In a speech today Mr Cameron said the income generated from the £115 billion-a-year tourism sector was “fundamental” to rebuilding the UK’s economy. The UK is now joining Brazil and China in recognising the economic and political significance of the industry.

The Prime Minister would like to develop all Travel & Tourism industry segments, including domestic as well as foreign markets. Mr Cameron is particularly keen to attract Chinese visitors to the UK and wants to see the country among the top five destinations in the world.

“We are delighted that, in challenging economic times, the UK government has recognised the importance of Travel & Tourism,” said Jean-Claude Baumgarten, WTTC President & CEO, “an industry that currently generates more than 3 million jobs or 1 in every 10 in the UK.

“It can also be one of the most effective and fastest ways of helping to kick-start the economy, recreating prosperity and increasing jobs,” Baumgarten added. “This announcement comes at the right moment for the UK to take full advantage of its Olympic opportunity in 2012.

“WTTC would be happy to represent the private sector in contributing to the development of the strategy and we hope that more countries around the world will give the industry the recognition it deserves,” he said.

The private sector believes a number of challenges and barriers to growth need to be addressed in the new strategy. These include expansion at Europe’s largest aviation hub – which is suffering increasing competition for the title from other European airports – the need for a single European sky, visa processes and procedures, and unfair taxation.

Where would you go if you could All You Can Jet™ (#AYCJ™) on JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU)?  Today through August 20* members of TrueBlue can purchase the classic AYCJ-7 Pass with no day-of-week travel restrictions for $699 (a), or buy the new AYCJ-5 Pass, excluding travel on Fridays and Sundays, for $499 (a).  Passes are only available online at www.jetblue.com/aycj.  Customers must enroll in TrueBlue, the award-winning airline’s customer loyalty program, at www.jetblue.com/trueblue before purchasing a Pass.

Customers who purchase the popular #AYCJ Pass will have no boundaries – every available seat on every flight between Sept. 7 and Oct. 6 (a) will be available with no blackout dates – to travel to more than 60 international and domestic destinations in JetBlue’s route network as often as they like.  TrueBlue members will receive 4,200 points with the purchase of the AYCJ-7, or 3,000 points for the AYCJ-5. With one-way Award Flights starting at just 5,000 points, customers who purchase a Pass will be almost half-way to another roundtrip JetBlue flight.

“Last year, our AYCJ Pass inspired customers across our network with the idea of travel without boundaries, whether they set out for more face time with important clients, planned to visit 30 cities in 30 days or lived inside the walls of airport terminals across the country,” said Robin Hayes, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for JetBlue Airways.  ”We look forward to seeing how this year’s community of Jetters use the Pass and create memories that will last a lifetime.”

Customers may book new travel or make changes or cancellations to #AYCJ reservations online at www.jetblue.com/aycj without a fee up to three days before departure.  Changes or cancellations made less than three days before departure will be subject to JetBlue’s $50 change/cancel fee.  Customers can upgrade to Even More Legroom seats on each flight for as little as $5 extra, depending on the flight.  Other terms and conditions apply (a).  Additional information is available at www.jetblue.com/aycj.  

All #AYCJ travel must be booked between Aug. 23 and Oct. 3 (a).  On the first day of booking, Monday, Aug. 23, a welcome email will be sent to all Jetters with exclusive offers from partners including Hertz car rentals and JetBlue Getaways hotel properties, to add to customer savings and enhance the #AYCJ experience.  The Pass is inclusive of taxes and fees for all continental U.S. flights.  Additional taxes and fees for Puerto Rico and international flights are not included.  Customers must be TrueBlue members to take advantage of the Pass, and each #AYCJ Pass purchased is also eligible for TrueBlue points.   Enrollment in TrueBlue is simple and free for all customers.  For more information about TrueBlue, or to enroll, visit www.jetblue.com/trueblue.

Travelocity’s Labor Day data report reveals good news for travelers looking for cheap flights over the upcoming holiday weekend. Average domestic airfare is at its lowest point of the summer, and Labor Day weekend is the least expensive of the three summer holiday weekends to fly. Additionally, the average year-over-year fare increase is lowest for Labor Day weekend travel.

“This is great news for people looking for travel deals on one last summer getaway.”

“With low fares and hotel deals that are on par with the lows of 2009, Labor Day weekend is shaping up to be the best value of the summer for travelers,” said Genevieve Shaw Brown, Travelocity’s senior editor. “This is great news for people looking for travel deals on one last summer getaway.” The Labor Day data report shows average daily rate at domestic hotels is $143, only $4 higher than Labor Day weekend 2009.

Best-Value Routes for Labor Day Weekend (in order of popularity):

In 2009 we were beset with challenges never experienced, stretching our resources, shaking our sensibilities. It was primal reaction time. We were all out, trying everything to survive.

Is our Brand still intact or has something new evolved? Our Customers validate our Brand integrity through their Experience. What Voices have you heard? 

2010 was to be a year of Brand restructure, adding a new lustre to that battered reputation we held forth in the marketplace. We knew the priorities:

Revisit and bring back to the fold the Voice of the Customer;

Reengage our employees, the ambassadors who deliver on our promise;

Strengthen our Standards of Service

Reinvigorate our Product(s) and Facilities

Our progress has been slowed by a global economy with mixed signals.  Disasters have torn apart Destinations and regions, threatening land (Haiti), waters (Gulf Coast, Pakistan) and even our skies with volcanic ash (Europe). Whole societies have reassessed how they go about their daily lives – new routines, spending and future aspirations.  We still all look at that glass of water, considering: half full or half empty?

Many of us have done very well – working harder with fewer resources, more attentive to the marketplace, constantly reviewing our internal systems and approaches.  We are more flexible and adaptive.  We are also more open to innovation, learning, as Thomas Freidman of the New York Times pointed out with an assist from a recent Newsweekessay:  “To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best results).”  We are not out of the woods yet and must invest to meet the priorities noted above, even during a most tumultuous time.  Meeting those will position us for growth, prosperity and  leadership going forward.  It is all about the Customer Experience.

The GOP blueprint for winning control of the House is rapidly coming into focus, with the National Republican Congressional Committee readying a $22 million TV ad blitz aimed at a handful of powerful, long-serving incumbents and several dozen of the most junior members of the Democratic majority.

POLITICO has learned that the Republican campaign arm will invest in 40 districts around the nation in its first wave of television commercial reservations — a target list that ranges from powerful veterans such as House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina and Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, an Appropriations Committee cardinal, to endangered freshmen legislators including Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida, Betsy Markey of Colorado and Harry Teague of New Mexico.

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The reservations, which were confirmed to POLITICO by several senior party officials familiar with the buy, provide the clearest snapshot yet of the GOP’s strategy for erasing the 39-seat Democratic advantage in the House — an approach that is contingent on picking off a large number of Democrats elected in 2006 and 2008, in addition to a handful of longtime incumbents.

While Democrats have reserved ad time in 60 races to date, the vast majority of those reservations — 54 of them — are designed to protect vulnerable incumbents. Republicans, on the other hand, are investing in an almost entirely offensive effort. Of the 40 seats covered in the NRCC buy, 39 are currently held by Democrats.

The bulk of the Democrats in the crosshairs are vulnerable first-term legislators sitting in Republican-oriented seats. Many are clustered in the South, including Reps. Bobby Bright of Alabama, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Travis Childers of Missouri, Thomas Perriello of Virginia and Glenn Nye of Virginia.

Republicans also are looking toward a handful of Republican-leaning seats that have been left vacant by Democratic retirements. Among them: Arkansas’s 1st District, Indiana’s 8th District, Kansas’s 3rd District and Tennessee’s 8th District.

A number of seasoned Capitol Hill veterans are being singled out for rough treatment. Reps. Ben Chandler of Kentucky, Ciro Rodriguez of Texas, Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, Allen Boyd of Florida, Edwards and Spratt — all of who face their most difficult reelection campaigns in years — are on the GOP fall hit list.

In a nod to the perilous election environment, Republicans also are probing for fresh pickup opportunities in Republican-friendly districts that, until recently, looked to be locked down by savvy Democrats. Reps. Jim Marshall of Georgia, Jerry McNerney of California and Baron Hill of Indiana — all of who hold wide cash on hand advantages over their opponents and won by comfortable margins in 2008 — will have ads run against them.

Despite the NRCC’s muscle-flexing, money remains a major obstacle in their pursuit of a majority. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee revealed two weeks ago that it was reserving more than $49 million in ad time — much of it to defend imperiled incumbents — a firewall that reflected the committee’s ability to use its financial strength to protect its majority. The DCCC has $34 million in the bank, doubling the NRCC’s $17 million.

The Justice Department’s decision not to bring charges against Tom DeLay after a six-year probe is the latest sign that DOJ’s investigation into disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff is drawing to a close, without bagging the man prosecutors once thought might be the biggest prize of all — DeLay himself.

But in fact, DeLay is the fourth prominent politician whose federal investigation suddenly evaporated in recent months — seemingly as part of a push by Justice to overhaul its troubled Public Integrity Section, which is still smarting from the high-profile implosion of its case against the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

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Prosecutors are always reluctant to close active cases — in hopes of securing that last crucial piece of evidence needed to prosecute. Some outside experts speculated that Justice had effectively given up on being able to make a case against DeLay after all these years and decided to cut its losses.

“Most of the time, in my experience, when they get strung out that long it’s because the department is reluctant to admit that it doesn’t have any evidence that in sum total equals a prosecutable case. They keep thinking: if we just go a little further and a little further [everything will fall into place]. …That is just tremendously unfair to the subjects of those investigations,” said George Terwilliger, former deputy attorney general, who defended former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Lawyers have noted a trend in recent months in which prosecutors have pulled the plug on corruption investigations that have lasted years, as they did with DeLay, the former House Majority Leader. Since May, the Justice Department has told attorneys for Reps. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) and Don Young (R-Alaska), as well as former Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), that they are no longer under criminal investigation.

A DOJ official said, “It’s not unusual to notify counsel for individuals if they are no longer the target of investigation and/or if a decision has been made that no charges will be filed.” The official was not speaking about the DeLay case or those involving the other lawmakers. DOJ routinely refuses to publicly comment on specific investigations.

The Abramoff investigation has hardly come to naught. In all, 18 people have been convicted or pled guilty, with two more awaiting trials. Prosecutors may have hoped that some of those defendants — who included two of DeLay’s closest aides — would provide evidence sufficient to launch a prosecution of DeLay but appear to have come up short. 

“A lot of times these things do take longer than they should. Prosecutors are often holding out hope for a break. Often a break is a result of another prosecution in another case,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a former Public Integrity prosecutor who is now at the firm DLA Piper. “Sometimes those hopes are reasonable, sometimes they’re pie in the sky, but prosecutors typically aren’t going to let go of the case while there’s still a hope. From their perspective, while the statute of limitations hasn’t run out, why should they?”

SEATTLE — President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have agreed to disagree on a Muslim group’s controversial plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque a couple of blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan.

Obama “respects the right of anybody — Democrat, Republican, independent — to disagree with his opinion on this,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters Tuesday.

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“Senator Reid is a fiercely independent individual,” Burton said. “It’s one of his strengths as a leader of the Democratic Party. So the president feels completely fine that [they] might disagree.”

Yet Burton declined to say whether the White House perceives Monday’s statement from Reid’s office — that the mosque should be built “someplace else” — as a disagreement between the president and the majority leader.

“It’s a different take on this issue,” Burton said.

Organizers of the Cordoba House Islamic Center say the controversial project will promote a mainstream brand of Islam that emphasizes peace and tolerance. But opponents, including many Republicans and those who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks, call it insensitive and offensive to locate a mosque so close to where so many people died.

Last Friday evening, during a White House dinner celebrating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, Obama said that the owners of the property two blocks north of where the World Trade Center towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001, have a constitutional right to build a mosque wherever they want. His statement read like a strong endorsement of the project, which was green-lighted by local officials and is supported by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

But when asked about reaction to his remarks a day later, Obama said he had expressed support for the right of the property owners to build the mosque but didn’t endorse the specific project.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Monday: “The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Sen. Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else.”

By Ronald Grover, Andy Fixmer and Amy Thomson

(Adds Netflix spokesman comment in 11th paragraph.)

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — Netflix Inc. reached a deal that gives customers of the movie-rental service online access to films from pay-television channel Epix.

The multi-year agreement starts Sept. 1 and includes films from Epix’s owners, Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., the companies said today in a statement. Netflix will get older titles, along with newer releases 90 days after their Epix debut.

The agreement expands Netflix’s online offering, adding to content that includes older features and newer films from Relativity Media LLC and Liberty Media Corp.’s Starz. Netflix has said it will spend more on exclusive content to build the online service. The accord makes Epix profitable immediately, Lions Gate Chief Executive Officer Jon Feltheimer said.

“The original business plan for Epix always called for a broadband offering,” Feltheimer said today on an earnings conference call. The service will “create a new broadband outlet for our film library.”

Epix was created in 2008 by Viacom, Lions Gate and MGM after the studios didn’t renew agreements with CBS Corp.’s Showtime. It went on the air in October 2009 with Marvel Entertainment’s “Iron Man.”

The channel’s film slate includes Marvel films until 2012, “Star Trek” and “Mission Impossible,” said Tony Wible, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. Catalog titles include the “Saw” and James Bond franchises, he said.

Deal Estimate

The deal will pay Epix about $900 million in licensing fees over five years and will add about 75 cents to Viacom’s earnings over the life of the contract, Anthony DiClemente, an analyst with Barclays Capital in New York, said in a research note.

Epix, which has struggled to gain distribution on cable systems, streams films to online subscribers the same day they are available on pay TV.

In the quarter ended June 30, Epix lost $38.2 million, according to a quarterly filing yesterday by Vancouver-based Lions Gate, which owns 31 percent of the service. Viacom, based in New York, owns about 50 percent, according to an annual report to regulators filed on Feb. 11.

Netflix, which began by sending DVDs through the mail, has been building out its selection of movies that members can watch instantly over the Internet. Of its 15 million subscribers, 61 percent used the online viewing service in the latest quarter, through their televisions, PCs or devices like Apple Inc.’s iPad and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360.

Online Competition

The service competes for content with pay-TV channels like HBO and Showtime, which lock up exclusive rights to films for as long as nine years. The deal with Netflix will prevent Epix from selling to other online subscription outlets such as Hulu.com, Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said.

HBO, the largest premium cable channel, is addressing the threat posed by Netflix with superior movies and original programs, Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO parent Time Warner Inc., said on an Aug. 4 conference call.

“Everywhere Netflix has subs, HBO out-indexes in terms of its penetration, retention and performance,” Bewkes said.

Netflix, based in Los Gatos, California, rose $8.11, or 6.9 percent, to $125.01 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have more than doubled this year.

Viacom, controlled by Chairman Sumner Redstone, gained 29 cents to $33.96 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The Class B shares have gained 14 percent this year. Lions Gate added 2 cents to $6.60 and has risen 14 percent in 2010.

Starz Impact

Closely held Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, based in Los Angeles, is in talks with creditors and potential investors after falling behind on $3.7 billion of debt.

The sum commanded by Epix bodes well for Starz, which carries Walt Disney Co. and Sony Corp. movies and a deal to supply Netflix that expires in 2011, said Richard Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG LLC in New York.

Netflix is paying the equivalent of $1 per subscriber to Epix and will have to greatly increase the $30 million Greenfield estimates the movie service now pays Starz to continue getting content, he said.

–With assistance from Cliff Edwards in San Francisco. Editors: Anthony Palazzo, Margot Slade

To contact the reporters on this story: Ronald Grover in Los Angeles at rgrover5@bloomberg.net; Andy Fixmer in Los Angeles at afixmer@bloomberg.net; Amy Thomson in New York at Athomson6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net

Posted by: Justin Bachman on August 17, 2010

JetBlue is back this August with its air travel version of the “all-you-can-eat” buffet. The airline’s “All You Can Jet” promotion comes in two flavors this fall, a $699 version for travel any days between Sept. 7 and Oct. 6 and a $499 pass that excludes flights on Fridays and Sundays. The fine print is on JetBlue’s site. The company says it was pleased with its original campaign a year ago.

A second airline, Sun Country, on Tuesday also announced a $499 unlimited pass for flights Sept. 7-Oct. 13. One caveat: Sun Country operates from a hub at Minneapolis-St. Paul and its schedule can make connecting difficult if you’re not starting or ending there for your journeys.

These post-Labor Day efforts to move product are not novel but they do seem smart from a revenue standpoint. If you’re an airline revenue manager, a steady stream of $500 and $700 sales for seats that may well generate $0 must be a beautiful prospect indeed. I’m ready to see some other, larger airlines enter this arena. There are decent reasons they don’t jump in: chiefly that they have more lucrative business travelers than do JetBlue and Sun Country. But the majors have been experimenting all over the map when it comes to ancillary revenue schemes, from selling pillow-and-blanket sets to checked bag charges to optional fees if you want to earn additional frequent flier miles on a flight.

When will we get some innovation around peddling the core product, that plain old ticket?