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This week in Opportunities:

   Travel Industry Growth Reports - What's Hot!
   Hotel Chain Forecasts
   The Next Casino Resort Giant?
   Hyatt's New Brand
   Hot Sector: Vacation Homes
   Two New Cruise Brands
   Executive Movers! See who's going where?
   Travel Executive Employment Report

TOP NEWS!

U.S. Travel's Back in 2004!
The U.S. travel industry should see a major recovery in 2004, according to the top travel executive association. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), whose members represent the cream of the crop of top travel companies, just released its forecast for travel in 2004. The WTTC projects domestic and outbound travel spending in the U.S. will reach $805.4 billion, representing 9.9 percent of total personal consumption, and an effective 6.2 percent rise in real growth. Business travel spending alone is expected to hit $167.5 billion, a 4.5 percent increase in real growth. Even more importantly, the WTTC says travel and tourism will employ 6.6 million in the U.S. in 2004 up 4.2 percent in real job growth.

Online Travel Posts Big Gains
Online travel continues as a hot category, posting record revenue and booking gains. The sector also is a hotbed of top job opportunities, with a multitude of postings at the director level and above at Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity. InterActiveGroup (IAC), parent of Expedia, Hotels.com and Hotwire, reported net income of $153 million in the fourth quarter, up 5 percent from the same quarter in 2002. For 2003, revenue was up 38 percent to $6.3 billion. Quarterly revenue at IAC Travel grew 41 percent to $677.4 million, while gross travel sales for the quarter were up 39 percent to $2.4 billion. In particular, merchant hotel room nights sold were up 42 percent for the quarter to 6.8 million. For all of 2003, IAC said gross travel sales were more than $10 billion. Meanwhile, Orbitz saw revenues increase 35 percent to $69.7 million in the fourth quarter. Orbitz also reported an overall $16 million loss for all of 2003, compared with an overall loss of $17.9 million for 2003. At the same time, overall 2003 revenues were up 38 percent to $241.8 million, compared with $175.5 million the previous year . In particular, non-air travel revenue rose 120 percent in 2003, as the company's merchant hotel business program, now 10 months old, started to kick in. Indeed, the online travel giants are increasingly shifting their full attention to hotel merchant models, cruise sales and packaged travel in order to boost profitability. They are also targeting-and winning--more corporate business. So top online travel opportunities are focused on the hotel, cruise, packaged travel and corporate side of the business.

Hotel Giants See 2004 Boost
Things are looking up for hotel industry powerhouses, which could put the hotel sector in the thick of the job expansion. Marriott International reported $9 billion in revenue for 2003, up 7 percent from the previous year. The company also added 185 hotels and timeshare resorts, or roughly 31,000 rooms, to its inventory in 2003, giving it a total of 2,718 hotels and timeshare resorts with 490,564 rooms. More importantly, Marriott projects it will add another 50,000 rooms in 2004, as the economy heats up. Meanwhile, Starwood reported net income of $87 million in the fourth quarter 2003, compared with $91 million in the same quarter in 2002. But Starwood Chairman Barry Sternlicht predicted that a "full slate of new innovations both on the technology and product sideÖwill drive significant increases in profitability in 2004 and 2005." Elsewhere, Cendant Corp. reported that its net profit was up 17 percent to $288 million for the fourth quarter 2003, compared with $247 million in the same quarter the previous year. Cendant's numbers include such lodging brands as Ramada, Howard Johnson and Wingate, among others, but they also include the Galileo travel technology and reservations company, the Cheap Tickets online booking site, plus car rental giants Avis and Budget. All told the hotel sector continues to show robust gains. Cendant, in particular, seems a ripe for more job growth, with more than 30 high-level openings.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES!

The Next Gaming Giant?
Gaming remains one of the travel industry's brightest sectors-and one poised for more growth in top jobs. In fact, there's a new casino gaming heavyweight in town following the $1.3 billion merger of Coast Casinos and Boyd Gaming, unveiled last month. Coast will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Boyd, but will operate as a separate unit run by the current management team. The merger will result in a new gaming giant with 17 casinos nationwide, and two in the planning stages. Boyd, which owns the Stardust and Sam's Town in Las Vegas last July opened the upscale Borgata in Atlantic City, which it runs as part of a joint venture with MGM Mirage. The company is in the process of buying Harrah's in Shreveport, La. Coast, which owns the Barbary Coast, Gold Coast, Suncoast and the Orleans in Las Vegas, is set to begin construction on the South Coast Hotel and Casino just south of the gaming mecca. Clearly, however, the combined company is in a growth mode-and high-level hires can't be far behind.

New Hyatt Boutique Brand?
Hyatt's new 91-room Hotel Victor, scheduled to open in Miami's South Beach this May, reportedly could lead to an entirely new boutique division for the Hyatt Hotels & Resorts brand. Victor Lopez, divisional vice president at Hyatt, wouldn't confirm the launch of a new brand, but Hyatt certainly is putting a lot of money into the new property: Rooms at the new Victor are being renovated at a cost of $500,000 each, complete with designer bathtubs.

Hot Sector: Vacation Homes
Creative Leisure International, a top wholesaler specializing in Hawaii, is just the most recent company branching into the vacation villa rental business. The company said it is acquiring Villas of Distinction to expand its product reach in the Caribbean. Villas of Distinction, which also has properties in Europe and Hawaii, will reportedly continue to be run by CEO Robert Eastman. Another company actively engaged in the high-end vacation home rental business is Abercrombie & Kent, a luxury tour operator, which unveiled a new high-end vacation home unit last year-and just rebranded it as Abercrombie & Kent Distinctive Homes because growing demand has forced the company to expand its product line. Meanwhile, Executive Resorts, owned in part by former America Online CEO Steve Case, is continuing to expand its slate of high-end vacation homes.

Cruises on the Drawing Table?
Travel Weekly is reporting that Michael Lomax, former president of Society Expeditions, is planning to launch a new small-ship line. Meanwhile, Richard Sasso, former Celebrity Cruises president, is said to be working on another cruise-related project.

EXECUTIVE MOVERS!

CRUISE LINES: Princess Cruises tapped Alan Buckelew, a company veteran, as its new president, reporting to Princess CEO Peter Radcliffe. The post had been vacant for a year after the departure of Phil Kleweno. Buckelew was most recently executive vice president-corporate services, chief information officer and chief financial officer. In other moves, Brian Langston-Carter, executive vice president of fleet operations, announced his retirement effective this year after Princess gets delivery of its three new ships-the Diamond Princess, Caribbean Princess and Sapphire Princess. Dean Brown, another Princess veteran, most recently executive vice president of customer service and sales, has been named to replace Langston-Carter. Brown will be responsible for all shipboard operations, including hotel, marine, fleet personnel and technical operations, but he will also continue to oversee Princess Tours as CEO, as well as Princess' port operations division. Meanwhile, Jan Swartz, former vice president of strategic planned, was named senior vice president of sales and customer service, and Jim Baer, former director of sales and national accounts, was named vice president of sales. Significantly, Princess' moves all involved veteran executives, even though Carnival Corp. acquired the line last year. With new ships in the pipeline, this company is clearly on the growth track.

TOUR OPERATORS: Rich Henley has resigned as senior vice president-sales and marketing at Tauck World Discovery, less than a year after he was named to the post. Tauck also reportedly has been seeking a director of marketing for the past few months.

TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY: Worldspan, one of the four major global travel reservations companies, is revamping its executive ranks, just months after it was purchased by an investor group and installed former US Airways COO Rangwash Gangwal as president and CEO. Three top executives have recently left Worldspan. They include Charlie Sullivan, senior vice president and general manager of e-commerce; Vela McClam-Mitchell, senior vice president and general manager of worldwide travel supplier solutions; Bobbi Passavanti, director of worldwide corporate communications.

TRAVEL AGENCIES: Signature Travel Group, a Los Angeles-based travel agency coop formerly known as Leisure Travel Network, is in a major growth mode. Michelle Morgan, veteran executive director of the group, has been promoted to president. Signature also has hired Ignacio Maza as executive vice president based in New York. Maza had been the New York-based executive vice president for supplier relations at Virtuoso, the luxury travel agency marketing services firm. Maza will continue to operate from New York for Signature. Signature also recently hired Larry Flinders as president and COO of Insignia Vacations, its new wholesale operation. Virtuoso said that Diane Revnes Moore, recently hired away from Crystal Cruise, would assume Maza's responsibilities, with the title executive vice president-supplier sales and merchandising. Moore will be based in SeattleÖElsewhere in the gravel agency, a former vice president for New York-travel agency coop Giants, John Kennedy, has joined TravelPlus in Canada as vice president. Toronto-based TravelPlus has a network of 280 independent retail agencies. Giants has reportedly hired an executive search firm in Canada to find a replacement for Kennedy. Giants has 700 agency members in its Canadian unit.

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