MARKET METRIX ANNOUNCES FIRST QUARTER 2005 HOSPITALITY INDEX RESULTS

--Customer Satisfaction with hotels drops for first time since 9-11 --

--First-Ever Measure of Satisfaction With Vacation Clubs
Places Disney Vacation Clubs on Top--

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - May 10, 2005 -- Market Metrix, LLC, the leading provider of market research services for the hospitality industry, today announced results of the Market Metrix Hospitality Index (MMHI) for the first quarter of this year. Ritz-Carlton, JetBlue Airways and Enterprise Rent-A-Car ranked number one in hotel, airline and rental car industry customer satisfaction, respectively.

For the first time since 9/11, in a year-over-year comparison, guest satisfaction was down or flat across all hotel segments except for Extended Stay. The biggest losers were in the Casino and Luxury segments with drops of -2.3% and -0.9% respectively.

Why the downturn? Has the industry simply recovered to pre-9/11 levels and is now starting to flatten out? Or, has the rather quick upturn in business caught hotels off-guard in terms of staffing and amenities? Probably a combination… but other industries are also down in customer satisfaction. In the past six months, retail, financial services, and e-commerce all have received dramatically lower customer ratings according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

For hotels, and especially companies and properties that are fighting to keep pace, continuing declines in customer satisfaction will further influence demand and consumer price tolerance. Dissatisfied guests are more price sensitive and less likely to return.

Vacation Clubs
To recognize their continuing growth, Vacation Clubs was added as a new category in Q1 2005. For Q1 2005, as a group, customer satisfaction with Vacation Clubs (87.4) was second only to the Extended Stay segment (87.9).

The winner was Disney Vacation Club (92.1) followed by Trendwest Resorts (88.6). Interestingly, vacation club travelers report feeling more 'Practical' (82.3) than Extended Stay customers (80.3) and more Welcome (90.5) than even Luxury (89.8) guests.

MMHI Top-Hospitality Rankings Q1 2005

Hotel - Overall
Ritz-Carlton

Airline
JetBlue Airways

Car Rental
Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Luxury Hotels
Ritz-Carlton

Upper Upscale
Kimpton Hotels

Upscale Hotels
SpringHill Suites

Midscale w/ F&B
Holiday Inn Select

Midscale w/out F&B
Wingate Inn

Economy Hotels
Jameson Inns

Extended-Stay Hotels
Homewood Suites

Vacation Clubs
Disney Vacation Club

Upscale Casino
Venetian

Casino
Rio

Hotel Reservations Website - Hotel Brand
Sleep Inn

Hotel Reservations Website - Travel
Yahoo! Travel

(w/o F&B = without food & beverage)

About MMHI
The Market Metrix Hospitality Index is a quarterly report of customer satisfaction with hotel, airline and car rental companies based on 35,000 in-depth consumer interviews. The MMHI ranks top hospitality brands by industry and, for hotels, by categories such as luxury, mid-price and economy. Detailed, in-depth and customized reports are available for subscribers. No other customer satisfaction index offers MMHI's reporting frequency, volume of customer interviews, cross-industry results or innovative satisfaction measures.

About Market Metrix
Market Metrix, LLC was founded in 1996 by partners Jonathan Barsky, Ph.D., and Lenny Nash to provide the hospitality industry with better customer and employee satisfaction measurement programs and management tools. In addition to MMHI, Market Metrix provides clients with award-winning survey systems and strategic services. Market Metrix also operates the Consumer Research Center, which provides focus group services, data entry services and a state-of-the-art specialty call center. Based in San Rafael, Calif., Market Metrix is partner-owned and has 50 employees. For more information, log onto www.marketmetrix.com or call 1-800-239-7515.

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Contact:
Krishna Amin
Market Metrix
tel 415-721-1300
fax 415-721-1314
http://www.marketmetrix.com