July 15, 2007
 
Independent U.S. Hotels Battle Big Chains
Laboratory beakers are seldom featured in hotel rooms, but at the Dylan Hotel in New York they are standard bathroom issue. These glass containers, which echo the building's previous life as a chemists' club, are just one way independent hotels are setting themselves apart from chain hotels as the battle for travelers heats up.
Reuters says that lodging giants like Marriott International Inc., Hilton Hotels Corp. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. have been using their scale and marketing muscle to squeeze the competition in recent years. But independents hoteliers ­ from sleek, urban boutique hotels to mom-and-pop roadside motels ­ are fighting back with personalized services and exclusive experiences that are difficult for chain hotels to duplicate.
"Not everyone wants to drink at Starbucks," said John Campbell, general manager of Colony Beach and Tennis Club in La Jolla, California. "Sometimes, people want to do something different." The hotel, for example, has a tradition of taking guests' children to the beach to pick up litter and have fun on the way.
Independents have been feeling the pressure. Their U.S. market share in terms of total room revenue fell to 30.2% in 2006, down from 35.6% in 1997, according to data from Smith Travel Research. While overall room revenue for independent hotels is growing, it lags chain hotels. Last year, independents took in $30.3 billion in revenue, up about 30% from 1997. Big chains took in $70 billion last year, up about 66% over the same period.
In search of more revenue, major hotel companies are even starting their own boutique brands, targeted at travelers that avoid the typical "beige-box" accommodations of chain hotels. Intercontinental Hotels, which operates Holiday Inns, introduced boutique brand Hotel Indigo in 2004, while Marriott recently announced a partnership with Ian Schrager ­ who invented the idea of the boutique hotel in the 1980s ­ to start an as-yet-unnamed "lifestyle hotel" brand.
In their battle for survival, independents are focusing on the unique experiences which distinguish their hotels. At the Dylan Hotel, for example, guests can request car service and their favorite wine to be ready for their arrival when they book online.
These little touches help the Dylan Hotel stand out in a sea of indistinguishable Hiltons, Marriotts and Westins, said David Chu, director of sales and marketing for Dylan. "We have to take better care of our customers" to compete against the loyalty programs and familiarity that chain hotels offer, Chu said.
In addition to personalized service, independent hotels are also joining wide-ranging hotel affiliation groups such as Preferred Hotels and Resorts or Magnuson Hotels to remain competitive. These groups offer online booking systems, marketing services and deals on hotel supplies that help smaller hotels stay competitive. "It's a blend between being a franchise and being independent," said Kirrit Bhikha, vice president of Alexis Inn and Suites in Nashville, Tennessee.
Stephen Bartolin, chief executive of the Broadmoor in Colorado, said people have been looking for the demise of independents for years. "Many people wonder how independents survive, but you can," Bartolin said. "There's a niche there."
 
The Downgrading Of Business Travel
For many professionals, business travel used to come with certain perks ­ a posh hotel, a lavish meal, minibar raids and maybe a pay-per-view movie before bed. But, says The Wall Street Journal, with hotel rates skyrocketing and companies clamping down on spending, business travel is becoming increasingly bare-bones, even a tinge humiliating. These days, it can sometimes resemble college dorm living, involving roommates, cooking your own meals and crashing on a friend's couch.
While companies long have been slashing costs on air travel, forcing employees to fly coach and take cheaper connecting flights, comfortable hotel stays, until recently, were still usually a given. Now, corporate cost-cutting efforts include everything from pushing employees to share hotel rooms to installing software that guilts travelers into choosing cheaper digs.
Indeed, more companies are banning stays in pricey boutique hotels. This year, more than 76% of employers say they are booking fewer luxury hotels in favor of midclass properties, according to the National Business Travel Association survey of 1,800 corporate travel managers.
 
Hotel Industry Boom At An End?
The hotel industry's three-year boom, marked by steeply rising room rates and high occupancy, may have peaked, says USA Today.
Marriott International, one of the world's largest hotel companies, seemed to confirm that suspicion, cutting back its business forecast for the rest of the year. Marriott on Thursday led off the industry's second quarter earnings season.
Despite a double-digit year-over-year growth in income, shares of the Bethesda, Md.-based company ­ and those of some competitors ­ fell even as stock indexes rose to record highs. Investors appear to react to Marriott's scaling back of expectations for 2007. Marriott shares fell 2.8% to $45.04. Resurgent demand from business travelers starting in 2004 after the post-9/11 travel slump ushered in a boom for the hotel industry. It has been marked by historically high room rates and double-digit annual increases in company revenues.
But travelers have been showing resistance to room rate increases, and corporate customers have toughened their bargaining. Wall Street analysts have warned in the past few months that the growth rate for the hotel business can be expected to slow.
 
What's The Only Company That Scares Google? Facebook.
Just as Google has become what some people call the operating system for search, Facebook is turning itself into the operating system for social networking. While Google knows what millions of people are searching for, Facebook has something the search giant hasn't been able to grow: a network of connections between people that creates a viral distribution platform unrivaled by any portal or search engine.  
"Today we're going to start a revolution," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted in late May to a crowd of 800 developers at the San Francisco Design Center. The 23-year-old was announcing that Facebook would open up its platform to allow them to create ­ and monetize ­ applications on the site. It was an ambitious announcement that ran counter to the direction MySpace appeared to be heading after spending millions to buy its own application-development companies.
According to Advertising Age at the core of Mr. Zuckerberg's message is what he calls the "social graph," or the connections people create on the site. Those connections can be used to improve typical web services such as shopping or searching for product recommendations.
Of course, few above the age of 25 can truly get just how compelling that social graph is because, well, they lack one. While a Facebook user can pimp out his own profile and perhaps find value in that itself, Facebook doesn't truly become powerful until all of one's friends are on it, connecting.
Which isn't as hard as it sounds. One recent college grad living in the Midwest (full disclosure: the source is this reporter's sister) estimated that 99.5% of her classmates were on Facebook. When pressed to name friends who weren't on the platform, she could name only one.
May web-traffic numbers from ComScore back that up. There are now 4 million 12- to 17-year-old unique visitors and 3.1 million in the 25-to-34 demo. The over-35 crowd has grown by 98% to 10.4 million monthly uniques. The 38% growth in the 18- to 24-year-old demo (which boasts 7.8 million unique visitors) is the slowest growth of all the demos on Facebook over the past year. Facebook has a total of 29 million users.
 
Pillow Perks At Detroit Hotel
Guests at MotorCity Casino's new hotel will enjoy a portable telephone, 37-inch flat-screen plasma TVs, robes, an iPod docking station and even a "pillow library."
According to The Detroit News the casino-hotel showcased a model of one of its luxury units today and announced the 400-room hotel would be open for business on November 1. The state-of-the-art rooms will start at $300 a night for the 350-square-foot units and the hotel also will feature 5,500-square-foot suites that cost $8,000 a night.
Luxury bedding will include 300-thread-count sheets and robes. The new hotel will offer a pillow library for selecting just the type of sleeping comfort you want. The marble bathrooms will offer a soaking tub as well as a separate shower area.
 
U.S. Demand For Air Travel Continues To Rise
Forbes reports that the number of passengers flying on U.S. airlines rose in April the seventh straight month, compared with year ago levels, according to a government tally released Thursday.
The Transportation Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics said U.S. airlines carried 64.9 million domestic and international passengers in April, up 2.7% from the same month last year.
 
Brands Shouldn't Ignore Offline Word-of-Mouth Activity
More than 28 million American Internet users will be Word of Mouth (WOM) influencers next year, according to eMarketer, says Online Media Daily. These users are "opinion leaders whose advice is sought, trusted, and acted upon by other consumers," and while they only make up 18% of the total online population, marketers are increasingly seeking to leverage their influence.
These influencers are more avid consumers of news than the general population. Some 84% read their local paper in a given month, compared with 68% of the general population. And while 48% of influencers visit a broadcast news Web site monthly, only 38% of the general population do.
But Debra Aho Williamson, author of the eMarketer WOM Marketing report, cautioned that advertisers who focus only on using online media to reach the loudest of the influencers may be missing the mark.
"While there's a small segment of people who are very vocal, posting reviews and blogs, there is this vast middle ground of people who are moderately influential, the ones who pass a video on to their friends, or find a cool site and tell their husband," said Williamson. "Marketers can't forget consumers who are influential in their smaller circle, both on- and offline."
Online media may be a more cost-effective and quantifiable method for generating WOM traction than offline media, but the research shows that traditional advertising holds more sway over the influencers. For example, 64% of influencers do online research after seeing or hearing an ad on TV, radio, or in a magazine--but only 30% notice a Web ad and later visit the Web site or check out the product in a store.
 
EU Experts Call For Unified Airspace
Associated Press reports that a group of EU experts has urged the union to speed up efforts to create a unified airspace over Europe in order to cut air travel costs, boost safety and improve the environmental efficiency of air traffic over the continent.
The High Level Group - an advisory body set up last year by the European Commission - said in a report the main aim of the plan was to strengthen performance across Europe's aviation system. "At present, performance is impeded by fragmentation across borders and across component parts of the aviation system," said the document which will serve as the basis for a new push to speed up the Single European Sky plan.
Despite numerous efforts to integrate air traffic management systems, Europe is still broken up into small slices of airspace controlled by national governments, which for political reasons have traditionally been keen to retain control over flights. This has contributed to making air travel over Europe 70% less cost efficient than in the United States.
The Single European Sky concept was introduced in 2004 to ensure greater aviation efficiency and improved environmental performance by eliminating the need for airliners to zigzag through 27 different national air spaces. Instead, the goal is to enable direct point-to-point travel with the help of a single, integrated air traffic control system.
 
Hotels Cater To Couples Celebrating Milestones…Or Trying To Conceive One
A guest at the Five Gables Inn and Spa in St. Michaels, Maryland abruptly cut short her stay when an issue arose that the hotel's staff couldn't handle: labor. The pregnant woman was taking advantage of Five Gables' "baby moon" package, one of a growing number of vacation getaways aimed at giving expecting couples one last vacation before parenthood.
Though the term "baby moon" originally meant the time parents spend alone with a new baby, in the travel industry it's now widely used to describe expecting parents' last hurrah before baby arrives.
According to Reuters, pre-baby vacations are just one example of hotels offering packages celebrating important family events. Packages aimed at new empty nesters and even couples trying to conceive a child are cropping up in hotels in the U.S. and Caribbean as hoteliers cater to people who have more money than time and need to escape hectic lives to focus on milestones.
"With affluence doing as well as it is, people have disposable income to celebrate rites of passage," said Tammy Peters, director of public relations for New York's Mandarin Oriental. The Mandarin's baby moon package includes sparkling cider, chocolate-dipped strawberries and spa treatments for expecting parents starting at $2,175 a night.
The popularity of offers such as these seems to be growing. W Hotels expanded its baby moon packages nationally in June, after its introduction in New York in 2005. The package, which includes a "womb" service menu with selections such as ice cream and plate of pickles, has been purchased by about 150 couples.
For those couples who are trying to make a baby, some resorts are offering so-called procreation vacations with aphrodisiacs and home-made fertility remedies. Starwood's Caribbean locations like the Martineau Bay Resort and Spa and The Westin St. John Resort and Villas provide unlimited sea moss elixirs and pumpkin soup for would-be moms and dads, as well as couples' massages and romantic dinners.
The package is aimed at dual-income couples who may want to get away from their stressful everyday lives to conceive, said Bill Thompson, area director of sales for Starwood Hotels Caribbean.
Since the resorts launched the package in late 2005, around 40 couples have purchased procreation vacations. The number is not very high, because some people are intimidated by the name and may not want everyone to know their plans, Thompson said.
But the procreation package does help generate interest in other romantic, less-goal-oriented, offers that the resorts provide, he added.
 
Air Travel To Bermuda Soars In 2007
Bermuda reported an 18% increase in the number of tourists flying into the mid-Atlantic British territory during 2007's first quarter, attributing the boost to an influx of visitors from the United States, says USA Today..
The increase over the same period last year comes as several Caribbean islands are reporting tourism slumps. Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados and St. Lucia have all posted decreases in air passengers, according to figures from the Caribbean Tourism Organization.
Bermuda, known for pink-sand beaches, diving and tax-free shopping, has been recovering from a decline in tourism in 2005 that the government blamed on high airfares and fears of hurricanes.
During the first quarter, 32,946 American air passengers visited the island 640 miles east of the U.S., compared with 26,732 in 2006.
 
Qantas Looks To Major Restructuring
Qantas is considering a radical restructure that could boost returns and shore up the airline against further takeover attempts, reports Airline Travel News.
Analysts said any restructure, which likely stem from plans outlined by the failed bidding group, which was led by Macquarie Bank Ltd. and buyout group TPG Inc., would make sense, particularly at this stage of the cycle. Without citing sources, the Australian Financial Review said Qantas may create a new business to house its fleet of more than 200 planes.
The carrier is looking at a number of options, including seeking co-investment from leasing firms or selling a stake in the business through a separate listing, the newspaper said.
The airline's board will also consider a proposal to spin off the its freight unit, Frequent Flyer loyalty program and plans to hand back a mooted A$2 billion in cash to shareholders at a meeting scheduled for July 18.
 
Survey: Most Americans Drop Their Green Habits When They Check-In To Hotels
The International Herald Tribune reports that most Americans check environmentally responsible behavior at the door when they check into a hotel, according to a survey released by Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
According to the survey:
ELEMENT Hotels, a new extended-stay brand from the White Plains-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., commissioned research firm STUDYLOGIC to conduct the telephone survey from May 30 to June 5. The poll of 1,041 randomly selected adults who said they stay at hotels at least three times a year has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
 
Mission impossible: Getting the 'best' price on any flight
One of the biggest puzzles of the consumer world is airline ticket pricing, says the Houston Chronicle, with travelers often left wondering why they paid one price while the passenger sitting beside them paid a lot more, or less, for the same flight. But it takes a computer scientist with a doctoral degree to really put things in perspective.
"It is theoretically impossible to guarantee that one can find the best route or price" at any given time, said Carl de Marcken, chief scientist and co-founder of ITA Software, a Cambridge, Mass., company that writes software used by online travel sites like Orbitz to calculate air-travel routes and prices.
That's because the pricing system used by airlines is so complicated. There are millions of possible combinations of fare factors for any given trip, he said, and the airlines' computer systems are constantly adjusting their fares.
De Marcken looked at all the factors that can affect a ticket price ­ the airline rules, dates and times of flights, the route taken, and many others. He breaks down fares into individual components called "pricing units," which further complicate things.
For one sample flight, an American Airlines trip between Boston and San Francisco that could connect at either Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport or Chicago, he concluded that there are nearly 25 million ways to arrive at a fare.
 
As Domestic Sales Slow, Travel Sites Go Global
For online travel agencies, the grass looks much greener on the other side of the ocean says The New York Times.
As bookings in the United States have stalled for most online travel agencies, companies like Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline and others have found that their investments in foreign markets are paying off ­ especially in Europe, where their bookings jumped about 30% last year. Although doing business in foreign markets can be complicated, executives and analysts said these efforts can also be lucrative.
“International has become a huge part of the story for this group as a whole,” said Jake Fuller, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners, an investment firm. “Bookings are growing faster, and they’re a significant piece of the pie now.”
Mr. Fuller said that overall bookings at Expedia, Travelocity and Priceline would rise by just 7% this year, to $33 billion, as airlines, hotels and car rental companies have worked harder to attract consumers directly to their own Web sites. The e-commerce market in the United States has also reached a point where sales in certain categories are beginning to level off.
Some early e-commerce leaders, like Amazon and eBay, have made similar forays into overseas markets, but analysts said companies that sell products face many more hurdles when expanding internationally.
Mr. Fuller said that about 30% of domestic travel is booked online, with room to grow possibly as high as 50%. But in Europe, online travel represents only about 20% of sales, and just about 12% in Asia. Because significant infrastructure hurdles still exist in markets like China, where credit card adoption lags that of Western markets, Europe is paying better dividends.
 
Prince Edward’s Island Now A Prince Among Golf Destinations
The Atlantic Canada province of Prince Edward Island has become a summer golf destination over the past several years, says The Boston Globe, and it is in the spotlight because of two recent developments.
Last week, Delta Air Lines introduced a daily nonstop flight from Boston to Charlottetown, the provincial capital , and Doug Newson of Charlottetown Airport Authority told CBC News that Delta reported strong advance bookings.
Later this month, PEI golf will receive a second jolt of energy when Mike Weir and Vijay Singh , a pair of Masters champions , play a match at the Links at Crowbush Cove in Morell . The pair will tee off in a charity competition July 29-30, at a course that helped both Weir and the province show up on the golf radar.
Weir played at Crowbush Cove in the 1998 Canadian Skins Game, where the Ontario native's performance against top US pros gave him the confidence that eventually landed him the 2003 Masters title and made him Canada's male athlete of the year three times.
Crowbush Cove, in a spectacular setting along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was named Canada's best new course by Golf Digest on its opening in 1994, and the attention it garnered helped launch PEI as a golf destination.
Ten championship courses have opened since Crowbush Cove's debut, and golf revenue on the island, which totaled some $17 million in the mid-1990s, soared to about $80 million by 2002. Weir and Singh follow in the footsteps of Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, who played head-to-head last summer on PEI's Dundarave Golf Course at the Rodd Brudenell River Resort before 7,200 fans over two days.
 
Airlines Overhauling Regional Jets With First-Class Seats, Roomier Cabins
Airlines are rushing to add new regional jets with first-class seats, roomier cabins and, in some cases, hot food says a recent article in USA Today.
The carriers are hoping business travelers tired of a cramped 50-seat jet will pay extra for a flight experience closer to what they get on a mainline jet. The addition could help airlines turn a profit on flights that have generally been a loss-leader feeding traffic into long-haul flights, although rising fuel prices could complicate the plan.
Airlines that recently went through bankruptcy ­ Northwest, Delta, and United ­ are the freest to add such jets because of relaxed restrictions in their pilot contracts.
Northwest Airlines Corp. is adding 72 new 76-seat jets through next year. Half will be Bombardier CRJ-900s flown by its Mesaba subsidiary and the other half will be Embraer 175s flown by its new Compass subsidiary. Both include a dozen first-class seats, and the cabin is roomier than on Northwest's other regional jets. Delta Air Lines Inc. plans to fly 77 dual-class regional jets by the end of 2008, and United regional partners now fly about 115 70-seat jets with coach, first-class and an Economy Plus seat with extra legroom.
 
Cuba Opening Boutique Hotels In Bid To Rekindle Tourism
When university professor Santiago Gonzalez travels the world, the native Spaniard prefers to stay at small hotels, the kind that reflect the local character of the place he's visiting. In Cuba, he recently checked into the 27-room Hotel Santa Isabel, a former colonial mansion in the heart of Old Havana, complete with an inner courtyard garden and high-ceiling rooms with colonial-style furniture. The deluxe hotel blends in well with the cobblestone streets and leafy plaza out front.
"In big chain hotels, I feel like I'm part of a machine, like a number," said Gonzalez, 52, in the marble-floored lobby of his hotel near a stately courtyard fountain. "Here, it's a different atmosphere, more humane."
As Cuba strives to regain momentum in its stumbling tourism industry, the communist-run nation is looking to lure more guests like Gonzalez, says Fort Lauderdale’s Sun-Sentinel. It aims to build 50 more boutique hotels in historic areas and city centers to diversify from larger hotels common on the island's beachfronts, mainly all-inclusive resorts in tourist enclaves.
"You can really feel like it's your own house," said Marcela Morales, 43, a veteran employee at Hotel Santa Isabel, who rattles off the building's century-plus history from its days as home to the Count of Santovenia to its recent hosting of such guests as former U.S. President Carter, singer Sting and actor Jack Nicholson. "I'm proud to work here."
Tourism experts see promise in the small hotels, a push that will spur more visitors to spread around the island. But they caution that 50 boutique properties won't be enough to energize Cuba's tourism industry, beset with woes from rising prices to weak service.
Even guests at boutique hotels can attest to deficiencies. British executives Julie Connery, 37, and Richard Foster, 40, said they asked to stay an extra night after a week at the art nouveau-style Hotel Raquel in colonial Havana, but staff said the room rate would double: The new reservation did not come through their travel agency. The couple moved out, disappointed that managers would not accommodate them at the same rate.
"They just haven't bought into customer service," said Foster, who visited Cuba to experience one of the world's last socialist nations and would gladly return. "They're friendly. But whereas in the United Kingdom it seems as if everyone is aspiring to be the CEO, here it's just a job."
 
Hawaii Hotel Occupancy Falls For 13th Straight Month
Hawaii's hotel industry continued to decline in May as occupancy rates fell for the 13th straight month despite record visitor arrivals for May.
The Honolulu Advertiser reports that statewide hotel occupancy fell to 69% in May, a 6.5 percentage point decrease from May 2006, according to a report released yesterday by Hospitality Advisors LLC. Occupancy has fallen every month on a year-over-year basis since April 2006.
Hospitality Advisors President Joseph Toy said the report showed occupancy fell across all islands for the month. Toy said the drop was partly due to visitors staying in condominiums, timeshare units and on cruise ships instead of traditional hotels.
And a continued decline in Japanese visitors ­ 10.3% ­ also contributed to a decline in overall occupancy because visitors from Japan predominantly stay in hotels rather than other accommodations, Toy said.
 
Hip Hotel Chains Court The Cost-Conscious
In a warehouse in a Westchester County industrial park north of Manhattan, Starwood's Aloft hotel chain, due to premiere in May 2008, is preparing for takeoff. Expect lobbies with high ceilings and exposed pipes, cool bars and Starbucks-style nooks for working on laptops, says USA Today.
With rates starting at about $125, the idea is to bring the style and personality of Starwood's W hotels to the value-minded masses. "We want our 'cool' to be universal and inclusive," says Aloft president Ross Klein, offering a first look at lobby and room prototypes.
The chain, due in 20 locations by the end of 2008, is just one of many new brands courting design- and budget-conscious travelers with lobbies as social hubs, Wi-Fi and flat-screen TVs, ergonomic desk chairs, grab-and-go meals and hip, contemporary rooms.
Consumers now demand upscale, design-driven rooms with electronic bells and whistles. They're willing to give up frills such as room service, fine-dining restaurants or bellhops for rates that average less than $150 a night, says Robert Mandelbaum of PKF Hospitality Consulting. And hotel companies want to "sell more franchises," he says. They're developing hipper boutique-style brands that don't cost as much to run and "in theory attract new travelers and don't impact existing hotels."
 
S.F. Hotels Poised For Best Summer In Several Years
With investor money flowing and room rates and occupancy climbing, this summer is shaping up as a strong season for San Francisco hotels reports the San Francisco Chronicle
The city's hotels did well even in the normally sluggish winter. The year is expected to be the best one for hotels since Bay Area tourism went south following the dot-com bust and Sept. 11 attacks at the start of the decade.
PKF Consulting reported that San Francisco hotels finished the first three months of the year with an average room rate of $167.37, up 2.9% over the first quarter of 2006. The average daily room rate in Northern California, including Sacramento and the Central Valley, was $133.07 in the first quarter, up an even huskier 5.8% from the previous year.
Occupancy rates are also rising in San Francisco, hitting 69.5%, up three percentage points, for the first quarter. They did fall slightly in April, to 76.9% from 77.6% in 2006, but the room rates kept rising, to $174.40. All told, Northern California hotels filled 67.3% of their rooms in the first quarter.
Solid growth enables hotel operators to renovate historic properties and break ground for new ones, introduce some brands, and generally try new things.
 
Lake Tahoe Golf Courses Team Up To Draw Tourists
There were a few skeptics when tourism officials and business leaders first approached dozens of golf courses along the Sierra's eastern front about pooling their resources to help promote the area as a golfing destination. Why would anyone want to help their competitors?
Nearly a decade later, from the Carson Valley to Reno and the mountain courses north of Lake Tahoe, the verdict is unanimous, says the Associated Press.
"It's a great promotion," said Darryle Fukano, one of the pros at Empire Ranch Golf Course along the Carson River. "We kind of are competing against each other but also trying to help each other out. Everybody tries to find a niche. It runs the whole range of local munis (municipal courses), all the way through Tour qualifying courses."
Empire Ranch is one of the courses that make up the "Divine Nine" in Carson City and the neighboring Carson Valley. The nine courses launched their first media tour in 1998. About the same time, a separate joint venture was hatched to the north ­ "Golf the High Sierra" ­ now with 20 courses.
This year, for the first time, the Divine Nine and Golf the High Sierra co-ops scheduled their promotional media tours the same week in June, when several writers tested their skills at what has become a recent tradition at the "Divine Nine" loop ­ hopping on and off a shuttle bus in an attempt to play two holes at each of the nine courses in a single day.
Visitors planning golf vacations here could also play one course in the morning and one in the afternoon, for two weeks or more, without ever playing the same course twice.
 
Rise In German Travel Trips - And In Costs
The number of business trips by German-based companies rose by 5% in 2006 to 157.8m compared to 150.7m in 2005. But costs also rose with companies spending €47.4bn on travel in 2006 compared to €46.2bn in 2005, a 3% rise says BusinessTravelEurope.
The Verband Deutsches Reisemanagement (VDR) Business Travel Report Germany 2007 found that a business trip cost companies €148 per day. This accounted for a continuing drop in the number of trips - about half - which now do not include an overnight stay.
The report, conducted by consulting company BearingPoint, also found that trips were getting shorter. The number lasting six days or more halved while the average length of staying fell from 2.6 days to 2.2 days. It meant, proportionately, that more was spent on transport and less on hotels.
 
London’s Gatwick Gets Capsule-Inspired Hotel
A "cabin" hotel, called the YOTEL, which was inspired by Japanese capsule hotels and luxury airline travel, has been launched at London's Gatwick Airport to provide "stylish yet affordable" accommodations for travelers says The Japan Times.
"Traveling can be a painful experience, so we are looking to make it as pleasurable as possible. In the 21st century, luxury will be available to everybody at the right cost and this is a taste of that future," said Simon Woodroffe, founder of the YO! brand and the person commonly credited with bringing conveyor belt-style sushi restaurants to Britain with his popular YO! Sushi chain.
And with features including mood lighting and luxury bedding to "induce relaxation," high-end bathroom fittings, not to mention access to free digital television, radio and Wi-Fi Internet, the cabins exude a level of comfort not previously associated with the average airport hotel.
The company plans to expand quickly and on a large scale, with a second YOTEL to be opened in the coming months at Heathrow, the world's third-busiest airport, and then on to other major international cities and airports.
"We expect this radical approach to be extremely popular with a range of consumers and are looking to expand globally," Woodroffe said. The first wave of 46 cabins at Gatwick Airport's South Terminal ­ close to the departures area ­ can be booked at prices ranging from £25 (approximately $ 50 or 6,000 yen) for four hours and from £55 overnight for a standard cabin, and from £40 for four hours and from £80 overnight for a premium cabin.
 
Australia Is The Most Popular Country For Vacations ­ If Cost Is Not An Issue
Every year at this time, The Harris Poll® asks a representative sample of all adult Americans in which country, outside the United States, they would most like to spend a vacation if cost was not an issue.
For the eleventh year in a row, Australia tops the list as the most popular ideal vacation destination. The next most popular countries are Italy (#2), Great Britain (#3), France (#4) and Ireland (#5). It is noteworthy that three of the top five countries are English speaking. Rounding out the top ten are Germany (#6), Japan (#7), New Zealand (#8), Spain (#9) and Greece (#10).
There are some changes in the rank order since last year:
Australia is the favorite vacation destination for most demographic groups, but there are some exceptions. Italy is the favorite for Echo Boomers (those aged 18 to 30) and for college graduates without post graduate education. Britain is the favorite of Matures (aged 62 and over) and people with some college education, but not a college degree.
Overall, half of all adults (50%) would choose a European country for a foreign vacation if cost was not an issue (and, of course, Europe is now very expensive for Americans because of the strong Euro and pound and the weak dollar). One-quarter (25%) would choose a country in Asia or the Pacific and one in ten (11%) would go to the Caribbean or the Americas.
These are some of the results of a Harris Poll of 2,372 U.S. adults conducted online between June 5 and 11, 2007.
 
Hotels Rush To Satisfy The Entertainment Demands Of Travelers
One of the perks of travel used to be enjoying amenities you did not have at home: watching movies in your hotel room, for instance, or catching an in-flight movie before there was such a thing as VCRs.
But sometime during the digital revolution, says the International Herald Tribune, consumers' home entertainment technology began making the travel industry look as if it were stuck in an analog era, with most airlines showing bland films on tough-to-view overhead screens and hotels' television lineups disappointing to guests accustomed to the TiVo digital video recorder.
While it is too early to say that the offerings have significantly changed, some companies are starting to compete with ­ or at least cater to ­ the average consumer's entertainment arsenal. Analysts and executives say these improvements are part of a larger industry trend of making life on the road seem less alienated from life at home, particularly for business travelers.
"All of this goes back to recognizing that customers want more control," said Henry Harteveldt, a vice president and travel analyst with Forrester Research, citing the expectations fostered by gadgets like iPods. "At home, I have all this stuff created just the way I like it. Why should I have to sacrifice that when I'm on the road?"
In the hotel industry, Harteveldt said, the competition to appeal to guest preferences has moved from bedding to technology, a necessary upgrade in an era of rising rates. "These days, I'm surprised when I walk into four- or five-star hotels and see traditional types of TVs," he said. "If you're paying several hundred dollars a night, the expectation is that there should be a flat-screen TV in the room."
To some degree, various hotel chains have created that expectation by announcing plans to install newer televisions or better programming. But these upgrades can take years to roll out.
For instance, Marriott International said in February that it planned to offer large high-definition LCD televisions in all guest rooms in the United States and Canada at three of its brands: Marriott, JW Marriott and Renaissance. So far, the new sets are available at 37 hotels, and the installation will not be complete until the end of 2009.
"Twenty years ago, business travel was all about 'get there, get the work done and get out,' " John Wolf, a Marriott spokesman, said. "What we're seeing is a paradigm shift more toward the 'lifestyle traveler.' "
According to industry research, the new breed of traveler is more likely to enjoy the benefits of business travel, like trying out new restaurants, but also more inclined to desire the comforts of home - like 450 thread-count sheets or the ability to catch a favorite TV show anytime.
 
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