LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Bookings at London hotels for the Olympic period are down by around a third on last summer, with travellers being put off by high prices, a British travel agent said on Wednesday, dampening hopes that the Games will help to revive Britain's economy.
Credit ratings agency Moody's said last month that the Olympics would provide only a temporary boost to corporate earnings but said hotels would be a clear beneficiary.
However, past Games have shown evidence of a displacement effect - with regular tourists put off by fears of overcrowding and high prices during an Olympics.
Hotel wholesaler JacTravel is forecasting visitor arrivals to London in July to be more than 35 percent down on 2011, and August to be almost 30 percent down.
JacTravel's chief executive Mario Bodini said that Olympics expectations had been overly optimistic.
"It's a great event; great publicity for the country, but what we need is sensible hotel pricing, and to make sure it goes back to normal very quickly," he told Reuters.
The travel agent said a four-star hotel room in central London is normally priced between 80 pounds and 120 pounds ($120-180) per night during in the peak summer season, but this year the range is 200 pounds to 415 pounds.
JacTravel's customer base includes travel agents, tour operators and online hotel booking engines, and therefore acts a useful barometer for the inbound tourism market.
JUBILEE PEAK?
Hotel prices in London were distorted when local organisers block-booked 40,000 of London's 100,000 rooms for Games athletes, officials, media and sponsors. In January 2012, 20 percent of these were released back onto the market.
"The demand is still there internationally for people to come to the UK," said Mary Rance, chief executive of trade association UK Inbound, which represents tour operators and hotels.
"There's plenty of availability in London, more than enough hotel rooms, but rates have to be commercially viable ... Hotels and tour operators have to work together better to maximise the opportunity and fill those beds."
Rance worries that many visitors to the UK this year may have already come. Britain has just celebrated the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the other major event of the summer.
UK Inbound conducted a members' survey last week which found that between May and August 2012 almost half said their tourism bookings were "slightly lower" or "considerably lower" than the year before, (27 per cent and 21 per cent respectively).
Conversely, 52 percent responded that their bookings were either "considerably higher" or "slightly higher" year on year between January and April.
Tour operators' worries about a visitor shortfall contrast with available flight data. Research last week by travel reservations group Amadeus found a 13 percent rise in bookings for flights to London for the Olympic period compared with the same period a year ago.
These figures were based on global air reservations booked through travel agencies, not direct bookings, and do not take into account potential traffic on low-cost carriers.
A significant portion of the travellers who have already booked could be the 11,000 athletes staying in Olympic-village accommodation, and spectators staying in private residences.
UK agents say the spike in air bookings can also be accounted for by Games visitors making unusually early reservations whereas summer holidaymakers wait until nearer the time to book and it is these visitors which the UK hospitality industry fears will fail to turn up in sufficient numbers.
($1=0.6506 British pounds)
(Editing by Keith Weir and Greg Mahlich)
London Luxury-Home Price Gains Slow After Property-Tax Increase - Businessweek
Luxury-home prices in central London rose the least in nine months in May, after the British government increased a tax on purchases of 2 million pounds ($3.1 million) or more, Knight Frank LLP said.
Values of houses and apartments costing an average of 3.7 million pounds climbed 10.7 percent from a year earlier, the London-based broker said in a report today. That was the smallest gain since August 2011. Prices rose 0.7 percent from April, bolstered by buyers from mainland Europe.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne raised the tax, known as stamp duty, to 7 percent from 5 percent in March. The threshold for the new tax rate is now the average asking price of a home in Kensington and Chelsea, one of London’s most affluent neighborhoods, property-listings website Rightmove Plc said when the government announced the change.
“The market has absorbed the 7 percent duty rate fairly well,” Liam Bailey, head of residential research for Knight Frank, said in the report. Prices for homes valued at more than 2 million pounds rose 1.6 percent in the past two months, while those for all luxury properties gained 2.7 percent, he said.
Europe’s debt crisis has prompted overseas investors to acquire real estate in London to preserve their wealth. Luxury- property prices in the city have increased about 12 percent since the market’s peak in 2008, including 4.7 percent this year, as a scarcity of homes for sale drove up values.
German Buyers
“We are now seeing a noticeable uptick in interest from France, Italy, Spain and even German-based purchasers,” Bailey said in the report. That contributed to the 19th monthly price increase in a row.
The crisis, now in its third year, threatens to destroy Europe’s 17-nation currency union as Greece contemplates exiting the euro and Spain sees its bond yields rise and banking industry falter. The euro zone’s collapse could cause prime central London property values to fall as much as 50 percent, Development Securities Plc (DSC) said in a May 31 report, as capital flows out of the city to less expensive markets.
“The ‘safe-haven’ effect has clearly played its role in attracting foreign money into London’s most desirable post codes,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Marx said in the report. “However, the property industry knows -- perhaps better than most -- that nothing goes on forever.”
Foreign Residents
Foreign buyers accounted for about 60 percent of home purchases in London’s most expensive districts in the four years through 2011, according to London-based Development Securities. As a result, more than half of the residents of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster are from outside the U.K.
House prices across the country rose in May for the first time in three months as a lack of homes for sale supported values, Nationwide Building Society said May 31. Values gained 0.3 percent from April and fell an annual 0.7 percent to an average of 166,022 pounds.
Knight Frank compiles its luxury-homes index from its own appraisal values of a sample of the same properties in the 13 most expensive neighborhoods of central London, including Belgravia and Knightsbridge.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Spillane in London at cspillane3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Blackman at ablackman@bloomberg.net.
Pre-Globe Shakespeare theater unearthed in London - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Archaeologists in London have discovered the remains of an early playhouse used by William Shakespeare's company where "Romeo and Juliet" and "Henry V" were first performed.
Pre-dating the riverside Globe, the Curtain theater, north of the river Thames in Shoreditch, was home to Shakespeare's company - the Lord Chamberlain's Men.
Remains of walls forming the gallery and the yard within the venue have been discovered by archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA).
"This is a fantastic site which gives us unique insight into early Shakespearean theatres," said Chris Thomas from MOLA, who is leading the archaeological work.
The theatre was immortalized as "this wooden O" in the prologue of Henry V with the lines: "Can this cock-pit hold within this wooden O, the very caskes that did affright the Ayre at Agincourt?"
The discovery will delight historians and Shakespeare fans as excavations offer a picture of where the writer's early productions were performed, although little further detail is known about the early playhouse.
"This is an outstanding site - and a fortuitous find in the year of the worldwide celebration of Shakespeare," said Kim Stabler, Archaeology Advisor at English Heritage.
London has been celebrating its cultural heritage with a world Shakespeare festival taking place at the Globe theatre and across the UK, as part of a festival to coincide with the Olympics this summer and will last to November.
"The find is another wonderful opportunity to further our understanding of Shakespeare's theatres," said Neil Constable, Chief Executive of Shakespeare's Globe.
The Curtain Theatre opened in 1577 close to London's first playhouse "The Theatre" and was one of a number of early theatres built outside the city's walls.
The venue took its name from nearby street Curtain Close.
It was the main arena for Shakespeare's plays between 1597 and 1599 until the Globe was completed in Southwark, but it is unclear what happened to the playhouse after that when it seemed to vanish from historic records after 1622.
Some experts say it may have remained in use until the Civil War in the 1640s.
Archaeologists stumbled upon the Curtain Theatre's remains on Hewett Street after work began on a regeneration project led by local developers last October.
Soon after the remains were found on an exploratory dig, architects began drawing up plans to preserve the remains while allowing the development to go ahead.
A spokesman for Plough Yard Developments, the company leading the regeneration project with the Estate Office Shoreditch, said the excavations could become a preserved centerpiece of a new housing and shopping area.
The plans are set to go on display on June 8 and 9 at the site.
"Although the Curtain was known to have been in the area, its exact location was a mystery," the Plough Yard spokesman said.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
Round-up: Vauxhall Ellesmere Port favourite to build the Ampera, and latest on Clinton Cards and North Wales Business Club - Daily Post
Vauxhall leads Ampera race
THE Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port will reportedly start building the Ampera Extended-Range Electric Vehicle in 2015 or 2016.
The Ampera is currently only built at a factory in Detroit, USA.
However, industry speculation suggests parent company General Motors (GM) is considering building the E-REV and possibly other electric cars in Europe come the 2015-16 period.
The Cheshire plant is now considered GM's favourite choice for taking on this new production run, after it was confirmed the site would build the next generation Astra, adding 700 jobs to the already 2,100 strong staff line-up.
Currently the Cheshire-based plant builds the new Vauxhall Astra, which happens to share the same platform as the Ampera.
Card workers await takeover
CLINTON Cards workers across North Wales will find out in the coming days whether their jobs are safe.
US firm American Greetings is expected to take over the last 400 Clinton Cards shops - including Rhyl, Holywell and Llandudno - later this week.
The company - once one of Clinton’s main suppliers - will reportedly pay nothing for the stores but run them as a separate business.
Card factory and WH Smith were touted as buyers but AG put itself first in line by snapping up the collapsed firm’s £35million debt.
Administrators Zolfo Cooper are closing 350 stores, with 3,000 jobs lost.
The collapse of Clinton’s, which will be sold by Friday, came shortly after high street firms Game, Peacocks and Blacks Leisure folded.
Sign up for a summer lunch
NORTH Wales Business Club will hold its summer lunch event on July 13 at Bodysgallen Hall Hotel in Llandudno.
Guest speaker is Dr Barrie Kennard, director of the Centre for Excellence for Leadership and Management Skills in Wales, who recently authored a report on Higher Level Skills Development in Wales.
Tickets £27; applications to Jean Barlow, Tal y Fan, 98 Deganwy Road, Llandudno, North Wales, LL30 1NA.
Alternatively, email: barlow777@btinternet.com.
London's ugliest buildings: your choices - Daily Telegraph
The Queen Elizabeth conference centre offends my eyes and the Shell building on the South Bank is equally brutal.
Martin Bartlett, by email
I know most of the buildings featured: it appears that you have chosen the some of the largest projects in recent history? In terms of the Blue Fin, you should go and have a look at what used to be there. And UCL Hospital? Surely Guys Hospital should be there instead?
Martin Garthwaite, by email
The One New Change shopping centre in the City would be my choice for inclusion in London’s ugliest buildings. Not for nothing is it referred to as “the turd”.
Bob Thompson, by email
Most modern buildings are just meaningless, incongruous, dysfunctional shapes, which date with amazing rapidity. If it’s not going to look good still in 500 years; don’t build it.
John Armstrong, by email
The Shard without a doubt is one of the ugliest buildings in London. The first view I had of this monstrosity was crossing the Thames when coming from Gatwick Airport. To me it looked like a giant prophylactic.
Why do all these buildings have to stick out like a sore thumb? Isn't it about time there were height restrictions? There should also be rules about modern "architecture" (if that is what they want to call it) complementing the surroundings in which they are being built.
S Cook, by email
I would add Portcullis House. Dark brown is seldom a good colour for a building and this is no exception.
Robert Cook, by email
London 2012: torchbearers picked by sponsors keep flame of commerce alive - The Guardian
Throughout their descriptions of the 70-day Olympic torch relay, the London 2012 organisers talked of having tracked down "8,000 truly inspirational people from across the UK". But while most of the torchbearers were picked through this process, some people – including one of the world's richest men – managed to get on the torch relay by another means: working for, or being affiliated with, one of the London 2012 sponsors.
More than 1,200 spaces were allocated to the International Olympic Committee, the British Olympics Association, and to staff working for Games sponsors – whose picks included company directors, Russian newspaper editors, and even an official at the US's Food and Drug Administration.
Help Me Investigate the Olympics, a crowdsourced news coverage site dedicated to London 2012, looked into torchbearer slots handed out by one particular sponsor, Adidas.
While, generally, slots had been given to junior or mid-level employees, Adidas had also selected Christos Angelides, the £900,000-a-year senior director at Next, which has a retail partnership with Adidas covering the Olympics. Other Adidas slots went to people in the marketing team who had worked on the company's sponsorship.
The group's findings, posted by Paul Bradshaw, also noted descriptions of staff's work performance in their nominating stories, mentioning that one torchbearer had "made a fantastic contribution to the Adidas group business". Another "breathes Adidas … Her positive attitude and 'money in [the] till' approach is legendary" and a third mentioned "achieving my sales targets in every market I have worked in".
A spokesman for Adidas said the firm was restricted by Locog rules and could only offer its torchbearer slots to employees or those in its network. He added that owing to the low average age of the company's staff, not many of their children were old enough to carry the torch.
Other sponsors struck further afield for their choices: among Coca-Cola's selections were the Las Vegas resident Dr Debra Toney, who among other roles sits on a committee of the US's Food and Drug Administration.
Coca-Cola also selected Evgeny Faktorovich, the deputy editor-in-chief of a Russian paper that "supports all social initiative held by Coca-Cola" and Vonta Vontobel, the president of the Brazilian Bottlers Association of Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola, as an official torchbearer partner, was able to allocate places to members of the public – it was responsible for allocating 1,350 slots.
"Over 90% of our allocation has gone to members of the public through our Future Flames campaign, which celebrates inspirational people by giving them the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to carry the Olympic flame," said a spokesman. "A small number of our allocation has been given to some of our employees through a nomination campaign, and to our campaign ambassadors who have helped to find our Future Flames. Our remaining places have been given to our partner organisations and their affiliates."
ArcelorMittal, another organisation supporting the Olympics, was given six torchbearer slots. Two of these went to the company's founder, Lakshmi Mittal, the world's 21st richest man according to Forbes magazine, and his son Aditya, the group's chief financial officer. Among the others, however, were the US technician Angel Alvarez, who donated his kidney to a fellow worker, and Polish employee Filip Kuzniak, who cycled 600km to raise money for a colleague's daughter.
Among 50 torchbearers selected by BP were Gillian James, a member of the company's North Sea leadership team, and Carl Halksworth, the creative director of Landor, BP's design agency partner for the Olympics. As BP sponsored a particular section of the route, near Aberdeen, the remainder of its picks were made up predominantly of "onshore and offshore BP staff, young relatives of staff, business partners, and nominees from local schools, universities and charities".
The electricity giant EDF, meanwhile, included the group's former director of HR and communications among the 71 staff members chosen to carry the torch on the company's behalf.
A London 2012 spokesman said: "Staging the Olympic Games is a huge undertaking and we couldn't do it without the support from our commercial partners. The rights packages for some partners include a small number of torchbearer places that had to be filled through internal campaigns.
"The same torchbearer selection criteria applied across the whole relay – ie personal bests and/or contribution to the community."
New Opel/Vauxhall Astra saloon revealed - AUTOCAR.co.uk
Opel/Vauxhall has revealed this new Astra saloon – but the four-door is not destined for sale in the UK. The Opel Astra saloon will instead be sold in select western European markets, including Germany and Spain, where 'notchbacks' are popular, as well as Eastern Europe, Russia and Turkey.
The Astra saloon is offered with four petrol and three diesel engines. The most powerful engine is a 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol unit with 177bhp. The most frugal is a 94bhp 1.3-litre oil-burner with CO2 emissions of 99g/km and 76.3mpg.
Opel has also confirmed its new family of turbocharged four-cylinder 1.6-litre petrol engines will be launched in the new Astra four-door from early 2013.
The Astra saloon, sister car to the Buick Verano, is 4658mm long, 1814mm wide and 1476mm high. That makes it 239mm longer than a standard Astra five-door. The four and five-door models share the same 2685mm wheelbase, but the extra length allows for an increase of 90 litres in boot capacity. The 460-litre volume can be increased to 1010 litres by folding the 60:40 split rear bench flat.
Visually, the Astra four-door is identical to the five-door from the rear doors forward. The rear screen has a sharp rake to better integrate the boot. There’s also an integrated rear spoiler and an ‘inner wing’ shape for the rear lamps, an Opel hallmark.
The new model is set to make its public debut at the Moscow motor show in August.
Police plea after four die in crash - Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
A Volkswagen Passat and a Vauxhall Astra collided on the A39 at Cannington, near Bridgwater, Somerset, at around 2.30pm on Tuesday.
A spokesman for Somerset Police said a 68-year-old man travelling in the Passat died, while a 73-year-old woman, a 59-year-old woman and a 76-year-old man travelling in the Astra were also killed.
Police are appealing for witnesses to contact the collision investigation unit on 101.
The accident follows another fatal crash in which three men were killed when their car careered into trees before rolling down an embankment near Oxford.
The men, aged 57, 39 and 31, were in a blue Mercedes E Class estate when the crash happened on the A4074 at Sandford-on-Thames at about 9.50pm on Monday.
Two other passengers, both women, aged 37 and 29, were injured and taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
Two of the men who died, the 57-year-old and the 39-year-old, were believed to be US citizens. No other vehicles were involved.
A spokesman for Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said they were called to Tuesday afternoon's crash after reports that three people were trapped.
They used hydraulic cutting equipment to remove the roof of one of the vehicles so the casualties could be reached by ambulance staff.
Fitzrovia cemented as hotspot for London art galleries - The Guardian
Fitzrovia, north of Oxford Street, has fast grown to become one of London's key contemporary art hubs. More than 30 galleries have opened in the past four years, including five in the past three months. The area looks set to cement its reputation this month with the launch of Fitzrovia Lates. Forty galleries will open until 9pm on the last Thursday of every month, offering a programme of tours, talks and performances.
Yet as more galleries announce plans to open in or relocate there, one of the most successful, Modern Art on Eastcastle Street, is leaving, prompting warnings to other galleries not to flock there "like sheep" in the hope of finding commercial success.
Stuart Shave, founder and director of Modern Art, whose artists include former Turner Prize nominee Karla Black, has earned a reputation of relocating at the right time. Originally based on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, he was the first gallery to open on Vyner Street in Hackney in 1998, which subsequently became a thriving hub of the east London art scene.
Since Shave moved into Eastcastle Street in 2008, among the first wave of younger galleries to move into the area, it has undergone a similar, if more well-heeled, transformation, with his private views attracting the likes of Claudia Schiffer. Last June saw the opening of Whisper Gallery, run by Ronnie Wood's son Jamie, which sells affordable limited-edition prints rather than the original pieces favoured by Shave's collectors. This year's arrivals on the street include the second London space of the renowned Haunch of Venison gallery, also based in nearby New Bond Street and New York, and the Carroll/Fletcher gallery, opened by two former Credit Suisse traders in March. Explaining their choice of location, co-director Steve Fletcher said: "There are very few profitable art galleries that are destinations on their own."
Jane England, director of England & Co gallery, which relocated to Great Portland Street from Notting Hill earlier this year, said she understood why Shave was moving. "A couple of galleries that are not up his street have moved next door."
Although he will not comment directly about any of the galleries that have sprung up around him, Shave, tellingly, says of his new space in Clerkenwell, due to open later this year, "there isn't the capacity to have another gallery next door".
Shave, whose Fitzrovia overheads are £250,000 a year, also warned smaller galleries moving to the area that the costs could inhibit their programming. "If you're dedicated to working with more challenging artists, putting on an unsellable exhibition can cost £40,000–£50,000."
He added: "There's no mystique or allure that gets added on when you move to the West End. It's all to do with inverted snobbery, thinking that you've grown out of the East End."
Josh Lilley, who opened his eponymous gallery on Riding House Street in Fitzrovia in 2009, is convinced that the area offers more for smaller commercial galleries than the East End. He recalls being introduced to Jerry Speyer, chairman of the New York Museum of Modern Art (Moma), by someone from an East End gallery. When Speyer next came to London, he visited Lilley but did not have time to go out east to the other gallery.
"We've had £1.5m of sales in three years, which is considerable when almost everything we sell is £10,000 and under," says Lilley.
However, Alison Jacques, who relocated her gallery from Mayfair to Fitzrovia in 2007, said she applauds Shave's decision to move from the increasingly crowded Eastcastle Street. "No one really wants someone doing something on your coat tails."
Like Shave, she questions the wisdom of galleries moving from larger spaces in the East End to smaller spaces in central London. Her gallery was specifically designed for her roster of artists: "I'm a gallerist not a shopkeeper."
Jacques added: "Do your own thing. Fitzrovia is full of galleries. I think it's an amazing moment for a gallery to open in the East End or to establish themselves in a new area. You only have to look at Stuart [Shave] or Jay Jopling's White Cube in Bermondsey – you'd never have been able to create that space in the West End. It's those kinds of gallerists that stand out from the crowd."
No comments:
Post a Comment