Inside Track - 1996-06-10

<H1>Inside Track</H1><H2></H2><H4>Southwest Lands In Northeast</H4>

Southwest Airlines announced late last week that it will begin daily service to T.F. Green Airport in Providence, R.I. in October, noting that destinations and frequencies will be announced later. The news confirms speculation on the carrier's plans for its first move into New England, which was well-received by area travel managers (BTN, March 4).

<H4>Room Rates Rock On</H4>

Relief from escalating hotel rates was nowhere in sight at last week's 18th Annual International Hospitality Investment Conference in New York, chaired by Loews president Jonathan Tisch. The industry is headed for a record-breaking year, said Randy Smith, chief executive officer of Smith Travel Research, reporting that room rates are expected to increase 5.3 percent over 1995, to a $71 average. Occupancies have increased for each price segment except budget, Smith said.

Limited-service midpriced hotels have grown the most, contrary to earlier predictions. "They're a hit with the public," he said. "They're in a position to steal from the other segments, particularly the low budget, which isn't doing as well." Demand will soften a bit in the third and fourth quarters, Smith added, but overall, "we expect to continue to see things rock right along."

"The big question is, how long will the fun last? When will it go the other way?" asked Mike Leven, president and chief executive officer of U.S. Franchise Systems Inc. "I don't believe we are headed for real bad times or even moderate times. We've got at least three or four years of good times."

<H4>Three-In-One Res System</H4>

Anasazi Travel Resources of Phoenix next week will roll out a fully integrated, Windows-based reservation system for the hospitality industry, providing property management, guest history and data warehousing in a single solution. Called ALESA (Anasazi Lodging Enterprise System Architecture), it will allow hotels to track inventory down to the last room; capture "every piece of data around the traveler and the guest experience" in accessible databases; maximize yield management; and connect to global GDSs and the Internet. "For the travel buyer, ALESA will provide better information on the availability of rooms and the best rates," said president John Holdsworth. "And for the hotel, it will allow the capture of better information on who customers are and what they are buying."

<H4>Sabre-Rattling On CompuServe</H4>

The relationship between Sabre and CompuServe will continue as the latter switches from a private to a World Wide Web-based forum. But the point-and-click version of Eaasy Sabre will be replaced by Sabre's Travelocity Website, according to Sabre Interactive communications manager George Lynch.

CompuServe users will have no trouble finding the site, as it will be featured as the exclusive travel provider to CompuServe's WOW network. Lynch noted that the decade-old ASCII text version of Eaasy Sabre will continue to run on CompuServe "for the foreseeable future," servicing a die-hard audience of users who find it "extremely functional and fast" and who deliver a million bookings a year. Bookings on Travelocity, meanwhile, are running "double what we had anticipated," Lynch said.<h4>Brussels Brouhaha</h4>

At the recent American Express travel management conference in Brussels (see story, Page 1), Lufthansa senior vice president of European sales and services Gerhard-Michael Eckert was incensed over the EU's subsidizing high-speed rail transport. "We don't mind competition, but we object to subsidization just because it's fashionable," he said. But some felt he went too far when he chided fellow panelist Philip Lowe, chief du cabinet of the European Commissioner for Transport, for not liberalizing the airports themselves, where "a grave mistake" allows ground handling to remain a monopoly.

"All the transport ministers were in favor of liberalizing the airports, except for two who succeeded in blocking this," retorted Lowe. "And one of the two was from Germany.