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Explosive detection technology can identify substance in latest airline bombing attempt

PETN has been confirmed as the explosive material that was used in the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airline flight bound for Detroit on Christmas Day. PETN is a highly explosive chemical that typically exists in powder form.

According to Craig Cummings, CEO of SpectraFluidics and former senior vice president at defense giant SAIC, it is difficult to detect using conventional airport scanning and inspection technology. "However, our detection technology is able to detect PETN and RDX - another difficult-to-detect explosive agent - at parts-per-trillion levels in air. To the best of our knowledge, no one other than SpectraFluidics can make that statement," he said. His company has successfully completed its latest series of development tests involving the detection of trace levels of the explosives PETN, RDX, TNT and ammonium nitrate.

SpectraFluidics' sensing technology can detect individual explosive molecules in the air emanating from either a passenger or their luggage, without the use of time-consuming and expensive swabs or reagents. It does not rely on a difference in density between the hidden explosive and the human body, nor does it require the hidden explosive to be visible on a whole body scanner - or subject a passenger to a "virtual strip search." Finally, it is expected to cost a fraction of competing scanning alternatives.

SpectraFluidics' first commercial product - scheduled for release in 2010 - can be configured as either a portal type of system or a hand-held device. The company also plans units for retrofitting existing airport scanners and other screening hardware already installed in the market. Ultimately, the devices will provide unparalleled, real-time sampling and detection of trace amounts of explosives in either vapor or solid phase, with minimal user interaction.

The technology was invented at the University of California, Santa Barbara, by professors and researchers from the mechanical engineering and chemistry departments. The inventors licensed the intellectual property from the University and formed SpectraFluidics to commercialize the technology. Since that time, SpectraFluidics has captured two US Army development and engineering contracts plus an investment from Cycad Group.

Travel gurus predict trends for 2010

The travel gurus are reading their crystal balls for the new year, and here are some of their predictions.

From Hotelier.com :

• Holidays in the Far East are a sure winner for 2010. Prices have come down drastically and the new style Boutique hotels who have started to evolved are a real treasure. Kog Samui is one of the destinations we predict to be tops ths coming year.  Great Holiday Bargains Worldwide

From Travelocity.com's Genevieve Shaw Brown:

• Airfares are going up, but hotel rates are going down.

• Resorts in popular destinations dependent on air travelers — Caribbean, Hawaii — will be particularly good values.

• All-inclusive resorts will gain popularity with budget-conscious travelers.

• Booking early is the best way to get the lowest airfare. Capacity cuts means airlines have more pricing power than 2009.

• Vacation packages will be the best overall value. Hotels are not keen to lower their standalone rates, but will do so as part of a package. Travelers who bundle flight and hotel will save the most.

From Hotwire.com's Clem Bason:

• Travel sales will remain flat; travel deals will continue to improve.

• Hotel prices will continue to drop. Deal-hunters should watch markets such as Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco, where Hotwire expects unsold inventory could be sold at up to 55% off.

• Air prices will stay flat, as capacity cuts offset the slow recovery in business travel, leading to price stability.

• Car rental prices will be high, with few deals and some sold-out locations. Use less-expensive brands such as Payless or Advantage and rent from off-airport locations to save money.

• Get savings from vacation packages, with discounted deals online.

• Price differences between five- and four-star hotels will get smaller.

From JWT (J. Walter Thompson):

• Look for more airlines offering annual subscriptions for checked luggage, like United's $249 yearly fee.

• Travel marketers may target folks who've lost their jobs but have some money tucked away, by pitching adventures that will help them re-evaluate their lives.

• You've heard of staycations; what do you think of haycations? These are interactive farm stays where city-dwellers gather their own eggs, make cheese and even learn to butcher an animal.

• Airlines will move closer to using plant-based bio-fuels in commercial jets.

• Business travelers will start bundling several short trips into one longer trip with several stops, to save time and money.

Hospitality Job Watch!

As we say goodbye to 2009, there is great news for anyone interested in a career in hospitality... Whitbread, the giant company which owns many familiar names, including Costa Coffee and Premier Inns, says it will be recruiting about 1,000 people in the year ahead with expansion plans which include 150 new coffee shops and 12 new hotels.

These hotels will offer a total of 600 jobs, including roles in reception, front of house and housekeeping as well bar and kitchen workers.

Confirmed openings include Cardiff Central in February, Birmingham in April, plus two in September - Newport in Gwent and Burgess Hill in West Sussex, which is set to be a "green" hotel, with solar panels, low-energy lighting and cavity walls stuffed with sheep's wool!

Whitbread is also recruiting people to work behind the scenes at its contact centre near Luton, in Bedfordshire, manning the phones to respond to customer enquiries.

The company is looking for people who are flexible about working hours and keen to deliver great service.

You can find out more about these career opportunities by visiting www.whitbread.co.uk and clicking on the Careers and Jobs tab.

Last year Costa Coffee launched 150 new stores, and this year it hopes to match that figure opening around three new stores every week. There are openings in each cafe for a store and assistant manager, and for team members who'll work flexible hours.

Want to escape the nineto-five in 2010? The Youth Hostel Association is recruiting assistants to work in its 200 hostels across the country. Assistants live in the hostels working five days a week meeting guests, cooking and cleaning. Visit www.hokey-cokey-jobs.co.uk.

Office Essential

Struggling to drag yourself out of bed on these chilly winter mornings? The Time Bomb alarm clock will help with it's sinister tick-tock countdown and then an almighty explosion noise. £11.99 from www.paramountzone.com.

Is Israel on its way to becoming a golf empire?

According to the Tourism Ministry and the Israel Land Administration the answer is yes.

The two have recently devised a plan to build 16 new golf courses across Israel. Construction will span 15 years and the project is estimated at NIS 760 million – roughly $200 million.

Investing the golf courses may result in a 20% increase in hotel occupancy and the average amount of money spent by tourists visiting Israel may double form $1,000 to $2,000.

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov said that encouraging golf tourism would, in turn, encourage local and foreign investments. Misezhnikov predicts thousands of golf aficionados will visit Israel every year, which will help it compete against other Mediterranean Basin nations which have established themselves as local golf attractions.

Annual golf tourism revenues in Europe, the Middle East and Africa come to $2.7 billion.

Tourism Ministry and Israel Land Administration officials will be scouting for potential sites over the next few months. Initial plans include constructing golf courses in Eilat and the Dead Sea in the south, Tiberias and Hatzor HaGlilit in the north and Savyon and Rishon Lezion in central Israel.

Mexico tourism secretary invites gays from all over the world to get married

Mexico City enacted Latin America's first law recognizing gay marriage Tuesday and said it hopes to attract same-sex couples from around the world to wed.

The law, approved by city legislators on Dec. 21, was published in Mexico City's official register and will take effect in March. It will allow same-sex couples to adopt children and municipal officials say it will make Mexico's capital a "vanguard city"-and attract extra tourism revenues.

"Mexico City will become a center, where (gay) people from all over the world will be able to come and have their wedding, and then spend their honeymoon here," said Alejandro Rojas, the city tourism secretary.

The law, approved by city legislators on Dec. 21, was published in Mexico City's official register Tuesday and will take effect in March. It will allow same-sex couples to adopt children and municipal officials say it will make Mexico's capital a "vanguard city" — and attract extra tourism revenues.

"Mexico City will become a center, where (gay) people from all over the world will be able to come and have their wedding, and then spend their honeymoon here," said Alejandro Rojas, the city tourism secretary.

"We are already in talks with some travel agencies that are planning to offer package tours that include flights, hotels, guides, and everything they need for the wedding, like banquets," said Rojas. "We are going to become a city on a par with Venice or San Francisco" — the current leader in the gay travel market segment.

The annual economic impact of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender travelers is about $70 billion in the United States alone, according to Community Marketing Inc., a tourism research company that specializes in gay and lesbian consumers.

Gay marriages of foreigners in Mexico City would presumably only be recognized by countries and states that also have legalized same-sex marriage. An exception is New York State, which doesn't allow same-sex marriages but which recognizes those which were performed legally in other jurisdictions.

An Argentine couple participated in Latin America's first gay wedding on Monday, but interpretations vary on whether the law allows such unions in Argentina, and the question is now before its supreme court.

Argentina's Constitution is silent on whether marriage must be between a man and a woman, effectively leaving the matter to provincial officials, who approved Monday's wedding. But a law specifically legalizing gay marriage has been stalled in its Congress since October.

But even as Mexico City officials celebrated enactment of the law, others vowed to stop the marriages from taking place.

In a Sunday Mass, Roman Catholic Cardinal Norberto Rivera said "the essence of the family is being attacked by making homosexual unions equivalent to matrimony between a man and a woman."

Armando Martinez, the president of a local Catholic lawyers' group, said he was planning demonstrations against same-sex marriages, and will also support legal efforts to overturn the Mexico City law.

"We are going to carry out exhaustive campaigns at the offices of the justices of the peace in the city, using acts of peaceful civil resistance to prevent homosexual couples from being married," Martinez said.

Mexico City's law allows same-sex couples to adopt children, apply for bank loans together, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse, rights they were denied under civil unions allowed in the city.

The conservative Nation Action Party of President Felipe Calderon has vowed to challenge the law in the courts. However, homosexuality is increasingly accepted in Mexico, with gay couples openly holding hands in parts of the capital and the annual gay pride parade drawing tens of thousands of participants.

Only seven countries in the world allow gay marriages: Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. U.S. states that permit same-sex marriage are Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Latin America also has become and increasingly tolerant place for gays.

Same-sex civil unions have been legalized in Uruguay, Buenos Aires, and some states in Mexico and Brazil, but marriage generally carries broader rights.

In Argentina, Latin America's first gay newlyweds — Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Di Bello — were eager to relax and honeymoon.

"We want to rest now. It was a time during which we suffered a lot of humiliations," Freyre told The Associated Press after returning to Buenos Aires from Ushuaia, the world's southernmost city, where the couple were wed.

The men tried to get married in Argentina's capital but city officials, who had earlier said the ceremony could proceed, refused to wed them on Dec. 1, citing conflicting judicial rulings.

Fighting terrorism with tourism

Being one of the leading voices of Iraqi tourism and a crusader of the return that country's pillaged and looted antiquities might sound like a thankless task. But to Bahaa Mayah, its a mission. It is a perilous mission that he is dedicated to the point that he has set off to campaign in the upcoming national elections.

We spoke to Mayah on a visit to his family in Canada shortly before setting off to Bagdad in the launch of his campaign for a poll that promises to be both bloody and acrimonious.

Mayah fled Iraq in the 1970s for the Persian Gulf region almost four decades ago when a young bureaucrat at Iraq's Ministry of Foreign trade. Eventually he settled in the Canadian city of Montreal.

After the fall of Iraqi strongman Sadaam Hussein, Mayah returned to his home-country to become a ministerial adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Mayah focused much of his mandate to a campaign to raise international awareness of the systematic looting and pillaging of Iraq's archeological treasures in the aftermath of the US military invasion of the country.

Following the US invasion of Iraq some 15,000 objects were looted from the Iraqi National Museum including statues, ancient texts and precious ancient jewelry. While approximately half has been recovered, others have appeared on the international market. It is believed that almost 100,000 items have disappeared through widespread looting in recent years.

In order to help stop the looting Mayah, who claims that illicit proceeds of these sales have funded terrorism, has called for a ban on the sale of archeological relics from Iraq - appealing to the UN Security Council. His calls have largely been left largely unheeded.

And while talking about tourism development in a country dealing with challenging security issues, this country remains the “cradle of civilization,” the home of some 12,000 archeological sites and numerous ancient civilizations. Iraq, in better times, would be a natural tourism hotspot.

ontheglobe.com: What are the most important sites in Iraq for a potential tourist to visit? How accessible are these sites?
Bahaa Mayah: It may sound strange that we are promoting tourism to Iraq. At the moment and we are talking primarily about religious tourism. These are destined to mainly religious cities like Najaf and Kirbala, Baghdad and Samara. These cities are safe and we can say that the security situation is in very good shape. We are promoting this and getting good results and having a steady flow of tourists from countries like Iran, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Lebanon. We opened an airport of Najaf last year, which allowed direct flights from those countries. I was very happy to see the reflections of this on the economy since these cities are flourishing and a lot of employment opportunities have been created. This proves that tourism is a way of fighting terrorism. Once people have jobs and the economy flourishes then terrorism will be on the decline. The international community should help in bringing peace to Iraq. We would then see a flow of tourists to our cultural and archeological sites.

It will take some time to achieve a certain level of security before we see tourism flourishing in Iraq. At the same time I am not very happy with the preparation of the tourism infrastructure in Iraq. It is not the fact of having archeological sites alone because tourists have and enjoy services that we do not have yet, and they do not yet fully have the attention of the government to develop these elements that are important to have a successful tourism industry.

ontheglobe.com: Can we talk about specific sites?
Bahaa Mayah: Some of the sites that could be developed in the short term include the city of Babylon. It is a relatively safe area where we could develop tourism activities. The sites of Ur and Nazaria are also relatively very safe. Some kind of tourism activities could be developed there. But this requires resources which we do not have.

ontheglobe.com: Are we talking about lacking roads, souvenir shops; or are we simply talking about basic security?
Bahaa Mayah: Roads and the infrastructure of transport is there, but we lack hotels, trained people and man-power, guides or even restaurants or hotels. For instance in Nazaria there is only one hotel which we can really consider. It's not enough! A small hotel of fifty or sixty rooms is the equivalent of a four-star hotel. We need much more in order to develop tourism in many other cities. In Babylon we do not have any hotels. The only hotel which was a five star hotel right now is occupied by the international forces. They should be vacating this premise sometime soon. But in order to bring it back into its previous situation of a five-star hotel, you need the manpower and resources.

ontheglobe.com: We are aware that Babylon was used as a military base by the invading forces. What kind of damage was incurred?
Bahaa Mayah: Unfortunately Babylon was indeed used as a military base by the American and Polish troops. It was one of the disasters and began after the invasion of 2003. The damage is being dealt with by a special committee of UNESCO. We witnessed the use of heavy equipment the equivalent of a heavy military armada. This has resulted in damages to the site which I believe is one of the biggest disasters as an outcome of the war.

ontheglobe.com: Is the US government funding the restoration of the site?
Bahaa Mayah: They promised to help. They realized after some time after this incident their mistake. They are ready and they are trying to help. It's a way of saying sorry.

ontheglobe.com: Take us back to 2003 when American troops first entered your country. Some 15,000 objects of cultural significance were looted from the Baghdad Museum. The ministry of oil, however, was protected and many see an irony in this. Many perceive this as the starting point of the problems in the field of archeology in Iraq.
Bahaa Mayah Wars do not bring prosperity to any nation, but it brings destruction. The crime that happened at the Iraqi museum at the fall of the regime in April of 2003 was one of the biggest disasters to our nation. We have nobody to blame but the United States and the forces who entered Iraq at the time. They should have born in mind that they had previous warnings from archeologists from all around the world that they should take care of the Iraqi Museum. They did not do anything at the time and they let people loot a museum. Approximately 15,000 objects were looted, half of which we were able to recover. The other half is floating around the world and we are facing non-cooperation from many nations in recovering them, and I include western nations. This brings the responsibility on the invading countries to help Iraq in recovering and repatriating the looted objects.

ontheglobe.com: What is your timetable for restoring mass tourism to Iraq and its archeological sites?
Bahaa Mayah: I do not want to rush things in Iraq regarding the tourism industry for our cultural and archeological sites unless we do secure the safety of the tourists coming to Iraq. I will not promote this kind of tourism unless I feel that as a government, security forces and infrastructure that we are ready to receive tourists - only then will I do everything possible to promote this kind of tourism to Iraq.

ontheglobe.com: Are you more optimistic today then you were a year ago?
Bahaa Mayah: I wish you asked me after the next election. The next election will be the most important of the past and future of Iraq. This will decide the destiny of this nation: who is going to govern Iraq and which direction the country will be taken. I am running myself in this election and I should be starting my campaign as soon as I get back to Iraq. Of course I wish that I will win I will make sure that I will take this issue of archeology and tourism in Iraq as much as I can from my next post. Having said that the past was very difficult.

Montreal-based cultural navigator Andrew Princz is the editor of the travel portal ontheglobe.com. He is involved in journalism, country awareness, tourism promotion and cultural-oriented projects globally. He has traveled to over fifty countries around the globe; from Nigeria to Ecuador; Kazakhstan to India. He is constantly on the move, seeking out opportunities to interact with new cultures and communities.

The decade of delusion

 Good riddance to the decade of delusion. It is incredible that while the noughties brought in so many good things to the global travel sector such as the Internet age of travel, more low-cost fares on more routes and better quality hotels, the customers’ experience in the last 10 years has dropped because of service levels, the one area that we can actually control. In my last 15 years of traveling, only once has the service I have experienced actually improved in a returning visit to a country, despite huge capital investment, technological advances and investment in training of better traveled and international staff. This is not good enough.

The corporate obsession with yields, Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) and Return of Investments (ROI) has taken priority over employing staff who can solve basic problems – the key critical measurement tool that every customer uses. Although coming from a generation that is as comfortable as any North American in wishing us to “have a nice day,” many staff in hospitality today are unable to think outside the box and are too willing to pass the buck. So when a customer has gone through the motions of hearing the usual lackluster sound bites of yet another underperforming server, the question that still persists is: has my request been sorted out satisfactorily? When inspecting hotels, I use my very own “porridge test” asking for this cereal to be made in a particular way, just slightly off the norm. In the majority of occasions, the waiting staff fail to make themselves understand how I want this to be prepared, then miscommunicate the order to the kitchen and invariably I send it back. This rarely happened in the ‘80s and ‘90s when listening skills and common sense were clearly more prevalent. It is a customer’s right to have a request dealt with first time, on time, every time and this must be the norm rather than a pleasant surprise when it happens.

The source of this problem is that too much came too easily in the last few years. With easy credit and aspirational lifestyles, demand from both the leisure and corporate markets exceeded supply. And when there is excess demand over a prolonged period, complacency sets in as suppliers lose their creative edge and then their managers wonder why they can’t turn in a decent set of results when the (inevitable) slowdown comes. Your true value is not what you earn in a boom, but what you earn in a recession. With the unprecedented level of investment in hotel, airports, transportation and attractions, managers in the 2000s should have been feted as the best ever. But they’ve blown it as their predecessors extracted better satisfaction rates from less smart facilities, by dealing with each customer as if they were the only ones. The emphasis of such managers was on people rather than percentages.

So what lies ahead of us? Having just returned from the World Travel Market in London, my confidence in our sector has been boosted. For the first time in years, there was some genuinely creative spirit and hunger among suppliers. As long as this enthusiasm remains once the decision-makers return to the reality of their desks, then I have high hopes that the next decade could be the best so far: the end consumer will be enjoying a better value product, benefiting from the investment of the last few years, with better service levels and more creative experiences than ever before. And this will be the case as long as supply exceeds demand sufficiently to ensure companies are kept keen.

Ironically, the global financial turmoil may be the wake-up call needed to correct the attitudes of suppliers. The tougher trading conditions may breed a new generation of leaders who, by the end of the next decade, could be hailed as the best ever, delivering a healthy balance between the responsibilities to the customer, stakeholders and the environment.

Bring in the new decade!

Ranjiv Bhalla is the director of the UK based travel company Veenus Group

How resilient was tourism in 2009?

The tourism industry worldwide began 2009 well prepared for a bumpy ride. The days of confused and panicked reactions to risk and crises are gradually fading into the past. From the last quarter of 2008, there was full awareness that the global economic crisis would impact on tourism, which remains widely perceived as a discretionary economic activity. Although the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) had established tourism resilience committees, all sectors of the industry were seeking to be resilient in their own way.

The shared challenge for the world tourism industry in 2009 has been the global financial crisis. Overall, international tourism arrivals between January and August globally declined by 7 percent over the same period in 2008 but this hid other declines including per capita spending and travelers taking shorter journeys both in terms of distance and time. The indications from the UNWTO are that a small resurgence had commenced during the second half of 2009.

Those destinations and tourism businesses that focused on value for money product and affordability rode out the global financial crisis (GFC) relatively well, with Africa actually recording growth. Those destinations that touted themselves as centers of luxury and indulgence faced a very challenging year. Dubai was a prime example of the latter. The coincidence of opening many properties in Dubai pitched at the top end of the accommodation market during the nadir of global economic negativity proved to be a toxic mix for Dubai in 2009. Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other Gulf states are now undertaking a building boom of 3 and 4 star hotels to appeal to a wider travel market.

In the airline sector there was a decided shift in demand towards low cost carriers and the majority of full service airlines struggled to break even. Demand for first and business class seats plummeted during 2009, although airlines that introduced premium economy seats experienced a surge in demand for these especially from the cost conscious business travel sector. Traditional big spenders on business travel including business people from the financial sector were under withering and hostile public and media scrutiny to cut spending as many of them in Europe and North America were working for businesses that were being heavily subsidized by taxpayer funded bailouts. One of the best examples of an airline that has ridden out the economic storm of 2009 has been the Australian carrier Qantas, which has significantly expanded the operation of its low-cost carrier brand Jetstar and cut back on the operations of its Qantas full-service carrier brand. Qantas was one of the few major international carriers to post a profit during 2009 although by its own standards the profit was small.

Cruising was one of the bright spots in tourism during 2009. The fully inclusive nature of cruise tariffs (covering accommodation, transport, on board entertainment and meals) led to a substantial growth in cruise patronage and a broadening of cruising’s overall appeal to the travel market across a growing demographic range.

The top end of the accommodation market, in common with the premium end of the airline market had a tough year in 2009 and there was heavy pressure for cost cutting and discounting in luxury hotels. The move towards multi branding of hotels practiced so successfully by the ACCOR group has proven to be a very successful resilience strategy. In this case the mid range hotels have subsidized the struggling premium brands.

Tourism in 2009 continued to be threatened by terrorism. The bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in July 2009 by a suicide bomber, who was a paying guest of the hotel, exposed a new and disturbing security threat to hotels around the world. Pirates based in lawless Somalia not only threatened freight shipping but even made an attempt to attack a passenger cruise liner. The attack was repelled by the ship’s security detail. At every link in the tourism chain, security issues remained a key concern during 2009. Crime in the Caribbean targeting tourists was a matter of particular concern to Trinidad and Tobago .The biggest looming tourism security threat may lack headline making blood and gore but cyber crime and terrorism has the potential to threaten the financial viability of many tourism and hospitality businesses which lack the necessary defenses.

Natural disasters will always be a threat to tourism. The September 28 tsunami which hit the southern coast of the Samoan island of Upolu and American Samoa caused massive damage to coastal tourism resorts and resulted in the death if at least ten tourists among the overall death toll of 200 on the two Samoas. As was the case with the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the safe location of coastal tourism accommodation was re-ignited as a major issue of concern. Samoa’s tourism industry with support from the Pacific Asia Travel Association has been quick in taking action to restore confidence in tourism since the tsunami.

In October, the UNWTO released two important initiatives. The first was the release of its incredible web site service www.sos.travel which is an excellent global tourism crisis management tool. The second was the release in Tashkent of its “Roadmap for Recovery,” which is a guide to responding to economic downturn.

Climate change is the creeping crisis that impacts widely on the tourism industry. As this author mentioned in a recent eTN article, the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference fell well short of its aim to of achieve a binding global accord on emissions reduction. The tourism industry has little option to carry on in its active response to climate change and emission reductions irrespective of the outcome of global conferences.

The most positive observation that can be made is that during the first decade of the 21st century the global tourism and hospitality industry has become increasingly professional in its approach to the management of risk and crisis. From the large organizations including UNWTO, the World Travel & Tourism Council and PATA to individual tourism and hospitality businesses risk and crisis management has become integral part of the management toolkit rather than events that impel panic reactions.

In 2009, the tourism industry faced some stern challenges but has emerged from this year somewhat battered but facing 2010 with confidence at tourism begins a gradual resurgence. If 2009 was the year of tourism resilience, 2010 will hopefully be the year of tourism resurgence.

By David Beirman

The author is a Senior Lecturer in Tourism at the University of Technology-Sydney

For Good Hotel Rates, Bring the School Band

If you want the VIP treatment at hotels these days, show up with an entourage.

Hotel companies have long extended room-rate discounts and perks—such as free breakfast and Internet access—to big corporate and leisure groups who book dozens of rooms. But now, facing a decline in business travel, some hotels are extending similar deals and freebies to much smaller gatherings of family and friends traveling together.

When Lori McVicker travels with her 13-year-old son's soccer team, the budget usually dictates stays at basic hotels with small, uncomfortable rooms. But during a soccer tournament in September, just $89 a night got the team rooms at the four-diamond-rated Renaissance Fort Lauderdale-Plantation Hotel in Florida, which offers flat-screen TVs, evening turn-down service and free shoe-shines and newspapers. (The hotel's typical weekend rate during that period was $139.)

"It was a wonderful experience," says the 44-year-old.

Indeed, as revenue from business travelers and large corporate meetings has fallen this year—a victim of the economy and corporate skittishness about executives being seen holding meetings at luxury resorts—small leisure groups have become increasingly important to hotels.

"We are actually going after" these groups for the first time, says Nabil Salloum, general manger at the Renaissance in Plantation, the Marriott International Inc. hotel where Ms. McVicker stayed. "We understand these groups are price sensitive, so first of all we are working within their budget" by giving them better rates than in the past, he says. Next, "we are adding breakfast maybe with the stay. We might be giving them free Internet."

In October, Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns resorts, casinos and restaurants, launched a program that allows any group booking at least five rooms access to a designated trip director who can organize hotel reservations along with shows and meals. And if the group books a restaurant or show, too, it gets to jump to the head of the line of folks waiting for a taxi outside the hotel.

The Alex Hotel in midtown Manhattan—which touts "limestone baths, rain showers and plush bedding"—started giving discounts to tour groups, including youth groups, in late 2008. The hotel "gave them [youth groups] a rate that we wouldn't give them in past years," says Mary Lou Pollack, general manager of the hotel. "We decided we wanted to replace that non-existent corporate business."

But some business hotels find that it can be tough to accommodate groups of vacationing families—including noisy kids—alongside their typical business clientele. Jamie Eighteen, a 33-year-old banker from Edinburgh, Scotland, who stays in hotels about 60 nights a year, found teenagers monopolizing the business center during his stay at the Crowne Plaza Philadelphia-Downtown earlier this year. On FlyerTalk.com, an online form for travelers, he summarized his findings: "Kids permanently using the business centre to access Facebook, Bebo and god knows what else whilst playing music on mobile phones! Swiftly followed by charging up and down the stairs and along the corridors." When the noise continued into the night, he spoke to a security guard in the lobby. "He was responsive," says Mr. Eighteen, and the teens quieted down.

While the hotel didn't comment on Mr. Eighteen's specific complaint, Bob Cosgrove, general manager of the Crowne Plaza said, "No matter who you are and why you are here we want to make sure everybody has a great experience."

Indeed, lower room rates mean small, price sensitive groups like high school sports teams and church groups are ending up at higher-end properties. Business is "bad enough that they don't care who is coming. They just want someone in their beds," says Patrick Connor, vice president of the Student Youth Travel Association and president of Director's Choice Tour & Travel, a Texas-based company that operates tours for school band and choral groups.

Hotels are handing out these perks because of a fundamental shift happening across the travel industry: Business travel has plummeted this year, while leisure travel, though still weak, has remained stronger. Hotels and industry researchers say the contrast is especially stark when it comes to people traveling for special occasions like anniversaries, family reunions and children's choir competitions. People are still willing to spend money on those events because they think "it's only our 50th anniversary one time," says Mark Woodworth president of PkF Hospitality Research, a hospitality research and consulting business.

On HotelPlanner.com, a Web site owned by Lexyl Travel Technologies Inc. where groups can solicit bids for their trips from hotels, fewer corporate groups are posting trips on the site, while leisure groups continue to solicit bids, says Tim Hentschel, chief executive of the company. He says rates being offered to groups on his site are down 30% this year compared to last.

Traditionally a hotel starts handing out lower rates and perks for bookings of 10 rooms or more—what they define as a "group booking." That still stands, but some hotels are being more flexible. Connie Tompkins, owner of Group Travel Specialists based in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, says more hotels are willing to give perks to groups as small as five rooms. Earlier this year she booked five rooms for the Cherokee Cheerleaders from Denver at the Embassy Suites New York in the financial district. The standard rate at the hotel at the time was $259, she says. Because it booked five rooms, the group paid $189, an unusually low rate for a group that size, she says. The hotel's general manager said he could not confirm the group's rate.

In Hammond, Ind., near Chicago, the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Hotel, is giving out one free room with every booking of 20 rooms. Before, groups had to book at least 30 rooms to get the free room, says Shruti Buckley, vice president of global brand management for Fairfield, a Marriott brand. The Fairfield Inn in The Colony, Texas, near Dallas has started giving small leisure groups that reserve at least 10 rooms—and return their contract within seven days—2,000 to 5,000 Marriott Rewards points.

Making sure groups mingle smoothly with independent travelers is possible with some management tweaks, say some hotel general managers and group-travel organizers. The Renaissance in Plantation, Fla., puts groups on the same floor, saves several floors just for business travelers, and if a group checks in, there is "probably a little more security roaming the floors in the evening making sure it's calm," says General Manager Mr. Salloum.

And some business travelers say hotels are working harder to smooth over infuriating moments caused by unruly groups. Dan Nainan, a 28-year-old stand-up comedian and actor from New York who sleeps in hotels about 100 nights a year, says lately hotels are more willing to refund a night's stay if he complains (nicely) about noise from a loud, unruly group staying near him, likely "because their business is down and they want to keep their customers happy," he says.

But Mr. Nainan also recommends taking matters into your own hands at times. A few years ago he got stuck next to a rowdy rock band at a hotel in Taiwan. After repeated rude awakenings throughout the night, he got up around 6 a.m. to catch his flight, taking time to get "vengeance."

He called the next room pretending to be a front desk employee. There is a "very pretty lady that wants to see you," in the lobby, he explained. "But you must come down to get her."

UAE hotel revenue drops most in region

DUBAI - UAE hotels led the regional decline in revenue and occupancy in November as the country continued to suffer from a travel downturn, the latest report by hospitality firm STR Global shows.

Revenue per available (RevPar) room, a key measure of hotel performance, for the UAE was down 28.3 percent to 766 dirhams ($208) last month compared with the year-ago period, while room occupancy declined 8.8 percent to 75.5 percent.

STR said the overall Middle East RevPAR dropped by 16.9 percent.

While the UAE saw a decline, hotels in Egypt and Saudi Arabia performed better than they have earlier this year.

Hotels in Saudi Arabia saw a jump of 17.5 percent in RevPar to 572 riyals ($152) and occupancy improved 3.1 percent to 62.7 percent.

Egypt, the most popular Arab tourism destination, saw a RevPar increase of 1.6 percent to 389.9 Egyptian pounds ($72), but occupancy was down 4.3 percent to 80.5 percent.

Hotels in the Gulf business and leisure hub Dubai have been among the worst hit as the completion of new hotels has increased competition for visitors amid a travel decline.