Chinese on airport system’s website
The Houston Airport System has added a third language to its website: Chinese.
Those traveling to Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports will now be able to access a scaled-down version of Fly2Houston.com in Chinese, getting translated information for terminal maps, restaurants, immigration procedures, ground transportation and more.
“We were looking at all the languages in our airport, and we saw the No. 3 one was Chinese,” said Kathleen Boyd, chief marketing officer for the Houston Airport System. “So it’s an important market for us, and it’s a growing market.”
The website was fully translated into Spanish, the second most spoken language, earlier this year.
She said analytics from those who have Chinese set as their preferred language when visiting the website helped determine which pages to translate.
The Chinese microsite for Hobby Airport can be accessed at fly2houston.com/hou/chinese, and the microsite for Bush Intercontinental Airport is at fly2houston.com/iah/chinese.
Seven new stores Sprouting up
Sprouts Farmers Market is on track to open seven stores in the first quarter, including a location in Sugar Land that will employ 140 workers.
Opening dates and hiring information will be announced in early 2019.
The Phoenix-based grocer, which specializes in organic products at everyday prices, will open in University Commons at 13550 University Blvd. in the Telfair community. The store, on U.S. 59 across from Costco, adds to seven Houston-area locations.
The Sugar Land Sprouts is one of about 30 planned to open next year. Sprouts, which entered the Houston market in 2013, operates more than 300 stores in 19 states.
Coldwater Creek returns to Houston
Coldwater Creek has returned to the Houston market with a new store in Market Street-The Woodlands. The brick-and-mortar store is part of the longtime women’s apparel, accessories and home goods retailer’s omnichannel strategy.
Coldwater Creek, which closed its stores after filing for bankruptcy in 2014, has opened a handful of stores since 2017 under its new ownership.
The store enables customers to examine Coldwater Creek merchandise before buying, while technology-enabled associates and a dedicated digital area facilitate shopping the company’s entire assortment online. The company enlisted Chicago-based retail design and architecture service firm RGLA Solutions in the design of the new stores.
Coldwater Creek offers free shipping and free returns for all orders placed from the store.
The Woodlands store at 9595 Six Pines Drive is the brand’s fifth, following its debut in Burlington, Mass., in 2017. The company plans to open a second Houston-area location in addition to its stores in Oklahoma City; Leawood, Kan.; and Albuquerque, N.M.
Slavery suit against Nestle, Cargill back
A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit against Nestle SA’s U.S. unit and Cargill Inc. that was filed by six former child slaves from Mali who sought to hold the cocoa importers liable for their captivity and mistreatment on farms in neighboring Ivory Coast.
The ruling Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that allegations the companies aided and abetted slave labor wasn’t an improper extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute. A lower court judge had dismissed the case in March 2017.
BMW recalls 1.6M diesel vehicles
BMW is recalling about 1.6 million diesel cars to fix a potential fire hazard in their engines, expanding repairs from just less than half a million vehicles in Europe and Asia.
The voluntary service action follows a BMW investigation that found coolant could leak from the car’s exhaust recirculation unit, which could spark fires in some cases.
BMW last month cut its profit forecast, blaming an increase in warranty provisions alongside trade tensions.
South Korea’s government, after reports of 40 fires this year, asked drivers to keep vehicles off roads until undergoing checks.
Police also raided the luxury carmaker’s office in Seoul to probe the safety issue.
The vehicles affected — diesels with four- and six-cylinder engines — were produced between 2010 and 2017, BMW said. The company will replace the components as necessary.
Kellogg updates tainted cereal
Kellogg’s Honey Smacks is returning to shelves following a voluntarily recall after salmonella infected 100 people in 33 states.
The company announced Monday the cereal will return next month in limited quantities with “a simpler, updated recipe.” The company says production was moved to a “trusted and tested Kellogg-owned facility that has been reliably producing cereal for decades.”
The recall was issued in June. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 30 of the people infected in the outbreak were hospitalized.
Oculus co-founder exits Facebook
A co-founder of Facebook’s virtual-reality division is joining the exodus of executives to leave the company after striking it rich in lucrative sales of their startups.
Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe disclosed his decision to leave Facebook in a tweet posted Monday. His departure comes 2 1⁄2 years after Facebook parted ways with Oculus’ other cofounder, Palmer Luckey.
Both Iribe and Luckey joined Facebook in 2014 after selling Oculus to the company for $2 billion. Iribe had been Oculus’ CEO until 2016 when he shifted to a lower-ranking job in the virtual reality division.
Oculus is considered a pioneer in the virtual reality headsets that immerse users in artificial, three-dimensional worlds.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is hoping to expand virtual reality’s appeal with next year’s release of the Oculus Quest headset.