Fox Business
FBN (FBN) National Programming, DMA: 0
10:15AM EDT April 17 2008
Programming Type: Bus./financial

general electric buying most of citigroup commercial lending and leasing businesses all cash deal. the actual numbers not disclosed, but ge capital will acquire seven of city capital equipment fps business lines. citigroup says the move was part of the effort to focus on the core business and to cut costs and ge and citi shares as you can see are trading lower, despite that news this morning. cheryl? >> all right, it's been a very big month for washington d.c.. the nation's capital has locked up two new major attractions, national parks and the knew seem. after wrapping up cherry blossom season and now 41,000 people flocking to washington's new ballpark to hear pope bebs and his mass. how does it add up for ge tourism. the president joins me live here in washington and it's right now i'm not too far from here we' got pope benedict xvi and quite an economic impact on your city. it's been an exciting time for washington with the introduction of national's ballpark, the new ballpark with the newseum and cherry blossom festival, an extraordinary season for washington d.c.. >> cheryl: how is washington handle the influx of people. the catholic bishops and people around the world. > we're over the top and metro may set a scrawl time record today as far as transit riders and you've got to go some to do that. you're talking about presidential funerals and inaugurations and that's at this level today. >> cheryl: this is something that you're really rather used to and able to handle? we're highly capable of doing worldclass events like that and a great cosmopolitan background and all the national treasures, a perfect setting. >> cheryl: you know, obviously, tourists come there and spend about 5.2 billion annually in the city and tourism is very important to you. do you find with the weakened dollar, are you seeing more of european visitors, less american visitors? what is the influx? >> yeah, we've absolutely seen an uptick of international visitors. 15, 20% from overseas, particularly, the u.k., ireland, germany, have responded double digit increases. we saw 15% increase out of dulles international and international visitors last year and i think the power of the pound, the power of the euro and other international currencies, have really been a big advantage for us, from a hospitality perspective. >> do you find that high gas prices are affecting how people do or do not come to the city? > absolutely, domestically it is affecting travel and certainly airline problems are affecting travel, also. i think you're going to see a shorter trips, to shorter distances and, the destinations that are closed in to the big population centers are actually going to do pretty well. places like new york and washington, boston, should do very, very well in this down turn of economy. people won't travel less. they will just travel shorter distances and they will take less time during their vacations. >> cheryl: all right. hopefully the destination on their list is washington d.c.. >> we hope so, we've got a new campaign, create your own power trip and it deals with the power and inspiration of washington d.c. and we're hopeful that more visitors will come. >> cheryl: we're here today and we've had a great time. william, thank you very much, sir. >> cheryl, thanks, good to see you. >> cheryl: tom, back to you in new york. >> tom: well, bad medicine for pfizer in the first quarter. there's another one today. nipping the mark on earnings and connell mcshane is here with the details. >> it wasn't pretty at all when you look how pfizer came in 18% lower on profit. revenue down about 5% from a year ago and all of these missed analyst expectations and profit was about a nickel off than what the street was looking for. the big issue from pfizer isn't so much being hit by the slowing economy or anything like that. it's the drus, the pipeline and the fact that some of its bigger drugs are now going generic and the competion is coming in from the likes of nor vast, getting a lot of attention. the blood pressure drug, its sales were down by 52%.