $57 this year,
surpassing the $55 RevPAR level seen in 2000, Ernst
& Young said. The 2005 RevPAR figure will be built
on a 1.7 percentage point occupancy increase to 63 percent
this year.
CONFERENCE
CENTER DEMAND REBOUNDS
The demand for conference centers in the United States
increased 4.3 percent last year over the year before,
and revenues rose 7.5 percent, hospitality specialist
PKF Consulting reported. Conference centers expect to
extend their gains this year with an average 9-percent
rise in occupancy and 4-percent increase in packaged
pricing, according to PKF's annual Trends in the Conference
Center Industry. - Meeting News
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HOTEL HIGHLIGHTS ---
U.S. HOTELS BREAK THREE-YEAR
LOSING STREAK
The typical U.S. hotel achieved an 11.4 percent
increase in profits in 2004 over 2003 according to the
2005 edition of Trends in the Hotel Industry published
by PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR), an affiliate of
PKF Consulting. This improved profitability follows
a three-year industry recession that saw unit-level
hotel profits decline 36.2 percent during the period
2001 through 2003. While the turnaround in unit-level
profitability is certainly welcome news, the average
hotel in the Trends sample is just barely achieving
the same bottom line dollars they did back in 1996.--
Travel Commerce Report
SURVEY
SHOWS GUESTS SPEND MORE ON SPAS THAN DINING
Over 1 in 3 spend more on spa treatments than
food and wine, according to a survey by Small Luxury
Hotels, which surveyed over 1000 frequent travelers
and regular spa-goers in 20 countries as to their likes,
dislikes and preferences of the spa experience. Research
found that typically these guests book at least one
treatment during every weekend break, and three during
a week-long stay. More than a third (36%) say they spend
more in hotels on spa therapies than they do on fine
dining and wines.
ZAGAT
ADDS HOTEL LISTINGS TO RESTAURANT REVIEW WEBSITE
Zagat Survey, the popular restaurant guide
based on reader reviews, has added ratings of hotels,
nightspots, and attractions to its recently upgraded
website. The website, at zagat.com, brings together
the content of Zagat's 70 guidebooks for the first time.
The site contains information on restaurants and hotels
worldwide, nightspots in 20 major cities, and U.S. tourist
attractions--more than 30,000 listings in all. - Meeting
News
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AIR TRAVEL TRENDS ---
CANADIAN
AIRLINE COLLAPSE FOCUSES ON ONLINE FRAILITIES
The collapse of discount airline Jetsgo Corp.
is likely to cast a pall over the travel industry. "It's
bad news all around," says Steve Gillick, president
of the Canadian Institute of Travel Counsellors of Ontario,
which offers education and training for travel agents.
"It creates some anxiety, some hesitancy, in everybody's
mind about what the state of the industry is."
But it's not clear whether the "bad taste" will sour travelers on a popular trend - booking tickets
over Internet websites. More than one-third of Canadians
with access to the Web used it to buy travel in 2003,
according to a survey by polling firm Ipsos-Reid Corp.
That was double the previous year's number. -- Toronto
Star
MOBISSIMO
ENTERED A PARTNERSHIP WITH AMERICAN AIRLINES
Fares for American flights will be available
on the Mobissimo Web site in the second quarter of this
year. With more than 3,800 flights a day, American's
network, including American Eagle and the AmericanConnection
regional carriers, serves more than 250 cities in over
40 countries.
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INTERNATIONAL INFO ---
PFK HOTEL
REPORT SHOWS U.K. HOTEL INDUSTRY 'BUOYANT'
The UK hotel industry is definitely on the
way up, according to PKF hotel consultancy services.
Investments are at record levels whilst trading performances
of both London and regional U.K. hotels are approaching
levels last seen five years ago, as revealed in a PKF
report. Levels of performance in 2004 were encouraging,
showing that things are definitely getting better for
U.K. hoteliers. Average daily rooms yield was up 10.1%
to £56.64 for the whole of the U.K. In London
the figure was even higher -- up 11.8% to £79.54,
whilst outside London the increase was 5.1% to £45.73.
Occupancy growth was strongest in London, rising 2.8%
to 76.3%, but the regions easily kept their head above
water, pushing occupancy up 1.3% to 71.4%.
ASIAN
DESTINATIONS RISE IN WORLD TOURISM RANKING
The latest data on international tourist arrivals
to the various destinations in the world collected by
the World Tourism Organization showed significant changes
in the table of the world's top tourism destinations
in 2004. As a result of the strong rebound experienced
last year, Asian destinations significantly strengthened
their position in the ranking. Although the order of
the three main world tourism destinations remained unchanged
with France as unchallenged leader, major developments
in 2004 included China taking over Italy's traditional
position as the world's fourth most visited destination,
and the entry of Hong Kong (China) among the top ten
tourism destinations. - Travel Wire News
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BIZ/LEISURE TRAVEL ---
PLANNERS
WILL ARRANGE MORE MEETINGS IN 2005 & BEYOND
According to a survey of pre-registrants attending
the ninth annual Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association
International's (HSMAI) Affordable Meetings® West
show June 15 - 16, 2005 at the San Jose McEnery Convention
Center in San Jose, CA, the majority of the respondents
(70 percent) expect to plan more meetings in 2005 and
beyond. Most of those respondents (60 percent) anticipate
planning one - five more meetings.
BUSINESS
TRAVELERS REVERSE TREND BY USING TRAVEL AGENTS
Growing numbers of business travelers may
be reversing a trend by using agents, says the 2005
National Business Travel Monitor. Individuals asked
about travel practices in 2004 and expectations for
2005 found that 32% of business travelers used agent
services, up from 25% the year before. The "significantly
higher percentage" of business travelers returning
to travel agents reversed the trend in recent years
of fast growth for online services, according to Yesawich,
Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, the Orlando company
that co-authors the annual study. There's no question
business travelers still use the internet extensively:
68% turned to it to plan some aspect of their travel,
and 54% booked an online trip last year, the survey
found. Yesawich concludes that time constraints and
suspicions about accurate pricing are helping turn more
travelers to traditional agents for help. --TravelMole.com
LAS VEGAS
RANKS NUMBER ONE IN HOSTING TRADE SHOWS
In 2004, Las Vegas hosted 38 of the nation's
200 largest trade shows, while second-place Chicago
hosted 18 and third-ranked Orlando hosted 18. Tradeshow
Week, a Los Angeles-based magazine that monitors the
global convention industry, each year compiles a list
of the nation's largest conventions and trade shows.
And in 2004, for the 11th consecutive year, Las Vegas
ranked atop the magazine's Tradeshow Week 200.
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CRUISE NEWS ---
EASYCRUISES
EYES GREECE
The founder and chairman of cut-price service
provider easyGroup, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has begun
talks with Greece's merchant marine ministry on bringing
easyCruises to the Greek islands in the summer of 2006. "Today we started talking to the ministry,"
Haji-Ioannou told a Foreign Press Association press
conference on Monday night. "We're trying to access
seven ports for summer 2006." A sample cruise could
start from the Athens port of Piraeus and include the
islands of Mykonos, Patmos, Rhodes, the port-cities
of Iraklio and Chania on Crete, and Milos, he said.
-- USA Today
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ONLINE ISSUES ---
INTERNET
USE FOR LEISURE TRAVEL PLANNING UP TO 56%
According to the 2005 National Leisure Monitor
the Internet is now used exclusively for vacation planning
purposes by 56% of all leisure travelers who are active
hotel and airline users, whereas 23% consult both travel
agents and the Internet and 10% rely exclusively on
travel agents; Although the percentage of adults who
have used the Internet to obtain information and/or
prices on travel services declined from the previous
year, the percentage who now report booking reservations
online has increased from 45% to 47%.
MARKETERS
INCREASE USE OF E-MAIL MARKETING
E-mail marketing is cheap but users worry
that their messages are overwhelmed by the still-present
scourge of online spam. A new survey by IRNewslink found
marketers are boosting their use of the tactic, but
nagging doubts about the true efficiency remain. "Despite
the fact that their promotional e-mails must rise above
an ever growing amount of spam to get noticed and despite
their belief that e-mail marketing generates a small
percentage of their online sales, the majority of those
surveyed are stepping up their e-mail marketing this
year for two related reasons: their retail Web businesses
and Internet customer bases are growing and e-mail offers
perhaps the best means for communicating with online
shoppers," says Jack Love, IR Publisher. -- Sales
and Marketing Magazine
TRAVEL
SEARCH ENGINES POSE THREAT TO TRAVEL AGENCIES
Just when you thought there was no room for
another player in the travel and airline retail-supply
chain, another group of players has moved in to aggressively
seize market share. Now travel meta-search engines like
Kayak, Mobissimo and Yahoo! Farechase are the latest
in the travel consumer's arsenal for finding the absolute
lowest prices. According to Hitwise, the world`s leading
online competitive intelligence service, the market
share of visits to four of the major travel search engines
has increased by 304 percent in the past six months
(April 2005 versus October 2004) and their contribution
of Visits to the Hitwise Travel Agencies category increased
by 250 percent when comparing October 2004 to April
2005. In the same period, the market share of visits
of the top 5 travel agencies (Expedia, Travelocity,
Orbitz, Yahoo! Travel and CheapTickets) increased by
11.3 percent, while their contribution of visits to
the Travel Agencies category decreased from 65.3 percent
to 62.2 percent.
SABRE TO
ACQUIRE LASTMINUTE.COM
Sabre and Lastminute.com have reached an agreement
for Sabre to acquire Lastminute.com. The addition of
Lastminute.com, with its well-established consumer brands,
is expected to provide Sabre's Travelocity unit with
greater scale and a leading position in the growing
online travel marketplace.
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ASSOCIATION NEWS---
HSMAI JOB
SERVICE INCREASES LISTINGS
The Marketing Career Network (MCN), which
HSMAI joined recently, continues to add quality candidates
and open sales and marketing positions. The MCN, which
is accessible through the HSMAI Career Center, currently
includes a searchable database of 26,552 resumes, and
lists 380 open sales and marketing positions. The MCN
is an alliance of trade and professional associations
with a combined registered membership of over 100,000
marketing, advertising and sales professionals with
reach to over 750,000 industry practitioners. HSMAI
Members can post open positions that will automatically
be listed on all MCN Partner Career Centers at no extra
charge. HSMAI Members currently receive a 25% discount
on job posting and resume searching fees. In addition,
HSMAI members now have access to exclusive Career Development
resources, such as resume critique and career coaching
services, and can search open positions.
HSMAI HONORS
CHAPTER EXCELLENCE
Recognizing the "Best-of-the-Best"
in chapter practices from over 65 entries from 18 chapters
from across the Americas, the 25th Annual HSMAI Frank
W. Berkman Chapter Awards Program was presented at the
2005 Chapter Leadership Forum held in Portland, OR.
In addition to winning a cash reward and receiving a
plaque, first place winners are further recognized by
having their winning entries posted in the chapter resource
section of the HSMAI's web site as "Best-of-the-Best" Chapter Awards. Second place winners received plaques
of recognition.
Small
Chapter Winning Entries:
Awards & Recognition: Missouri Chapter
Communications: Colorado Springs Chapter
Customer Interaction: Gulf South Chapter
Education: Northeast Florida Chapter
Fundraising/Community Involvement: Charlotte Chapter
Leadership Development: Gulf South Chapter
Membership Retention & Development: Gulf South Chapter
Partnership Development: Missouri Chapter
Web Site: Gulf South Chapter
Large
Chapter Winning Entries:
Awards & Recognition: Northern California
Chapter
Communications: Dallas Chapter
Customer Interaction: Greater Phoenix Chapter
Education: Dallas Chapter
Fundraising/Community Involvement: Central Florida Chapter
Leadership Development: Big Apple Chapter
Membership Retention & Development: Dallas Chapter
Partnership Development: Greater Phoenix Chapter
Web Site: Big Apple Chapter
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Here to view winning entries!
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