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  • 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 with 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 because of strong execution by the complete Six Flags team,” said Jim Reid-Anderson, Chairman, President and CEO. “We will continue to please our guests with enhanced offerings across all of our parks as we give attention to 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 one.8 million guests. Approximately half the 525,000 attendance gain resulted from an operating calendar shift as a result of some schools scheduling their spring breaks in March this year versus April 2012.

    Excluding the Hurricane Irene insurance proceeds received within 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 resulting from this initiative, deferred revenue as of March 31, 2013 grew to $92 million, a rise of $27 million or 41 percent in comparison to 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 in comparison to the prior twelve-month period ending March 31, 2012. The primary quarter 2013 reported loss per share of $1.23 was an improvement of $0.88 per share in comparison to the 1st 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 exceptional shares as of December 31, 2012. As of April 19, 2013, 47.8 million shares were outstanding.

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  • News: Tourism Australia has another world record in its sights

    Sydney photographers, bloggers, instagrammers and tweeters are being invited to Bondi this Saturday (23 March 2013) to sign up for Colby Brown, considered one of America’s most influential photography bloggers try and set a brand new world record for the biggest ever ‘photo-walk’.

    The Bronte to Bondi Photo Walk is supported by Google, Samsung and Destination NSW and is a part of a brand new Tourism Australia program, targeting digital influencers and opinion leaders, inviting them to share their images and experiences of Australia with their extensive social media followings.

    Colby is a certified photographer based in Denver, Colorado and has 2.3 million followers on Google+.

    “Australia has one of these vibrant and active photography community it’s known around the globe. I instantly knew that i needed to do a photograph walk in Sydney since it is this kind of beautiful location and gives a whimsical opportunity to bring that thriving community together to celebrate and showcase much of what town has to present the area,” Colby Brown said.

    Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said that the mixture of Colby’s photographic talent and large following of fans provided an impressive platform to showcase a number of Australia’s splendid tourism experiences.

    “With greater than four million fans, we have already got the most important destination Facebook fan page on earth, and apparently we only need about 300 people to affix Colby in this Bronte-Bondi Photo Walk to make it a brand new world record for Australia,” Mr McEvoy said.

    As well because the photo walk, Colby Brown can be also enjoying Google+ ‘Hangouts’ during his Australian trip, which also soak up the natural landscapes and scenery of South Australia, Tasmanian, Victoria and Western Australia.

    A selection of leading Australian digital influencers are supporting the sector record bid, including South Sydney photographer Michael Sutton, who will accompany Colby and share his own photos taken through the walk along with his 52,000 Google+ followers.

    The world record for a photograph-walk is currently held by another prominent US photography blogger, Trey Ratcliff. It came about in Melbourne in January and was attended by 289 people.

    The Bronte to Bondi Photo Walk occurs on Saturday 23 March: starting at Bronte Beach at 3pm and finishing at the North Bondi grassy knoll around sunset.

    Participants taking the appropriate photograph can win as much as $8,000 worth of prizes, including cameras and photography equipment in addition to Bridgeclimb vouchers.

    Colby and Michael will both be posting real-time updates of the photo-walk on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+. The hashtags for the photo-walk are #Bondi2013 and #SeeAustralia

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  • News: WorldVentures opens for business in Iceland

    WorldVentures, the direct-selling industry’s largest seller of vacation club memberships, is proud to announce its expansion into Iceland today.  Launching in Iceland extends WorldVentures’ international presence to 23 countries, and is a natural progression to the company’s expansion in two other prominent Nordic markets, Sweden and Norway.

    “Launching in Iceland demonstrates the significance WorldVentures attributes to the Nordic markets as part of our global expansion plan,” said WorldVentures Co-Founder and Chief Visionary Officer Wayne Nugent. “Norway is one in all our booming markets, and its tremendous success created demand from local Icelandic entrepreneurs to begin their very own businesses with WorldVentures. We’re proud to welcome these future business owners to our team of world ambassadors, and to provide them exclusive and affordable access to a few of one of the most desirable travel destinations and resorts all over.”

    WorldVentures’ entrance into Iceland provides a chance for those fascinated about building an independent business to sell the company’s DreamTrips™ club memberships to these truly keen about travel. DreamTrips Members enjoy one-of-a-kind, curated group vacation experiences designed and managed by an award-winning online travel agency.

    Founded by two direct-selling veterans and visionaries, Wayne Nugent and Mike Azcue, WorldVentures is built on three guiding principles: a foundation of superior travel and vacation products for purchasers; fair and transparent economic opportunity for its Independent Representatives; and a real commitment to community coupled with good corporate citizenship. The corporate does significant strategic planning just before launching in a brand new country, ensuring it has a viable market and is compliant with all local regulations. WorldVentures’ current markets include countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.

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  • 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 strong holistic vision to be implemented within the next five years, with a view to create thousands of jobs, generate greatly increased tourism demand, spur economic development and make sure the continued growth of recent Orleans’ economy for many years to come back.  The unified plan was 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 latest Orleans.

    It is now culminating with the alignment of key components for execution over the subsequent five years to profit a higher 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 hot 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 resulted in the enactment of the taxes, and really likely the law to boot.

    3. The united industry (Consortium) strongly supports an incredible 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 that are 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 lift new funds for marketing and promotion of latest 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 some distance 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 event of the brand new facility is the overall piece in transforming our hospitality infrastructure and is significant 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 recent tax revenues to take care of 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 better 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.

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  • News: Emergency vehicle provides faster response to railway incidents

    A dedicated police response vehicle is getting used across south and west London to aid reduce disruption to passengers resulting from emergency incidents at the railway.

    The vehicle, which have been commissioned and funded by the Network Rail and South West Trains Alliance in partnership with British Transport Police, is the 1st of its kind for use full-time and follows successful trials in the course of the Olympics.

    It allows railway engineers, driven by and accompanied by BTP officers, to get to incidents using blue lights and sirens which helps to minimize response times and reduces the length of delays to passengers.

    The vehicle is getting used to answer incidents which are causing, or have the capability to cause, disruption at the Wessex route out of London Waterloo and has already had a good impact on disruption levels.

    Tim Shoveller, managing director of the Network Rail and South West Trains Alliance, said: “This unique vehicle reduces the quantity of time it takes to get to incidents at the railway which subsequently reduces the length of delays to trains and ultimately to our passengers.

    “It covers one of the crucial busiest sections of railway within the country which, when something goes wrong, has a knock on effect around the south and south west of britain. The vehicle allows BTP officers and railway engineers to travel to an incident within the same way that other police vehicles can to an emergency, which enables us to clear incidents and perform repairs more quickly.

    “It proved its worth in the course of the Olympics and we’re confident it may continue to assist us run a more efficient and effective railway.”

    Superintendent Jason Bunyard, from BTP’s London South area, said: “Passenger safety would be improved via the recent vehicle to get engineers and kit to the scene of incidents and to get trains moving again as quickly as possible.

    “Because we understand the disappointment caused to passengers who’re held up by incidents at the railway, our aim is to get an officer there once possible as a way to get stuck trains moving again quickly.

    “By getting the road moving sooner, there’ll even be fewer crowd questions of safety in and around stations.

    “Once on the scene, the officer driving the EIU vehicle will perform regular policing duties and work alongside colleagues to unravel any crime or issues of safety and help get the network moving.

    “This is a brilliant opportunity for BTP officers to work with South West Trains and Network Rail colleagues, in a bid to maintain the railway a secure place whilst operating to its best capacity.”

    The vehicle, called an emergency intervention unit (EIV), was in use for a month and has attended a considerable number of infrastructure incidents which during the past would have caused longer delays to services. Other sorts of incident the vehicle has attended includes trespassers and helping reopen the railway after a passenger had fallen onto the track.

    The vehicle have been modified to hold essential railway repair equipment and is police marked with Network Rail and South West Trains branding. It will become based at London Waterloo station and should cover the Wessex route so far as Epsom, Chessington South, Oxshott, Weybridge, Shepperton and Feltham.

    It have been funded until March 2014 and in addition to responding to emergency incidents, it would even be used to patrol known hotspots to aid reduce incidents consisting of cable theft and vandalism. When available, it will likely be used on other railway routes which travel into south London when required.

    The EIV is one method getting used by the Network Rail and South West Trains Alliance to enhance the railway within the south and south west of britain. Greater than £360m a year is spent on improving and maintaining the track and infrastructure around the route. an additional £30m is being spent to enhance the reliability of the flexibility supply used to run trains.

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