BeMyGuest has named COO Blanca Menchaca the new CEO, with former Clement Wong stepping down from the top position after founding the company in 2012.
Blanca Menchaca
Menchaca, who co-founded BeMyGuest with Wong in 2013, is an online expert with over 12 years experience, including holding senior positions with Australian Enero Group (previously Photon) in 2007 within their start-up incubator arm, and in 2010 joined flights and hotels metasearch start-up Wego in Singapore.
“Surrounded by our skilled team of professionals, I’m completely confident that the adoption of the technology we have designed to power the attractions, tour and activities sector in Asia is trending towards a pivotal stage of our business,” said Menchaca.
Qatar has unveiled its first global destination campaign to highlight the Arabian Gulf country as “an attractive destination for authentic and bespoke experiences”.
Featuring the tagline “Qatar Qurated For You”, the campaign will run in eight languages and target 225 million travellers in 15 of its existing and targeted priority markets. It will focus on tailored visitor experiences that celebrate its heritage.
The Qurated campaign’s launch comes on the back of the Qatar Tourism Authority’s recent restructure into the Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC).
Qatar’s Qurated campaign to highlight tailored travel experiences
Rashed Al Qurese, chief marketing & promotion officer at QNTC, commented: “Qurated is more than an advertising campaign: we’ve closely examined what Qatar offers as a destination to bring into sharp focus the essence of the Qatar experience, and how it can be tailored to each of our visitor segments.”
The campaign will run across print, TV and digital platforms, and will leverage partnerships with global TV networks such as CNN International, Al Jazeera, Digiturk and Sky TV.
QNTC is also partnering with some of the world’s more popular travel platforms such as Booking.com, TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet to increase its visibility to prospective visitors.
Realising that safety is a key concern when it comes to travel, Michael Becker created a resource to rank global destinations at a neighbourhood level.
“Safety is central to travel. We want people to be more confident and inspired about travelling to any part of the world, and we want to encourage travel in an informed, engaged and empowered way,” said Becker, CEO of GeoSure.
Geosure uses AI and crowd-sourced data to provide safety rankings
In 2013, the US-based technology company launched its GeoSure app, a personalised safety travel resource aimed at female travellers. In September, after three years of development, an LGBTQ+ safety rating for more than 30,000 neighbourhoods across the globe was added.
The app uses AI and crowd-sourced data from a range of organisations, including United Nations, World Health Organisation and crime statistics, to score individual neighbourhoods. Each area is ranked on a scale of one to 100, with one being the safest. Scores are updated to reflect current situations, such as political events, natural disasters and strengthening economies.
“Our ultimate goal is to enhance, enrich and empower the travel experience. We felt there was a huge gap in the market,” said Becker. He notes the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which led to a swathe of travel cancellations in East and South Africa.
“These destinations are more than 5,000km away, as far away as New York is from London,” he said, citing the travel warnings after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal as another example. “We are trying to help solve this problem by providing very localised information. Our goal is to support the tourism economy.”
Becker also hopes the app can prove useful in countries where there are travel bans in place. “If you put a travel ban or warning on an entire destination, it can have devastating impacts on the tourism economy when there may only be small parts of the country affected and the rest is fine to visit. This app can help solve this problem.”
Operating on a B2C and B2B level, GeoSure is working with OTAs, TMCs, DMOs, tourism boards and other organisations to offer customers, employees and members hyper-local safety information.
Said Becker: “OTAs want to provide users with safety content when booking flights and destinations, as well as after travel begins. DMOs want to promote safety to attract more tourism, and TMCs have insatiable demand for and from corporate travel clients to supply rapidly accessible location safety understanding.”
Looking ahead, GeoSure is developing more safety features for additional travel segments.
“The message of inspired and empowered travel, not fear or anxiety – nobody wants to create trepidation among travellers or customers – is rapidly trending as the best way to encourage smart, informed travel,” concluded Becker.
Oyo Hotels & Homes has appointed Aditya Ghosh as CEO of India and South Asia, effective December 1, 2018.
Aditya Ghosh
Reporting to Ritesh Agarwal, founder & group CEO, Oyo Hotels & Homes, Aditya will oversee and grow Oyo Hotels business in South Asia, which includes India, Nepal, among other upcoming markets in the region.
A trained lawyer and a professional with over two decades of experience under his belt, Aditya will join Oyo from LCC IndiGo, where he held the post of president & wholetime director.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is intent on driving up awareness of the destination in the Chinese market, fuelled by the exposure gained from the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders Summit that took place from November 17-18, plus a slate of upcoming tourism developments.
Chinese premier Xi Jinping’s visit to the independent state during the weekend of the APEC Economic Leaders Summit is believed to trigger “an influx of Chinese visitors” into PNG and spark more conversations about the country, stated PNG Tourism Promotion Authority’s senior marketing officer, Joel Keimelo.
Connectivity and visa issues are biggest impediments to growth of Chinese market to PNG
“The number of Chinese travellers has gradually increased in the past three years since we established a representative office in Shanghai. At this stage, we’re trying to build awareness – we’ve been at CITM for seven years, but many Chinese people still don’t know where PNG is.
“There have been two key impediments to growing our (Chinese) market: connectivity and visa requirements.”
Additionally, PNG is working on a host of developments to drive greater interest among Chinese travellers.
“Our national airline is working on launching a direct flight (to China), hopefully by 1Q next year,” Keimelo revealed.
The PNG government has also announced the visa on arrival facility for Chinese tour groups of less than 15, Keimelo told TTG Asia.
“We’re not a mass tourism destination, so we’re targeting the niche segment of special-interest travellers who want adventure and learn more about our culture,” he explained.
The PNG Tourism Promotion Authority is also working the ground in China through advertising, sales missions and social media marketing on channels such as WeChat and Weibo.
While China’s theme parks are seeing lower attendance than other developed countries’, global infrastructure firm AECOM projects the Asian country would surpass the US in the global market by 2020.
“In recent years there has been a substantial investment by Chinese theme park owners and operators, but our research shows that attendance levels are still considerably lower than other developed markets such as the US,” said Chris Yoshii, vice president, economics and global director of leisure + culture, Asia, AECOM.
Robust theme park pipeline for China
“While the total attendance at China’s theme parks grew to 190 million visits in 2017, a 20 per cent year-over-year growth, it is still a markedly lower per-capita attendance compared with other developed economies. These findings demonstrate a significant opportunity for future growth in the Chinese market.”
According to AECOM’s China Theme Park Pipeline Report, the future pipeline for theme parks in China appears robust, with least 70 new theme parks under construction or in a detailed planning stage.
“We anticipate that by year 2020, China will have surpassed the US in terms of total theme park attendance,” said Yoshii.
At a time when China’s theme park industry is flourishing, and owners and operators are assessing trends and potential paths forward, he added: “We found that parks with a clear and distinctive theme, such as those tied to international intellectual property brands, stand a higher chance of business success than independent parks.
“Overall, however, trends for China’s theme park industry are strong and offer a myriad opportunities for both themed and non-themed owners and operators.”
Mark Bradford in now general manager of Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing, Beijing, which will open in early 2019 as the group’s first property in the Chinese capital city.
Prior to his Beijing move, he was the opening general manager of the Mandarin Oriental, Marrakech in Morocco.
Bradford possesses more than 17 years of hotel management experience with Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. He first joined the group in 2001, and has spent time in the Bangkok property as hotel manager, and helmed the Chiang Mai, Jakarta and Manila properties as general manager.
With more purchases made via mobile in today’s mobile-dominant economy, the Expedia Group is urging travel businesses in Thailand to revisit their mobile strategy to better grow customer acquisitions and drive conversions.
“Mobile is now one of the main tools that many businesses in Thailand are using to attract and convert consumers,” said Pimpawee Nopakitgumjorn, director of market management at Expedia Group. “Across Expedia Group brands, one in three bookings are made via mobile, and over 50 per cent of our traffic arrives via mobile. Yet, many Thai businesses are still not effectively leveraging mobile as a channel for customer acquisitions.”
Expedia urges Thai businesses to change its approach to mobile bookings
In Thailand, smartphone penetration continues to grow at a rapid rate. By 2021, smartphone will be used by nearly 80 per cent of the country’s total population, up by more than 10 per cent of today’s rate. Last year, half of all online purchases in Thailand were made through mobile devices.
Instead of a “build it, and they will come” approach to mobile and assuming that customers will automatically download apps just because they exist, Expedia urges Thai businesses to consider how consumers can benefit beyond the primary functions of browsing and shopping on a mobile device.
And in place of creating a dedicated app to join the millions of new apps, Thai businesses should focus on building a responsive mobile web and look to leverage third-party apps.
As well, businesses should ditch the ‘set and forget’ mentality and continuously test, learn and evolve, as consumers’ behaviours online are constantly evolving, Expedia reminded.
“As technology innovations continue shifting the power of decision-making to consumers, it often puts more squeeze on the businesses. It is imperative for Thai companies to be savvy with tools and platforms available in the marketplace, and reap the benefit of mobile technology,” surmised Pimpawee.
A consortium including Thailand’s Minor International is considering an investment of about US$350 million into Indian hospitality firm Hotel Leelaventure, reported Bloomberg.
The proposed bid, which is also backed by investment firm Trinity White City Ventures, includes a mix of equity and debt. The consortium would end up with a majority stake in Mumbai-based Hotel Leelaventure if the transaction is successful.
The Leela Palace Udaipur
Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of Minor’s hotel unit, told Bloomberg that the company is “currently exploring the option”, but nothing has been confirmed. Trinity White City Ventures has also reportedly confirmed the deliberation.
Hotel Leelaventure runs a chain of hotels and resorts, with nine properties it owns or manages across India. Its luxury properties include The Leela Palace Udaipur, situated on Lake Pichola, and The Leela Kovalam, in the southern state of Kerala.
Minor has been betting on an aggressive expansion and acquisition strategy in recent times, which includes spending US$2.6 billon this year to take control of Spanish chain NH Hotel Group.
Hotel 81 owner bags Golden Wall Centre. Photo: ET&Co
Freehold commercial property Golden Wall Centre has been sold en bloc for S$276.2 million (US$200 million) to City View Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Worldwide Hotels, which owns and manages hospitality chains such as Hotel 81 and Hotel Boss.
Singapore’s Business Times reported that the amount was higher than the reserve price of S$260 million, which was similar to what the strata unit owners wanted in their first attempt at a collective sale two years ago.
Hotel 81 owner bags Golden Wall Centre. Photo: ET&Co
Golden Wall Centre has a land area of approximately 2,250m2 and is zoned for commercial use under Master Plan 2014. An application for hotel use at the existing approved gross floor area of about 11,000m2 has been approved by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.
The property stands near Rochor MRT station on the Downtown Line, and within 400 metres to Little India MRT interchange, situated within the Beach Road/Ophir-Rochor Corridor which is envisioned to be a mixed-use cluster under Master Plan 2014.
