A villa in Bali

THE buoyant domestic travel market will keep the hospitality sector in Indonesia afloat despite terrorism threats and uncertainties surrounding the global economy, according to Horwath HTL’s Top Trends in Indonesian Hospitality for 2016 report.

Homegrown chains such as Archipelago, Tauzia, Whiz, Zuri, Santika and Horison are expected to continue their aggressive expansion with bulging pipelines. However, with over 130 different brands across all market categories offered by some 50 domestic operators, the brand saturation also creates fierce and unsustainable competition among the chains amid growing corporate costs.

As well, millennials are emerging as a dominant new consumer group with social media increasingly impacting consumer purchasing decisions, observed Matt Gebbie, director of Horwath HTL. The mobile generation is less driven by brand loyalty and will usually search for unique perks and value-for-money experiences, he added.

Gebbie said: “There’s an explosion of homegrown hotel brands eager to win over this demographic. However in the race to market, brand identity and product differentiation are often neglected, (resulting) in price wars and a lower bottom line.”

As such, Horwath foresees the consolidation of local hotel brands to begin in Indonesia this year, reflecting the greater consolidation trend on the global hospitality front.

The sharing economy and online integration technology are also shaping travel in Indonesia with the rise of travel aggregators (e.g. Travelio, Traveloka, Tiket, Goindonesia and Travelindo) and peer-to-peer business models (e.g. Airbnb, Go-Jek and Uber) in the country.

Vicha Poolvaraluck, chairman of Major Cineplex Group (second from left) and Somrak Kumputch, TAT’s deputy governor for administration (third from left)

THAI cinema chain Major Cineplex Group has joined hands with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to launch a new Moviecation campaign to promote travel to lesser-known destinations in the country.

Using a lucky draw offering 319 tour packages worth more than two million baht (US$56,202), the Major campaign will feature TAT’s destination picks countrywide under the latter’s 12 Hidden Gems Plus project.

Vicha Poolvaraluck, chairman of Major Cineplex Group, which operates 92 cineplex with more than 600 screens throughout Thailand, expects the campaign to stimulate domestic tourism.

“We have more than three million customers in all our cinemas each month. I hope we can attract more people to travel to secondary destinations in Thailand as campaigned by TAT,” said Vicha.

Welcoming Major’s Moviecation campaign, Rattana Apirakpuwajorn, the owner of Rattana Business and Travel Service in Lampang, one of the destinations listed by TAT, commented: “I hope that the campaign can really bring business into our area. We don’t have that many tourists coming here since this is not a main destination of (northern Thailand) like Chiang Mai.”

As well, Major Cineplex Group, which operates 92 cineplexes with more than 600 screens nationwide, wants to drive overland tourism into Thailand by rolling out more cineplexes along the Thai borders, the group’s chief cinema officer Apichart Kongchai revealed.

This way, the expanded business zones will offer more compelling reasons for tourists from Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia to visit Thailand on day trips or weekend getaways and spend their money on lifestyle attractions like watching movies, Apichart added.

By Nicholas Yong

Tokyo’s Akihabara district

FROM July 20, Scoot will begin daily Singapore-Bangkok-Tokyo flights on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to cater to the growing demand for travel between Thailand and Japan.

With this new route, the airline’s services to Tokyo will double from the present daily service via Taipei to twice daily – once via Taipei and once via Bangkok.

Scoot’s existing Singapore-Bangkok return service TZ302/301 will be re-numbered to TZ292/291 Singapore-Bangkok-Tokyo return.

The flight will depart from Bangkok at 00.55, arriving in Tokyo at 09.00. The return flight will take off from Tokyo at 10.00 and land in Bangkok at 13.50.

Aside from Tokyo, Scoot recently announced the commencement of thrice-weekly services to Sapporo via Taipei from October 1.

The carrier will also soon launch services to India – daily to Chennai and thrice-weekly to Amritsar from May 24 (rising to four times weekly from July), and thrice-weekly to Jaipur from October 2.

A HK Express plane, part of the U-Fly Alliance

HONG Kong-headquartered U-Fly Alliance has released a statement congratulating the Value Alliance soon after news spread of its formation, at the same time saying that this development is of no threat to them.

The Value Alliance, formed May 16, is made up of eight Asia-Pacific budget carriers – namely Cebu Pacific, Jeju Air, Nok Air, NokScoot, Scoot, Tigerair Singapore, Tigerair Australia and Vanilla Air – and is now the biggest LCC alliance in the world.

“The launch of this new alliance poses no threat to the competitive landscape. In fact, it would encourage creative collaboration and foster healthy growth in the LCC industry,” said U-Fly in the statement.

It added: “The U-Fly Alliance is clear that meeting the huge demand for low-fare air travel across the world can be significantly enhanced by strong, independent LCCs joining forces and connecting their networks to give a hugely expanded range of destinations to travellers, particularly in the fast-expanding Asian air travel market.”

Similar to the Value Alliance, the U-Fly Alliance is a sales and distribution partnership among its members.

The U-Fly Alliance was formed earlier this year in January, marking the world’s first LCC alliance, and is made up of founding airlines Lucky Air, Urumqi Air, West Air and HK Express.

The Value Alliance airlines collectively serves more than 160 destinations while the U-Fly Alliance carriers grant access to over 85 destinations, all within the Asia-Pacific region.

TAREQ Bagaeen has founded aQedina Hospitality Sales Solutions, which provides capability building resources for hoteliers.

Bagaeen was most recently regional director of sales, Middle East, at Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, and had been in hotel sales and other hospitality roles for the past 16 years in countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Ireland and the UAE.

His newly-founded company offers sales team assessments, learning and development programmes as well as emerging markets growth and exploration tools.

Its key product is the Online Sales Assessment Tool (OSAT), aimed at assessing revenue generating team members.

According to aQedina, it is designed to bring clarity towards an individual’s or team commercial capabilities without getting psychometric in approach, and is an industry first.

Bagaeen and his company is based in Phuket, with satellite offices located in Washington DC, Barcelona, Dubai and Bangkok.

HONG Kong Airlines is set to launch its first direct flight to New Zealand on November 10.

Services depart daily from Hong Kong International Airport at 15.20 and will arrive at Auckland Airport at 07.30 local time. The return flight will depart daily from Auckland at 09.30 and will reach Hong Kong at 15.55.

The flights will be operated by an Airbus A332 with 283 seats, including 24 business class seats.

Li Dianchun, chief commercial officer of Hong Kong Airlines stated that the route is being launched to ride on the rise in number of Hong Kong and China travellers visiting New Zealand.

“According to official figures by the New Zealand Government, as of March 2016, the total number of visitors from Hong Kong and China has recorded rises of 19.1 per cent and 27.8 per cent respectively,” he said.

“Leveraging on our connectivity in Asia via the international hub in Hong Kong, we believe this new service to Auckland will be welcomed by passengers from Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chengdu, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Okinawa, Tokyo, Bangkok and Taipei, offering them more travel options.”