Locum Destination Review - Issue 11

The journal of record for the global destination industry

Editorial

This is the bricks and clicks issue of Locum Destination Review, and let us start, if perversely, with the clicks. What a difference a year makes. This time last year, lastminute.com, the internet travel and leisure business launched in 1998, remained the subject of intense speculation. Here was a travel and leisure dotcom trying to forge a bright future for itself, despite a global downturn in the market, brought on by the events of September 11th. Against all the odds, and with the spectre of terrorism still looming large, lastminute.com managed to achieve continued growth throughout 2002, in terms of reach and turnover. Indeed, the company reported its first profit before taxation in the fourth financial quarter of 2002, having made three strategic acquisitions during the year and boosted the number of its regular on-line subscribers to some 6.4 million. Recognising the achievement of lastminute.com in becoming the undisputed market leader, we open this issue by talking to Martha Lane Fox, the company’s charismatic co-founder, about her unshakeable belief in the internet, the brave road to dotcom success and the prospects not just for lastminute.com but the e-tourism market in general.

While the private sector leads the way in on-line innovation, communication and commercial success, tourism authorities continue to under-perform by and large. Professor Wolfgang Arlt of the University of Applied Sciences in Stralsund, Germany, shares with us the shocking findings of a simple research exercise he conducted looking at UK tourist board websites. Andrew Duff of the ETC has better news, introducing the EnglandNet programme, a major new on-line resource for UK agencies and operators alike, which is due to be delivered in early 2004. And Gilbert Archdale reports on this year’s ENTER conference, Europe’s leading event on tourism technology, which debated how travel providers and tourism bodies can profit from the next generation of mobile applications and other new distribution channels.

We also bring you a trio of Locum-authored articles outlining valuable lessons for managers of major capital projects. Drawing on their considerable shared experience of planning,delivering and indeed managing large-scale visitor projects, Locum managing director James Alexander and senior associate consultant, Tom Merchant, identify the major pieces of learning to ensure such projects are (a) delivered on time budget, and (b) stay on course once open. Locum consultant Jim Roberts, meanwhile, looks at the causes of poor project management and highlights ways to ensure that they are successfully avoided.

In this issue’s Brandwatch, Tony Hodges observes, topically, an anti-American march: this time down the High Street, past the hamburger joints and towards more individual, even local choices. He asks if Tim Martin at J.D.Wetherspoon has found the ideal route back to the future and raises a glass to the founder of Slow Food, worthy antagonist of fast food invaders from across the Atlantic.

Hotels also focus prominently in this issue. Sir John Banham, chairman of Whitbread plc, explains how the company’s hotel brands have performed so successfully in a troubled market place, and also pleads for greater recognition of the UK’s tourism industry at Government level. Locum chairman, Richard Tibbott, argues that British hoteliers should welcome the RDAs as forces for change at the regional level. Additionally, hoteliers were among the main operators addressed by speakers at the recent Locum Forum seminar, focusing on the regional tourism, upon which we report here.

Hotels, restaurants, major capital projects: at Locum Destination Review we keep a practised eye on the bricks.

Another year on, how much more space will we devote to getting our clicks?

Owen Burdekin
Editor