Business travel

Gone are the days when travelling to Vietnam meant, at best, staying in a legendary hotel with ageing plumbing, or at worst in a place that was not fit for human habitation. "unclassifiable.

The concept of hotel residences is booming on the Indian subcontinent. The Citadines Richmond Bangalore opened last August in the heart of the city's business district.

"95 % of our establishments are independent... "

Just a few months after buying information software ITA, Google is clarifying its ambitions in the travel industry with the launch of Hotel Finder. The idea is to use the power of Google Maps to find hotels.

At the end of June, Accor launched a shared knowledge platform on social and environmental issues in the hotel industry. Called Earth Guest Research, this initiative aims to "to make studies and methodologies on sustainable development available to the whole sector and to the general public in order to contribute to the knowledge and progress of the tourism industry"..

Business travellers in South America are benefiting from new benchmarks. Brazil has just adopted a hotel classification system called SB Class. By adopting the international "1 to 5 starsThis new system should give Brazilian hotels a higher profile on foreign markets. But this compliance does not exclude a certain originality in the method.

60% of people in couples lose between 15 minutes and 5 hours of sleep a night because of their partner's snoring: this is the finding that led the Crowne Plaza chain to test its new room "anti-snoring in a large number of establishments.

A Mandarin-speaking host, in-room tea kettles and instant noodles, translated information leaflets and "congee" at breakfast: Chinese guests at Starwood Group hotels will receive special attention thanks to the new Starwood Personalized Travel programme.

"There's a shortage of rooms in Paris". This is not news, but it is one of the findings of the report on "Business tourism in Greater Paris submitted last June to the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry by Gilles Pélisson, former CEO of the Accor group.

International rail business is back on track in 2011. In the first half of the year, Thalys reported a 4.6 % increase in traffic between Paris and Brussels and a 15.6 % increase to the Netherlands, both of which were driven by shorter journey times.

"Europe's most punctual airline... "

From 28 October, all passengers on the Paris-Tokyo route operated by ANA will be able to discover the new business class offered by Japan's leading airline.

"We have also opened a Rome-Toulouse flight. "

"Our Business Class, with its unrivalled dimensions, remains a benchmark. "

Accor has launched a new version of its website dedicated to mobile phones, to simplify navigation and bookings for business travellers. 

Over the past decade, the European air transport industry has undergone a profound restructuring. From a multitude of independent players, three major poles are emerging: Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and finally IAG, bringing together British Airways and Iberia. All of which have their sights set on many other carriers...

Eurostar has just announced that it has signed a contract with specialist company NOMAD Digital Ltd, which will enable the rail company to offer wi-fi access on board its trains from 2013.