Memphis Hotels

Archive for the ‘Travel And Leisure’ Category

Until the end of February Select Italy (http://selectialy.com) offers a special commission to all Travel Agents: 15% Commission on 15 Different Services for the 15th anniversary.

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) January 26, 2012

Travel for leisure did not gain popularity until the 17th century when the Grand Tour as it was then called, became an essential rite of passage for the young European elite. Young men traveled to Europes most culturally affluent cities to supplement their education via direct exposition to foreign languages, the arts and ancient history. Travel to Florence, Venice and Rome was essential on the tour and remains. Select Italys 15 year anniversary marks the companys own history of leisure travel; to celebrate, Select Italy will offer its loyal travel agents an opportunity to make a Grand Tour of Rome, Florence an Venice even more desirable with the 15x15x15 promotion.

Over the last 15 years, Select Italy has had the privilege of working with travel agencies around the globe. These partnerships are undoubtedly why this company has flourished over the years. The quality of our services reflects the quality of our friends, and the travel agents we work with are of the highest caliber of both says Andrea Sertoli, President and CEO of Select Italy. With over a decade long stint topping Travel and Leisures A-List, Select Italy has built a solid reputation in travel to Italy. To commemorate the valuable partnerships which have propelled Select Italy to the top of the industry the company has introduced the 15x15x15 promotion until the end of February. This promotion guarantees a 15% commission for travel agents who book one or more of 15 selected services in Rome, Florence or Venice. Select Italy specializes in creating custom itineraries, and currently offers its own Grand Tour of sorts with the Big 3 vacation package; an amendable itinerary which includes travel to Florence, Rome and Venice. Clients can opt for three to five-star lodging, customize the order of cities or the length of their stay.

Aside from this vacation package, agents can choose from a variety of other services before the end of February to receive their due 15%. For example, clients interested in music will not want to miss an opera or concert at St. Marks Anglican Church while in Florence. This beautiful theater has attracted admirers of music since the industrial revolution, an era which spiked the popularity of leisure travel throughout Europe. For those grand tourists eager to learn Italian history, the Venetian Renaissance After the Plague private walking tour in Venice examines the influence of the Black Death on Venice during and after the Dark Ages. Finally, Rome boasts many of the most elegant enotecas throughout Italy; enologists and appreciators alike will cultivate their palates with the service Wine Tastings You Wont Forget.

Italy has fascinated travelers and peaked the imaginations of the curious, the artistic and the scientific since the beginning of Western civilization and will continue to do so indefinitely. Select Italy specializes in the very place travelers have sought for hundreds of years for only fifteen; with thanks to the 4200 registered travel agents this relatively young company celebrates its growing success. Happy Birthday, Select Italy!

About Select Italy:

Select Italy is the ultimate source for travel to Italy and offers a wide array of superior Italian products and services, including customized itineraries, state-of-the-art tours and packages, wedding/honeymoon trips, unique culinary classes, a complete pre-departure ticketing service for museums and musical events, private guided services, yacht charters, transportation, hotel reservations, villa bookings and more. In 2010, Select Italy opened a full-service branch in Shanghai, China. For more information call (800) 877-1755 or visit www.selectitaly.com.

###

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebSelect-Italy-Travel/Travel-Agent-Special/prweb9139363.htm

KAPALUA – The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua announced that J. Scott Robison will spearhead all sales and marketing initiatives, as well as strategic business development at the resort.

Hailing from Virginia, Robison most recently served as director of sales and marketing at The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner.

During his tenure, the Washington, DC, metro area hotel experienced double-digit RevPAR growth and 23 percent market share growth for 2011.

He led a sales and marketing team of 18 representing the group, catering, business travel and leisure segments, as well as all public relations, marketing and revenue management efforts.

Prior to joining the company, Robison served as director of sales at Virginias Lansdowne Resort and held several management positions with Hiltons of Washington, DC, and Doubletree Hotels.

Scott not only brings a solid history of hospitality knowledge, industry sales excellence and strong marketing savvy, but he is also a respected, results-oriented team leader, said Tom Donovan, the Ritz-Carlton, Kapaluas vice president and general manager.

We are thrilled to welcome him to Hawaii and immerse him in the beautiful culture.

Surprise, surprise: Miamians are hot, dumb, rude and cant drive. So says everyone, and so says the latest annual Americas Favorite Cities poll from Travel + Leisure. But apparently we here in the 305 are even ruder than usual: from a fourth-place showing last year, Miami is now in a hot mess of second place, with visitors to our fair city ranking us right behind the original curt-sters in New York City.

(Hilariously, Miamians themselves ranked the city the most rude of all, meaning were not even bothering to pretend any more.)

Americas Favorite Cities is only as scientific as people on the Internet taking polls about 35 destinations, but with the exception of slamming our lack of historical sites and monuments, fairly gosh darn accurate (did no one hear LeBron take his talents to a neighborhood on the National Register for Historic Places? Yeesh). Check out how the 305 fared, and before you get your dander up about the lack of arts recognition, know this: Miamians themselves ranked the city just as poorly in culture categories as did outsiders. Ouch.

Miami ranked in the bottom 10, according to visitors, in:

Driving ability
Friendly
Intelligent
Proud of their city
Sports-crazed
Tech-savvy
Classical music
Historic sites/monuments
Museums/galleries
Theatre/performance art
Antique stores
Flea markets
Hamburgers
Microbrew beer
Pizza
Affordability
Cleanliness
Peace and quiet
Public parks and outdoor access (WHA?)
Public transportation and pedestrian-friendliness
Wireless coverage
Place to visit during 4th of July, fall, and summer
Base for day trips
Cultural getaway
Family trip
Pet-friendly vacation

Miami ranked in the top 10, according to visitors, in:

Attractive
Stylish
Cocktail hour
Singles/bar scene
Luxury stores
Weather
Place to visit during New Years Eve and winter
Wild weekend

So, in other words, were vapid, devoid of culture, running people off the road, unable to work electronics, anti-brewski, bad at basic food staples, sucking at green space, and fair weather fans, and theres next to nothing nice about us. But we look good in this dress, right? OF COURSE WE DO: its all that matters. Victory!

The today announced agreement is part of the company’s mission to partner with the most relevant players in the tourism sector, offering its clients with the highest-standard solutions. MAIRDUMONT, while a world leading publisher in tourism, was elected by LatitudeN to be its main provider for content. The decision took into consideration the recognition of the long experience of MAIRDUMONT within the travel and leisure media market, namely with its world known printed travel guidebooks “Marco Polo” or “Dumont”.

The official launch of Farol City Guides is set for January 2012 in the cities of Brussels and London, covering other major European cities throughout this year. Available in English language on the Android market for now, the travel app will be soon available for iPhone and in other languages.

For more information about Farol City Guides please visit www.farolworld.com.

ABOUT LATITUDEN
LatitudeN GmbH is a technology company developing intelligent location-based solutions in tourism. The company is since its foundation part of the European Space Agency (ESA) business incubation initiative.
It is the mission of LatitudeN to create innovative solutions able to project the travel experience to the next level. Our experienced and motivated team, together with an international network of experts, aims to revolutionize the way that people use mobile devices to feel, explore and interact with their surrounding environment.
LatitudeN was founded in 2009 in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, Germany.

ABOUT MAIRDUMONT
MAIRDUMONT is a European market leader in tourism content. The range of its products comprises printed and electronic media. The printed publications includes the Marco Polo Travel Guides, Falk City Plans/City Atlases, Baedeker Allianz Travel Guides, ADAC cartography, the Large General Atlas, DuMont Travel Guides, Lonely Planet travel guides, Varta Guides, the DuMont Illustrated Atlas and the Kompass hiking and cycling-tour range.
MAIRDUMONT was established in 1948 and is headquartered in Ostfildern, near Stuttgart – Germany.

Bruno Fernandes
LatitudeN GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Str.7
64293 Darmstadt
www.latituden.com

Turns out the feelings were mutual.

This is typically where the weaving of the tangled web begins. Except that Michael not only knew about his wifes extramarital attraction, he consented to and supported her decision to get romantically involved with the divorced father of two.

Seven years later, Michelle, Michael and Liam are sitting in a downtown cafe telling a reporter how they managed to prevent the destruction of either a marriage or a friendship.

Lets just say that since 2007, Michelle and Michaels marital home has had two master bedrooms. And there are three names on the deed.

I alternate nights, Michelle, a research scientist, says in response to what is probably the question most often asked of people who practise polyamoury.

And Michaels relationship with the man eating soup beside him?

Somewhere between good friends and brothers, he says of Liam, a 49-year-old fellow IT professional and, in poly lingo, his metamour — the partner of ones partner.

polyamoury (poly being Greek for many, and amor Latin for love) is a term coined in the early 90s to describe the practice of having more than romantic relationship at the same time. Its perhaps best defined by what it is not.

polyamoury is not swinging, which is more about recreational sex. It is not an orgy, which is group sex. And it is not (Listen up, Newt Gingrich) a one-sided open relationship, which is cheating.

Were not terribly fond of people who come along on our forum and say, Im polyamorous but my wife doesnt know, says Anlina Sheng, a Winnipeg polyamoury activist and moderator at polywinnipeg.com. The forum has about 200 members in and around Manitoba.

You might say polyamoury is free love with strings attached. Although practitioners have multiple romantic partners, openness and honesty are core tenets of the lifestyle.

Sheng, a 29-year-old freelance graphic and web designer, has a live-in boyfriend, a Winnipeg girlfriend, and casual male partners in both Illinois and the Yukon. They all know about each other.

This feels really natural to me. Its not something I chose, says the one-time Green Party candidate, who has been poly dating since she was a teen and likens being polyamorous to being gay.

Sheng, who is divorced, says that while she and her husband had a sexually open relationship, he wasnt open to multiple romantic connections.

Although polyamourys profile has risen in recent years because of the Internet, its impossible to know how many people practise it since theres no applicable box to tick on any census form — and its still a crime in Canada to have more than one lawfully wedded husband or wife.

John Ince, a Vancouver lawyer and spokesman for the Canadian Polyamoury Advocacy Association, estimates that about three per cent of Canadians live in multiple-partner relationships.

polyamoury, for the record, is quite distinct from polygamy, which, thanks to TV shows such as the fictional drama Big Love and the reality series Sister Wives, people tend to associate with fundamentalist Mormons who practise plural marriage.

Polyamorous relationships are post-modern, secular, egalitarian and consensual, says Ince, while traditional polygamy is a pre-modern institution with religious and patriarchal roots.

A critical distinction is that (in polyamoury) theres no stigma attached to any form of sexual orientation, says the founder of the Sex Party, a political party based in BC, who has been involved in poly relationships for more than 30 years.

The relational groupings can be triads — a triangle if all three partners are intimately involved, or a V if only two of the three pairs have a sexual bond (Michelle, Michael and Liam are a V) — quads, or more. (Groupings of three or more are sometimes called moresomes.) They can be all women or all men and include trangender and transsexual persons.

Ince, 59, who was in a long-term polyamorous relationship with two women but is recently single and currently between other relationships, says its a myth that polyamoury is driven by the male ego and fundamentally about men getting their rocks off.

For one thing, most polyamoury authors are women, he says, including Deborah Anapol, a pioneer of the modern polyamoury movement in the 1980s and author of the seminal book, polyamoury: Love Without Limits.

Most poly people arent just in it for the sex, Ince says, but seek intimacy to a very high degree.

And while he concedes that polyamoury works best for people with high self-esteem, Ince would argue that possessiveness and jealousy are more highly associated with the prevailing monogamous relationship model.

In monogamy, if your partner is attracted to someone else, youre going to lose that partner.

Her feelings for Liam did not negate, trump or interfere with her love for her husband — which has only deepened and grown for their ability to stay together through the whole experience, Michelle says.

What I had to learn through this whole process is that fidelity does not have to be defined through exclusivity, she says.

polyamoury provided me with a context to make sense of my feelings for both (men), understanding that just as a parent can have deep and equal love for more than one child, so can an adult have deep and equal love for more than one partner.

Although Michelle and Michael were legally married in a religious ceremony in 1995, there has been no ceremony or rite to mark her relationship with Liam, although they often talk about having one. And they do wear matching rings to reflect their commitment.

The trio asked that their real names not be published in order to protect the identities of their four children, ages eight to 16, three of whom live in the home full time. They have faced criticism from family and friends, and severed relationships because of their lifestyle choices.

But they consider themselves a blended family, and enjoy recreational activities and vacations together as a family. Michelle also makes sure she spends travel and leisure time with each partner individually to nurture both relationships.

As polyamorous couples go, Michelle and Michael are unusual because they didnt go looking for a third partner.

When asked why he didnt issue his wife of 16 years an ultimatum, Michael, who is soft-spoken and bears a striking resemblance to Liam, replies: I think I understood what Id be asking her to give up.

Which is exactly why I love him as much as I do, Michelle says.

carolin.vesely@freepress.mb.ca

For more info on Winnipegs poly community, go to www.polywinnipeg.com.

NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
Tambourine, a digital marketing agency specializing in travel and tourism, has received three Adrian Awards from The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI). The Adrian Awards are the largest and most prestigious travel marketing competition, representing this year’s top marketing campaigns from across the global hospitality industry.

Tambourine’s rebranding and website design for the island of St Kitts was selected from the thousands of entries as one of only 29 Gold Award winners. You can view the award-winning website at
http://www.StKittsTourism.com .

In addition to this award, Tambourine has been awarded a Silver Adrian for its rebranding and website re-launch for the island of St. Maarten (
www.vacationstmaarten.com ), as well as Silver for Best Digital Strategy on behalf of Comfort Suites Paradise Island in The Bahamas.

“We consider ourselves very fortunate to represent clients with such beauty and diverse cultural experiences,” according to Rafael Cadozo, president of Tambourine. “Communicating their story via digital media and attracting visitors from around the world is what inspires our work on a daily basis.”

“The bar is continuously set higher each year in regards to the quality of Adrian Awards submissions we receive,” said Fran Brasseux, HSMAI executive vice president. “This year’s winners have made their mark in travel advertising, public relations, and digital marketing. We look forward to showcasing this exemplarily work with the industry and recognizing the remarkable winners at the Adrian Awards Gala.”

Visit
www.AdrianAwards.com for more information.

About Tambourine:Tambourine is an ROI-obsessed marketing agency driving demand, revenue and brand awareness for travel and leisure clients since 1986. Based in South Florida, Tambourine creates inspiring digital experiences and engaging campaigns that produce measurable results. To learn more, please visit:
www.Tambourine.com

Contact: Tambourine954-975-2220info@Tambourine.com

SOURCE Tambourine

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

Internet Brands, a Los Angeles operator of niche websites, on Monday said that it acquired an award-winning travel blog, Frugal Travel Guy, for an undisclosed amount.

The Frugal Travel Guy was founded in 2007 by Rick Ingersoll, a retired mortgage banker and avid world traveler. Ingersoll writes on topics that include navigating frequent flyer mile programs, making customer service requests, and the advantages of leveraging good credit ratings to take advantage of bank promotions. He and his team of writers will continue producing the Frugal Travel Guy blog after the acquisition.

The Frugal Travel Guy will join travel sites that include FlyerTalk, Wikitravel and CruiseMates in Internet Brands’ Travel and Leisure category.

“The expertise Rick and (his) team offer make the Frugal Travel Guy a valuable asset to our growing portfolio of travel sites designed to make travel easier, cheaper and more efficient for consumers,” Brent Conver, general manager of Travel and Leisure at Internet Brands, said in a statement.

MKM Partners

Our top picks in travel and leisure for 2012 are predicated on two macro assumptions: 1) Implied volatility (CBOE SPX Volatility Index) grinds lower though 2012 — this would create an upward bias for US equities and we would expect higher-beta stocks to outperform; 2) European expectations have come in sufficiently while some signs of monetary easing suggest disaster in the core could be averted.

Our top picks for 2012 are Avis Budget Group (ticker: CAR) (rated at Buy, $22 price target); Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ) (rated at Buy, $20 price target); Starwood Hotels Resorts Worldwide (HOT) …

Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) Q4 2011 Earnings Conference Call January 26, 2012 11:00 AM ET

Operator

Good morning everyone and welcome to the Travelzoo fourth Quarter 2011 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Today’s call is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Chris Loughlin, Travelzoo’s Chief Executive Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Chris Loughlin

Thank you operator and good morning everybody. Thank you for joining us today for Travelzoo’s fourth quarter 2011 financial results conference call. I am Chris Loughlin, Chief Executive Officer. With me today is Glen Ceremony, the Company’s Chief Financial Officer. Glen will walk you through today’s format.

Glen Ceremony

Thank you Chris and good morning, everyone. Before we begin our presentation, we would like to remind you that all statements made during this conference call and presented in our slides that are not statements of historical facts constitute forward-looking statements, and are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could vary materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are described in our Forms 10-K and 10-Q, and other periodic filings with the SEC. Please note that this call is being webcast from our Investor Relations’ website at www.travelzoo.com/earnings.

Please refer to our website for important information, including our earnings release issued earlier this morning, along with the slides that accompany today’s prepared remarks. An archived recording of this conference call will be available on the Travelzoo Investors’ website at www.travelzoo.com/ir, beginning approximately 90 minutes after the conclusion of this call.

For today’s format of the call I will review our fourth quarter and full-year 2011 financial results, and then Chris will provide an update on our strategy. Thereafter we will conclude with a question-and-answer session.

Now, if you will please open our management presentation, which is available at www.travelzoo.com/earnings.

Turning to slide four, this slide provides you the key financial highlights for the quarter. We achieved revenues of $35.2 million this quarter which is up 23 percent the same period last year. This represents our fastest year-over-year revenue growth rate for our fourth quarter in four years. We also achieved earnings per share of $0.40 which is up 75 percent from $0.23 for the same period last year. In addition, we maintained steady growth in new subscribers.

On slide five, we look at revenue by segment. Please note that this is our first full quarter of comparing year-on-year quarterly revenues where our new local deal formats existed in the prior year period.

Revenue in North America was $25.6 million representing a year-over-year growth rate of 16 percent which has been accelerating growth rate compared to our last fourth quarter. In Europe; revenue growth was 48 percent year-over-year and we believe was impacted by the economic uncertainty that played out in Europe during this quarter.

Turning to slide six; starting this quarter we will provide a further breakout of our revenue by type which is closely in line with the way we do our business. We hope this will provide further insights into our business. The first category of revenue is Travel, as you can see this will include the products our subscribers and advertisers have grown to love over the years that present tested high quality deals coming primarily from our flagship products such as Top 20, Newsflash, website and network.

In addition Travel will include our Getaways voucher based format launched earlier this year. This aligns with the way we do manage Getaways and make sense as they include hotel stays which are existing products (inaudible) as well. It probably is worth mentioning here that we are very pleased with the rollout of Getaways today. As a majority of these deals from new hotels and the business that has shifted from our existing products to Getaway; as on an overall basis generated incremental revenue for us.

These early signs continue to make us confident in the continue rollout of Getaways even if there is some shifts from our existing products. The second category of revenue is Search. This will include both our search products we have developed over the year’s Fly.com and Supersearch.

We continue to believe these two are the great compliments to our business as both provided easy way for our subscribers to compare this and shop for airline, hotels and car rentals. The third category of revenue is Local. This will include both local deals voucher based format which was new to us in the last 15 months and entertainment is included in that which was recently seen to make some vouchers with non voucher deals. We believe these revenues as one category represent our efforts to provide subscribers with high quality local deals whether it is a whether it is a restaurant, a spa or a Broadway play and regardless of the form in which advertise choose vouchers, or non vouchers.

Now let’s take a look at the revenue by type for each segment for this quarter starting on slide 7. North America fourth quarter revenue broke down by type shows travel growing at 12 percent year-over-year which is higher than the 4 percent rate we saw for the last year’s fourth quarter. Getaways drove much of this growth and offset some of the trends we continue to believe impact us such as the airline consolidation and competition.

North America search revenue declined in the fourth quarter sequentially due to our conscious decision to reduce the traffic acquisition stand in this area as historically the fourth quarter has been a seasonally slower quarter for the search business. This search decline was the primary reason for the sequential decline and overall North American revenues.

North America local revenue increased year-over-year however declined sequentially. We believe this was due to some internal factors such as key sales people moves and other sales people that were out due to extended sick leave. In addition; although this is business is still very need or less and growing, we believe that there was some seasonality that played a part in the decline based upon merchants having less capacity and subscribers being busy with holiday preparations.

We still remain positive about the local opportunity and look forward to continuing to build out the sales and management team to try and further see this opportunity.

Turning to slide 8, you will see the breakdown of revenue for our Europe segment. Europe travel is showing a 14 percent year-over-year growth which we expected a seasonally sequentially down fourth quarter but we believe the uncertainty and European economy drove the decline in spending and impacted our travel advertising sales.

Europe search grow 57 percent year-over-year, again we pull back on the traffic acquisition stand for what we believe to be a seasonally slower quarter which impacted the revenue growth sequentially.

Europe local grow at 493 percent as we are still embarking on our first full year of introducing the local deals voucher format in Europe. We learned a lot as we experienced different markets and are excited about applying these learning’s to future opportunities.

So we hope this revenue break out helps you understand our results and the way in which we view our business. We have provided three years of quarterly and annual information for your reference and the appendix of this presentation.

Okay. Turning to slide nine, this slide provides more detail on our operating income. Operating income for the Company this quarter was $8.2 million which is a record operating income for a fourth quarter. Our North America business contributed $6.5 million. Well Europe contributed record profits of $1.7 million.

Our income tax expense was $1.9 million which includes the benefits from the resolution of favorable tax positions related to prior periods totaling approximately $600,000. All of this led to a record fourth quarter net income of $6.4 million and a strong fourth quarter EPS of $0.40.

Turning to slide 10, as you may recall last quarter we explained the changing impact that the voucher format and it has on our cost structure. You can see this again on our left hand chart which shows local related and other costs. Cost to revenue decreased slightly improving gross profit by 40 basis points and was offset by the operating margin decrease of 60 basis point; due primarily to this seasonally slower fourth quarter.

Turning to slide 11, you will see our operating expenses North America remained relatively stable as a percent of revenue while Europe operating expenses as a percent of revenue decreased as Europe has continued to scale since last year’s fourth quarter.

Slide 12 shows that our headcount slightly decreased from 357 last quarter; to 350 this quarter. We did not aggressively hire given the seasonally slower quarter, this slight decrease is the attrition net of hiring. We plan to continue to hire while focusing on productivity in order to invest in opportunities for future growth.

Turning to slide 13; you will see that we are maintaining our strong collections and growing on our cash balance. We ended the quarter with $38.7million in cash and cash equivalents and this is up from prior quarter as a result of our operating cash flow of over $7 million.

On slide 14; we have summarized the financial results for the quarter, we achieved the highest fourth quarter revenue growth in four years. We maintained steady subscriber growth for a seasonally slower Q4 and we had record fourth quarter operating income and record profitability for our European business segment. With that it’s probably good time to pause and reflect on the highlights for the full year 2011.

On the next slide, slide 15 has captured some of the key highlights of what we believe was an excellent year of growth for our Company. Full year revenue grew 32 percent year-over-year reaching a total of $148.3 million. Full year non GAAP bps reached a record level of $1.42 and subscriber growth remained strong at 14 percent.

Turning on to the next two slides, slide 16 and 17 capture our full year revenues broken up by segment type. Similar to the break out I described earlier with the quarterly results. North America revenues grew overall by 24 percent representing the fastest growth rate in four years. This was sealed by local, our travel revenues continue to growth despite the airline consolidation and stepped up competition

Turning to slide 17, this shows that Europe revenues increased by 58 percent year-over-year driven by across the board growth in travel, search and local despite the uncertain European economy. For overall, we are pleased with the mix and the growth of revenue in 2011

Slide 18 captures the full year record non GAAP operating income of $35 million with Europe contributing at first full year profitability. This overall increase in operating income resulted in almost three point increase in our operating margin. We are pleased with financial results, we are able to retain in 2011 and this is as we build our new local deals and Getaways voucher formats. We look forward to the opportunities in 2012 to growth with profitability.

All right; that wraps up the financial part of our presentation, so now Chris will cover some of the highlights regarding Travelazoo’s growth strategy.

Chris Loughlin

Thank you very much Glen. If anyone likes to turn to slide 20 we summarized our growth strategy which we continue to execute against. Along the X-axis, we are growing the number of subscribers to engage with the Travelzoo brand. We continuously attract new subscribers through word of mouth and through advertising. We are also reaching new subscribers through new medium such us our new iPhone app and the Travelzoo network. On the Y-axis; we are growing our revenue per subscriber. Local deals and Getaway’s have becomes a substantial driver of revenue per subscriber growth.

Our return on new markets; become more productive in existing markets and extend the product offering. We see significant incremental revenue subscriber gains. Other important drivers of revenue per subscriber along the Y-axis include wait increases when our subscriber levels reach earnings in particular markets, search related products and sales team optimization

Turning to slide 21, you can see we now reach 21.5 million subscribers in Europe and North America. We are excited to see that we continue to attract new subscribers as we introduce new content types particularly in Europe

Turning to slide 22; I would like to talk a little bit about our subscribers. We have stressed for many years, we have attracted high quality subscribers. In Q4; we had the opportunity to take 50,000 records of local deals purchases, so that’s my [ph] credit card information and we ask experience to tells us a little bit more about the subscribers. Experience confirmed that our subscribers are wealthier and older and you can see on the left, these 50,000 subscribers index much higher in the $125,000 to $200,000 household income bracket.

On the right, you can see that 80 percent of our subscribers in this simple set are over the age of 35. We have been able to attract such high quality subscribers over the last 14 years because our content consistently comes with a high recommendation and is absolutely an outstanding travel opportunity. It’s content to define an audience it’s not the other way around and everyone has to understand that.

Given leisure travel particular internationally travel is consumed by those with a high disposable income and more freedom it makes perfect sense by travel that does have such high quality audience. By having a high quality audience wealthier and slightly more matured people; we are able to attract high quality establishment to work with us.

In last six months we published local deals in more than 160 top restaurant which could be runs on by celebrities like Gordon Ramsey and Ken Oringer in Boston as well as outstanding restaurants in side of lights of the Ritz Carlton, Rosewood and Four Seasons hotels. These new relationships and top side establishments are only possible because of the quality insurance these brands have when addressing our audience. We continue to stay focused on attracting high quality subscribers

Turning to slide 23, we are constantly thinking about how to further engage our subscribers and adapt a new technology and media consumption behavior. Two initiatives in 2011 include the introduction of HTML email format for local deals and the new iPhone app. A new HTML email format brought into improved (inaudible) and a positive lift to our brand perception among our subscribers and our advertisers.

Our new iPhone app which now has over 300,000 downloads allows subscriber to access our deals on the go and purchase both local and travels deals directly on their phones. You really can bring up the iPhone up right now if you have got one and book holiday to Italy, a dinner in Midtown, Manhattan or a Getaway to a stunning countryside property in Whales. As you can see we are getting under the skin of our relationship with our subscribers both in understanding more about them and introducing new ways for them to interact with us

On slide 24, I’ll highlight the progress of our voucher sales business with local deals in Getaways as a potential opportunity ahead which is still very positive route. We continue to grow the markets that receive local deals and Getaways. In Q4 our average deals per week decreased while we maintained consistent average gross revenue per deal. So what happened in Q4 in particular expect North America local. Some internal factors impacted deal sourcing. We decided to move to move a few of our top producers and managers to other locations around North America to spur growth in those areas.

So for example we took our top manager from the southern California region and now he’s running the entire eastern sea board and that had some short term impact on our business we also have some of our key sales folks out sick through extended periods of time. In addition we consumed our deal pipeline at the end of September which most of you who followed the report would have seen and that caused a slow October.

Lastly, we believe that there may be some seasonality in this business for us because we focused mostly on travel and leisure pursuits and this business could be subject to the same demand curve we see in travel or Q4 is seasonally slower. We continue to believe in local deals and Getaway opportunities and plan to go out to capitalize on this opportunity. In fact Mark Webb, a seasoned senior executive with 30 years of experience leading large sales organizations like British Airways and American Express is joining us in February as president in Travelzoo local to lead our global assets on local and you will see a press release later today which will introduce Mark.

We believe that the open new market increase the deals per a week are opportunity expands and that based on our growing subscriber base and high quality deal experience, we have a real opportunity over time, please remember we are trying to capture this opportunity while staying profitable. So it may take a bit longer than some others but we feel confident in the long term opportunity.

Moving onto slide 25, I would like to emphasize that our strategy is focused on quality leadership across our products whether its local deals, Getaways or the Top 20 list.

Before daily deals company’s were here, we were focused on high quality deals, we remain focused on high quality deals and after many of these daily deals companies close their door as they do not have profitable businesses, we will focus on high quality deals. We believe that over the long run our subscribers will remain engaged and we will continue to attract new high quality subscribers if we continue to deliver outstanding high quality information.

For example, we recently published a dinner for two at the Mansion restaurant inside the Rosewood Mansion at Turtle Creek. It was $120 for the dinner for two people the rest one is well known as Dallas’s best restaurant as I got a rating at 26 points and cause extraordinary to perfection and the property itself is listed as among the very best in the world in the communist gold list and Travel and Leisure’s top 500 resorts. And many of these properties, we run as Getaways are featured in these lists. In Q4, we worked with Bacara [ph] in Santa Barbara one of Communists top resorts in the US. Actually you can see that property here in the middle of the picture to if you look in the middle image in the top down to Bacara that is $299.

Let not forget our flagship Top 20 list offering the most outstanding deals every week. In many of the world’s best destinations and of course you did publish that in all six countries. I met a UK hotel advertiser yesterday who featured more than 10 hotels in 2011 and she told me that for every 10 clicks to her website from the Travelzoo Top 20 page, she gets a booking.

For those of you who are not familiar with Internet clicks, our conversion rates 50 to 1 or 40 to 1 would be considered very good; 10 to 1 is off the charts. She also told me that the average ROI from our Top 20 program was 9.5 to 1 in 2011, up from 7.5 to 1 in the prior year.

And this morning I met a UK tour operator who spent $0.5 million with us last year here in the UK and the CEO told me, he prefers the direct advertising business to the Top 20 offers. Selling vouchers for holidays doesn’t work as well as it does for hotels and restaurants and spas because it opens up a slew of complications around dates and traveling across borders.

We’ve built an excellent family of products to support our quality leadership strategy. We feel our product offers an excellent geographic footprint and we have different business models to create a sound and balanced portfolio and a great opportunity for us to pursue in the future.

On slide 27 we conclude by summarizing what we’re able to achieve in 2011, and we will continue to focus on in 2012. We will continue to aggressively scale Local Deals and Getaways in North America and Europe while keeping our eyes squarely focused on quality and productivity. We’ll continue to grow our subscriber base especially in Europe. As we scale, we want to improve efficiency and operating margins. We’ll continue to leverage our global content opportunity. And we intend to further improve earnings per share.

As a reminder, Travelzoo’s consistent practice is not to provide guidance for future periods because of the dynamics of the industry.

This concludes our prepared presentation. So, now I turn back to the operator for the question-and-answer session.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — President Barack Obama has signed a new initiative to increase foreign tourism to the United States as part of his plan to boost the economy, which could create more than 1 million American jobs in the next 10 years.

Northwest Arkansas, particularly Bentonville, is reaping a lot of those benefits already.

In the last two years, in downtown Bentonville, weve had 123 jobs open up, said Ed Clifford, president and chief executive officer of Bentonville and Bella Vista Chamber.

Travel and Leisure Magazine named Bentonville as one of the hottest destination spots in the world and the only place in the US in that category.

That has a big impact on not only Bentonville and Bentonvilles hotels and restaurants, but all up and down the corridor here in northwest Arkansas, Clifford said. That set the stage for a lot of visits to northwest Arkansas by lots of people from a lot of different areas.

Kathryn Roberts, director of Member and Guest Services at Crystal Bridges, said because Bentonville is the home of Walmart and now Crystal Bridges, foreign tourism is on the rise in the area.

We track where our visitors come from, and already, weve had 30 countries represented from the Virgin Islands to Spain, Mexico and England, Roberts said. Many of those people stay here and eat or go out to lunch or dinner, and spend additional dollars at close by hotels and bring great commerce to our area.

Other places in named by the Travel and Leisure magazine in the same category with Bentonville are Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi and Toronto, Canada.