Best Holiday Lettings

Author: admin

  • 2013 season off to a record start at Six Flags with 32 percent revenue growth

    Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, the world’s largest regional theme park company, announced today that first quarter 2013 revenue rose to a record high $88 million, representing a $21 million or 32 percent increase over prior year, or 38 percent increase after adjusting 2012 for $3 million of insurance proceeds concerning Hurricane Irene. The Adjusted EBITDA1 lack of $38 million for the primary three months of 2013 improved $12 million in comparison to prior year after adjusting for the insurance proceeds and the 2012 sale of the corporate’s minority interest in dcp2. For the twelve-month period ending March 31, 2013, Adjusted EBITDA reached $390 million while Modified EBITDA3 margin improved to 39.1 percent—both record highs for the company.

    “We delivered another record performance in attendance, revenue and cash flow as a result of strong execution by the complete Six Flags team,” said Jim Reid-Anderson, Chairman, President and CEO. “We will continue to thrill our guests with enhanced offerings across all of our parks as we take care of achieving our aspirational target of $500 million of Modified EBITDA or nearly $6 of money earnings per share by 2015.”

    Attendance within the first quarter increased 525,000 or 41 percent to at least one.8 million guests. Approximately 1/2 the 525,000 attendance gain resulted from an operating calendar shift because of some schools scheduling their spring breaks in March this year versus April 2012.

    Excluding the Hurricane Irene insurance proceeds received inside the first quarter 2012, total guest spending per capita grew $1.41 or 4 percent within the quarter to $40.83. Admissions revenue per capita increased $1.32 or 6 percent to $22.80 and in-park revenue per capita increased $0.09 to $18.03.

    The company also continued its successful trend of upselling guests to season passes for the 2013 season, and largely as a consequence of this initiative, deferred revenue as of March 31, 2013 grew to $92 million, a rise of $27 million or 41 percent in comparison with March 31, 2012.

    Cash earnings per share4 for the twelve-month period ending March 31, 2013 was $4.50, which represented a rise of $1.16 per share or 35 percent when compared with the prior twelve-month period ending March 31, 2012. The 1st quarter 2013 reported loss per share of $1.23 was an improvement of $0.88 per share in comparison to the primary quarter 2012.

    The company repurchased $404 million or 6.1 million shares of its stock between January 1, 2013 and April 19, 2013, representing greater than 11 percent of the phenomenal shares as of December 31, 2012. As of April 19, 2013, 47.8 million shares were outstanding.

    Recommended

  • News: Bench confirms CATHIC will return to Turkey in May

    Organisers of the Turkey & Neighbours Hotel Investment Conference (CATHIC), Bench Events, have confirmed it’s going to return to Turkey for the third year running in May.

    The now-annual conference is scheduled in Istanbul from May 29th-30th 2013.

    The event, the leading hospitality investment conference in central Asia, is anticipated to draw greater than 350 industry movers and shakers to talk about opportunities and challenges facing investors and operators within the region’s burgeoning tourism and hospitality sector.

    According to Mehmet Önkal, managing partner of BDO Hospitality Consulting and the co-organiser of CATHIC, tourism and hospitality is determined to play a key role within the country’s economic growth.

    He noted that towns, cities and resorts nationwide are already experiencing a gradual increase in domestic tourism, in addition to an increasing stream of inbound visitors.

    Önkal cited a contemporary Ministry of Culture & Tourism report from Turkey that implies that the rustic expects greater than 50 million international visitors per annum and this trend will continue for the following decade.

    He went directly to share that these numbers will generate tourism-related revenue in way over US$50 billion once a year.

    “Now is the time for investors, developers and operators to take a major take a look at Turkey and the greater region.

    “The opportunity is within the development of destinations and new tourism hubs.

    “This year’s CATHIC provides the proper venue for serious players to debate the investment roadmap, together,” Önkal added.

    The organisers confirmed that CATHIC’s agenda will present insights into the important thing success factors for development, including the role of presidency, regional air travel trends and understanding the sentiment of international investors.

    The programme also will address issues like hotel development, hotel branding, financing and operations.

    CATHIC is co-organised by Bench Events and Questex Media, who also organise the Russia and CIS Hotel Investment Conference, Arabian Hotel Investment Conference, International Hotel Investment Forum Asia Pacific, and the International Hotel Investment Forum Berlin.

    In addition to the conference programme, CATHIC offers many networking opportunities including an exhibition where delegates give you the option to satisfy the foremost players inside the industry.

    Recommended

  • JW Marriott Pune opens in India after conversion

    A brand that epitomises the hospitality favourite of lifestyle and business travelers, Pune Marriott Hotel and Convention Centre forayed right into a new chapter because it converted to JW Marriott Hotel Pune.

    This historic business hotel in Pune isn’t just the primary JW Marriott inside the city and the 3rd within the country, but additionally the primary Marriott property within the Asia Pacific region to undergo a conversion. Nestled within the heart of the town, JW Marriott Hotel Pune opened doors to its patrons welcoming them to realize and join the emblem change.

    The spectacular conversion launch saw the presence of Mr.Rajeev Menon, Area Vp, South Asia. “We are happy to announce the conversion of Pune Marriott Hotel and Convention Centre to a JW Marriott property,” said Menon. “The property always reflected luxury with world-class amenities and style which can be significant to a JW Marriott brand. The hotel, which was the 500th Marriott property, was a HALO hotel under the Marriott portfolio. Throughout the 2.5 years of its functioning the hotel has managed to effortlessly seam its well beyond the MHRS brand guidelines, thus proving to be a befitting choice for a JW conversion. This transformation will see Marriott International come together to make sure that we surpass the hotels hospitality touchpoints making it more luxury driven, promising and luxurious.”

    General Manager of JW Marriott Pune Jatin Khanna said, “JW Marriott Pune celebrates constant innovation and could continue to supply to town of Pune a lifetime of elegance. The hotel that may be a wedding, lifestyle and F&B destination will see the introduction of assorted luxury touchpoints over a higher year. The spa and restaurants will see gradual changes to their overall hospitality and dining experience.”

    The unveiling of the extreme Griffin marked the highlight of the launch evening, a musical Broadway themed event. An extravagant party that saw the glitterati of the town in attendance followed the revealing. The development marked a milestone within the hotel’s success story, with the likes of Chairman and MD Panchsil, and Owner of JW Marriott Pune, Mr. Atul Chordia and his wife Varsha Chordia in attendance.

    World-renowned dancer, singer and choreographer Shiamak Davar and his troupe presented the guests with a Broadway musical that left the audience captivated.

    As the crown to the city’s skyline, this JW Marriott 5 star hotel in Pune will aim at providing its patrons with relaxed elegance and effortless luxury. It’s here that luxury could be experienced during the richness of authenticity, discovered within the great thing about craftsmanship and delivered with an intuitive response to non-public expectation.

    Recommended

  • Tourism leaders unite to unveil Tricentennial Plan

    On Monday, April 22, New Orleans tourism industry leaders and civic stakeholders gathered to announce the formation in their alliance because the Tricentennial Consortium, and present their Tricentennial Plan, a formidable holistic vision to be implemented inside the next five years, which will create thousands of jobs, generate greatly increased tourism demand, spur economic development and make sure the continued growth of latest Orleans’ economy for many years to return.  The unified plan have been under development for the past three years to support the goals of The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) 2010 Strategic Master Plan for the tourism and hospitality industry of town of recent Orleans.

    It is now culminating with the alignment of key components for execution over a higher five years to learn the following quarter century.  The overarching goals are to draw 13.7 million visitors, create $11 billion in direct spending, 33,000 additional jobs and $700 million in tax revenue by the city’s 300th anniversary in 2018.

    The Tricentennial Plan for these next five years leading as much as the city’s 2018 300th birthday involves several legislative and infrastructure initiatives and two major public policy positions:

    1. The united industry (Consortium) is against a rise in sales tax impacting hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, attractions and retailers in New Orleans. We deeply appreciate our legislature deferring these taxes.

    2. The united industry (Consortium) is strongly against any transfer or other use of Morial Convention Center financial reserves, that are made out of revenues generated by taxes proposed by the brand new Orleans hotel and restaurant industry and that were collected and dedicated by law solely to convention center and hospitality infrastructure development. We consider any reallocations or taking to violate sound public and monetary policy, and to be violative of all agreements with the hotel and restaurant industry that ended in the enactment of the taxes, and really likely the law in addition.

    3. The united industry (Consortium) strongly supports a prime Convention Center Vision Plan featuring the riverfront and Convention Center Boulevard, the building, and the expansive Phase IV property, the financial and legal underpinnings of which might be supported in HB516 (Leger). This many faceted development of demand generators is intimately connected to and tied in with….

    4. A united industry effort filed by the Consortium to create a brand new vision for an iconic demand generator, world class facility, architectural edifice, landscape or like stunning public use of the present World Trade Center Property in a fashion that has huge public and civic buy-in and broad public appeal. (The Wednesday filing by the Tricentennial Consortium to the city’s RFP.)

    5. The united industry (Consortium) strongly supports an optional hotel assessment (not a tax, not a district, and no relation to last year’s bill) to elevate new funds for marketing and promotion of recent Orleans as a destination for special events, corporate and association meetings, business, and leisure travel, both domestically and internationally. This optional hotel assessment program would go far to catching up our destination with our competitors in marketing capacity, and may immediately create hundreds of millions of greenbacks of impact on our city economy and create thousands of latest jobs. That is provided in SB 242 by Murray and Leger.

    6. The united industry (Consortium) applauds and supports the Mayor’s recent announcement to construct a brand new world class airport. The advance of the brand new facility is the overall piece in transforming our hospitality infrastructure and is important to our brand and world competitiveness.
    These six public policy announcements and initiatives are united and indivisible and every is needed to put the groundwork for a quantum leap in economic development, infrastructure modernization, demand generator creation, tourism growth, job creation and the generation of latest tax revenues to deal with our city.

    The announcement was made today by Audubon Nature Institute President and CEO Ron Forman ; New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation Chair Darryl Berger and President and CEO Mark Romig ; New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau Chairman Gregory Rusovich and President & CEO Stephen Perry ; New Orleans Multicultural Tourism Network President Toni Rice ; Louisiana Restaurant Association CEO Stan Harris , SMG Senior Vp Doug Thornton ; New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Chair Melvin Rodrigue and President Bob Johnson ; and larger New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association officer and Area General Manager of Marriott Corp. Robert Bray .

    This plan was formed to shape the conversation and public debate of hopes, dreams and aspirations for our great city, preparing New Orleans for a higher century, and approaching the tricentennial five year plan as a unified group with a unified voice, strong public policy positions, and an action plan of projects and legislation to execute.

    Recommended

  • News: flydubai boosts services to Russia

    flydubai has underscored the growing importance of the CIS region to its operations by announcing it is going to double its network in Russia to 8 points and add additional services in Ukraine.

    In Russia, the carrier will launch flights to Mineralnye Vody on April 16th 2013 followed by Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd on September 13th 2013.

    Operations to Krasnodar, meanwhile, will commence per week afterward September 20th 2013.

    flydubai offers the sole year-round direct scheduled services to those cities, that are all located in South West Russia.

    The route map in Ukraine, meanwhile, also will expand to incorporate the one direct services from Dubai to the Black Sea resort of Odessa in addition Dnepropetrovsk within the east of the rustic.

    Flights to Odessa will begin on September 15th 2013, the similar day the carrier adds capacity to the capital, Kiev, to which it’ll fly double daily.

    Services to Dnepropetrovsk will begin on September 18th 2013.

    These additional operations bring flydubai’s network to 18 points within the CIS region – greater than some other Middle East carrier.

    Speaking at a press conference held in the course of the annual Moscow International Travel & Tourism Exhibition, flydubai chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith, said: “Russia and Ukraine are two of flydubai’s key markets.

    “We have seen steady passenger growth during the last couple of years in both countries.

    “Not only is Dubai a well-liked destination, but we’re seeing a growing number of passengers connecting directly to flydubai’s services to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

    “Our process of targeting regional airports was a major factor in our growth within the region and with the announcements of those six new routes today, a better variety of people would be capable of visit the UAE and beyond with our affordable direct flights.”

    Recommended