Person of the Week

Richard Branson
Chairman, Virgin Group

Virgin Atlantic announced it had almost doubled its annual pre-tax profits this week, from £34.8m to £68.4m. 8,500 staff will receive 10% of the airline's profits in bonus payments.

Photo Credit: Richard Burdett

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/may/26/virgin-atlantic-airline-profits

Quote of the Week

"The Cook Islands decided last week that it will officially 'not take part in the worldwide recession'. With two thirds of its GDP coming from tourism, it might not have any say in the matter."

The Independent

Article of the week

Check out this week's article on European Hotel Market, which is an exclusive preview from the next issue of EP magazine, due out on 1 June. It's entitled "How will the European hotel market react?" and includes comments from Jim Fitzgibbon, Four Seasons and Jean-Claude Messant, Hotel de Crillon, Paris.

Facts of the week

Cruise Director demonstrates the increasing profile of social networking amongst corporate executives

John Heald, Carnival Cruise Senior Cruise Director has been named as Britain's top social networking executive.

• His ruminations include an interview with the actor John Cleese, in a podcast which he states will be viewed by 650,000 people, many of whom are under the age of 40.
• Proving the social networking phenomenon is truly taking hold amongst the business world, he has his own daily blog and Facebook page amongst others.
• What value will this bring to the business in terms of profile and awareness? This is an interesting discussion, particularly during recessionary times.

http://johnhealdsblog.com/the-john-cleese-interview/

The US consumer: both price and food trends are changing as a result of the recession

How is the eating out market changing?

• This report from Horizons highlights innovations emerging in the US market.
• 'Two for one' deals where the customer eats one meal in the restaurant and takes the other home, and slogans such as 'pay less for the same great food' are just some of the themes.
• It also notes that the American consumer is starting to change their eating habits with research demonstrating that smaller, sharing portions – ‘bite size’ is very much an increasing demand.

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