Indonesia’s Tauzia Hotel Management has announced a new hotel brand and expansion plans in South-east Asia.

Marc Steinmeyer, president director of Tauzia Hotels, said: “After 16 years of developing properties in Indonesia, (it’s about time to) expand outside Indonesia, bringing Indonesian-born brands into the ASEAN countries, starting with Malaysia and Vietnam.”

(From left) Tauzia Hotels’ Marc Steinmeyer, Irene Janti and Armand Steinmeyer; new brand announced as the company turns 16

Tauzia’s Preference brand is scheduled to make its Malacca debut in mid 2018, while in Vietnam the company also plans to launch Preference and Harris properties spanning around 1,000 rooms, according to Steinmeyer.

Following the launch of the five-star Harris Vertu in Jakarta in January, Tauzia plans to introduce the four-star Fox Harris, the first of which is expected to enter Indonesia next month.

The new midscale brand was conceived in response to the changing hotel market, revealed Steinmeyer.

“About 10 years ago, we saw new hotel developments in Indonesia and investors put their money into building new properties. Today, with the (challenging) economy and oversupply of rooms in some destinations, we are seeing more hotels underperform and put up for sale,” he said.

“In such situations, it is hard for us to take over the management of a hotel and ask the owners to invest in renovations to match our structured brand requirements.”

Fox Harris will hence retain the market segmentation of a Harris while offering “flexibility”, requiring hotel owners only to “change the software (logo, brochures, staff uniform), but not necessarily the room size and the beds, for example”, he said.

Tauzia Hotels currently operates 51 hotels across Indonesia with more than 60 projects in the pipeline until 2022.

Asian Golf Services, said to be the first online booking portal for the golfing travel industry, has been launched to provide agents and tour operators with access to golf and transportation rates across the region’s courses.

Beyond being a booking tool, the platform also offers additional benefits such as competitive green fees, fast confirmation of tee times, golf and airport transfers, the ability to manage reservations, no cancellation or amendment charges, and no access to data/rates not visible to clients.

Managing director, David Pettigrew, shared that the B2B platform is powered by the same software behind Golfsavers, a golf booking platform for individuals, but with additional agent benefits.

Larger agents and tour operators can also access rates via XML, and the platform will further provide an API for those wishing to integrate their own booking systems.

Singapore’s Republic Polytechnic (RP) has announced MoU signings with 14 new industry partners and a revamp of one of its diploma programmes to support the hospitality sector’s transformation.

The initiatives were unveiled at the institution’s School of Hospitality (SOH) Industry Day last Friday, in line with the day’s theme of Ready Employers, Ready Employees.

New partners Frasers Hospitality, Eureka Technologies, DRx; photo credit: Republic Polytechnic School of Hospitality

The school’s Diploma in Wellness, Lifestyle and Spa Management will be renamed Diploma in Wellness and Hospitality Business, and updated with new modules to equip students with relevant skills and up-to-date knowledge on wellness industry trends.

SOH will also collaborate with its 14 new partners – spanning the hospitality, events, wellness and F&B sectors – on areas including the test-bedding of technologies and development of processes to enhance productivity, and providing RP students with more opportunities for skills training.

Dilmah Singapore will also provide a Dilmah School of Tea classroom and training room, and explore setting up a joint lab with RP.

The latest partnerships bring SOH’s total number of MoU partners to 41.

Examples of productivity-enhancement solutions that the school (under the Hospitality Solutions Centre) has rolled out include Singapore’s first hotel front-of-house Autonomous Guided Robot at M Social Singapore Hotel, known as Automated Room-service Associate, in collaboration with StarHub and robotic vendor, Savioke. The Millennium & Copthorne group now plans to deploy the solution across all its Singapore hotels.

At 30 Bencoolen Hotel, RP also launched the Smart Room and Integrated Solutions Ecosystem in collaboration with Eureka Technology, Saflok and Amadeus to resolve electrical defects before affecting the guest experience.

The second edition of ITB China, which will take place at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition from May 16-18, 2018, is offering exhibitors who register early by August 31, 2017 a 10 per cent discount on stand fees.

Interested parties may register at www.itb-china.com/exhibitors/exhibitor-registration/.

Since online registration for ITB China 2018 opened, the number of exhibitor sign-ups has surpassed that seen at the same time last year for the show’s inaugural edition, according to the show organiser.

David Axiotis, general managed of ITB China, said he is expecting the exhibition space will become “scarce again” despite having significantly increased the overall scale of the event.

ITB China 2017 saw the participation of some 600 exhibitors from 70 countries alongside 10,000 attendees.