The global aviation industry carried a record 4.1 billion passengers on scheduled services in 2017, a 7.1 per cent increase over 2016, according to preliminary figures released by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
International scheduled passenger traffic expressed in terms of revenue passenger-kilometres (RPKs) grew by 8.0 per cent in 2017, up from the 7.8 per cent recorded in 2016.
Budget airlines push traffic to record 4.1 billion passengers
Asia-Pacific had the second largest share of international RPKs at 29 per cent (+9.6 per cent), after Europe with 37 per cent share (+8.1 per cent).
North America accounted for a 13 per cent share but remained the slowest growing region with an increase of 4.9 per cent.
Carriers in Latin America and the Caribbean made up four per cent of world international RPKs and saw the biggest improvement among all regions, showing the strongest growth at 10.0 per cent; while Africa, with the smallest share of 3 per cent, grew slightly faster than last year at 7.6 per cent.
The only region that experienced RPK slowdown was the Middle East, with ICAO attributing this to a combination of factors such as the competitive environment – competing hubs and more point to point services, low oil prices and the impact of a strong US dollar.
Looking at domestic air travel, Asia-Pacific saw strong growth (+10.6 per cent) owing to the strong demand in India and China, especially the former with over 20 per cent growth.
LCCs consistently grew at a faster pace compared to the world average growth, and their market share continued to increase, specifically in emerging economies. In 2017, LCCs carried an estimated 1.2 billion passengers, and accounted for approximately 30 per cent of the world total scheduled passengers.
Within the LCC market, carriers in Europe represented 33 per cent of total passengers carried, followed by Asia-Pacific and North America with 31 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively.
Meanwhile, industry capacity expansion outstripped the increase in travel demand. Total capacity offered by the world’s airlines in 2017, expressed in available seat-kilometres (ASKs), increased globally by around 6.4 per cent. As a result, overall passenger load factor improved by 0.9 percentage points and reached a record high of 81.2 per cent. The Middle East was the only region posting a decline in load factors, as being under pressure with the slowing trend in traffic growth.
In terms of financial performance, airlines were expected to maintain operating profit at nearly the same levels seen in 2016, with average jet fuel prices up about 25 per cent in 2017 coupled with improvement in traffic. ICAO estimated the year’s operating profit to total around US$60 billion, with operating margin of 8.0 per cent; and net profits of around US$36 billion.
Going ahead, ICAO expect continued growth in air travel demand growth has gained solid momentum, supported by the ongoing improvement in global economic conditions throughout the year.
New year, new Riu: (from left) Riu Hotels & Resorts' Laura Malone, Senén Fornos, Pepe Moreno and Carlos Guindos
Spanish operator Riu Hotels & Resorts has introduced a new brand image as it continues its modernisation and expansion plans.
Having just concluded a year that saw a record €600 million (US$734.70 million) in investment spanning hotel construction, renovation and acquisition, the chain now plans to roll out the refreshed brand to half of its properties in 2018 and to the remaining half in 2019.
New year, new Riu: (from left) Riu Hotels & Resorts’ Laura Malone, Senén Fornos, Pepe Moreno and Carlos Guindos
The transition to a more modern and “warmer” image comes amid the company’s expansion in existing and new markets.
Apart from multiple relaunches and openings in destinations such as Mexico and Bulgaria, this year will also see the company continue to explore expansion opportunities including in Asia.
Construction is already underway of two hotels in the Maldives that Riu will present in 2019, a pair of hotels located on two uninhabited islands linked by a bridge. The Riu Atoll will have all the services Riu All-Inclusive customers are accustomed to, while the Riu Palace Maldivas will have a more luxurious positioning.
Also underway is a first Riu hotel in Dubai, a 800-room hotel located on the Deira Islands, which will also open in 2019.
At the close of 2017, RIU had 43,000 rooms across 92 hotels in 19 countries.
Till Martin has been appointed to helm Hyatt Regency Beijing Wangjing, which is scheduled to debut in 2Q2018, as general manager since November 2016.
Hailing from Germany, Martin’s hospitality career with Hyatt Corporation began more than 20 years ago. The Hyatt veteran boasts experience working in various positions across the company’s properties in Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia.
He was most recently the hotel manager of Grand Hyatt Beijing, and prior to that was previously executive assistant manager – F&B at Grand Hyatt Seoul and Grand Hyatt Dubai respectively.
West Hotel Sydney, Curio Collection by Hilton
Australia’s first Curio Collection by Hilton has risen in Sydney’s CBD, just next to the new waterfront Barangaroo precinct. The botanical-inspired hotel offers 182 guestrooms including four spacious suites, where each dwelling is furnished with a Bluetooth-enabled audio visual technology and an open work area. Amenities on-site include a private dining/meeting room, a fully-equipped gym, and the Solander Dining and Bar.
Club Med Tomamu Hokkaido
Club Med has opened its latest 145-hectare outpost amid Hokkaido’s ski mountain landscape. The resort boasts 341 rooms and suites, and facilities include two restaurants, two bars, an open-air onsen, Japan’s largest indoor wave pool and a children’s club. Guests have ski access to the slopes and can explore the resort’s 29 ski runs, with trails to accommodate all levels of skiers.
Naumi Auckland Airport Hotel
Singapore-based design hotel group, Naumi Hotels, has launched its first international property in New Zealand. Art plays a central role at Naumi Auckland Airport, and a gallery of works – from artists such as Belynda Henry and Judi Bagust – embellish the hotel from the entrance through to all its 193 rooms. Rooms come in four variations, and are furnished with numerous power points, Wi-Fi, bedside USB slots and 50-inch Smart LED TVs with Netflix. Facilities include an English garden, outdoor swimming pool, gym, restaurant and bar, and over 500m2 of meeting space.
Best Western Kamala Jimbaran
Less than a 30-minute drive from the island’s Ngurah Rai International Airport is the Best Western Kamala Jimbaran. The brand’s fifth hotel in Bali offers 120 contemporary rooms and suites, all equipped with working areas, and complimentary Wi-Fi. Recreational facilities on-site include a restaurant, lobby lounge, outdoor swimming pool and spa. For meetings and events, there is a choice of three meeting rooms, all equipped with the latest audio-visual technology.
Red Planet Quezon Aurora Boulevard
The budget hotel chain’s 12 th hotel in the Philippines, the 167-room hotel offers 167 rooms and are furnished with free-high-speed Wi-Fi and custom-made beds, as well as computers in the lobby for guests’ usage. The hotel is located next to Cubao’s buzzing shopping and dining scene, and close to Cubao Expo, as well as the Araneta Center and Kia Theatre.
Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), together with Kalin Sarasin, chairman of the Board of TAT and Silapasuai Rawisaengsun, deputy permanent secretary for Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, took to the stage on Wednesday to launch the 38th Thailand Tourism Festival.
This annual festival, which takes place at Bangkok’s Lumpini Park from January 17-21, spotlights the different cultural heritage, attractions and products from the five main regions (north, south, central, east and north-east) of Thailand.
During the five-day festival, visitors can experience the Thai way of life at unique tourism villages, food zones featuring culinary delights from Bangkok’s 50 districts and the country’s five regions, as well as a cultural procession starting at 17.00 each day.
This year, TAT has launched its new marketing campaign called Open to the New Shades of Thailand to support Thailand’s tourism industry.
George Koumendakos has taken up his first appointment in Sri Lanka as general manager of Mövenpick Hotel Colombo.
The hospitality veteran, with over three decades of experience across North America, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia, was most recently the general manager of Crowne Plaza Dubai-Deira in the UAE.
The Dutch hotelier started his career as a trainee in 1986 at the Amsterdam Hilton, after which he worked for companies such as Hilton, Marriott, Banyan Tree and InterContinental Hotel Group where he remained for around 20 years.
How are you different from David Scowsill (former president & CEO of WTTC) – apart from gender of course?
David was successful in (getting travel & tourism) to speak in one voice, and in his partnership with the UNWTO. My job is to build on the foundation he has created. It’s like building a house; he was responsible for building the foundation and now I’m building the next floor. David also did a good job with the team – look at the expertise we have now.
Gloria Guevara
I had interactions with WTTC (Editor’s Note: As Mexico’s tourism secretary, she worked with WTTC to get G20 world leaders to include travel & tourism on their agenda. This was in 2012, when Mexico hosted their annual meeting). I have to say WTTC is different today from seven years ago. It now has higher visibility. A lot of progress has been made, and it is the authority in representing the private sector. Now I see some challenges in some countries but also several opportunities.
I supposed advancing women’s role in travel & tourism is one challenge?
I’m always supportive of women. I was invited to speak at the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society Global Meeting 2017 last October in Paris (Editor’s Note: The society says it is the world’s leading platform featuring women’s voices on major social and economic issues) and I was happy to represent the travel & tourism private sector there. Fifty per cent of jobs in travel & tourism worldwide are already steered by women; our objective is, how do we support women to move up the ranks in the industry?
The travel & tourism private sector is ahead of the game in this. I am the best example; WTTC appointed a woman for the first time to lead the organisation. We have to give credit to our members, the CEOs of the travel & tourism private sector, the majority of whom are men, and they chose a woman to lead the group. You don’t see that in many other industries.
What’s your proudest achievement as Mexico’s tourism secretary, prior to joining WTTC as president & CEO?
I have two. The first is when I was invited by (former Mexico) president Felipe Calderón to combat a declining travel & tourism industry in Mexico. We had lost four million travellers in a short time frame because of the perfect storm of H1N1 (pandemic which started in 2009), security issues and the US financial crisis.
Thinking as a private sector player (she was with Sabre Holdings before her post as Mexico’s tourism secretary), the first thing you do is create a business plan, engage everyone, and that’s what I did. We created what was called the ‘national agreement’ that set the foundation the country needed to turn around the situation. We were able to stop the decline, turned it around since the year we implemented it, and Mexico (tourism) has been growing and breaking records every year. I’m proud of my little bit of contribution, that I was able to help a lot of people. Our decisions impact millions of people whom we don’t even know. That’s really nice.
The other was when I hosted the G20 and, for the first time ever, travel & tourism was included in the G20 Leaders Declaration. That has not been repeated. We are going to try to include that in Buenos Aires (G20 summit this year), hopefully the (Buenos Aires tourism) minister is able to make it happen; he will have my full support.
Why did you choose to cross over to the tourism private sector from government?
I love this industry. My degree is in computer science, but my passion is travel. I always think of how to apply my knowledge and expertise to the benefit of the industry.
Going back to the challenges and opportunities that you now see, what are the priorities?
Before, we talked more about travel facilitation. Now the big concern is security. We need to engage governments on how, we as the private sector, help to increase security, while at the same time increase the number of travellers so more jobs can be created.
I believe I have a good understanding on how governments think, and we’re going to engage governments more on these discussions and partner with them as we both have a common agenda on travel facilitation and increased security.
That’s linked to the issue of increased protectionism which we saw a lot of last year.
Yes. While we want more visas or more flexible systems to allow for increased travel & tourism, I can also understand governments’ concerns about their citizens. But there are technologies that can be used, and the private sector has an important role in working those technologies. The issue is finding a common standard.
You remember the transition from manual to e-ticketing? That was a standard from the private sector. IATA was responsible for that roll-out, and it became a standard with airlines, travel agents, GDSs, pretty much everyone. It was painful at the beginning, but a great resource in the end, as it allowed for more seamless travel.
What if we do something similar with standards for safety and security, to make the travel experience seamless for the passenger?
Any example?
For example, in biometrics, your face is your ID. Won’t it be great if we can translate that face into a code and that code goes into your PNR. The travel agency transfers that, along with everything it transfers today, to the airline, hotel, cruise company and so on. So whenever I’m travelling internationally, the airline transfers that to the authorities, and immigration already has my unique code. Wouldn’t be wonderful when I arrive at the airport and my face is my ID? So they use my face to get through immigration, security, boarding, check in at hotel, car rental, cruise – the entire chain uses the same standard. That’s my vision. Is that the solution? If I think as a former government officer, absolutely: I know who’s going to arrive in my country, I already have the information, so you are being considered for who you are and not where you are from. So governments can spend most of their time on the five per cent, not the 95 per cent trusted travellers who should be able to travel seamlessly.
We need to look at the technology and involve the experts. We have started the conversations but we need to engage all the right players and define the next steps. A lot of work has already been done, it’s a matter of taking this to the next level.
You also believe that governments should engage the private sector early on in crisis management, and in sustainable tourism development, which is linked to the tourism overcrowding issue we’ve also seen of late.
With regard to tourism overcrowding, we’ve launched a study about it with McKinsey (last month). The idea is we want to work with local governments to build the path for putting the right planning in place, having the right flows of people, engaging the local citizens. We need to put into context that tourism brings lots of benefits, but we understand the concerns of local citizens as well. That’s why the report, for example, shares the best practices of cities that are doing wonderful jobs in managing volumes.
We’re also monitoring the best public policies and what I’d like to do is point them out and celebrate them this year in April (WTTC Global Summit) in Buenos Aires as a way to encourage governments to have sustainable planning, public policy and regulations.
Your recent study shows the world’s top 10 fastest-growing tourism cities are all in Asia. Isn’t the region the place to preach the dangers of overtourism?
Right now, Europe is the largest travel & tourism region. If Asia continues with this growth, it will be number one in the world. The question is, what are these cities doing to plan for growth, and to capture their fair share and maximise the opportunity? Hopefully this study, and our other efforts, will help them in their decision-making and planning.
Last question, what to do with Mr Trump who talked about building a wall between the US and Mexico?
He sent so many messages, but he hasn’t really changed anything – take the visas for instance. My job is to represent the private sector and we will continue to support the US to create more jobs.
When I think of the next 50 years of ASEAN tourism, I shudder. Perhaps it’s because I’m writing this at the end of the year, when throngs of tourists are queueing to get through Thai immigration in Bangkok. Thailand’s 34 millionth visitor was decorated on December 22; and the kingdom will, without a doubt, achieve their tourism earnings target – US$50 billion – for 2017.
ASEAN, not just Thailand, is doing extremely well. Just look at WTTC’s report on the world’s 10 fastest-growing tourism cities. Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta are on the list, with 10 to 11 per cent growth per year over the next 10 years, outpacing Asia-Pacific’s average growth rate of 5.8 per cent and the world’s average of four per cent.
Such exponential growth is what makes me shudder. As ASEAN tourism leaders and industry members meet at ATF 2018 in January in Chiang Mai, I hope they will give some thought as to how ASEAN destinations might look like 10, 20, 50 years from now.
It is no secret that in the last 50 years of ASEAN tourism, progress has come with ill effects: once-pristine resort destinations have turned crappy and cheap; cities immobilised by traffic jams, heritage sites ruined by too many footfalls. How might ASEAN destinations look like in the future if many of them aren’t able to cope with tourism growth now, or are not setting up the infrastructure that will enable them to reap growth without betraying their land, people, values, culture and heritage?
Tourism is easy money, especially with the rise of Asia’s middle income group and the expansion of low-cost carriers. No need to convince governments of tourism’s contribution to the economy. What’s needed is the reverse: convincing governments of the need to protect their country from tourism – specifically ‘over-tourism’ and unsustainable tourism development.
ASEAN turned 50 in 2017 and it’s bittersweet that it also lost its much-admired former secretary-general (2008-2012) and former Thai foreign minister, Surin Pitsuwan, who died of an acute heart attack on November 30. At ATF this January, it will be wonderful if we could take a minute to digest Surin’s last words on tourism which, befittingly, was about sustainability.
The “tapestry of contrasts” of ASEAN’s 10-member countries made it such an attractive destination and, because of this diversity, the regional travel and tourism industry should pay equal attention to the socio-cultural and political-security blueprints of ASEAN, “not just economic, economic, economic all the time”, Surin had said.
“If we are not careful, we will have problems of congestion and environmental impact, which will also impact the cultural resources that we value.
“Tourism is supposed to be one activity that creates opportunity for everyone. Let us make the ASEAN destination attractive, sustainable, accessible and playing the role of equalising that income. Tourism is a goose laying golden eggs. We can’t starve it, nor can we over-feed, nor ignore it, nor take too much advantage of it.”
Agents in the Philippines lobbying for passport processing roles to be restored
Six Philippine travel agencies associations have joined forces in a bid to restore their passport processing services, which the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) temporarily shelved in July last year.
The coalition comprises the Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA), Philippine IATA Agents Travel Association (PIATA), Network of Independent Travel Agencies (NITAS), National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (NAITAS), Central Luzon Association Organization of Accredited Travel Agents (CLOATA) and Pampanga Agents Travel Society.
Agents in the Philippines lobbying for shared passport processing responsibility
The associations said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon that “the solution is to apportion the responsibility and not to block accredited travel agents from assisting the government”, especially as the DFA has acknowledged that it is going to face serious backlogs with the increase in passport applications.
The 1,000 daily passport processing allocation for the 276 DFA-accredited agencies was in 2012 reduced to a cap of 500, and in July last year completely removed with DFA citing the need to weed out unscrupulous individuals selling bogus appointments for passport processing.
But NITAS vice president Angel Ramos Bognot countered that “up to this date, no single travel agency was convicted of a crime against the sanctity of passport processing,” adding that agencies could not engage in such illegal activities given the stringent accreditation rules, US$4,000 surety bond and payment of passport fee prior to processing.
“NITAS, which has more than 300 members nationwide, suffered much from this unfair government action and resulted in the closure of some of its members”, Bognot emphasised.
DFA’s removal of agencies’ passport processing service came at a time when travel was entering its peak season last year, resulting “in loss of business” for many agencies as passport processing services made up 15 per cent of revenue stream for some members, according to PTAA president Marlene Jante.
“Even if agencies are still given the same 1,000 slots daily today, that would only be seven per cent of the total passports being processed by the DFA which is now at 14,000 daily”, added Jante.
PTAA executive vice president Patria Chiong urged the DFA to recognise the role of travel agencies in assisting travellers.
As well, CLOATA president Lerma Quiambao pointed out that outbound tour and corporate clients would usually request agencies to assist with their passport processing.
Bognot further underscored the service value that travel agencies offer to travellers in an archipelagic country, making it difficult for those in the provinces to apply for passports and meet the requirements of DFA, which are subject to change from time to time.
Travellers can view itineraries on their mobile device, interact with travel agent and fellow travellers
The Travel Corporation (TTC) has launched an integrated online platform for agents to procure TTC products and provide customer care to their clients.
My Travel Portal (MTP) is a streamlined system on which agents can store and access client emergency contact details and obtain travellers’ personal preferences.
Travellers can view itineraries on their mobile device, interact with travel agent and fellow travellers
Meanwhile, travellers can also create a profile on the portal to view itineraries on their mobile device, interact with their travel agent and fellow travellers, share holiday snaps on social media and record trip notes.
At its initial launch, the platform encompasses Trafalgar, Contiki, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold and CostSaver. U by Uniworld and Uniworld will be introduced later this year, followed by additional brands from the TTC portfolio.
TTC has also partnered with non-profit organisation One Tree Planted, pledging to plant a tree for every guest who opts out of printed travel documents on the portal.
When I think of the next 50 years of ASEAN tourism, I shudder. Perhaps it’s because I’m writing this at the end of the year, when throngs of tourists are queueing to get through Thai immigration in Bangkok. Thailand’s 34 millionth visitor was decorated on December 22; and the kingdom will, without a doubt, achieve their tourism earnings target – US$50 billion – for 2017.
