Business Travel Tips

Air France is offering cheap fares on flights to several European destinations in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and more.

You have to book by Nov. 19 (tickets must be purchased at least 3 days before departure date).
Travel period: through Dec. 19 and between Jan. 6 and March 26, 2010. A Sunday night stay is required.

Below is a sampling of Air France fares on sale. Please note: fares are one-way, based on a round-trip purchase; they include the fuel-surcharge and are exclusive of taxes.
New York – Nice from $288
Washington D.C. – Paris from $308
Detroit – Paris from $314
Los Angeles – Paris from $379
New York – Lisbon from $235
Boston – Madrid from $250
Washington D.C. – Geneva
Seattle – Barcelona from $311
Check out the airline’s website for full details.

Cashless cabins are making their way through most airlines.
Beginning Dec. 1, Delta Air Lines will only accept credit cards for on-board food and alcoholic drink purchases on all domestic Delta and Northwest flights.

Delta will still take cash and credit on international flights; and it does not accept credit cards on Delta Connection flights on its regional carrier partners such as Atlantic Southeast Airlines.

In order to process the in-flight transactions, Delta flight attendants will use hand-held credit card readers.

Other airlines that have gone to cashless cabins include JetBlue, AirTran Airways, American and United. (source)

Marriott International, Inc plans to expand its green hotel portfolio ten-fold over the next five years. In order to implement green buildings, Marriott has introduced a green hotel prototype, pre-certified LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), an internationally recognized green building certification system designed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

The green hotel prototype, which will be available in April 2010, will save owners approximately $100,000 and six months in design time, and reduce a hotel’s energy and water consumption by up to 25 percent, based on national averages. These savings, combined with incentives offered in many jurisdictions, could provide a payback for the LEED building investment in about two years.

The green hotel prototype has been created for Marriott’s Courtyard brand. In 2010, the company expects to introduce similar green hotel prototypes for its Fairfield Inn, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites and TownePlace Suites brands. [...] The Courtyard Settler’s Ridge in Pittsburgh, Penn., scheduled to open in the summer of 2010, will be the first to be built based on the new green hotel prototype concept.

Marriott already has 50 hotels registered for LEED, with 15 open or set to open by the end of 2010.

While many of the benefits of LEED certification, such as improved energy savings, better indoor air quality and reduced CO2 emissions, are transparent to guests, others are easier to identify such as easy access to public transportation, in-room recycling, and light sensors in the guest rooms. (source)

Because of its new Star Alliance membership Continental Airlines is continuing to relocate its operations at many airports to provide easy connections between its flights and those of other Star Alliance airlines.

Airports where relocation moves were already made include Frankfurt (Terminal 1) and Tokyo/Narita (Terminal 1), with also co-location moves made at Beijing, Chicago, Honolulu and Shanghai.

Continental will relocate to Terminal 1 at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport on November10 and to Terminal 1 at Paris/Charles de Gaulle on November17, terminals where most Star Alliance member carriers are based.

According to a survey conducted by the National Business Travel Association in August, 21% of corporate travel managers said environmental practices are important in choosing a travel company — up from 16% a year earlier — USA Today reports.

Big companies and states are increasingly steering their travel business to hotels that meet “green” environmental standards.

The newspaper cites a few examples.

- Florida, New York, and California certify “green” hotels and urge state employees to consider staying in them whenever possible.

- Tech giant Oracle, accounting firm KPMG and the American Institute of Architects are among companies or organizations that check hotels’ green practices before they sign contracts.

- Major cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, are pushing local hotels to take environmentally sustainable steps to gain a competitive edge in attracting conventions.

Linda Chipperfield of Green Seal, one of the better-known groups that certify environmental practice, explains the trend: “Corporations want to be able to say, ‘This is what we’re doing.’ They can put it in their annual reports,” And hotels understand the trend, as the number of hotels certified for environmental practices is expected to double by spring. (source)