The Editor's Hospitality Blog

I'm in Berlin for the 10th annual International Hotel Investment Forum , where CatererSearch is going multi-media. Our plan from this conference is to post regularly on our sister blog "the caterer blog", as well as posting news as it breaks on Caterersearch.

We are also filming the conference for the first time and will run a webcast soon on Caterer TV. I hope you enjoy our coverage... it's a manic few days over here, so I better get writing.

After months of speculation, Sir Michael Lyons, the man heading up the Lyons Inquiry, gave a detailed account of his proposals for local government funding in Whitehall, London this morning.

Well there was much talk in the his 150-page plus report on place shaping, which Sir Michael believes is an important role for local government in the future.

"The role of local government is not just about providing services, but also working with local businesses to promote the overall economic health of local areas."

But what about a bed tax, something that Caterer has campaigned long and hard against for nearly a year.

We've been waiting for this moment for what seems eternity, but I think we can shout from the rooftops now ... yes "We've won" the fight to stop a bed tax being introduced.

While the long awaited Lyon's report into Local Government left the option of a "Bed Tax" hanging in the wind.... the Government has come out with a firm response dismissing any notion of a bed tax.

Ina statement on the Communities and Local Government website it says:

Tourist taxes

"Sir Michael examines the case for a tourist tax. He concludes that there is not a strong evidence base for the introduction of such a tax. While he puts the case for a consultation on this issue, we are not, therefore, inclined to focus on this area. The Government does not intend to introduce a tourism tax

See the response in full at the Communities and Local Government website

Next week is a big week for CatererSearch - for the last six months we have been busy developing a new look website, which we believe will make caterersearch a much better experience for our users.

If everything goes according to plan, we should reveal our new look site next week. I can't give you a preview at the moment, but I will tell you what our aim has been and that is to produce a site that easier to find the information that we know you regularly search for.

We hope this will improve and enhance your experience of using caterersearch... but you'll have to wait to find out more next week.

I recently read Tim O'Reilly's post on the fact that the San Francisco Chronicle was in trouble (this is the man credited with coming up with Web 2.0) and it made me think long and hard about the organisation that owns Caterer and Caterersearch.

I have to admit there is a constant debate here about whether traditional media, such as print will be around in say 10 years time. Well for what its worth I still think there is plenty of room for print, but publishers are changing fast and our publisher, Reed Business Information is investing heavily in online - one of the latest pieces of investment has been to give Caterersearch a makeover, which will be unveiled any day soon (see a sneak homepage preview in the picture).

Today we unveil our new look and we hope its appearance coupled with better functionality and easier navigation will make it a better experience for you.

We've listened to what you've said, and we've simplified our website to make it easier to use than before and more visually appealing. We have added bigger pictures throughout the site and sharpened the focus of our content to concentrate on providing the information that you are after.

Firstly, I hope you like our new look caterersearch and agree with us that the changes we have made are a big improvement.

I am sure there'll be things that you feel are strange to start with because we have changed some of the locations of the content and this may alter the way you use the site. We think its more logical, and hope you do so too.

I do however think that overall it's a massive improvement and once its bedded in and settled down, I'm sure you'll appreciate it more and more.