Southwest Airlines ranked first on Glassdoor.com's list for 2010 of the
50 best places to work, "selected by the people who know these companies best--their employees," according to Glassdoor. Fellow travel industry companies Continental Airlines placed eighth and Marriott snuck in at 50th.
Marriott’s top 100 corporate clients "on average say they are going to be traveling more next year," Marriott vice chairman William Shaw said yesterday during an investor conference call. That little light is at the end of a long tunnel which includes a 19 percent year-over-year decline in group bookings thus far in the fourth quarter of 2009, and 12 percent lower group business booked for the following year than Marriott was showing this time last year.
The Beat's readers named Southwest Airlines the 2009 Supplier Of The Year, ProMedia.travel announced Wednesday during The Beat
Live.
Polled this summer, readers of
The Beat were asked which company in each of six supplier segments they "most admire for its policies, management style and service for business clients." Those who voted for their own company were disqualified.
Other winners included:
• American Express for most admired payment system
• Hertz for most admired car rental company
• Marriott International for most admired hotel company
• Concur as most admired technology provider
• Continental Airlines as most admired airline
• BCD Travel as the most admired travel management company
(from left) ProMedia.travel CEO Tim Reid, Southwest Airlines corporate sales and distribution director Rob Brown and The Beat founder Jay Campbell
(from left) The Beat founder Jay Campbell, Concur director of travel and industry relations Suzanne Fletcher and ProMedia.travel CEO Tim Reid
A story in December discussed the compensation provided to
Trip Davis, who at the time was replaced as CEO of TRX and became chairman of the company's board. Based on publicly available financial documents,
The Beat's report "disappointed" one of our readers. "Why single out Trip, especially when the compensation of executives at most other major travel companies is usually greater, and the results of those companies are often no better than the results of TRX?" The list below shows the latest available compensation figures for a selection of men in the executive ranks of companies serving the business travel sector.
Luxury segment group bookings for Monday-Thursday U.S. stays fell in January and February by 19.5 percent, according to Smith Travel Research vice president Jan Freitag. Transient bookings dropped 8.8 percent. Average daily rates fell 11.7 percent and group rates fell 2.2 percent, according to a presentation Freitag made this week at the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference in Atlanta.
Fortune recently issued a new listing of "the world's most admired companies." Those who know the travel industry wouldn't be surprised to find Southwest Airlines as the highest-ranking travel company (and seventh overall).
To applause, Cornerstone Information Systems CEO Mat Orrego this week at The Masters Program said that as a traveler, he finds it annoying that all hotels don't offer free Internet access (
we agree). David Marriott's take? It's still a money-maker but hoteliers will cave.
