Juan, Guishe and Vanessa form the B2B Mar-keting Online Business Development team. Inthis issue they let us know about their latestachievements as well as the projects they arecurrently working on.

Continued inside

Summer 2007 · Issue 6

get to know the new head office

Marketing B2B

destinations

sports / foosball

brands

Algarve and Edinburgh

Panos and Fabrizio(London office)

defended the World Cup

we have a mascot

Jocelyne Mouawad wins a weekend

in Athens!

Jaume Obrador presents...Finance Service Centre (FSC)

finance

Functionality, design and technology

It’s been a hard task to find a building thatfits with all our necessities, since therewere many conditions to fulfill. In this issue,the people involved in each phase of the

process tell us about the details: architec-ture, accesses, technology and service toall the organisation in Palma.

Continued inside

Intercruises disembarksin Asia Pacific

Get to know these two destination officespresented by Dulcina, Office ManagerAlgarve, and Yvonne, Manager of Individ-ual Business for Scotland and Ireland.

Continued inside

More than 90 people are part of the FSC.Jaume Obrador, leading this team,explains which services this departmentoffers to the rest of the Company.

Continued inside

Intercruises has initiated its expansion inthe Asia Pacific Region, after Hotelbedsacquired Pacific World a year ago. Singa-pore will be the headquarter of Intercruis-es in that region.

Continued inside

We are already TUI Travel PLC

This above is the home page of themicrosite TUI Together, intended to pro-vide all of us with all there is to know aboutthe new company TUI Travel PLC, our new

Group since the 3rd of September. You canfind much more information about the newGroup on this microsite.

Continued inside

Jocelyne won the con-test. She proposed the

chameleon Cammy as the new mascotfor our magazine Colours.

Continued in last page

Panos and Fabrizio(London office)

defended the World Cup

In today's increasingly dynamic businessenvironment information is king. The effi-cient management and use of informationcan make all the difference between a suc-cessful company and a bankrupt one.As a company grows in size and reach,the business decisions that need to betaken and the controls required becomemore complex.

Accurate internal and external informationhelps to ensure that the correct decisionsare being made and that there is adequatefollow up. For this reason we have set upa Business Intelligence team, the Strategymanagement Office, to develop the infor-mation and data infrastructure that werequire as a company to remain competi-tive at all levels of the market.

Did you know that...

We are in the online sales high seasonand we have already broken the con-firmed reservations record, set in10,330 daily reservations. And num-bers keep growing. You can start bet-ing on the final numbers. The results...in the next issue.

In this issue:

The Strategy CornerUsing information to remain competitve 2FinanceJaume Obrador presents... Finance Service Centre 3Destinations at a glanceEdinburgh and Algarve 4-5Get to know...Extras 6

We have new officesHead Office has moved 7-9Marketing B2B DitributionGuillermo Techera presents...Online Business Development 10-11BrandsIntercruises disembarks in Asia Pacific 12Strategy...and they created Athenea 13DestinationsCultural diversity luncheon in Orlando 14

SportsHotelbeds m brings the cup home again 14DestinationsPacific World Marketing Meeting 15ProductLatest news from the Product team 16

Please send us your suggestions,stories, news or enquiries by emailto the newsletter@hotelbeds.com

2

the merger

On the 3rd of September, the merger of theTourism Division of TUI AG and FirstChoice Holidays PLC to create TUI TravelPLC has been completed. The new company is listed on the London

Stock Exchange and is one of the world'sleading leisure travel companies operatingin 180 countries worldwide with over 30 mil-lion customers from more than 20 countriesand 48,000 colleagues across all our busi-

nesses. TUI Travel PLC is a new Companyformed by the merger of First Choice Holi-days PLC and the Tourism Division of TUIAG.. We report financially as four Sectors, eachoffering different experiences. Peter Long,our Chief Executive Officer, and the GroupManagement Board are responsible for set-ting the strategy as agreed by the PLCBoard, delivering profitable growth acrossthe Group and managing overall financialperformance.

Forthcoming communications

TUI Travel is committed to communicatingopenly and honestly with colleagues acrossthe Group. Your Manager should be yourfirst point of reference if you have ques-tions. You can also email corporatecommu-nications@tuitravel.com and they willensure that the correct person is asked toprovide an answer. Please understand thatthere may be times when we do not havean answer as decisions may not have beenmade.

Strategy corner

Using information to remain competitive ... we broke thereservations record?

All of us need to know what this newcompany is about, what's its strategyis, how it’s structured, what brandsthere are, key management. Yourmanagers have been widely informed

to verbally brief you. In addition toyour manager’s face-to-face briefin-gs, similar information is provided onthe TUI Travel micro-site:www.tuitogether.net

Jaume Obrador started his career in the company more than12 years ago, holding different roles within the Finance areain a number of countries. In 2003 he was appointed con-troller for Hotelbeds and, for the last two years, he is incharge of the Finance Service Centre (FSC), as Regional

Financial Controller ODS Spain - Portugal. In this issue, Inthis issue, Jaume tells us about the main functions of theCSF, as well as their greatest achievements, highlighting theimprovement of the inhouse client’s trust and satisfactionlevels.

finance Jaume Obrador presents...

- What is the mission of the Finance Ser-vice Centre (FSC)? - The main mission of the 90 people com-posing the FSC is to correctly manage all theadministrative proceedings supporting theODS operation, by managing solid and use-ful information needing to make right deci-sions. Our ambition, having been a simplecost center in the past, is to become a strate-gic partner for the organisation, contributingwith value and eliminating those purelytransaction based operations. This objective can be achieved through thesustainable improvement of the servicesoffered to clients (both internal and external),the establishment of the Key PerformanceIndicators (KPI), simplified processes andstandardized economical and financialreporting, team skills development and qual-ity of service analysis. - What are the areas composing theFSC?

- We are in charge of the finance consolida-tion across the Sector and, therefore, weoffer support and control in reportingprocesses to all destinations. In the case ofSpain, as well as the European Cities andMediterranean Africa remote offices, we sup-port all the operations on a daily basis. Inorder to effectively accomplish these func-tions, the FSC is structured in a number ofareas: Treasury and Payments, Credit andCollections, Inhouse Client Service and

Accounts and Consolidation.- What have been the FSC greatestachievements of the FSC? How does theFSC contribute to the development of ourbusiness?- I think that the main achievement of theFSC has been the improvement of theinhouse client’s trust and satisfaction lev-els. In situations of spectacular growth,such in the latest couple of years, the man-agement of change has been based on effi-ciency improvements and on service (andcommunication) to our stakeholders. Thesatisfaction maps of our clients, the surveysand the implementation of the ServiceLevel Agreements (SLA) have contributedto improve our clients’ satisfaction. The KPIsystem help us to monitor and to improveour teams’ work and to make our workbecome more transparent.Regarding processes, the most importantimprovements have been made in the regis-tration and balance of suppliers’ invoices. Inonly three years, the number of receivedinvoices from our suppliers has grown from350,000 to 1.3 milion, estimated for the cur-rent year. The efforts we made in optimisingthe process last year have trained us for thechanges we are currently applying to Creditand Collections. - What are your plans in the short term?- Regarding processes, electronic invoicingto clients and our purchasing system’sreengineering. In terms of service, we havethe double objective of consolidating theservice levels in some regions (last year, inSpanish Coast and Islands, satisfactionimproved by 30% according to our surveys),and including the rest of inhouse clients intothe SLA.

- What is your biggest handicap? - I think that our main difficulties come fromthe fast growth over the latest couple ofyears in addition to the growth absortionthrough acquisitions as well as the manyobjectives and projects we need to facesimultaneously. However, the team reachesits goals succesfully.

Just to be curious...Your favorite food: Sushi.Coffee, tea or juice? Undoubtedly, coffee.The last film you have seen: "A GoodYear”, with Russell Crowe. Your biggest virtue: Patience.Your favorite hobby: Reading. I am readingagain "Pantaleón y las visitadoras", by MarioVargas Llosa.You don’t like: Untidiness.The worst of the capital sins: Envy.If you could become immortal at a specif-ic age, which age would it be? 21 .Your pending holiday destination:GuatemalaYou want to go back for holidays to: Peru.

Our greatestachievement is the

improvement of theinhouse client’s trust

3

Parte del equipo del CSF.

Finance Service Centre

- What are the main source mar-kets to your destination?- Main source markets are Euro-pean, particularly Germany,France, Switzerland and Scandi-navian Countries -these marketsare predominantly offline. We arehowever successfully convertingmore and more of our traditionalcustomers to use our online book-ing system. Our largest marketthough is on the online side fromthe UK. - What makes yours a uniqueoffice in comparison with yourcompetitors there? - Our Product knowledge, cus-tomer care and high quality tailormade offering in all departmentssets us apart from our competitorsin Scotland. We like to think that wetreat each enquiry with an excep-tional level of attention and there-fore delivering to clients an excel-lent holiday experience. We alsooffer the largest range of standardand themed fly drive programmesin Scotland, which have experi-enced a boom over the last coupleof years and helped us gain a num-ber of large scale customers. - Ever awarded?- We have just been shortlisted bythe prestigious Scottish ThistleAwards in the Categorie Best TourOperator Programme. We hadentered our Fly Drive Programmes. - An anecdote to remember...- Last year we had a group of 8Russian clients who came for a 3day visit to sample whisky on theIsland of Islay, famous for itswhisky production. A flight wasbooked from Glasgow to Islay toget the group over. They ended up

visiting in one day ALL distilleriesand got so many drams that thepilot refused to take them back onboard in the evening. To rescue theclients we had to quickly findaccommodation for the night andsend a coach over by ferry the nextday to collect them. Our Russiansdid make the national news andare now famous and still talkedabout all over the island. - What are you are currentlyworking on? - We are preparing our productPortfolio and prices for next year.We are looking to increase furtherour hotel portfolio in the moreremote areas of Scotland with par-ticular attention to sustainabletourism. Green Tourism hasbecome a big issue in Scotlandand we want to include raisingawareness into our office policy. - Your recent achievements... - After years of courting the majortour operator in Switzerland whospecialises in Scotland as a desti-nation we were awarded part oftheir programme in 2006 as a trial.After a successful season we havebeen given their entire programme

-a brochure of some 50 pages- tooperate in 2007, making this ourlargest offline client. Meeting upwith this high demand operator fora catch up at a recent trade showwe were pleased to hear that, halfway through the season, absolute-ly no issues and the operator wasentirely happy with our operation.This was a proud moment for thewhole team from Sales to opera-tion Individuals and Groups. Thereis nothing better than having ahappy customer.

Edinburgh destinations at a glance

Yvonne is theManager of Indi-vidual Businessfor Scotland andIreland, based in

Edinburgh. She joined us 12years ago. She is Germanborn, but after 13 years in thecountry she says she could becalled nearly Scottish. Yvonneenjoys cinema and theatre,and “I read a lot and do Yoga.Horse Riding when I find thetime and Mountain hiking is arecently acquired passion”,she explains.

4

Our office in Edinburgh has over 30 years experi-ence as a traditional full service destination man-agement company. This office has 4 departments:Leisure Individuals (tailor made, specialist pack-ages eg golf, offline and online bookings), LeisureGroups (including coach tours and small businessgroups), MICE (tailor made incentive and confer-

ence business), and the UK call centre for Inter-cruises coach connection business. Working aspart of the wider UK & Ireland, Gillian Rae is officemanager, focusing on Groups & MICE across theUK, whilst Yvonne Wagoun is Manager of Individ-ual business for Scotland and Ireland. We caughtup with Yvonne on life in the Scottish Office.

Edinburgh

Part of our team in Edinburgh.

- What are the main sourcemarkets to your destination?- Our main market is the UK Mar-ket, responsible for more thanhalf of the total of our clients, fol-lowed by the Spanish market.The increasing of low cost com-panies that fly to Faro Interna-tional Airport especially from UKand Ireland contribute greatly tothat reality. The existence of agood motorway network betweenPortugal and Spain makes thatmore and more Spanish nation-

als opt to come to Portugal withina radius of five hours driving.- What makes yours a uniqueoffice in comparison with yourcompetitors there? - Having our own airport countersmakes the difference. Our Airportstaff is the first image that ourclients have upon their arrival tothe Algarve. Their main functionis to adequately coordinate alltransfers to the different accom-modation units that we have scat-tered throughout the Algarve. Ofcourse, the fact of being a part ofa well established brand as ourshas helped us to the implementa-tion of the online business.

Online business

Over the last 3 years, Hotelbedshas proven to its suppliers that itis an excellent partner, ahead ofall trends in terms of online busi-ness and able to present themone of the best opportunities.- Ever awarded?- Our most recent awards are 3rdplace for regular touroperation2004-2005 and 2005-2006 (byTivoli Almansor Hotel****). We

have been also awarded with the1st place for regular touropera-tion 2005-2006 (Tivoli Marino-tel*****) and Best Preferred Part-ner 2005-2006 (by Vila GaléHotels). - An anecdote to remember...- I am not very good with anec-dotes, but I will explain yousomething that happened withone of our clients who stayed inthe Algarve last winter. Wereceived a complaint of one ourguests saying that she needed tomove accommodation becausethe night before she had beenawaken by a ghost and she couldnot stay there any longer. Ofcourse what she forgot to tell uswas that the night before she wasso drunk that could hardly findher apartment in the complex.- What are you are currentlyworking on? - We are implementing the S2C(Sure to Care) among our suppli-ers. We are also implementingOpaque Packaging in order tohelp to improve accommodationproduct to Easyjet, as Faro Air-port is increasing its importancewithin the Easyjet network.- Your recent achievements... - Globespan is working for thefirst time all year round to theAlgarve. Three years ago westarted with 2 weekly flights onlyand now we have more than 18weekly connections and 4 desti-nations. Their confidence in us isgrowing. Our offline clients(Sembo, Interhome, Aurinko-matkat...) remain with us, despitecompetitors efforts to attractthem.

destinations at a glance Algarve

5

Dulcina is theOffice Managerin Algarve (Portu-gal), based inAlbufeira. She joi-ned us in March 1989: “There-fore you can imagine howmany changes the companyhas experienced since then”,she says. Dulcina is Portugue-se and in her free time sheusually goes out with friends,and “I also enjoy staying athome and doing simple things:relaxing, reading, cooking...nothing special”.

The Algarve is essentialy an FIT business des-tination. Leisure tourism, Sun & Beach andGolfing are the main purposes to visit theAlgarve. The latest trend is the growth of GolfGroups, as well as tourism groups and Well-ness tourism. The meetings and incentivessegment is growing little by little, as “the

Algarve offers no big facilities in terms of ven-ues. For instance, more than 1,000 people can-not be accommodated in the same resort,which makes a bit difficult to organize bigevents”, explains Dulcina Santos, Office Man-ager Algarve. Dulcina lets us know moredetails about her office in this issue.

Algarve

Part of our team in Algarve.

The team is based in Head Office,but they work very closely withpeople in destination. The Extrasare complementary services toaccommodation: transfers (fromthe airport and from the hotel tothe airport) excursions, tickets totheme parks, museums, rent-a-car..., that is to say, all the servicesthat clients need to fully organizetheir holidays and are bought fromthe same place.

- How does Extras contribute to thebusiness development? - The idea is to make our offers portfoliomore attractive, since clients look for moreand more experiences in their travels. Weare selling more products online; for exam-ple, in Bedsonline, the cross-selling ratio isaround 9%. Also, we work on attracting newclients, just as it is in the case of Hotelex-tras. As the contact points with the clienthave grown (for example, the Hotelextraswebsite), we have succeeded in attractingthose clients who did not organize the restof services when they reserved theiraccommodation, since they can reservethese services from their destination (at thehotel). Extras products contribute to the operativegrowth of the company, since there is ahigh demand, with great profit margins.Due to the high demand, we have manypossibilities of distribution. We will continueincreasing and improving these productson our websites (Bedsonline, Hotelbeds),not only in terms of already available serv-ices (transfers, tickets, snow, excursions,cancellation insurances, rent-a-car...), butin terms of new opportunities (travel insur-ances, snow insurances, adventure...)- What are your future plans? - I would need a Colours Sunday supple-ment to fully answer this. To summarize,our plans are to maintain the growth ofHotelextras (more hotels, more destina-tions and more products); to provide thesystem with more intelligence in order to

increase our clients' cross-selling ratio, andto create new distribution channels. Therealready exists a really great opportunity todevelop the suppliers area (which is thecase of hotel chains). Also, regarding trans-fers, we have all what we need to take on aleadership role in our main destinationsand, therefore, we believe that this will beone of our strong points on a medium term.Hotelopia is a very interesting area, and weshould pay more attention to it, since B2Cis a priority and the ideal platform to sellthese kind of services.- What have been the greatest difficul-ties for you to overcome to achieve yourgoals?- Just as it happens in every project startup, the main difficulty consists of making allpeople in the Organization involved awareof the need of betting hard for a new busi-ness branch -especially when at first it doesnot contributes too much to their resultsaccount. We become a bit boring when weconstantly insist that we need everyone´sefforts to make all our potential rise. From

the beginning we have needed many ITdevelopments in moments when the Com-pany has experienced a high IT demand.Despite the big efforts from the IT guys, westill need their constant support to avoidbeing pushed into the background in such acompetitive segment as ours. Now we mustbe focused on distribution to cut down thedistance with our competitors and get thesame leading position we own in theaccommodation field. - What is your relationship with theoffices? - Our offices in destination are the motor ofour businesses, and even more in the caseof Extras, since presence in destination has

a double role: contracting and operationsand, on the other hand, distributingHotelextras among all our suppliers in des-tination. Thanks to the offices teams' effort,it seems that we have already passed themost difficult part and we now start to seeinteresting results. Our challenge for thisseason is to make an additional effort incontracting in order to add the necessaryproducts to the traditional tour operationportfolio.- What are the differences between usand our competitors in terms of thiskind of product?- An important part of our clients are alreadyin our shop and they also made accommo-dation reservations, whereas our competi-tors need to attract clients and make themvisit their websites. Another difference isthe Sure2Care: the fact that our product ful-fils the Group standards make us be verycompetitive. And of course, our presence indestination, with local teams with a deepknowledge of destination.

extras

get to know...

The Extras team: Jon, Pello, Santi and Unai.

Hotelextras is a web platform to distrib-ute Extra products. Hotels’ staff (forexample, the recepcionist, who tradition-ally used to sell excursions to the hotels’clients) may complete their client’s holi-days package by buying these servicesthrough the website.

The offices are the motor

of our businesses and even

more in the case of Extras

6

"It was quite difficult to find abuilding that would cater for allour needs", says Víctor Fran-cisco, in charge of the ProjectsManagement Office (PMO),department that has coordinat-ed the change of offices. Thisproject has now culminated,after two years of preparation,when it was detected that HeadOffice needed to move. The lack of parking spaces,after a big area near the formerbuilding was closed, wouldhave been a serious problem inthe short term. However, themain reason to move was thelack of space within the office,allowing us to continue to growas a company, as well as theunsatisfactory facilities in thebuilding, which many of theemployees in Head Office high-lighted in the First Voice staffsurvey.Also, laws will very soondemand new security meas-ures which could not have beenapplied in the former building(for instance, fire escapes),requirements that our newoffices already comply with

before these new laws comeinto force.Our former offices had anotherbig issue: the space was divid-ed into 6 floors, each of themseparated into a number ofareas. This complicated com-munications and contactbetween many different depart-ments, since there was somedistance between them.The Mirall building (from Cata-lan "mirror", due to its entirefacade covered by mirrors) iswithin the Son Sant Joan Air-port area, in Palma de Mallorca(Spain). This location offers agreat brand visibility for us(since all people visiting theisland will see our signagewhen they enter or leave theairport area), this could alsobring us new business opportu-

nities.Being within the airport areaalso gives our staff easieraccess to their workplace,because of the motorway, Wealso have more parking spacesand private transportation forour employees which the com-pany has supplied .This building, composed by twocircular towers connected by asquared structure betweenthem, shows a very attractiveexternal design. All the mirrorscovering the structure filter theexcess light and, due to theirspecial characteristics, sound-proof the interior.

Single floor distribution

Our head office is located in thefifth floor of the building, anarea of 5,000 m2 approximatelyand with has no partition walls.After the period of adaptation tothe new space, this distributionwill undoubtedly favour commu-nications among departments.In the fourth floor, 800 m2 willbecome a dedicated trainingroom, the relax area and thecanteen (pictures K, L).

Head Office has moved

7

We have new officesIt was quite difficult to find a building that wouldcater for all our needs. There was a number ofreasons to move to a new building. The follow-ing pages tell you about the new offices. The

people involved in each phase of the project tellus about the key elements within the new build-ing, including: architecture, access, technologyand how it services the entire Organization.

Above, an image of the formeroffices: the area of the EuropeanCities department.

The Central Services teammade it possible by ensuringthat all computers, equipment,files, transportation services,were ready in the new buildingwhile the renovation workswere being done, so that themove had the minimal impacton the daily activities. The Cen-tral Services team also organ-ized for the old furniture distri-bution, which has been given tocharity associations andemployees. Later, "in the monthof October, the incoming officeof Mallorca will move to theground floor, within the newbuilding, and then we will con-sider that the move has beencompleted, says Héctor Pérez,in charge of the Central Ser-vices team.

Interior design

The offices have beendesigned considering our com-pany's growth, so we can add anumber of work stations. Theidea was also to create a pleas-ant environment with openwork places making interper-sonal communications easier.The architecture studio CMVhas created the design and hasexecuted the renovation works.Juan Pablo and Rubén (pic B):

"We have chosen specific ele-ments working as a visual stim-ulation to the staff and makingan easier access to information(picture A). We have projectedspaces that make informalmeetings among all employeespossible. We have tried to runaway those last century'soffices, designed to keep peo-ple separated from each otherand promoted very rigid sepa-rations", they explain. "Open office" is another impor-tant feature in our new offices'design. It consists of the useand the layout of certain materi-als creating "open offices" (picsF, G, I, J, M), by connecting anumber of independent spacesthrough translucent elements:"It improves the sensation offree moving, promoting thesense of belonging to a com-munity through multipleresources. Never-ending corri-dors disappear and are substi-tuted by meander routes (picN), avenues and streets (pic H)that favour spontaneous meet-

ings", the architects add.

15 years advanced technology

We all may have at some timecontacted Tòfol Piña (pic D)and Juan Luis Pujol (pic E) toask for some help on IT com-munications or technicalissues. They are indeed thepeople in charge of telecommu-

8

Head Office has moved

Functionality,

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

- 60,000 m cable 4 pairs 3091CAT-6 GigaSPEED X10D - 2,500 m cable 25 pairs phone- 1,500 m cable optical fiberLazrSPEED 300 LSZH-132 optical fiber connectionsLC Multimode - 900 network access pointsModule CAT-6 GigaSPEEDX10D - 60 connection points- 15 Switches Nortel Poweredtechnology- Backbone Nortel (back-uptechnology)

Only for IT people...

design

9

Head Office has moved

nications and IT infrastructures,respectively. Among other col-leagues within their teams (wedo not want to forget anyone'sname), they have been person-ally working on implementing

the entire data network in ournew head office. Many of the services offeredworldwide by our companydepend on this network. Tòfolexplains: "Costs reductionagainst the initial investment isnotable, since, among manyother advantages, all net pointshave been reduced to the half(phone and PC are connectedto the network through thesame point). The most impor-tant factor for savings is thewiring on copper, since thismaterial will be able to transmitthe data flow expected in 10 or15 years time". Telephone IP(Internet Protocol) makes itpossible to transmit a voiceconversation on a network nomatter what its origin is. In ourcase, we have reserved 5 outof the 10 gigabytes per secondfrom the bandwidth to be used

for voice transmission. IP Voiceadvantages are unlimited, saysTòfol, "since we can connecttwo offices anywhere in theworld with the same cost as alocal call -of course both officesmust use the same technology.On the other hand, the"portable office" will be realvery soon, due to the associa-tion of telephone and network.For instance, a person who

travels with a laptop and a net-work connection device will beable to have the same servicesas another person working froma "physical" office and at anextremely low cost".Since the entire data and tele-phone network run on an elec-tronic infrastructure, "security isan indispensable factor", saysJuan Luis, who adds: "Allservers in head office (develop-ment, Intranet, mail, domains,etc.) have been centralized in aData Process Centre (DPC),which has been installed inwhat we call the Comms Room,

with a number of specific condi-tions for this purpose (tempera-ture, isolation, security...). All servers are protected byUninterrupted Power Supplysystems (UPS), with redundantinfrastructures (back-up). In theevent that there was a failurefrom the electric power supplycompany, we have a back-upgenerator Volvo, 350 CV, with a1,200 litres petrol tank (equals

to 2 days of autonomy)",explains Juan Luis.

Working as usual

Such a big move implies a lot ofcollaboration from everyoneinvolved, especially consideringthat some details cannot becompleted until all the peopleworking there check their needsin situ: from additional furnitureto transportation hours. Howev-er, we believe that we canalready congratulate all thework groups and our colleaguesin our company for their effortsand a successful project.

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

technologyand

- What is the main function of your area,Guillermo?- Our mission is to provide the tools that ourorganisation needs to strengthen and facil-itate the development of our online busi-ness. This consists of detecting our clientsneeds, coming up with new ideas anddeveloping a solution that will adapt to ourwebs.We work very closely with IT, Product,Extras, Sales and the Customer Servicesdepartments to achieve this.My team includes Joan Pizá (Web design-er), Vanessa Maldonado (Web developer)and myself. We analyse, design, developand maintain the B2B distribution channels'websites; Hotelbeds, Bedsonline, Inter-

cruises and UKtravelpartners. - What projects are you working on atthe moment?- We are currently working on a new appli-cation called "Offers" orientated towardsWeb 2.0. The main objective of this projectis to personalise our reservation systemand centralise the offers that our clientsreceive from us according to their profile.

Our clients will be able to define their ownpersonal user profile, choosing to onlyreceive offers from those countries, desti-nations and accommodation types that theyare interested in. At the same time the userwill be able to define different user profilesfor every person in his/her team.Once the client has created his/her userprofile, every time they enter into the B2Breservation system, they will see offers andproducts based on the destinations thatthey have chosen in their profile. Offerssent via email will also be centralised givingour marketing campaigns more impact asthe client only receives what they are inter-ested in.With this application we hope to increase

marketing B2B distribution

10

The Online Business Development area has 3 clear objec-tives, Guillermo Techera explains: "Identify our onlineclients needs for the future, provide solutions to the salesteam which anticipate our clients needs and thirdly themaintenance of our reservations system". In order to

achieve these objectives, the team made up of Guillermo,Juan and Vanessa, work closely with the rest of the Mar-keting Department as well as IT, Product, Extras and ofcourse the Sales department. In this issue of colours,Guillermo talks about their current projects.

"We identify the future needs of our onlineclients and develop solutions which can adapt to our web platforms"

Guillermo Techera, Marketing Online Business Development Manager:

“Our clients will definetheir own personalprofile choosing to

only receive offers theyare interested in”

the effectiveness of our campaigns bysending information that the client wantsrather than sending emails which in somecases could be considered as SPAM.We will gain a valuable database of knowl-edge about our clients operations and pref-erences (especially in terms of the destina-tions and products that they buy) and havea new tool that enables us to focus on newproducts.We are also in the process of re-designingHotelbeds.com with the aim of adaptingourselves to the evolution of the company,our clients and our suppliers. We've identi-fied the need to personalise theHotlebeds.com public web pages to the ori-gin market of each visitor. We hope that ourwebsite will be a useful support tool for thecommercial teams to attract new clients aswell as an effective way of communicatingwith our existing clients. For these reasonswe have developed a project called "themulti-portal project", where we will person-alise our homepage for different origin mar-kets. So if an American client, for example,accesses Hotelbeds.com, the webpage will

automatically show products associatedwith the American market.- What have been your biggest achieve-ments?- We worked with various departments todevelop the new Hotelbeds.com websitewhich contains new sections and products.At the time it was a radical move, changingfrom a single-product website (sellingaccommodation only where just one hotelcould be booked at any time) to a multi-product website based on the multi-book-ing model. This model was later applied toBedsonline and at the moment we areworking to standardise the maintenanceprocess.We've also developed "Marketing Contribu-tion", a promotional tool for our supplierswhich is available in the password protect-ed pages of our reservation system andgenerates extra income for our offices. The Marketing Contribution is working inhotelbeds.com and has recently beenimplemented in Bedsonline. In a shortspace of time, the Marketing Contributionhas become a support tool for the Productdepartment.

B2B distribution marketing

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New tool to manage Hotelbeds' brand identity,now available on the website!The importance of consistency in the image we present to the out-side world is a vital factor in developing our brand equity and theconfidence our clients have in us. In order to provide easy accessto our brand identity standards the B2B marketing departmenthave launched an updated brand Identity manual for Hotelbeds.The manual is now available in a web format at http://www.hotelbeds.com/brandThis public website is a resource that can be used by our emplo-yees and suppliers worldwide (e.g. printers, design agencies, etc)and provides clear explanations of the brand ID standards pluseasy access to downloadable design elements such as logos, tem-plates, signage, etc.If you have any suggestions as to how we can improve it pleasecontact to: brand@hotelbeds.com.

Web 2.0One of our recent projects was thechange from Web 1.0 where our webpages were static to Web 2.0 where

our web pages areinteractive. Our users are nowable to publish/modi-fy information with-out needing exten-sive knowledge ofadvanced IT. Some examples of

other interactive websites include;Wikipedia, the interactive encyclopae-dia where anyone can add definitions,Google maps where any user caninclude notes on a particular place andBlogs.In our case the step from Web 1.0 toWeb 2.0 gave us access to our clients'preferences (via the "Offers" project)and their ability to choose the productsthey wish to view through a person-alised user profile.

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Intercruises Shoreside & Port Services hasalready initiated its expansion into the AsiaPacific Region. This expansion comes oneyear after the acquisition of Pacific World byHotelbeds.Intercruises, now with a team based in Asia,will build on its business with the help ofPacific World's 32 years experience inregional cruise handling.Intercruises' Regional Headquarters in Asia-Pacific has been established in Singapore,which is the Asian based port for three of theworld's leading cruise lines.

Strong expansion in a short period

Intercruises' objective is to continue itsexpansion into the region and to establishoperations in many other ports throughoutChina & Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam,Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Bruneiin the next eight months.A local press launch took place in the Sin-gapore office on the 13th of July, where awelcome reception was held for the mediaand members invited by Intercruises. Theevent was a success for Intercruises, thanksto the support of the team in Asia, who putall their efforts into ensuring that the launchran smoothly (congratulations to Bob Guy,Wen Siew, Amber Chun, Mabel Au and therest of the team in Asia). The photo of the welcome reception in theSingapore office; from left to right: Bob Guy,Regional Managing Director of PW South;

Mark Robinson, Operations and SalesDirector worldwide of Intercruises; MabelAu, Operations and Product Manager ofIntercruises; Amber Chun, Regional Opera-tions Manager of Intercruises; IB Lolec,Regional Country Manager of PW Indone-sia; Lawrence Pakianathan, Operations andBusiness Development Manager of PWMalaysia and Indonesia, and Andrés Gar-cía-Tenorio, ODS Finance Director.

In March of this year, Royal Caribbean’s Guest Port ServicesDepartment recognised Intercruises’ service quality by rewardingthem with three awards in the 3rd Annual Ground Handler AwardCeremony, two of them as the Best Pier Check-in in Dover (UnitedKingdom) and Barcelona (Spain). Part of the Intercruises team (in the picture) received the awards inKey Biscayne, Florida.

The cruise market has huge growthpotential in Asia-Pacific with an annualgrowth rate of around 12% over thelast few years. Many European, NorthAmerican and Asian cruise companieshave become very interested in the

region due to this high growth poten-tial. The expansion into Asia-Pacificpresents a tremendous challenge toIntercruises Shoreside & Port Serviceswhile at the same time providing agreat business opportunity. Intercruis-

es' objective is to continue its' expan-sion in the region and establish opera-tions in many other ports throughoutChina & Hong Kong, Thailand, Viet-nam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysiaand Brunei in the next eight months.

Intercruises brands

Intercruises disembarks in Asia Pacific

Best Pier Check-in

Regional headquarters will be located in Singapore

The B2B Marketing Department recentlyre-designed the Intercruises website inline with the change of Intercruises' corpo-

rate image. We not only updated the infor-mation on the website, including the addi-tion of contents on our Asia-Pacific desti-nations, but also implemented dynamicfact sheets with information on each of theports where Intercruises provides servicesto cruise companies as well as informationabout excursions and hotels. This way thewebsite adapts to the new requirements ofthe business.

Online reservation platform

"We are currently analysing how we canincorporate an online hotel reservationsystem into intercruises.com. We hopethis system will be in place by Seatradewhich takes place in Miami next March2008", Guillermo Techera, MarketingOnline Business Development Managerexplains.

New design of the Intercruises website

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As we mentioned in the Strategy Corner(page 2), the efficient management and useof information can make all the differencebetween a successful company and abankrupt one. One of the main objectives set for the com-pany has been to unify the different report-ing systems existing in each country inorder to ensure they all use the same termsand definitions to save time collecting dataand avoid mistakes from incorrect interpre-tation. The application ARS (AtheneaReporting System, Athenea) has been cre-ated primarily for this purpose. Having consistent financial information hasother advantages: to make the integration

of newly acquired companies easier and,more importantly, simplify all tasks relatedto financial reporting. In this way, we canmonitor the business as well as make databecome the central success factor for busi-ness analysis. Athenea will be implemented very soon,after the month of August is closed. Athe-nea consists of a number of phases to bedeveloped once the application is imple-mented, as it would need to fit with theneeds and the evolution of our business.The recently created Strategy ManagementOffice will be in charge of designing theapplication evolution. Athenea currently fulfills two main objec-

tives: to define andunify all criteria tomeasure ODS finan-cial results and, onthe other hand, tocreate reports for dif-ferent areas, depart-ments and destina-tions across ODS. The new system willhave many advan-tages compared withthe existing one(Datamart). Firstly, itunifies the sources

of the reports, since only one informationsystem will be the point where all the ODSapplications (SAP, Atlas, Flash, etc.) arelinked. Also, Athenea is more reliable andoffers a higher quality of reports: Datamartis very flexible, but this results in often dif-fering data depending on the area using it. In terms of administration and control of thistool, it has a simpler design which allows usus to improve the reporting performancewith large data sets. The more attractiveadvantage for the user is that there is onlyone tool to access all the information, amore friendly interface (the tool is based onExcel and you can export data to a numberof formats) and more power and reliabilitythan Datamart.Although it is a very friendly to use tool,manuals and training actions on Atheneahave been created which shall be shortlyimplemented.

strategy

...and they created Athenea

“Athenea is a morepowerful tool than

Datamart as well as morefriendly, since it is basedon Excel and all data can

be exported to many different formats”

In the middle, Ana María de las Heras, up tonow Senior Project Manager - PMO (ProjectManagement Office, department that coordi-nated the implementation of Ahenea), andnow Business & Finance Control Manager -Spain and Andorra Regional Management; onthe left, Óscar Piris, consultant working for thecompany that has colaborated in this project;on the right, Juan José Guasp, BusinessIntelligence - Integrity Manager, from therecently created Strategy ManagementOffice.

Athenea

Athenea functionality diagram.

Athenea (Athenea Reporting System) is an application whichreplicates the functionality of Datamart (a reporting system), butin a more efficient manner. After this first phase and over thenext year or so and further on, Athenea will have to evolve andadapt to meet the requirements of the business, in particular to

the implementation of the company strategy; alignment of finan-cial, operational, commercial and human resources measuresand objectives for business units, and measurement of the effec-tiveness of strategic and operational actions at all levels. Thenew application Athenea will soon replace Datamart.

They did it again. The team formed byPanos Pantazis (Online Fit Executive, Lon-don office) and Fabrizio Caputo (Contract-ing Manager, London office) won the TravelTrade Table Football World Cup, an annualcharity event celebrated in London. In June, Hotelbeds lined up against 34other teams to defend the title they won 12months ago… Representing the girls, Caraand Ruta got off to a great start cruisingthrough their opening match…The boys on the other hand had a edgystart, and perspiration was definitely show-ing as Fabrizio and Panos had to fight hardto secure their opening victory. The nextgame saw the girls facing tough oppositionfrom the Gullivers, and unfortunately the

eventual runners upproved too strong onthe night for theHotelbeds team. Theboys were picking upmomentum andcruised through tothe quarter finals, toface the strongly fan-cied team of Encore 1966, led by MD JohnWales. Having fallen behind 2-5, we thought Johnmust have bribed Panos with a years sup-ply of theatre tickets. But all was not lost asPanos led from defence with some skillfullong range shots. Fabrizio secured thegame with a great close range shot, to

close the game out 9-7 on the night… Fromthen on confidence was flying high and theguys cruised through the semi final andfinal to a great title defence! Congratulations to both teams on flying theflag for Hotelbeds and, of course, to Fab-rizio and Panos for successfully defendingthe cup!

We are an international organization thatdeals with business in all parts of the world.We interact via telephone or email eachday with people from Brazil to Mexico, Unit-ed Kingdom, Japan, Spain...Working with people who are different from

ourselves is one of life's privileges. It is alsoone of our greatest challenges. It is noteasy to adjust our way of speaking and howwe behave to build relationships with a

wide variety of people. Because of thischallenge, even the most well-meaning ofus could fall into the trap of developingbiases or "inflexible beliefs" about the peo-ple we encounter. For this reason, the Hotelbeds offices in theUSA decided to start an educationalprocess to help our staff to know a little bitmore about the different cultures. For thefirst time ever, our office in Orlando had acultural diversity luncheon with our staff ontwo days (July 19th & 20th). Our Hawaiioffice had also their luncheon on July 19th. On July 19th, the entire staff in Orlando(over 100 employees) gathered together towatch a video that explained what it meansto be culturally diverse. We have staff fromover 34 different cultural origins represent-

ed in our office in Orlando! The video alsohad realistic examples acted out for thestaff to connect this initiative to their every-day work and personal life. “Everyone thensat down to enjoy each others' homecooked cultural food. Our staff had broughtin pictures, flags and other decorative itemsto proudly display their country of origin/cul-ture. It was such a wonderful thing to do forour staff. They absolutely enjoyed each oth-ers cooking. The participation was great.The food was wonderful. It has boosted ourstaff morale so much”, explains ArmillaMisir, Human Resources Manager USA.“Everyone is looking forward to doing thisagain next July! We are proud to work witheach other and that extends to all the otherGroup’s companies!”, she adds.

The Hotelbeds offices in USA decided to start an educa-tional process to help our staff to know a little bit moreabout the different cultures. For the first time ever, ouroffice in Orlando had a cultural diversity luncheon with ourstaff that lasted two days (July 19th & 20th).

First cultural diversity luncheon in Orlando Members of different departments proudly pose for the picture.

The entire staff (over 100 people) participated

sports 2007 Travel TradeTable Football World Cup

The Hotelbeds team bringsthe cup home again!

Fabrizio and Panos, on the left, had to fight hard.

Over 34 different cultural origins arerepresented in ouroffice in Orlando

Orlando destinations

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This year, the event also marked the firstanniversary of Pacific World (PW) joiningHotelbeds and Online Destination Servi-ces. Exactly one year ago, the acquisitionwas signed and announced on the PWMarketing Meeting held in Hong Kong. The successful integration process whichhas taken place during the past year washighlighted in the speeches of Joan Vilà(Managing Director ODS), Carlos Muñoz(Operations Director ODS) and the regionalsenior management team, represented byJacques Arnoux, Bob Guy (both RegionalManaging Directors of PW) and ManuelFerrer (Head of Business DevelopmentAPAC) in the plenary session. Undoubtedly, the new developments whichwere mainly focussing on the FIT LeisureBusiness, such as the ongoing implemen-tation of our Atlas reservation system, havecaused a high workload and stress for theteams involved, but it has been acknowled-ged that the process is a key prerequisite togrow the FIT Leisure Business substantiallythroughout the region. Manuel Ferrer andMonique Arnoux, Head of FIT Asia, high-lighted the dedication of the newly formedregional management team for FIT toachieving the project objectives. Mark Denton, Head of Finance Asia, andAndrés García, Finance Director ODS,

underlined the achievements made by thepan-Asian Finance team and the entiremanagement team in introducing newfinancial planning and reporting procedureswhich are essential as Pacific World is nowpart of a publicly listed company (PLC) quo-ted on the London Stock Exchange.In the area of Human Resources, presen-ted by Marina Zapp (Human ResourcesDirector ODS), the introduction of commonHR policies destined to foster the engage-ment of our world class staff in Asia isunder way, and the network of HR Mana-gers in the region now starts to share pro-jects and information.Throughout the conference, the MICE, FIT,Finance, and HR teams held separateworkshops which helped to understand theprogress of business and the priorities forcommon projects in the coming months. In the MICE area, important developmentsin the respective countries were discussed.The greatest challenge for the year 2008will be the Beijing Olympics however, forwhich PW China has already sold a largenumber of programs to international corpo-rations and which will involve teams fromthe entire region next summer.

Donation to Wat Prabath Nampoo

Worth mentioning as well that 5,200 Baht

proceeding from the voluntary penalty feesfor those conference attendees who camelate to a session were donated to the foun-dation of Wat Prabath Nampoo. This foun-

dation aims to provide medical aids neces-sary to help HIV-infected patients and pro-vides homes to orphans.The PW Marketing Meeting not onlyaccomplished its objectives of informationbut also of enhancing teambuilding of theregion-wide management team which nowincludes the managers of PW who haveshaped this business during the past deca-des, as well as new executives whosebackground is with the Group and ODS."We are now all part of one commonfamily", summarised Jacques Arnoux poin-tedly.The family also took the opportunity tomark a special occasion for two of its mostprominent members, Gillian and Bob Guy,whose 25th wedding anniversary was cele-brated during a beautiful gala evening onthe beach of Phuket.

Our colleagues of PW Malaysia received anaward in June for the Best Tour Programme- MICE for the Avon Cosmetics event held inKuala Lumpur last year. This prestigiousaward is given by the Ministry of Tourism ofthe Malaysian Government. The event wascalled Rimba Night which was managed by

PW Malaysia Kuala Lumpur MICE at theSunway Lagoon for one of our incentiveplanner customers. The customer was Prin-cipal Promotions from the UK for their cus-tomer Avon Cosmetics UK. In addition to thisaward given to PW Malaysia, the team wasnominated as one of the three finalists in

three categories.The PW team in Singaporewas the winner of the TravelWeekly AsiaIndustry Awards for Best Travel Agency(MICE). The magazine awards annually thebest companies of the travel industry. Con-gratulations to our teams in Singapore andMalaysia!

The Malaysia and Singapore teams, awarded

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Pacific World celebrates its annual Marketing Meeting in Phuket

On July 14-19, Pacific World celebrated its annual Mar-keting Meeting, this year hosted by Khun Nong and herteam of Pacific World Thailand in the Sheraton GrandeLaguna Resort on the island of Phuket. This event is tra-ditionally destined to review the business of the previousyear and to share the latest developments in the respec-tive Asian markets with the MICE Marketing networkexecutives representing Pacific World (PW) in the US,Australia, the UK and other major markets, and with thesenior management team of the whole region.

destinations

The greatest challengefor 2008 will be the

Beijing Olympics

One year after the acquisition by Hotelbeds

All the attendants.

Jocelyne, the winner of the contest, worksin the B2B Distribution channel as SalesManager, and is based in Head Office. Shelets us know a bit about her life.- Jocelyne, how did the chameleon cometo your mind?- I thought of a nice chameleon as a mascotfor the competition as it suits the Coloursnewsletter and diversity of the company, aswell as the necessity for each one to adaptto the "colours" of the others. Indeed, beingmyself half French / half Lebanese I knowsomething about cultural diversity and feelcomfortable communicating and dealingwith people. - Did your job influence your idea?- Yes, as I have been working in B2B Distri-bution for the last 3 years -we are 12nationalities in this department-, I am inconstant contact with all the countries andoffices, from reservations staff to contract-ing and destination managers. This year I

am specially focused on developing bothB2B channels on the French market.- What do you do in your daily work?- My job is to capture new business leadsfor the company by selling all the productsand destinations, and consolidate the cur-rent business. In sales, we are the constantinterface between the customers and thewhole company. It is sometimes difficult, aswe have to find the way to translate theclients´ needs to the company as well astransmit to customers the reality of the des-tination, products and services. - What is your opinion about working in

a global company like this?- Apart from this daily challenge, it is veryexciting in general to work within the com-pany in a constant growing environmentand for its international exposure.- Any hobbies?- I like to travel, take people “out and about”,photography and last but not least, enjoymy stay in sunny and rich Mallorca.

our thanks to all who participated

Jocelyne Mouawad wins a free weekend to Athens

Contest in Colours

Jocelyne is the winner of our contest. The chameleon you see below, Cammy, isher proposal. It was hard for the jury (composed by two members of the HumanResources team and two members of the Board) to decide what proposal was thewinner, since there were several good ones accomplishing the conditions of thecontest. We were very happy about the respond from all over the world and wewould like to thank all of you who participated and, of course, congratulate Joce-lyne, who lets us know a bit about her life.

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2nd place

3rd place

Two best entries (after the winner):- Enrique L. Lozano (Costa Daurada, Spain). 2nd place.- Robinson Sánchez (Punta Cana, Dominican Rep.). 3rd. place.

Other entries*: Daniel Pereyra (Orlando, USA), Victor Seah(Singapore), Winnie Cheng (Hong Kong), Lesly Cruz (Cancun,Mexico), Juan José Guasp (Head Office, Spain), Rachel Pic-quenot (Barcelona, Spain), Eva Schmid (Head Office, Spain),Daniel Mccreedy (Head Office, Spain), Yvonne Wagoun (Edin-burgh, UK), Kate Guetmanskaia (London, UK), Chris Weininger(Hawaii, USA).

* Please note that some entries were not valid to enter the contest(no image was included / image was not applicable to our entireSector and countries). Anyway... it’ll be a surprise for all...

Jocelyne Mouawad.

On the 26th of July, the First Workshop onPreferred Hotel Chains was held at the NHConstanza Hotel (Barcelona, Spain). Allstaff involved in contracting and controllingthese hotel chains participated in this event,especially the 20 Key Account Managerswho make it possible for us so that we canhave preferred conditions in more than3,000 hotels in 535 destinations across 51countries. 30% of the hotels are in leisure destinations,

mainly in Spain and Caribbean, whilst therest are urban hotels, mainly within Europe.20% turnover of ODS online reservationscome from these 50 hotel chains.

Objectives

Once the process of this kind of contractingwas analysed, it was agreed that the mainobjectives are to extend these agreementsto next year (maintaining or even improvingour competitive advantage) and therefore

allowing us to take advantage of new con-tracting opportunities across the world. All ofus agreed that the development of newtechnologies within contracting, and themassive implementation of electronic invoic-ing and automatic collecting are going to bekey factors in the next couple of years, forus to continue offering added value to oursuppliers and, therefore, to continue havingadvantages that makes us different fromour competitors in this challenging market.

First Workshop on Preferred Hotel Chains

latest news from the Product team