MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., - How can travelers help protect children and young women at risk from exploitation all over the world just by checking into a hotel? Beginning October 2004, guests staying at participating Carlson Hotels Worldwide brand properties in the Americas will be invited to Make Room in Your Heart for Kids and donate $1 per nights stay to benefit the World Childhood Foundation (Childhood) - the hospitality companys preferred charity partner. Participating Carlson hotel brands include Radisson Hotels & Resorts®, Park Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Country Inns & Suites By Carlson® and Park Inn®.

The essence of hospitality is caring and concern for others, said Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman and CEO of Carlson Companies. By supporting World Childhood Foundation, customers at the Carlson family of hotel brands can share in this commitment of compassion with children in need. And for a small donation of $1 per night, our guests can easily contribute to a charitable effort that supports 70 childrens aid programs in 14 countries. The fund raising program is expected to run from Oct. 1 through Nov. 31, 2004 and thereafter run twice a year for two months at a time.

Of the funds collected by each participating hotel, 20 percent will stay in the hotels local community to help support a childrens charity of choice or a local World Childhood Foundation affiliated project if one is located in that hotels specific market. The remaining 80 percent will be donated to the national World Childhood Foundation, with national headquarters in New York, for distribution to programs in the domestic U.S, as well as abroad. (In the case of Country Inns & Suites By Carlson, the 20 percent will support the brands current charity partner ProLiteracy Worldwide.).

This charitable plan to benefit both local and global charitable efforts will enable our hotels to reach out and help children around the corner and around the globe, said Trudy Rautio, president of Carlson Hotels Worldwide, The Americas, who has helped develop the fund raising effort within Carlsons hotel group. We encourage our hotels to build relationships in their communities and the world in which we operate and this program provides a method to achieve that goal.

Through interventions to stop ongoing abuse, prevention of future mistreatment and education about choices and alternatives, said Rautio, Childhood promotes a life of possibility and hope that most of these children and young mothers have been denied.

This initiative builds on Carlsons April 2004 announcement that it has become the first North American company to sign a global code of conduct aimed at protecting children against sexual exploitation in the travel and tourism industry.

Founded in 1999 by Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden to serve the worlds most vulnerable children, World Childhood Foundation, headquartered in Stockholm, with offices in New York, Sao Paulo and Munich, has donated over $7 million (USD) to help aid children around the world at risk. In the United States, Childhood will by the end of 2004 have donated almost $700,000 (USD) in three years to organizations and projects including:

• YouthLink in Minneapolis, Minn., which provides prevention and intervention service for teens involved in prostitution
  
• The Legal Services for Children in San Francisco that serves abandoned and detained immigrant children
  
• Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem, New York, a rehabilitation, support services and after school activities center for sexually abused children and adolescents.

About Carlson Companies

Carlson Companies is a global leader in the marketing, business and leisure travel, and hospitality industries.

Among the names in the Carlson family of brands and services are: Carlson Marketing Group®, Peppers and Rogers Group, Carlson Wagonlit Travel®, Carlson Destination Marketing Services, Carlson Leisure Travel Services, CW Government Travel, Regent® International Hotels, Radisson Hotels & Resorts®, Park Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Country Inns & Suites By Carlson®, Park Inn® hotels, Results Travel, Cruise Holidays, Radisson Seven Seas Cruises®, and T.G.I. Fridays® and Pick Up Stix® restaurants. Carlson Companies 2003 systemwide sales (including franchises) totaled $20.9 billion, while sales from the companys owned and operated divisions totaled $6.8 billion. Carlson owned/operated businesses employ about 53,000 people around the world.

With headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, Carlson Companies was recognized by Working Mother magazine as one of the 100 best companies for working mothers in 2001, 2002 and 2003. In addition, Fortune magazine named Carlson Companies as one of The Best Companies to Work For in 2002.

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