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‘HEY, MARRIOTT, THANKS A MILL!’ — Turen, P. 55
THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
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SEVENTH OF A SEVEN-PART SERIES
TRAVEL+MONE Y
How the Industry Really Works
TECHNOLOGY
Created by airlines to automate the booking process, the GDSs
evolved into powerful middlemen in travel distribution.
BY DENNIS SCHAAL PAGE 17
PLUS
Travel managers move to insulate
corporate travelers from airline-GDS battles P. 6
Holiday travel sales robust
as families take to roads,
skies for Christmas P. 58
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BYLINENAMETK PAGE XX
[ ‘THE WORLD’S WORST’ ]
Survey: U.S. officials are scarier
than terrorists to many travelers
By Michael Milligan
World travelers regard U.S. visa and
entry procedures as “the world’s
worst” — so bad, in fact, that as a
whole they fear U.S. government officials more than they fear terrorists.
Those are key findings of
a new survey undertaken
for the Discover America
Partnership, a Washington-based advocacy group for
inbound travelers.
The survey, conducted
between Oct. 23 and Nov. 9
by RT Strategies, a nonpartisan, Washington-based
research firm, consisted of interviews with
2,011 long-haul travelers from Europe, the
Middle East, Asia and South America.
It found that U.S. security procedures had
created “a climate of fear and frustration
that is turning away foreign business and
leisure travelers.”
“Travelers to the U.S. are more afraid of
U.S. government officials than the threat
of terrorism or crime,” Geoff Freeman, the
partnership’s executive director, said at a
news conference. “Two-thirds of travelers
fear they will be detained
at the border because
of a simple mistake or
misstatement.”
Fifty-four percent of
those surveyed described
immigration officials
as rude.
The study also found
that negative attitudes
about travel to the U.S. were more affected by
travelers’ perceptions of ill-treatment than by
Continued on Page 57
‘Two-thirds of travelers fear they will
be detained because
of a simple mistake
or misstatement.’
[ VIEWS OF CONSOLIDATION ARE CHANGING ]
A US Airways-Delta deal could be catalyst
that throws entire airline industry into play
By Andrew Compart
When America West acquired US Airways in
2005, it was a test of the federal government’s
willingness to let two major U.S. airlines merge. But a
proposed US Airways-Delta
merger would face a tougher
challenge and set a bigger precedent, increasing the likelihood that it would change the
very face of the industry.
US Airways and America West were airlines “almost at the fringe of the major competition,” said Bert Foer, president of the
American Antitrust Institute in Washington.
“Now we’re looking at a deal at the heart [of
the industry] to create the largest airline.
That makes a difference.”
The Department of Justice has not been
friendly to big airline merger proposals. In
the summer of 2001, for example, the DOJ
put the final stake in the heart of the proposed United-US Airways merger, asserting
that it would quash competition in certain
markets, raise fares and violate antitrust laws.
The big advantage for US Airways’ $8 billion hostile bid to take over and merge with
Delta, however, is the degree to which the
U.S. airline market and economic environment have changed in the past five years.
“Despite opposition by government regulators to earlier merger proposals, the massive financial
losses since Sept. 11 and the
rise of low-cost carriers have
changed the industry dramatically,” said the
Continued on Page 56
ANALYSIS
WORLD BEAT
Christmas is a Inside Marie Pope Safaris
community gala Antoinette’s offers genteel
in northern boudoir at experiences in
Louisiana. Versailles. Africa’s wilds.
P. 41 P. 46 P. 40
