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World Business Quick Take

■ Tourism
China hot new destination
China has strengthened its ranking among the world's top tourism destinations, outperforming Italy as the 4th most visited country last year, the Madrid-headquartered WTO said yesterday. The order of the world's top three destinations remained unchanged. France leads with 75.1 million tourist arrivals. Spain comes second with 53.6 and the US third with 46.1 million arrivals. China moved from the 5th to the 4th position, achieving an all-time record of almost 42 million tourist arrivals, up 27 percent from the previous year. China thus traded places with Italy, where arrivals declined by more than 6 percent to 37.1 million.

■ Software
Gates tackles data overload
The next wave of Microsoft's flagship Office products, to be released in the second half of next year, may include virtual "workspaces" that let people collaborating on a project update documents and keep track of e-mails, the company said yesterday. Office Communicator, scheduled to be released sometime next month, will bundle e-mail, instant message and other services, letting people switch from text messaging to video chats with the click of a button, the company said at its annual CEO summit. It will also let people work on documents together while they're instant messaging. Helping employees navigate an ever-growing flood of information to boost productivity will be one of the biggest challenges in the next decade, Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates told executives. "Nobody's paid to do search or just find information. At the end of the day you're paid for designing a new product, having a satisfied customer and doing that with the minimum amount of time, the minimum amount of people," Gates said.

■ Beverages
Starbucks positive on China
Starbucks Corp expects tea powerhouse China to eventually become the coffee chain's second-biggest market after the US, an executive said yesterday. The company has 9,373 stores worldwide and hopes to expand to 30,000, said Martin Coles, president of the Seattle-based coffee chain's international operations. Coles didn't give a timeline for the expansion. The chain has 120 stores in China now. These stores are in Beijing, Shanghai, the northeastern city of Qingdao and Guangdong Province in the south. The company plans to open stores in the northeastern city of Dalian and the southwestern city of Chengdu within the next six months.

■ Airlines
US carriers to merge
US Airways Group Inc and America West Holdings Corp, the US' seventh and eighth largest carriers, are merging to create an airline designed to better compete with lower-cost competitors. The combined company will fly as US Airways and would become the US' sixth largest airline. It will be funded by US$1.5 billion in new capital from a variety of investors, including aircraft maker Airbus. US Airways has a strong presence on the East Coast, and in the Caribbean, while America West operates across the West from hubs in Phoenix and Las Vegas. Doug Parker, chief executive and president of America West Holdings, called the combined company "the first nationwide, full-service, low-cost airline." Parker will become CEO of the new company. Financing for the deal includes a US$250 million loan from European jet maker Airbus.

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