European hotels, car rental companies and government tourism agencies are ramping up marketing and turning to creative payment plans, complimentary cellphone use and deep discounts to salvage the summer travel business.
These efforts aimed at American tourists are intensifying as fluctuating exchange rates, rising airfares, and a gloomy economic outlook threaten to deter the world’s most [...]

Economic outlook, 79% of business travelers are feeling pressure from their employers to cut travel expenses, according to a new survey.
sponsored by Orbitz for Business, a unit of online travel company Orbitz Worldwide Inc. (OWW), and Business Traveler magazine - one-third of respondents said their main concern is cutting the cost of air travel. That’s [...]

Industry followers say shoppers’ fear, which has been escalating since last July, could very well worsen what ails us.Such spending cuts could be “a self-fulfilling prophecy” and could hasten the economy’s slide, said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center.”I don’t think (the spending slump) has bottomed out,” said Candace Corlett, principal [...]

Karl Lagerfeld, the maestro of French fashion and the designer behind Chanel, sent out models for his own name label in monochrome, mannish tailoring for fall 2008 with only a single flash of colour in the red lining of a coat.
Top model Irina Lazareanu, on-off muse of British Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty, led the line [...]