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By mentioning "the doping affair in the Tour de France", the author is talking about
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The purpose of the author in writing this text is
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
Penny-pinching consumers and fierce price wars are bad news for the travel industry. Bad, that is, for everyone except the booming on line travel giants. Consider the sharp rebound of such on-line players as Travelocity and Expedia. While they suffered in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, with bookings off as much as 70% in the weeks that followed, business has snapped back. "The speed with which those businesses bounced back surprised even the people most bullish about the sector," says Mitchell J. Rubin, a money manager at New York-based Baron Capital, an investor in on-line travel stocks.
The travel industry's pain is often the on-line industry's gain, as suppliers push more discounted airline seats and hotel rooms to win back customers. And many of those deals are available only on dine. At the same time, on-line agencies rely primarily on leisure travelers, where traffic has rebounded more quickly than on the business side.
The two biggest players, Travelocity Com. Inc. and Expedia Inc., are locked in combat for the top spot. Both sold some $3 billion worth of travel last year, though Expedia topped Travelocity in the fourth quarter in gross bookings. And thanks in part to a greater emphasis on wholesale deals with suppliers, Expedia is more profitable. For the quarter ended in December, Expedia posted its first net profit, $5.2 million, even with noncash and nonrecurring charges, compared with Travelocity's $25 million loss.
The airlines' latest cost cutting moves may only spur the on-line stampede. Major carriers are eliminating travel agent commissions in the U.S. That could lead to growing service charges for consumers at traditional agencies, driving still more travelers to the Web. Jupiter Media Metrix is predicting that on line travel sales in the U.S. will jump 29%0, to $31 billion this year, and to $50 billion by 2005. About half of that is from airlines' and other suppliers' own Web sites, but that still leaves plenty of room for the online agents.
This growing market is drawing plenty of competition and new players. Hotel and car rental franchiser Cendant Corp. snapped up Cheap Tickets last October. Barry Diller's U.S.A Networks Inc. bought a controlling stake in Expedia. And a group of hotels, including Hilton Hotels and Hyatt Corp., are launching their own business this summer to market hotel rooms on the Net.
Is the field too crowded？ Analysts and on-line agencies aren't worried, figuring that there's plenty of new business to go around. But, for now, the clear winners are consumers, who can count on finding better services and better deals on line.
We can learn from the beginning that the competition in the travel industry revolves chiefly around
Blatter, a geek of dispensing FIFA's hundreds of million in annual revenue to inspire loyalty, even stands a good chance of reelection. At least he did. Since mid-March, he has seen a credible challenger emerge in Issa Hayatou, president of the African Football Confederation. Hayatou, a 55-year-old from Cameroon, leads a group of FIFA reformers that also includes FIFA Vice-President Lennart Johansson, a Swede who lost the presidential election to Blatter in 1998. These contenders' mission: to end what they call the culture of secrecy and lack of accountability that threatens FIFA with financial disaster.
Representatives of the world's 204 national soccer associations meet in Seoul on May 29, and the rebels are given a chance of unseating Blatter. But even they concede that the FIFA honcho won't be easy to dislodge. Blatter's staying power seems incredible, given the array of misdeeds attributed to him and his circle. However, there are signs that FI FA's troubles are bigger than Blatter is saying.
The insurgents have already won one victory: They persuaded the rest of the executive board to order an audit of FIFA finances. But Blatter—who claims, through a spokesman, that the accusations are a smear campaign—should not be underestimated. At least publicly, sponsors and member associations remain remarkably silent with the controversy. For example, there is no outward sign of outrage from German sports equipment maker Adidas-Salomon, which is spending much of its $625 million marketing budget on the World Cup. "We don't expect current developments within FIFA to have a negative impact on our expectations" for the World Cup, says Michael Riehl, Adidas head of global sports marketing.
The conventional wisdom is that fans don't care about FIFA politics. Says Bernd Schiphorst, president of Hertha BSC Berlin, a top-ranked German team: "I've no fear that all these discussions are going to touch the event. "Still, the Olympic bribery scandals and the doping affair in the Tour de France show that sleazy dealings can stain the most venerable athletic spectacle. "For the Good of the Game" is FIFA's official motto. The next few months should show whether it rings true.
The writer's attitude toward FIFA President Blatter seems to be that of
As stated in the text, those who grabbed "the largest piece" in the "economic pie" in the
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