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BERTHA BECOMES FIRST HURRICANE OF ATLANTIC
SEASON. Tropical Storm Bertha has strengthened to become the first
hurricane of the Atlantic season. As of 5 a.m. EDT, Hurricane Bertha
was about 845 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands.
Forecasters say it is too early to say if or where the storm will
hit land. Maximum sustained winds have increased to speeds of 75 mph
with higher gusts. Some strengthening is expected during the next
couple of days. The first named storm this year, Arthur, formed in
the Atlantic the day before the season officially started June 1 and
soaked the Yucatan Peninsula. (AP; www.Miami Herald.com;
www.ChicagoTribune.com; www.OrlandoSentinel.com)
OIL DROPS BELOW $144 IN ASIA. Oil dropped below $144 a barrel today
in Asia on signs of easing tensions over Iran's nuclear program. Midafternoon in Singapore, light, sweet crude for August delivery
was at $143.54 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York
Mercantile Exchange, $1.75 lower than Thursday's floor close. The
contract hit a trading record of $145.85 on Thursday in New York
before settling at a record close of $145.29 a barrel. There was no
trading Friday in the U.S. due to the Independence Day holiday. (AP;
www.OrlandoSentinel.com/Business)
*Oil's historic ascent from $100 to nearly $150 a barrel in just six
months is lending weight to a far grimmer prediction: Crude could
reach $200 a barrel by the end of the year. Oil at that price would
wreak deeper havoc on the world's airlines and automobile
industries. In the U.S., $200 crude would push the price of gasoline
to well over $6 a gallon, causing commuters to alter their driving
habits more sharply than they have already while putting extreme
strains on large sectors of the U.S. economy. So far, falling
gasoline use in the U.S. has done nothing to put a damper on prices,
largely because growing demand elsewhere in the world has managed to
keep global supplies tight. (Page A6, Wall Street Journal)
TSA CLOSE SPEEDIER X=RAY OF LAPTOPS. Four months after the
Transportation Security Administration announced that it was ready
to ease the laptop-removal requirement at airport checkpoints, the
agency and case manufacturers are taking final steps toward one of
the most visible changes to aviation security in years. As early as
next month, the TSA could start allowing some passengers to keep
laptops in their cases at airport checkpoints. Key to the idea's
success is that passengers will have to use "checkpoint friendly"
cases. That means the cases would allow a clear X-ray image of
laptops, unobstructed by zippers, straps buckles and wires. The TSA
will not certify laptop cases and is barring companies from using
its name or logo for marketing, the agency said. It does not want to
appear to endorse merchandise. (Page 2A, USA Today)
CAR RENTAL FIRMS SCALE BACK THEIR OUTLOOK AMID HIGH GAS PRICES.
Avis
Budget Group, citing the chilling effect of high fuel prices on the
nation's travel plans, issued a dire profit warning just as the peak
car-rental season got under way. Avis said Wednesday that it expects
both its second- quarter and full-year profits to fall short of
year-earlier levels. The company previously projected growth for the
year, but now says it expects pretax income of $140 million. For
2007, it reported pretax profit of $198 million on revenue of $6
billion. Avis was the second rental-car company this week to scale
back its profit expectations, joining Dollar Thrifty Automotive
Group, which manages the Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental
brands. Dollar Thrifty previously had forecast 2008 earnings,
excluding charges or other items, of $1 to $1.50 a share. It didn't
provide a new forecast. (Page B1, Wall Street Journal)
REAL ESTATE DOWNTURN HITS WESTERN RESORTS.
The real estate downturn
is taking some Western locales down a familiar path: from boom to
bust. A half century ago, timber brought prosperity to many
communities in Idaho that ended abruptly in the 1990s. This time, a
luxury ski development called Tamarack Resort has whipsawed the
town's 158 residents. Tamarack gained headlines in 2003 when it
became one of the few new ski resorts to be approved in the West in
two decades. From 2004, when its lifts opened and the first homes
sold, through last year, buyers committed more than $500 million for
condos, houses and building sites. Then last winter, building all
but stopped. While Tamarack's lifts continued to run, motel
occupancy plummeted.
LAS VEGAS CVB CHIEF IS "NEVADAN AT WORK." The Las Vegas Review-Journal's "Nevadan at Work" feature profiles Rossi Ralenkotter, who moved to the gaming capital at age four and grew up to become president and chief executive officer of the Lss Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Over the past 50+ years, Ralenkotter has had a front-row seat to it all--the mob reign, the Howard Hughes revolution and the rise of the megaresort. (www.LasVegasReview-Journal.com/Business)
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WITH their tourism-driven economies battered by a stagnant U.S.
economy, expensive jet fuel and airline cutbacks, Caribbean leaders
meeting last week have agreed to launch a $60 million campaign to
market their region as one tourism destination. At the same time,
leaders have given the nod to regional tourism ministers to lobby
U.S. officials to remove the $40 departure tax Americans pay when
visiting the Caribbean, expand the duty-free allowance and the
number of U.S. pre-clearance immigrations and customs hubs to
include other Caribbean islands. Currently, only Puerto Rico, the
Bahamas, Aruba and Bermuda allow passengers to clear immigration and
customs there rather than at U.S. airports.
THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE is considering reopening the Statue of
Liberty's crown for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, according to documents a congressman released on
Independence Day. The park service requested bids last month to
study what it would take to safely open the iconic headpiece to the
public, according to the documents released by U.S. Rep. Anthony
Weiner, a Democrat from New York. The statue's base, pedestal and
lower observation deck reopened in August 2004, after a $20 million
effort to enhance fire safety. (AP; Pages 9A, Miami Herald, Sat.
A15, New York Times, Sat.)
IMAGINE gliding in a floating hotel over the Serengeti, gazing down
on herds of zebra or elephants; or floating over Paris as the sun
sets and lights blink on across the city as you pass the Eiffel
Tower. Such flights of fancy may one day be possible, if the dream
of Jean-Marie Massaud, a French architect, comes true. As the cost
of fuel soars and the pressure mounts to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions, several schemes for a new generation of airship are being
considered by governments and private companies. It has been more
than 70 years since the giant Hindenburg zeppelin exploded in a
spectacular fireball over Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 crew members
and passengers, abruptly ending an earlier age of airships. But
because of new materials and sophisticated means of propulsion, a
diverse cast of entrepreneurs is taking another look at the
behemoths of the air. (Page B1, New York Times, Sat.) Funding for a
planned Fairmont Hotel backed by tennis stars Andre Agassi and
Steffi Graf dried up. The resort is continuing visitor operations
over the summer with lifts running for mountain bikers, and expects
to run ski operations this winter. But few potential buyers for
vacation homes want to get away from the depression and go to a
resort that's in trouble. (Page A3, Wall Street Journal)
Carnival Cruise Lines took possession of the 3,006-passenger
Carnival Splendor, which debuted on Wednesday with an eight-day
voyage from Genoa, Italy, to Dover, England. In Dover, the Splendor
will be officially named on July 10. British musician, singer and TV
personality Myleen Klass is the ship's godmother. Following the
naming, the Splendor will embark on a three-day voyage to Amsterdam,
then launch Carnival's first Northern Europe itinerary, with calls
at ports in Denmark, Germany, Russia, Finland, Estonia and the
Netherlands.
WITH airfares rising, the national economy declining and Americans
cutting back on everything from road trips to restaurant meals, Wall
Street if fearful that middle-class vacationers who helped fuel the
rise of modern-day Las Vegas are ready to turn their back on Sin
City. Forecasting the demise of Las Vegas is a game that's as tired
as puns on the city's ubiquitous "what happens here, stays here"
advertising slogan. But for the first time in recent memory, two
benchmark indicators of the health of Las Vegas, the number of hotel
rooms in development and airline seat capacity at McCarran
International Airport are moving in opposite directions. According
to the Official Airline Guide, seat capacity at McCarran is expected
to decline 12% in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, the number of available hotel rooms on the Strip is
expected to increase 18% by the end of 2009. That has investors
wondering how resort operators intend to maintain the 90% occupancy
rates to which they've grown accustomed with fewer available airline
seats for customers and drive-in traffic slacking off as gasoline
prices approach $5 per gallon in parts of Southern California, the
No. 1 source of Las Vegas visitors.
(www.LasVegasReview-Journal.com/Business, Sun.) |
