South Korean start-up carrier KAIR Airlines has placed a firm order of eight A320ceo to launch its new low-cost operation.

Based in Cheongju in central South Korea, the airline is planning to focus primarily on services to international destinations in north-east Asia.

“We see enormous potential for the development of a low cost model linking central South Korea with destinations in China, Taiwan and Japan”, said Byung Ho Kang, KAIR Airlines’ representative director and chairman.

He added that the airline will “focus on point-to-point services at low fares” and that the single-aisle A320 will be “perfect for our business model and customers”.

The Little Guest Hotels Collection has debuted in Asia-Pacific with the appointment of Horus Development & Consulting as its marketing representative in Asia, as it seeks to expand from its current 20 hotels to 50 properties in 2017.

Founded by entrepreneur Jérôme Stéfanski, himself a young father, The Little Guest Hotels Collection concept was created when he could not get an emergency milk bottle for his baby at a five-star hotel in The Hague.

The collection brings together upscale hotels that meet the stringent standards of families with children under the age of 12, offering services such as children’s dedicated programme, shuttle with baby seat, baby cosmetics, pacifiers and milk bottles, and availability of medical expertise in the vicinity, among others.

Members of The Little Guest Hotels Collection include palaces such as Le Negresco (Nice), Royal (Evian) and Beau-Rivage (Lausanne) in Europe, as well as The Slate in Phuket and The Farm at Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand for Asia-Pacific.

The mountainous province of Guizhou in south-west China is hoping to promote its technological attractions, a large radio telescope and a series of high-level bridges, to lure more foreign visitors.

Leading a 40-strong tourism delegation to Europe, the deputy governor of Guizhou, Lu Yongzheng, said they were looking to promote the 500-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), which opened in September 2016.

The surrounding landscape near Xingyi City, Guizhou Province

The world’s largest telescope, FAST is located in an area unaffected by man-made light and the visitor-viewing platform currently under construction will soon enable astronomy-based tours at the facility.

In a presentation to the Spanish travel trade in Madrid, Lu related that the province will also promote a series of new high-level bridges that were built specifically to open up the remote province. “We now have five of the 10 highest bridges in the world, including the first, third and fourth,” he said.

The improved accessibility will also help to open up Guizhou to eco-conscious tourists, especially from longhaul markets such as Germany and Switzerland, Li pointed out. “Up to now we have paid more attention to tourism from mainland China and South-east Asia,” he added.

Guizhou Tourism Development Commission’s director general, Li San Qi, believes that these attractions will enhance the province’s image as a destination home to natural landscapes and diverse ethnic groups. He told TTG Asia: “This new infrastructure provides a very different experience for visitors. We want to combine this technology with the beautiful scenic areas we have.”

Princess Cruises has announced that it will continue to feature Penang as a port of call for its homeporting seasons out of Singapore for 2017-2018.

Diamond Princess will make eight visits to Penang this season (November 2016 through March 2017) and Sapphire Princess will follow with another eight calls for the next season (November 2017 through March 2018). Both ships will bring in over 40,000 guests for two seasons.

Diamond Princess

Guests from Penang and northern Malaysia will continue to have the option of boarding the ship from Port Swettenham on her South-east Asian voyages. For the current season,Diamond Princess will call at 13 ports (including Kota Kinabalu for the first time this season) in six countries across the region, offering 16 round-trip departures with 25 itineraries, varying between three- to 12-day voyages.

Farriek Tawfik, director of South-east Asia, Princess Cruises: “Over the years, Penang has become one of our guests’ favourite port of calls, with over 80 percent of guests disembarking the ship when they visit Penang to enjoy the wonderful local food, great shopping and charming sightseeing attractions.”

Meanwhile, the cruise line’s newest ship, the 3,560-guest Majestic Princess, will make her maiden call to Penang in June before sailing to Port Klang, Singapore and then onward to China.

Bintan Resorts and Sriwijaya Air yesterday signed an MoU in Jakarta to promote Bintan as a tourist destination, as well as to develop a multi-destination concept by connecting the integrated resort with Yogyakarta, Bali and Manado.

Bintan Resorts, supported by Gallant Venture Group as its holding company, will develop the infrastructure, improve accessibility to and from Bintan for both domestic and international travellers, and pair destinations in the country.

Frans Gunara, vice president director of Bintan Resorts Cakrawala, said: “Now travellers need to go in and out of Bintan (via) Singapore. For those that need visas to Singapore like the Chinese, they need a multiple visa if they want to go to Bintan via Singapore.

“With the improved access, they can enter Bintan visa-free and out of Singapore with a single visa from the ferry terminal we are building close to the airport.”

Meanwhile, Bintan Aviation Investment is currently developing the airport in Bintan, which when completed in 2018 will be used by Sriwijaya Air as a base.

Toto Nursatyo, commercial director of Sriwijaya Air, said: “Bintan has all the facilities to make it a destination; for now it is a shadow destination for Singapore. With improved accessibility, we expect Bintan to be a destination (in itself) and (act as a) gateway to other parts of Indonesia.”

Bintan Resorts currently has 1,700 rooms and the number will increase to 7,000 rooms by 2020, according to Frans, who expects between six and eight million arrivals per year in the future.

The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism has set a target for both Batam and Bintan to contribute 24 per cent of total arrivals – or 4.8 million tourists – to the country in 2019. Last year, Bintan alone received nearly 700,000 arrivals, and the destination is targeting two million arrivals by 2019.

Celebrity Cruises has revealed details of the 2,918-guest Celebrity Edge, which has been dubbed a “innovative and transformational” ship that will feature expanded staterooms, new suite categories and the ship-climbing Magic Carpet platform.

Due to set sail on December 16, 2018, Celebrity Edge will homeport in Florida’s Fort Lauderdale and will be joined by three sister ships in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Designed completely in 3D, the Celebrity Edge will sport the Magic Carpet platform cantilevered from the side of the 16-deck ship. The size of a tennis court, the platform will transform into a different venue depending on the deck – a restaurant for 90 guests on Deck 16, an open-air expansion of the main pool area on Deck 14, an al fresco extension one of the ship’s restaurants on Deck 5 and a luxury embarkation station at Deck 2.

Other features onboard the Celebrity Edge include the Rooftop Garden, which functions as a games area, live music space or a outdoor movie theatre.

The new Edge Stateroom with Infinity Veranda expands cabins right to the ship’s edge, and boasts 23 per cent more square footage and bathrooms 10 per cent larger than Celebrity’s Solstice Class. Within the room, guests can control and personalise everything from lighting, shades, temperature and service.

Celebrity Edge will also boast two new suite categories. At the top of the line are two new 242m² Iconic Suites situated above the ship’s bridge. These suites will have a dining room, living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a 65m² veranda offering 270-degree view of the ocean. The other new Suite Class comprises six split-level Edge Villas that offer private plunge pools and direct access to The Retreat Sundeck.

All suites and double occupancy Edge Staterooms will come with king-size cashmere mattresses, access to a new space called The Retreat, which will feature a private pool, lounge, restaurant, and around-the-clock personal butler service.

Bookings are now open at www.celebritycruises.com/edge or through travel agents for Celebrity Edge’s two seven-night itineraries.

Vietjet Thailand will introduce daily flights from Phuket to Chiang Rai and increase flight frequency from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to thrice daily from March 26, 2017.

Besides the two aforementioned sectors, Vietjet Thailand also offers a daily Bangkok-Phuket service since launching in the Thai LCC sector last year.

Vietjet Group’s vice president of commercial Nguyen Thi Thuy Binh said in a press statement that the airline is expected to increase domestic seat availibility between Bangkok and neighbouring cities around Thailand, with new connections slated to be announced later this year.

Inbound agents in Malaysia are seeing a niche but potential market in catering to European tourists’ rising interest in participating in wildlife conservation and charitable causes during their holidays in South-east Asia.

Alex Lee, CEO at Ping Anchorage Travel & Tours, said demand has grown at an average of 10 per cent annually over the last three years, with tourists mainly hailing from Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, France and Switzerland. Last year, the company handled around 3,000 volunteer tourists, mainly from Central Europe.

“The market is still niche and we would like to grow it organically by working with outbound agents from Europe and OTAs,” said Lee, who described such tourists as high yield and willing to spend on food and accommodation, and donate their time and money to the causes they believe in.

According to Lee, most voluntourists are FITs, above 35 and comprise small groups of less than 10 people. They typically spend one to three days of their total stay, which ranges from one to two weeeks, on volunteer activities.

The Terengganu-based Ping Anchorage works with WWF-Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and the Terengganu state government to promote mangrove replanting, and sea turtles and terrapin conservation at Setiu Wetlands. It also promotes tree replanting at Lake Kenyir and visits to meet aboriginal people.

Discovery Overland Holidays likewise has seen a 30 per cent increase in volunteer holidays between 2015 and 2016, senior product development/contracting manager Kingston Khoo told TTG Asia.

The company works closely with NGOs such as The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, Malaysian Nature Society and Malaysian Primatological Society to develop programmes, which include opportunities for visitors to do light maintenance work at the facilities as well as feeding the animals and cleaning their cages.

“Our main challenge is finding conservationists and activists who are passionate in their area of expertise to share their knowledge with our guests, as this will make the programme very meaningful,” said Khoo. “Most (guides) are volunteers and the challenge is to arrange programmes to fit their schedule.”

Managing guests’ expectations is hence key to a successful programme, Authentic Borneo director Marco Wunsch pointed out. He said: “We explain to our overseas partners who will then highlight in their brochures that accommodation in conservation areas are basic and some programmes such as night walks to see the slow loris are off the normal walking trails.”

Expedia Group CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expects commissions to come down as the OTA looks to pass on lower fixed costs achieved through growth not only to shareholders but hotel partners.

Speaking at the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF) in Berlin last week, Khosrowshahi said Expedia has been lowering industry commissions over the last 10 years as its business grows.

“As we scale our fixed costs relative to demand, we want to make sure we pass on those economics not just to our shareholders but to our partners,” he said.

“We’ve been in the business for 20 years and we wouldn’t be without (our) partners… We don’t have thousands of people working in the field but we get to market the products of our partners and the partnership is growing.”

However, Khosrowshahi believed the industry must change its pricing structure, specifically unbundle its pricing the way airlines have unbundled airfare pricing, so prices won’t “differ wildly” when a customer books through a franchise, Expedia or Booking.com, etc, and so that the pricing would truly reflect its value.

“I think the premier issue as it relates to commissions and brands is the pricing structure of the industry. It really hasn’t adjusted to the realities of the new economics of distribution. Airlines are de-bundling their products – seat, check-in bag, food, etc – into basic economy fares that are much cheaper.”

While fixed costs are down, Expedia is faced with enormous costs of going from a web to a platform company. “The market is consolidating and demand is consolidating into larger and larger platforms. We’ve gone from web company to a platform company and we have to essentially take in every single piece of travel inventory in the world – hotels, air, cars – and offer it in any way consumers want, website, mobile, WeChat, voice.

“Going from web to platform (entails) enormous costs, so in order to defray the cost, we try to bring more volume into our platform.”

Hence, the company in 2015 bought seven companies, among them Travelocity, Orbitz Worldwide and HomeAway, although it bought nothing last year.

With consolidation comes disruption, he said, and the HomeAway acquisition for example is an “extension of audience and supply into alternative lodging which we think will be very important over the next five to 10 years”.

Twice during the session Khosrowshahi said that the home-sharing economy will be professionalised and what we’re seeing right now “is just the beginning”, where it’s more like e-Bay 15 years ago which saw mostly entrepreneurs at home engaged in a marketplace.

“I think alternate lodging will be professionalised not only in terms of brands, but ownership. Combine technology and the distribution, the possibility for owners is tremendous,” he said.

There are threats and opportunities for the industry. One threat clearly is the pricing pressure, when massive supply of homes are made available to global travel, depressing prices. However, the opportunity that home-sharing brings, he said, is introducing new demand.

“My own kids, when they travel, it’s more about experiences. This can be the start of a new wave of travel growth and the opportunity for new brands and owners is tremendous,” he said.

Meanwhile, on opportunities for Expedia in China and Asia, Khosrowshahi said the company’s strategy is clear, focusing on middle-class China outbound while domestic is “essentially Ctrip’s business”. Travel agents is one of Expedia’s fastest-growing markets for China outbound, he said. South-East Asia outbound is also “truly extraordinary”.

On how he foresees Google’s inroads into travel, Khosrowshahi said: “Google is a marketing platform. They have indicated they want to stay at the top of the consumer consideration and are not going to be deep into customer service, it’s not what they do.

“They are a very important partner but also a very expensive distribution channel. We try to convert the customers (acquired through Google) over a number of interactions with us into direct customers. So they are a giant customer acquisition platform for us.”