SAN RAFAEL, Calif., May 4, 2004 - 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 2004.  Staybridge Suites, Jet Blue Airways and Enterprise Rent-A-Car ranked number one in hotel, airline and rental car industry customer satisfaction, respectively.  While this is the first time for Staybridge in the top spot and the first time an extended stay brand has been the overall customer satisfaction winner, Jet Blue and Enterprise have both won six out of the last seven quarters in their industry categories.

Winners Elicit Preferred Emotions, But Those Differ Between the Genders

MMHI has pioneered several proprietary measures of customer satisfaction,
including Loyalty Emotions, which correlate specific emotions that a hotel elicits in a guest and how those emotions impact customer satisfaction.  Hospitality companies that provide certain Loyalty Emotions obtain higher rates and can increase prices with fewer defections.  Women are more responsive to the "primary" emotions -- comfortable, relaxed, content, secure and welcome -- while the "secondary" emotions -- pampered, entertained, inspired, important, extravagant, elegant, sophisticated and hip/cool -- appear to have a bigger impact on men.

"These data suggest that hotel offerings and advertising could be developed to focus on select and different emotional themes for women and men," said Jonathan Barsky, Ph.D., Market Metrix co-founder and partner and University of San Francisco marketing professor.  "The results of our analysis showed such a significant difference between men and women that one of our team suggested the idea of separate brands targeting each gender, similar to Mustang's focus on men and the targeting of VW Cabriolets for women."

Inadvertently or not, this already may be happening for some hotel brands.  Indeed, some hotels whose brand images distinctively mirror these secondary emotions are drawing significantly more men:  W Hotels (15% more males than the industry mean), Bellagio (16%), Le Meridien (18%), Intercontinental (19%) and Ian Schrager (21%). These brands are all in the top 10 in the percentage of guests who are men.

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.

The MMHI contains 135 hotel brands, 25 airlines and 11 car rental companies.  The wealth of data is presented in an easy-to-use format, enabling subscribers to quickly identify trends and find best practices.  Subscribers can measure their company's stand-alone performance and dynamically benchmark their ratings against those of self-selected competitors.  In addition to standard measures of customer satisfaction, MMHI has pioneered several proprietary measures.  Hospitality companies that provide Loyalty Emotions -- select emotional experiences for customers, such as "pampered," "relaxed" or "hip/cool," depending on category and niche -- obtain higher rates and can increase prices with fewer defections.  Loyalty Program Strength measures the relative success of a company's loyalty program compared to other programs in the industry.  The Secure Customer measures a customer's intent to return and likelihood of recommending the hospitality company, important indicators of satisfaction.

 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.

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.