The newly-formed Pragma Hospitality has signed an agreement with Eco Inn Hotel Group to manage the group’s existing portfolio of six economy hotels located in second-tier cities in Thailand.
The hotels are located in Trang, Nakhon Sri Thammarat, Chantaburi, Ubon Ratchathani, and Mae Sot provinces.
Eco Inn Hotel Group properties in Thailand are now managed by Pragma Hospitality; Eco Inn Prime Trang pictured
The move comes as the Eco Inn Hotel Group, which has been operating these hotels for a number of years, seeks to leverage on the management expertise of Pragma Hospitality through “modern technologies and techniques”.
The changing of management hands will free Eco Inn Hotel Group to concentrate on the development of more hotels in Thailand, the company said in a statement.
Under the deal, Pragma Hospitality will work towards ensuring that the Eco Inn brand achieves success in the budget hotel segment and compete effectively with larger rival brands across second-tier locations.
It will also be supporting the creation of a portfolio of hotels that is both scalable and recognisable throughout the region.
Alexander Wallace, CEO of Pragma Hospitality, commented: “We see the Eco Inn brand as a great model with potential to be scaled, therefore we are working closely with the owner to expand the brand efficiently with the goal to become a major player in Thailand’s budget hotel segment.”
In a move to simplify the post ticketing experience, Mystifly, a B2B global airfare consolidator services company, has unveiled OnePoint C2 geared towards “enhancing the customer experience for travel intermediaries” through guaranteed single click cancellations and automated ticket change.
Combined with Mystifly’s OnePoint API, the new tool empowers OTAs, horizontal/vertical e-commerce providers, and others to sell air travel in a seamless manner, according to the company.
Mystifly has rolled out the OnePoint C2 API to simplify the post ticketing experience
Features that make C2 a unique proposition for OTAs include instant guaranteed penalty costs for air ticket refunds or changes, coverage for over 200 airlines, and debit memos for free one-click air ticket refund or ticket change API.
Powered by NPL/ML and modelled with six years of change/cancellation data, C2 houses the potential to reinvent the approach to post-conversion requests.
“This decade will see a revolution in airline retailing. Mystifly as a brand and partner in the airline Industry is dedicated to augmenting every stage of the ticket buying process. With our latest offering – C2, we melded our experience in the global airfare marketplace, deep domain expertise, petabytes of data & machine learning, to create a product that instantly and accurately updates penalty costs for rescheduling or cancellation requests. This simple yet effective process does away with the mundane and paves the way for more efficient retailing,” said Rajeev Kumar, founder and CEO of Mystifly.
Vietnam (pictured) is one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change impacts
Heightened security threats, civil unrest and geopolitical instability will be the top disruptors to the mobile workforce in 2020, according to an International SOS risks forecast for 2020.
The top 10 health and security risks for 2020 are risks borne from geopolitical shifts, mental health issues, physical health, cybercrime, climate change, infectious disease outbreaks from established and newly emerging pathogens, bleisure travel, millennials and Gen Z entering the workplace with different preferences, expectations and attitudes to risk; high-profile duty of care legal cases, as well as under-resourced and inexperienced start-ups and SMEs that will struggle to meet duty of care obligations.
Vietnam (pictured) is one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change impactsBusiness
Alongside these predictions, results from the Business Resilience Trends Watch survey, which polled over 1,300 business travel decision makers, reveal the top reasons business travel managers expect to change itineraries in 2020, as 51% believe that health and security risks increased in the past year and 47% anticipate risks will rise in the coming year.
The bigger risk identified was security threats (68% – up 23 percentage points on the past year), civil unrest (52% – up 14 percentage points on the past year); geopolitical unrest (52% – up 20 percentage points on the past year); and natural disasters (51% – up 15 percentage points on the past year).
Along with these top disruptors, organisations are predicting major increases in the likelihood of having to modify traveller itineraries due to factors like epidemics (31% – predicted to be up 19 percentage points compared with actual impact in 2018); infectious diseases (35% – predicted to be up 17 percentage points compared with actual impact in 2018); and detention and kidnapping (29% – predicted to be up 17 percentage points compared with actual impact in 2018).
Security Services’ CEO David Johnson said: “Instability, unpredictability, rapid change and escalation are the key characteristics of many incidents in our modern world. The workforce potentially faces security risks in areas, such as accommodation choices, previously thought of as safe. Established global organisations to unicorns, regulated or otherwise, need to have their eye on this to protect their human capital and build resilience within businesses. The need is only going to increase, as over 40% of the workforce head to being mobile in some way.”
Meanwhile, the report also notes that emerging traveller habits, both domestically and internationally, and diversification of the workforce are creating grey zones of risk. Employers are not aligning travel policies with new potential risk factors, and people are choosing not to act within policy if it restricts the use of their preferred mode of transport or accommodation, according to the report.
Surprisingly, less than a third of organisations include cyber security in their travel policies, the study also found, which “could potentially open organisations up to litigation and reputational damage if they are not adhering to their duty of care, as well as negative consequences for employees and business”.
The report’s findings are as such: just 11% included shared economy services in their travel policy, only 26% of organisations include considerations for female travellers in their travel policy, 31% cover cyber security; one in 10 (11%) include considerations for LGBTQ+ travellers, mental health issues are included in mere 15% of travel policies, considerations for travellers with disabilities are covered by only 12%, and bleisure travel was covered in 22% of policies.
Red Planet Japan (RPJ), the subsidiary of Bangkok-based Red Planet Hotels, has introduced a shareholder benefits programme for 2020 that allows its shareholders to stay at the group’s hotels across Asia at discounted rates.
The programme is designed to reward shareholders’ loyalty as well as allow them to explore RPJ’s hotel footprint in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, said the company in a statement.
Red Planet Hotels shareholders enjoy stays at discounted rates across the group’s hotels in Asia
Under RPJ’s new programme, shareholders holding at least 500 shares at the end of each half-year period are eligible for discounts at all Red Planet hotels across Asia.
Red Planet’s programme is tiered, so that larger shareholders will be granted greater discounts. Hereby, shareholders owning 500 to 2,500 shares will receive a 10 per cent discount off the best available rate on Red Planet’s website.
Shareholders owning 2,501 to 10,000 shares will receive a 20 per cent discount, while larger shareholders will receive 30 per cent off.
These discounts are in addition to the 10 per cent discount provided to Red Planet Hotels loyalty programme members.
Six Senses Krabey Island has appointed Ateeb Shrestha as general manager.
Ateeb brings more than 16 years of experience in the hospitality sector to his new role, including three years as general manager with Six Senses Ninh Van Bay.
Prior to joining Six Senses, the Nepali acquired expertise across international and independent hotel groups while on resident manager and general manager stints with Gangtey Lodge in Bhutan, Nira Resort in Mauritius, and Hyatt Regency Danang Resort and The Nam Hai Resort in Vietnam. He also spent time at The Setai in Miami, and The Chedi in Muscat.
Kata Group's founder and president, Pramookpisitt Achariyachai, alongside son and heir, Pariyawit Achariyachai
With the expansion of southern Thailand’s airports, Kata Group’s founder and president, Pramookpisitt Achariyachai, alongside son and heir, Pariyawit Achariyachai, who recently assumed the role of group business development director, are seeing an opportune time to expand the family-run hospitality business.
As one of Phuket’s oldest hospitality groups, Kata Group is now eight hotels strong with its new opening – a 512-room, Mesopotamian-themed hotel – which is its fifth property in Phuket and second in Kata. The four-star property covers more than 2.6ha, and also boasts the largest children’s playland in Phuket.
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Kata Group's founder and president, Pramookpisitt Achariyachai, alongside son and heir, Pariyawit Achariyachai
Pamookkoo Resort
Pamookkoo Resort's kids' pool
Pamookkoo Resort's restaurant
“If the airport capacity increases, the number of hotel rooms must follow,” stated Pramookpisitt, of his confidence in expanding in Phuket, whilst referring to southern Thailand’s second gateway airport project in nearby Phang Nga, which will boost the Andaman Triangle’s current annual air arrival capacity by another 5.5 million at its first stage of completion in 2025.
“Phuket has weathered a lot of crises; though the tourist boat capsizing incident in 2018 has deterred a lot of Chinese visitors, there’s confidence the island can bounce back just like it has before. That’s why the authorities are pushing the new sister airport (in Phang Nga) which is one factor in our choosing to expand in Phuket.”
Kata Group has unveiled expansion plans targeted to medical tourists and retirees in Krabi and Phang Nga, respectively – hotels that closely precede the doubling of Krabi’s annual air capacity from four to eight million with the addition of Terminals 2 and 3, slated for completion in 2022, and the completion of the first phase of the second gateway airport Phang Nga.
The hotel group is also preparing for its second wellness-themed Krabi property, which will house at least 200 rooms, and hopefully ride on the incoming waves of medical tourists if Thailand’s new 12-month medical visa policy is green-lit, said Pramookpisitt.
Also in the company’s development pipeline is a 50-room pool villa boutique hotel in Samed Nangshee, at Phang Nga, which is slated to enter the design phase next year. Offering beautiful views of the bay, it will focus on catering to the needs of retirees with personal care activities and providing them with a space to relax with family and friends.
“In the past, Kata Group only focused on foreigners and some of our luxury hotels were only open to adults. Now, we realise families, including Thai families, are a market that we can really leverage. We are one of the few in Phuket to design a kids’ club with a purpose to take the kids away from the parents so the parents will have alone time as well. There’s a big demand for that, especially from Scandinavian and Russian families,” shared Pariyawit.
While European visitors are struggling with the strong Thai baht, Pramookpisitt further shared that the group has recently seen a huge increase in Indian visitors – one of Thailand’s fastest-growing tourist markets – and is confident in a 70-90 percent occupancy rate for their properties in the coming year.
Hotelbeds has launched a B2B service for destination marketing organisations (DMOs) globally, which the company claims will help “to drive incremental tourism arrivals”.
Leveraging the company’s technology, booking platform, and relationships with hoteliers and B2B travel buyers globally, Hotelbeds has to date already worked with over 50 tourism boards from around the world, said the company in a statement.
Hotelbeds launches B2B service for destination marketing organisations
The result has been to increase room nights for target destinations by up to 30 per cent on average – plus improving revenue performance – by attracting additional low- and shoulder-season visitors from international and domestic source markets globally.
Partner destinations receive access to the over 60,000 B2B travel trade buyers – such as retail travel agents, tour operators, airlines, and points redemption clients – who together make over 1.5 billion accommodation searches per day and reserve more than 50 million net room nights annually via Hotelbeds.
With the international reach of Hotelbeds, which is present in over 140 source markets globally, destination partners also benefit from receiving more international and longhaul arrivals. Bookings from international and longhaul source markets in turn deliver high-value customers who spend more in destination, stay longer, cancel less, return more often and book farther out than typical direct to consumer customer profiles, which tend to be highly domestic.
Gareth Matthews, director of marketing & communications at Hotelbeds, stated: “Our whole purpose as a travel distributor is to drive incremental high-value bookings for hotels from non-competing, hard to reach B2B travel trade sources such as retail travel agents and tour operators. So we thought, ‘Why not also do the same for destinations?’
Airbnb has partnered the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to launch the Beyond Big Cities website that is aimed at promoting travel to lesser-known and emerging destinations across Thailand.
Through the use of big data and leveraging of Airbnb’s digital technology expertise, Airbnb and TAT will seek to drive domestic and international travel to off-the-beaten-track destinations throughout Thailand, going beyond the big cities and supporting local community-led tourism in line with the Thai government’s policies.
Airbnb joins forces with Tourism Authority of Thailand to launch the Beyond Big Cities website to promote emerging destinations across Thailand
“This new collaboration will enable TAT to clearly see domestic and international traveller trends, and how there are growing numbers travelling beyond Thailand’s big cities and exploring off-the-beaten-track destinations around the country. This supports the government’s goal to diversify tourism and to create a more sustainable tourism model that supports local entrepreneurs,” shared Mich Goh, head of public policy for South-east Asia, Airbnb.
Siripakorn Cheawsamoot, deputy governor for digitalisation, research and development at TAT, said: “Our collaboration with Airbnb will give TAT access to valuable data and help us to better track tourism trends around the country. One of our policies is to encourage responsible tourism to emerging destinations throughout Thailand and working with Airbnb will help us to achieve this and further grow tourism at a local community level.”
One area in which Airbnb claims it sees spikes in visitorship is during big events held in emerging cities across Asia-Pacific over the past year.
In the up-and-coming sports tourism hub of Buriram in Thailand, Airbnb partnered with the Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ Department of Tourism and homestay provider B-STAY to build flexible accommodation supply for the Thailand MotoGP 2018 and 2019.
For this year’s MotoGP, Airbnb’s host community in Buriram welcomed over 430 guests from more than 100 cities around the world into their homes and communities, a 96 per cent year-on-year increase. This number is expected to continue its growth trajectory as more locals open up their homes to both Thai and international visitors who want to experience Buriram in a local, authentic way, according to the company.
“Governments and travellers have turned to Airbnb as a sustainable solution to scale up accommodation supply without having to invest in additional infrastructure, all while supporting hospitality entrepreneurs who want to share their local culture with visitors,” added Goh.
“This trend is on the rise as smaller cities in Asia-Pacific increasingly play host to big tourism events, such as the recent Rugby World Cup in Japan, where we saw guest arrivals grow approximately 176 per cent in Kumamoto and 100 per cent in Oita compared to the same time last year.”
Airbnb said in a statement that it remains committed to investing in regional efforts to disperse travel away from over-touristed hotspots to destinations off the beaten path.
“Events can provide real opportunity for local communities to benefit from tourism and Airbnb offers guests an authentic travel experience. We see more and more people travelling to emerging destinations, exploring local neighbourhoods and their spend going direct to the community. We look forward to our collaboration with the TAT providing real on-the-ground benefit for community tourism countrywide,” concluded Goh.
Genting Cruise Lines has partnered retail provider Starboard Cruise Services and luxury travel retailer DFS Group to launch the first-ever DFS T Gallerias, a global duty-free chain, at sea on board Dream Cruises’ two new Global Class ships.
When Global Dream and her yet-to-be-named sister ship enter into service in 2021 and 2022, respectively, a myriad of upscale retail offerings will feature nearly 1,700m² of retail space across various categories, including fashion and accessories, beauty and fragrance, watches and jewelry, and food and gifts.
Front row, from left: DFS Group’s Ed Brennan, Genting Cruise Lines’ Kent Zhu and Starboard Cruise Services’ Lisa Bauer ink deal to launch the first at-sea DFS T Gallerias on board Dream Cruises’ two new Global Class ships
The retail offering will include a combination of brand firsts, product introductions, and activations.
“Dream Cruises is delighted to continue its long-standing collaboration with Starboard and to welcome the first DFS T Gallerias at sea on board our new Global Class ships. With Genting Cruise Lines’ over 25 years of experience operating cruise ships in Asia, we know that retail and shopping is an important component of our guests’ vacation plans, and we are excited to have the highly coveted brands that both Starboard and DFS represent available on our ships,” said Kent Zhu, president of Genting Cruise Lines.
Dream Cruises and Starboard’s partnership in retail innovation began with the cruise line’s first ship, Genting Dream, in 2016 and continued through its subsequent ships, World Dream in 2017 and Explorer Dream in 2019. It includes launching the world’s first Dior boutique at sea and the first Tiffany & Co boutique at sea in Asia.
Global travel technology firm Amadeus has unveiled plans to expand its startup investment programme, Amadeus Ventures, by investing in early stage travel technology startups across Asia-Pacific in 1Q2020.
Amadeus Ventures provides funding, industry expertise, technology and customer reach to its portfolio companies.
Amadeus Ventures to invest in travel technology startups in Asia-Pacific next year
Since its launch in 2014, Amadeus said that it has introduced more than 150 startups to its business units and has developed more than 20 joint projects with its portfolio companies. Companies already in its investment portfolio include Refundit, Volantio and Dawex.
“Our main aim in expanding Amadeus Ventures across Asia-Pacific is to encourage and nurture innovation in the travel industry. Startups struggle to gain competitive advantage against large enterprises and if they do, a lot of the time, they don’t know how to navigate through the landscape. We not only offer funding but also our industry expertise and network to help young start-ups achieve their strategic and commercial goals,” said Suzanna Chiu, head of Amadeus Ventures.
As it eyes expansion in Asia-Pacific next year, Amadeus Ventures has also appointed Stephanie Strunk as its representative in the region, tasked with searching for the latest innovations in travel technology startups.
“Travel startups across Asia-Pacific are frequently disrupting the industry, challenging the way we think about innovation. To keep up with the pace of change, funding for travel startups is increasing at the same rate – reaching record highs. With China leading in this space, we don’t expect the rest of Asia-Pacific will be that far behind, working on new solutions and ideas to enhance the overall traveller experience,” said Strunk.
