It's been a very busy and profitable Summer and Autumn filled with trade shows, sales missions, and meetings where your property was showcased to top agencies and decision makers from all over the world.

The activities of the past months have included targeted sales calls in London and Washington, DC, ITME in Chicago, Virtuoso Travel Mart, and the Luxury Expo in New York. Following are some of the "movers and shakers" we visited and met with:

World Travel Market 2004, November 2004
This show was a huge success for Luxe Hotels Worldwide. Attended by key Luxe personnel from our Spanish, Italian, French, Irish, Canadian, American and of course UK offices - it was an excellent opportunity to meet our existing member hotels, travel agents and new prospects, as well as launch our latest directory. This event is possibly the most important trade show in the calendar, and with this in mind, we have already booked our stand for next year - an even larger one to better manage the vast number of visitors that we experienced. If any hotels are interested in attending and participating in the Luxe stand in 2005, please register your interest with Ghislaine in our UK office at ghislaine@luxehotels.com. Details of the various packages will be available first quarter 2005. Space will be limited so please contact us at your earliest convenience.

Hotel Investment Conference - October 13-15, 2004
Lucas Peng in the Singapore Luxe office attended Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific in Hong Kong, October 13-15. More than 400 delegates attended this "high-powered" conference.

Sales Calls in Washington D.C. - October 11-14, 2004
Jordan, Kuwait and other Gulf Country Embassies, Black Entertainment Television, the US Secret Service, SATO, General Atomics, the National Trust of Historic Preservation, and Radius.

Sales Calls in London - September 19-22, 2004
American Express Corporate Travel Supplier Relations Group Europe, Advantage Travel's Consortia Head Office, Meditech Media, Portman Travel Group, GBTA (Guild of Business Travel Agents), West End Travel, Screen and Music Travel, Altours International and others.

Virtuoso Travel Mart - August 22-27, 2004
Virtuoso is a $3 billion luxury network of travel agencies that specialize in connecting travellers to the world's most luxurious vacation destinations. This exclusive travel agency consortium of over 500 top agencies, holds a travel show each year in Las Vegas.

IT&ME - September 28-30, 2004
The Incentive Travel and Meeting Executives Show (IT&ME) is a premier show for the incentive and motivation industry. The show attracts incentive house executives, corporate users of incentive travel and corporate meeting planners, predominantly from the US and Canada. It is a three- day annual trade show, and always takes place in Chicago.

Luxury Expo - October 7-10, 2004 New York
The first days of the show are exclusively for travel agents and then it is open to the public. Building on the success of the annual show in Las Vegas, the New York show has been added to provide another opportunity to meet with the top sellers of luxury travel in the travel agency community.

We don't intend to sit back on our laurels, however. We are gearing up for the upcoming season, and are now preparing for yet another occasion to ensure that the most influential travel agents and corporate accounts in the country know about Luxe Worldwide's collection of unique boutique hotels.

We'll be exposing your hotel December 7-9 at the fabulous Venetian, where Luxe will participate in the Luxury Travel Expo, the signature event for the luxury market. The Luxury Travel Expo will help you to capitalize and profit from luxury, the travel industry's most lucrative sector.

Now is an exciting time to be part of the Luxe family of hotels. Be sure you take full advantage of the many opportunities presented to you to participate in venues that will enable you to broaden your client base, increase your presence in the marketplace, maximize your hotel's marketing and sales objectives, and grow your present and future streams of revenue.

A warm welcome to the following hotels recently added to the Luxe Worldwide Hotels family. They are:

The Scarlet, Singapore
Whitesands, Mombasa, Kenya
Hotel Raffaello, Milan, Italy
Hotel de la Jatte, Paris, France
SB Icaria, Barcelona, Spain
Victoria Resort Golf & Beach, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
Gran Ventana Beach Resort, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
Russell Hotel, Sydney, Australia
The Pontchartrain Hotel, New Orleans, LA
Lake San Marcos Resort and Country Club, Lake San Marcos, CA

Establishment hotel in Sydney is the host to the Australian Record Industry Awards after party this year the event - the biggest music industry night of the year.

Also, Establishment, Sydney was recently awarded the "Prestigious Hotel of the Year" Award at the 2004 Australian Hotels Association (NSW) Awards for Excellence. Owners John Hemmes and his son Justin Hemmes (shown in photo) received the award.

Virgin Atlantic Airways is starting its inaugural service from Sydney to London via Hong Kong in November.

This was a very successful year for consortia participation. One of our goals, in addition to continuing to increase participation through membership growth and education, is the ability to negotiate discounted fees for the programs. The following points are illustrations of our success this year, vs. previous year activity.

Luxe recently opened a new sales and support office in London.

The UK operation consists of a team of four, headed up by Ghislaine Oliver, whose vast knowledge of the UK travel sector and past experience with Utell will strengthen our own organization. The team will be looking to introduce new hotels to the portfolio, generate more outbound reservations to our existing Luxe members and provide an excellent localized customer service base.

Lucia Sirotich-Lebon recently joined the Luxe Sales Team as Associate Director of Sales, bringing with her over 20 years of expertise in the travel industry. Lucia will actively participate in sales calls, site visits, trade shows, and industry events to increase global awareness of Luxe members. She will also be a liaison for Luxe offices worldwide. Lucia's previous experience includes over 20 years with Aerolinas Argentinas, most recently as Regional Manager, Western US, as well as several years with Spirit Airlines. Her long-time active relationship in the travel agent community will surely be a benefit for Luxe. Welcome, Lucia!

Internet travel bookings are projected to triple by the end of 2005 with a forecasted revenue of approximately 28 billion Euros resulting from online reservations made by European travelers! (PhoCus Wright, July 2003)

In order to reap the rewards of this growth and attain substantial market share for our membership, Luxe has partnered with Opodo - one of Europe's leading and most successful travel websites operating in Germany, France and the U.K. We encourage you to join Luxe in our partnership with this distinguished website. Not only do we want you to gain exposure via Opodo, we enthusiastically encourage you to accept their invitation for membership in the Preferred Offering program.

Please contact Stacey Messina, VP of Business Development, at 504-412-8575 or via email at stacey@luxehotels.com if you are interested in becoming an Opodo Preferred Offering hotel. Again, we highly encourage participation in this exclusive program!

We are very proud to announce our Internet Bookings have increased by 80%, 2004 vs. 2003! We attribute this success to our easy-to-use booking engine. We encourage you to add, atNO COST,this booking engine link. The only charge to you is our low internet booking fee - the convenience to your guest is immeasurable! You can use the Luxe internet booking engine on your individual website to capture an increasing number of reservations online. The benefits of utilizing our booking engine include:
Immediate Reservations - you must have the ability for your consumers to book a room immediately!
Lowest Rate Guarantee - we can build a rate that is only available through your website to ensure you are offering your guests the important "lowest rate guarantee"!
Customizable - it will retain the same look and feel as your website including colors and fonts. The website can also be imbedded into your reservation page!
Language and Currency Conversation - we have 7 languages and every currency. This is extremely important when marketing to an international audience.
Travel Agents/Corporate Clients - our engine allows travel agents to book using their IATA number to ensure they receive commission. We can build proprietary rates available to your special corporate clients to book online.
Don't forget, when you use our booking engine, you only need to manage ONE system for GDS, Voice, and Internet.

Call or email today to learn more about how you can take advantage of this essential member benefit. Contact Eve LeGrand at eve@luxehotels.com.

Congratulations to the Hotel de Buci in Paris for recently receiving the "Grand Prix Du Tourisme 2004" award for accommodation and services with Paris Ile de France, as voted by a regional tourism community rewarding the excellent customer service given to all those who stay at the hotel.

You recently received a copy of the newly released Hotels Magazine, featuring Luxe Worldwide Hotels. We are very proud to be covered in this prestigious publication.

At Luxe Worldwide Hotels, we constantly work at generating media coverage on behalf of our member hotels.

Our press releases have been featured on key travel trade and consumer internet sites and portals including:

Traveldailynews.com
Travelweekly.com
Hotelbusiness.com
Hotel-online.com
Hsmai.org
ahla.com
yahoo.com
msn.com

Press releases are distributed to trade and consumer media in the US as well as internationally, depending on the focus of the release.

For instance, in the past few months we have reached media outlets in Singapore, Australia, and Spain, to name a few.

To support your communications efforts, we encourage you to submit any newsworthy information about your hotels to anna@luxehotels.com.