The 528 seats that Royal Bank of Scotland had "bought for the Wimbledon fortnight may not be left empty even after the bailed-out bank cancelled all its corporate hospitality to allow its top staff to focus on the ongoing computer crisis that has affected up to" 13 million customers, according to Jill Treanor of the GUARDIAN. RBS intends "to allow the top clients it had invited to watch the tennis to take up their tickets anyway, although the lavish hospitality suite will not be used and bankers will not be there to entertain them." The bank has "booked 48 seats for each of the first nine days of Wimbledon on Centre Court and No 1 court and then 24 on Centre Court for the last four days." The face value of the tickets is thought to be less than US$155, so customers "should not face breaching the Bribery Act" (GUARDIAN.co.uk, 6/27). In London, Neil Tweedie writes, "One can imagine the horror during the public-relations crisis meeting at RBS Towers when someone pointed out that the press would have a field day contrasting the misery of ordinary account holders with the spectacle of RBS bigwigs guzzling Krug at Wimbledon in the cause of 'corporate hospitality.'" It is a "mere blip, though, for a corporate hospitality industry that is experiencing a slow but steady recovery after the dark days of the banking crisis." Hospitality provider Keith Prowse "expects the sector to grow by a quarter in the next two years, amounting to" US$2.3B by '15 (London TELEGRAPH, 6/28).
