Local News Can Follow You on Distant Travels

For business travelers, staying informed while on the road is no chore. No matter where you are in the world, information sources abound. CNN’s broadcast reaches far-flung corners of the globe, English-language publications are found on the street corners of most major cities, and if you travel with a laptop, catching up on your hometown news, weather and sports is as easy as a mouse click, provided you can get an Internet connection.

But in spite of all that, entrepreneur Lance Primis is betting that travelers’ desire to hold their favorite newspaper in their hands will prevail. The former New York Times executive recently launched a company, PressPoint, which publishes same-day editions of two dozen of the world’s major newspapers that are delivered to a handful of hotels and newsstands in about 10 cities, here and overseas.

Printed digitally on 16.5-inch-by-11.5-inch paper, the PressPoint editions carry about 60% to 70% of the total content from various papers, such as the New York Daily News, the Guardian of London, Handelsblatt of Germany and the Miami Herald. The text, photos, typeface and layout are what the reader would see if he had scooped it up off his porch at at home. Primis is trying to capitalize on the road warrior’s downtime, that time spent sitting in cabs or waiting at the airport when a traveler isn’t connected to a computer or doesn’t have access to television.

“It’s the portability of print,” Primis said. “You’re getting 24 to 48 pages of news from home and carrying it with you.”

So a Brazilian executive doing business in Los Angeles can check out soccer scores or President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s latest pronouncements in that day’s Jornal do Brasil while stuck in traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway.

At present, Primis offers his selection of papers in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Hong Kong and London, and they will be available in Sydney in time for the Summer Olympics.

(PressPoint does not have an agreement with the Los Angeles Times.)

PressPoint is targeting not only the business and leisure traveler, but also the expatriate overseas as well as those at trade conventions and international meetings.

The cover price of a PressPoint edition ranges from $1.50 to $3.50, though some hotels carrying the editions offer it free to guests.

Primis is also trying to convince newspaper publishers that his digitized editions make economic sense. Through PressPoint’s printing mechanism, newspapers can arrive in other cities relatively cheaply. “For that publisher to print only a few thousand copies and transport them would be cost-prohibitive. We offer to be in a lot of places at little cost and can get to market the same day,” Primis said.

The publisher sends via computer edited versions of its daily report to PressPoint in New York, which scans it and sends it electronically to Xerox Corp., which then sends the pages to Xerox printing sites in key markets. PressPoint notifies Xerox how many copies in each market to print, then a local distributor makes the deliveries to hotels and newsstands. It’s the reverse process of regular newspapers.

Primis said PressPoint prints about 100,000 copies of all of its member newspapers every month, with a goal of adding about 20 cities by the end of this year.

To those who think newspapers are becoming obsolete, Primis is counting on human nature. “People who travel with their laptops . . . are not going to read long blocks of copy on their screens,” he said. “And plugging in in a foreign country is not always easy, and it’s usually expensive. We’ve always believed that the printed format gives people information that they didn’t think they needed.”

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Much of business travel is done to attend corporate meetings or trade shows. And usually the highlight of the event is the location: Honolulu, Miami and Las Vegas have reigned as business meeting hot spots largely because of the sybaritic fun they offer once the work is done.

But move over, Vegas. Biloxi, Miss., and Providence, R.I., are gaining as the new destinations for meetings and conventions.

They join other less frequented convention locations such as Austin, Texas; Anchorage; and Anaheim as places where business travelers are headed this year, according to trade magazine Successful Meetings, which has just released its list of the top 10 business meeting locations of the future.

Rounding out its list are Boston; central Utah; Charleston, S.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; and Puerto Rico.

“We developed the list by looking at elements that transform destinations, such as a lot of hotel development, major new attractions or airport expansion,” said Julie Barker, the magazine’s editor. “For business travelers, the future should be a lot of fun because these are very different cities, not the same old places where meetings have been held in the past.”

Anaheim was selected because of the leisure developments underway around its convention center. Disneyland is adding another theme park, and approval has been granted for a 29-acre retail, dining and entertainment complex across from the convention center.

Biloxi made the list because of the addition of Las Vegas-style gaming resorts, upscale hotels and golf courses. And Providence, Barker says, is buzzing in part because of its role in a popular TV series and because of 1,000 new hotel rooms about to come on line in 2002.

The Times is interested in hearing about your experiences as a business traveler and as someone doing business in the international marketplace. Please contact us at global.savvy@latimes.com.

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Be Advised

Businesspeople traveling overseas during the coming month should be aware of the following:

Germany

* Jan. 30: Anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s assuming chancellorship of Germany in 1933; neo-Nazi rallies expected in major cities.

India

* Jan. 26: Republic Day; this national holiday is usually marked by Kashmiri separatist violence in Jammu and Kashmir state.

Iran

* Jan. 20: Anniversary of the release of 52 Americans after being held captive for 444 days (1981); anti-Western rallies likely.

* Feb. 11: Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979); rallies by Islamic fundamentalists anticipated.

Pakistan

* Feb. 5: Annual day of solidarity, with Kashmiris campaigning for secession from India; business shutdowns likely.

Russia

* Jan. 21: Anniversary of death of Vladimir I. Lenin (1924); pro-Communist demonstrations expected in Moscow.

South Africa

* Feb. 2: Anniversary of the legalization of the African National Congress (1990); white supremacists have held rallies in major cities on this date in recent years.

United Kingdom

* Jan. 30: Anniversary of Bloody Sunday shooting in Londonderry (1972); violent rallies possible in Northern Ireland.

Be Advised appears monthly.

Sources: Control Risks Group, Kroll Intelligence Services, Pinkerton Global Intelligence Services