May 21

Media Release for immediate use

Race Announcement Triggers Hotel Bookings For 2006

Bookings for Auckland’s hotels have already started to come in for April 2006 following the news announcement last night that the city was the successful bidder for a New Zealand’s V8 International supercar event.

Julie Cox, who is operations manager for the President Plaza Hotel on the corner of Hobson Street and Fanshawe said people wanted to book rooms at the hotel, which will become a spectacular vantage point for the race.

She said more than 40 callers and a host of people at the hotel’s front counter wanted to book for the race.

“I didn’t know the exact date, so I called the 0800V8RACE line and they said that it’s too far out and the exact date hasn’t been set. We know that it will be in April 2006 during the school holidays,” she said.

Within hours of the 0800V8RACE call centre (website V8RACE.CO.NZ) consultation going live today, about 20 calls were logged, with many wanting to give an expression of support, IMG general manager Dean Calvert said.

“The hotel bookings are amazing this early on in the piece and great news for the hospitality industry. Another caller wanted to book tickets for the event,” Mr Calvert said.

“Others among the 20 callers to the consultation line wanted to register their support for the event or are affected residents or businesses wanting to log their issues with us. This is great because it helps us understand their specific problems and enable us to work out ways to resolve them,” he said.

Last night 6000 information brochures were mailed out to people in the vicinity of the Victoria Park and Viaduct Basin track and next week his team would be busy responding to people who had mailed, emailed or telephoned the consultation register.

Mr Calvert said his company was determined to be a good corporate citizen and where possible resolve issues so that those closest to the race circuit became its biggest fan, like in Queensland, Bathurst and Adelaide.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>