Raffles stake up for grabs?

e-Tid.com  -  The Business reports that CapitaLand is inviting offers for its 60% stake in Singapore-listed Raffles Holdings.

The parent company has the Raffles Hotel in Singapore among its 38-strong portfolio. Last May it paid £163m for the Swissotel chain from SAir
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The item reports that CapitaLand’s stake would attract trade and financial buyers. M&C and 6C would be interested, but Hilton, in particular, catches the paper’s eye as it has less of an Asia-Pacific presence than the other two.

Raffles International is the hotel management arm of the parent company. Its third brand is Merchant Court.

Institutional Investor World’s Best Hotels Survey names Four Seasons Seattle as Nr 1

The Institutional Investor Magazine announced the results of it’s 22^nd annual World’s Best Hotels Survey, a signature feature which ranks the world’s most prestigious hotels.

Four Seasons Seattle jumps from twelfth place last year with a score of 90.3 to claim the top spot this year, narrowly edging the Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore. These two hotels were separated by only a few hundredths of a point – the closes margin ever.

More than 100 senior financial executives from 31 countries, who averaged 61 nights a year at hotels last year, voted in the poll.

Rankings:

1   Four Seasons, Seattle (2001: 12^th)
2   Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore (2001: 6^th)
3   Four Seasons, Chicago (2001: 4^th)
4   The Oriental, Bangkok (2001: 3^rd)
5   Lanesborough London (2001: none)
6   Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco (2001: 1^st)
6   Ritz, Paris (2001: 24^th)
8   Four Seasons, Singapore (2001: 14^th)
9   Ritz-Carlton Arts, Barcelona (2001: none)
10 Beverley Hills, Los Angeles (2001: 28)

For complete rankings,  Click Here

Hotel occupancy rebounds, prices don't

Crains - Nearly one year after hoteliers across the city slashed rates in a desperate attempt to fill their beds, occupancy figures show strong signs of a rebound but there are no price increases in sight.

In August, the occupancy rate at New York City hotels was 76.44%, close to the August 2001 level of 77.19%, but room rates were down by nearly $20, or 9.6%. According to HotelRevMax, a Manhattan research firm, room rates last month dropped to $179.62 from $198.73 a year earlier.

Despite increasing demand, hoteliers are stuck with the prices they locked in last fall with big corporate accounts, amid the economic downturn and the aftermath of 9/11.

“Hotels lowered their rates a lot more than they probably needed to," says Joseph Carino Jr., president of the New York chapter of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association.

He predicts rates will remain flat through the fourth quarter, the most important season for New York hotels. With occupancy bouncing back, however, further cuts in room rates are unlikely, he says.

6C’s postponed update sparks profit warning/major deal speculation

e-Tid.com  -  The Business reports that Six Continent’s decision to delay a trading update due this Wednesday is ‘fuelling speculation’ that it is either about to issue a profits warning or announce the long-awaited purchase.

6C told the paper that it will issue its trading statement on September 30, the day its FY ends, rather than this Wednesday to give the market ‘a clearer picture’. A nameless analyst thinks there is ‘something more sinister behind this,’ namely a profits warning.

However, the piece goes onto suggest that the update has been delayed in advance of ‘forthcoming corporate activity.’ Cash-rich 6C has given itself until the end of the year to make a major acquisition or return £1bn to shareholders.

Hong Kong hotels to create 5,000 jobs on back of tourism surge 

The Business Times  -  Hong Kong's hotel industry forecast on Sunday that up to 5,000 jobs could be created in the next three years as tourist numbers rise, giving a much needed boost to the territory as it battles to revive its stagnant economy.

The Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners said 1,200 new jobs were created in the first half of 2002 and estimated more than 800 vacancies would be available in the second half.

Federation executive director Michael Li told reporters that a rise in the number of visitors to the territory was behind the improvement in the hotel sector.

Hong Kong's tourism board said in July it expected a record 15 million tourists to visit the territory this year. More than 7.5 million tourists visited Hong Kong in the year to June, up 12.8 percent from a year earlier.

The number of new jobs could rise even higher when the new Disneyland theme park, being built on outlying Lantau Island, opens in either 2005 or 2006, the federation said.

The government has predicted visitor numbers to the new Disney theme park could reach 5.6 million in the first year.

Hong Kong Disneyland will be only the third Disney park outside the United States. The other two are in Japan and France.

It is a joint venture between the government and Disney and forms part of a strategy to haul Hong Kong out of difficult economic times that have seen its jobless rate soar to a record high of 7.8 percent in the three months to July, with economists warning of worse to come.

Dubai to have over 1500 new 5-star hotel rooms to cope with demand for Dubai 2003

AME Info  -  The organisers of Dubai 2003 have announced that the city will have over 1500 new 5-Star hotel rooms in the city to serve the requirements of the estimated influx of over 16,000 visitors expected to arrive in September 2003 for the 58th Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The logistics for accommodating so many guests from around the world is being coordinated by a specially created Accommodation Committee, one of ten specialist committees set up by Dubai 2003 to handle the organisation of this prestigious and complex event.

Dubai 2003 General Coordinator, Mr Ibrahim Belselah, said: “An event as prestigious as the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF needs to have a range of world-class hotel accommodation available for the high level political and financial leaders of the world who will be attending the 58th Annual Meetings.

“The members of the Accommodation Committee have been working tirelessly to ensure the success of this aspect of the event. We are fortunate to have so many committed and talented people among the 10 specialist committees to manage this complex and prestigious project.”

Mr. Ahmed Al Banna is Assistant General Coordinator of Dubai 2003 and Head of the Accommodation Committee and leads a team comprising senior representatives from the hotel and tourism industry in Dubai.

“Our Committee has been working to ensure there are sufficient quality hotel rooms available in Dubai to accommodate the requirements of this major event and meet the needs of over 16,000 visitors.”

Major new hotel developments include the Grand Hyatt in Garhoud that will have 674 new rooms, the Shangri-La on Sheikh Zayed Road with 301 rooms and the Novotel and Ibis hotels that are being developed next to the new Convention Centre that will host the meetings. These two hotels will create 412 and 210 new rooms respectively.

The additional rooms from these hotels will mean that Dubai will have sufficient hotel rooms to handle the representatives and visitors from 184 countries who will be coming to the United Arab Emirates for the event.

“This is an opportunity for us to showcase the UAE and Dubai to the world and we need to ensure that the accommodation and facilities that we offer our guests are of a world class standard and reflect the warm and traditional welcome offered by an Arab country,” added Mr Belselah.

The Accommodation Committee has already ensured that block bookings have been undertaken at every major hotel in Dubai to ensure availability for the delegations. Final arrangements to decide on which delegation will be allocated to which hotel will be made in coordination with representatives of the Joint Secretariat of the World Bank and IMF.

Work is also in progress to organise and manage the requirements of the private sector for arranging functions, meetings and receptions that will be undertaken by private institutions during the Annual Meetings.

Compass steers safe acquisition course
 
The ups and downs of the world's biggest caterer

MAYBE it is down to the current paranoia about racy stock market multiples. Or maybe it is concern about low returns on capital and weakening margins. Whatever the reasons, the Compass Group share price has surrendered the premium rating that it has enjoyed for more than a decade; and Mike Bailey, the catering behemoth’s chief executive, knows he is going to have to work hard to regain it.

In the run-up to the company’s half-year results in May there were whispers that Compass had effectively been buying contracts by bidding at uneconomic levels. The negative sentiment was not helped when Sodexho, its French rival and the only catering company in the world that gets anywhere near Compass in terms of size, complained that worsening economic conditions were being reflected in weaker margins.

Bailey, together with Francis Mackay, Compass’s well- regarded executive chairman, insisted that most of Sodexho’s problems were company specific, and assured investors that Compass’s impeccable record of earnings growth and organic sales growth could be maintained.

They also categorically denied that they were buying contracts and pointed out that margins had actually grown by 30 basis points. True, its organic sales growth had slowed slightly from 8 per cent-plus achieved over the previous eight or nine years, but 7 per cent was hardly a disaster.

But where the duo did admit that there was a problem was in relation to City concerns over the returns on capital and levels of free cashflow being achieved by the business. “Those comments are spot-on,” Bailey conceded.

So what’s he going to do about it? The answer is that the frenzied pace of acquisitions will slow to a trickle of in-fill deals, allowing the group to increase its returns and focus on organic growth. In the past 18 months, Bailey and his team have charged around the globe snapping up a swath of smaller rivals, including Morrison Management Specialists in the US, Selecta of Switzerland and Seiyo Food Systems in Japan.

Compass now needs to pause for breath in order properly to digest what it has swallowed. In Japan, which is a £20 billion market in catering terms, it will seek to use Seiyo as the stepping stone to the sort of position it enjoys in many other parts of the world. The top ten caterers in Japan have just 12 per cent of the market, whereas in the UK the top three have 85 per cent.

Despite its recent travails, Compass had proved relatively resilient to the global economic downturn. In the US, for example, which has been one of the worst-hit areas economically, Compass has averaged growth of about 7 per cent across the different sectors of the catering market in which it operates. Even in its core business and industry market, which has been hardest hit by the economy, it recorded organic growth of 4 per cent — pedestrian by its own standards, but perfectly acceptable judged by normal parameters.

The recent collapse of sentiment has come as something of a shock to Bailey and his colleagues, who thought that they had already successfully weathered the stickiest period in the company’s history. That was the complex transaction with Granada Group a couple of years back, when the two companies merged and then demerged into their constituent parts a few months later.

Although there had always been an assumption that Granada and Compass would one day combine their catering interests, shareholders in Compass took a long time to warm to several aspects of this transaction. Of particular concern was Compass’s decision to keep Granada’s Forte hotel business in addition to its various catering businesses.

The vociferous response from institutional shareholders, disgruntled at the decision to keep such a cyclical, capital-intensive business, soon put paid to that plan. After a rather protracted and messy process, Compass eventually managed to extract itself from the hotel business at a decent price, before factors such as foot-and-mouth, the economy and — later on — events in the US put a significant dent in the hotel business.

In June, Compass also announced it was hoisting a “For Sale” sign over the Travelodge and Little Chef roadside businesses, with analysts predicting a combined price tag of more than £700 million.

The rationale for Compass’s decision to sell Travelodge — as with the other Forte businesses — is that such asset-rich businesses fit poorly alongside its low-asset, high-growth catering businesses. Although its Moto motorway services business also fits into that category, Compass is understood to be looking at ways to divest the assets through a sale and leaseback, enabling it to continue running the businesses.

Compass’s general rule-of-thumb is that the facilities it runs must have a captive, or at least semi-captive, audience –– as in the case of motorway services. That also accounts for the group’s big presence in airports, railway stations and shopping centre foodcourts, as well as museums and sports and entertainment stadiums.

In the UK alone Compass has 1,100 concessions where it operates a combination of its own brands, such as Harry Ramsden’s, Upper Crust and Caffè Ritazza, as well as franchised operations such as Pizza Hut and Burger King.

While other contract caterers have tended to shy away from such venues, Compass views the high profile it gains as a big plus when it is pitching for more traditional contracts in areas such as the workplace, hospitals and schools. Other areas that Compass has targeted for growth include military catering, in which the pace of contracting-out is expected to increase, and the catering side of the hotel business. It also expects to develop its facilities management side, an area that some of its bigger clients are particularly keen on as they seek to reduce the number of contractors they take on.

Analysts expect the group to continue making a couple of acquisitions a year of about £300 million each: big, but not so big in the context of Compass’s £7 billion market capitalisation.  

TimesOnline

Singapore Swissotel M.D. is  "cautiously optimistic" about 2003

Managing director of Singapore’s largest hotel (Swissotel, The Stamford and Raffles, the Plaza), Markland Blaiklock, says he is "cautiously optimistic" about business in 2003.

He told TravelWeekly business was definitely down this year. "It is no secret that the number of people coming into the city is down," he said. "We had strong dependence on the Japanese and US markets and we have since diversified."

He said leisure traffic from Japan had been particularly affected. "It’s a bit like Hong Kong after the 1997 handover when it came off the Japanese leisure map."

Back from a sales trip to Japan, Blaiklock said it was important Singapore “does not blow it (the market) off” – the Japanese market to Singapore dropped by nearly 20 percent from January to July this year.

"We need to maintain relationships, be creative with offers and raise the interest level with wholesalers. It is a funny market – it goes on and off. It can drop quite dramatically but at the same time, I’ve seen the opposite happen." "

We need to be aggressive with the market." With more than 2,000 rooms to fill, Blaiklock is aware of the challenges he has in maintaining occupancy levels and room rates at a time when some hotels are undercutting in the Japanese market.

"There are limits we can go without compromising our product. All of us have renovations we have to pay for," said Blaiklock. He said he was projecting five to six percent growth "which mirrors what is being said about Singapore’s GDP growth".

"We are all hoping and praying for stability on the world scene and no escalation of unhappy events."  

Source:  TravelWeeklyEast.com

Inter-Continental plans global roll-out

Six Continents Hotels will unveil the "Inter-Continental brand of the future" in a global roll-out that will last three days in Asia.

Senior vice president-staff services and chief marketing officer for Six Continents Hotels Asia/Pacific, Patrick Imbardelli, said the unveiling would be done in Hong Kong on September 23, followed by Singapore and Japan will see the launch on September 25.

Langkawi to host Asia Pacific Ecotourism Conference 2003

The Langkawi Development Authority (LADA) together the private sector and non-government organisations, such as the Langkawi Nature Society, will host the Asia/Pacific Ecotourism Conference (APeco) in 2003.

LADA’s general manager, Dato Zainal Karib Abdul Rahim, said the hosting of APeco would demonstrate the authority’s commitment to safeguard the island’s heritage and promote eco tourism through sustainability.

"To do this effectively, we need to involve in this niche sector through ecotourism conferences, seminars and promotions."

APeco 2003 will be held from 9-12 October at the Andaman Hotel.

To date, LADA has confirmed the participation of speakers such as Professor David Bellamy from the Abela Conservation Foundation, Professor Abrea Land from the British Museums and Professor Philip Mould, an authority in butterflies

This year’s APeco will be held in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, from October 3-6.  

Source:  TravelWeeklyEast.com

Seven Ways to Boost Conversion Rates

BY Bryan Eisenberg  Clickz.com

In a recent column, I discussed relevance and its value as the most critical factor in the conversion mix. Today, I'll share with you seven practical tips you can use to boost your conversion rates. They happen to be the seven most common relevance problems we uncover for our new clients.

Email

When you compose an email, make your point immediately. The point must be valuable to the reader. After you've written the entire email, you can expand on the subject and call for action if necessary. The subject line together with the recipient and sender lines (sometimes the preview pane as well) are your reader's first impression of you. Their responsibility is to inform the reader about the email's relevance. If the subject line is not congruent with the opening sentences and the reader's first impression, hence expectation, she'll consider the message irrelevant.

You wrote a killer email and your prospects heeded the call to action. What does your landing page look like? Does it address exactly the same issue as the email or is there a  disconnect? Pay attention to your landing page. If it's congruent with your offer, you are much more likely to convert.

Newsletters

I read newsletters, lots of newsletters. Who writes these things? Why should I care about all the things happening at the writer's company? If you don't have something to say that will affect your prospects' and customers' lives and will provide value, then you're not thinking hard enough.

Search Engines

In the pay-per-click (PPC) engines, you possess the ability to easily update information in your listings (this feature is underused). In the "free" search engines, it isn't as easy. If you want to make your listings more relevant so they will get higher CTRs, you may want to focus on and edit your page titles. It's shocking to see how many Web sites still have a company name, "Insert the page title here," or even "Homepage" as a title. This important detail is most often neglected when the IT department is responsible for the site.

PPC Search Engines

You can spend hours researching keywords you want to buy in PPC engines. You can find programs, tools, articles, consultants, books, and commentary ad nauseam. It frustrates me to find a PPC listing so generic it's irrelevant. A home furnishings client bid a significant sum for a keyword, the name of an upscale plumbing fixture manufacturer. But our client's own listing was generic, mentioning only their Web site. Guess what? When they changed their listing to include the manufacturer's name (Your Source For [Brand Name's] Products), click-throughs skyrocketed.

Web Sites

I'm certain all of you have a list of every possible reason someone might want to buy your product or service. I'd like to think all of you have thought out everything a potential buyer might need to know before buying. I hope you have actually spent time to match your prospects' buying process to your sales process. If you've invested your time wisely, you should be in a position to start creating decision trees. Decision trees based on every personality type may be more ambitious than your resources allow. You can still divide the logical and emotional arguments for buying your product or service. Then, you can propel prospects through your site with the reasoning they are most comfortable buying with.

Buttons

I love buttons. They can be a wonderful call to action. All you have to do is to decide where to put them, what color they'll be, what size and shape, and what they will say. Here's a tip that will boost click-throughs fairly quickly. Whenever you call for an action with a button, it should say what action you want people to take (e.g., "add to cart," "subscribe," "register"). Someone in the IT department probably first slapped the word "go" on a button.

Funny thing about relevance. Once it's pointed out, it seems so obvious. Simplicity is its own trap. When we regard something as simple, we pay less attention to it. If it seems obvious, pay more attention to it and get it right.

Are you thinking of every hyperlink in your email or on your Web site as an implicit question requiring a relevant answer? If you aren't, your conversion rate will suffer.

Source: Marketing.com

Grand Hyatt Melbourne named Best Business Hotel in Australia

AsiaTravelTips.com  -  On Tuesday 3 September at the 2002 Best Business Hotels in Asia Awards held in Shanghai, Grand Hyatt Melbourne was named Best Business Hotel in Australia.

The hotel was voted Best Business Hotel in Australia by Business Asia readers, Bloomberg television viewers and hotel guests. 

The Best Business Hotels in Asia Awards are now in their fifth year and the event is recognised as the showcase awards for the business travel industry in the Asia Pacific region. 

The awards were established to recognise excellence in the hotel industry. Nominees are chosen by a panel of industry experts and winners are determined by popular vote. This year, more than 12 000 votes were cast for the 2002 Best Business Hotels in Asia Awards. 

Since opening in 1986, Grand Hyatt Melbourne has been consistently recognised nationally and internationally as one of Australia's best hotels. The hotel has received a host of accolades for the property's excellence in facilities, services and staff training.

Radisson SAS launches Electronic Hotel Directory

AsiaTravelTips.com  -  Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, which operates eight Middle East and African properties, with six more scheduled in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, has launched its first electronic hotel directory, containing detailed information about the chain’s 113 hotels worldwide, as well as all Radisson hotels.

Now available to travel agents, tour operators and corporate bookers internationally, the chain’s new Worldwide Directory comes in a user-friendly credit card sized CD-Rom as well as in conventional hard copy format.

"The CD-Rom provides electronic links to our corporate web site and to each individual hotel’s page," said Mike Pilkington, Regional Director, Sales & Marketing, Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, Middle East and Africa.

"For the first time we have included a dedicated section featuring the meetings facilities of each hotel, to better inform our business and MICE guests."

Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts operates Middle East and African hotels in Amman, Aqaba, Bahrain, Cape Town, Istanbul, Kuwait, Muscat and Sharm El Sheikh and has hotels under development in Al Quseir, Ankara, Beirut, Hurghada, Istanbul and Taba. 

Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts currently includes 113 hotels in operation and 39 hotels under development in 37 countries and is the sole franchisor in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa for Radisson  Hotels & Resorts.