IN VIEW of last week’s official announcement that the South Korea MERS outbreak has ended, HK Express is launching a new thrice-weekly flight to Jeju beginning September 1, 2015.

To further encourage Hong Kong citizens to revisit South Korea, the LCC is also offering 20 per cent off airfares for travellers flying to either Seoul or Busan for online bookings made from August 4 to 10, with the travel period valid until June 30, 2016.

The promo code GOKR20 will entitle users to the discount.

Aligning with government advice to limit leisure travel to South Korea, HK Express had previously reduced the number of weekly flights from Hong Kong from 28 to 17, but is now ramping up flights again.

SINO Group of Hotels has formed an alliance with Far East Hospitality, allowing travellers to make reservations with any of their hotels in Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through Far East’s online booking platforms.

“This initiative is part of our ongoing efforts to enhance value for guests so that visitors and onward travellers from Singapore or Hong Kong can, from a single location, easily find accommodation at Far East Hospitality or Sino Group of Hotels at the most attractive rates,” said Arthur Kong, CEO of Far East Hospitality.

Together, the two brands now offer travellers a diverse range of accommodations such as luxury boutique hotels, heritage hotels, serviced residences and beach resorts from a single site.

Kevin Chuc, associate director and deputy group general manager of Sino Group of Hotels, said: “With the current traffic and buoyant tourism in key Asian destinations, this alliance is a customer-centric move, enabling us to serve our travellers better.”

Far East Hospitality has also enhanced its website to be mobile-friendly and languages such as Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesia and Japanese have been added to cater to key markets.

GARUDA Indonesia has recorded a US$29.3 million net profit in 1H2015, climbing 114.5 per cent from a negative of US$201.3 million during the same period last year.

The Indonesian national carrier has attributed its performance growth amid the economic downturn to various cost-cutting initiatives.

The airline also succeeded in increasing its operating revenue by 4.7 per cent from US$1.76 billion compared with US$1.84 billion the previous year, while operating expenses decreased by 11.6 per cent from US$1.99 billion to US$1.76 billion.

In a press statement, Garuda also revealed that it now commands 44 per cent of domestic market share, an increase from 37 per cent last year. International market share has risen to 28 per cent from 21 per cent last year.

Garuda (including Citilink) has transported 15.9 million passengers, up 19.5 per cent from a total of 13.3 million passengers last year.

AIR France will suspend its four-times weekly flights between Kuala Lumpur and Paris from October 26, just 30 months after launching the route in April 2013.

Explaining the reason behind the suspension, Aude-Lise Combier, country manager for Air France-KLM in Malaysia, said: “While there is good load factor, the yield is low and we don’t see a short term improvement in yield.”

The carrier’s network and connections will still allow passengers from Kuala Lumpur to continue to fly daily from Kuala Lumpur to Paris via Singapore or Amsterdam from October 26 and the Air France–KLM office in Kuala Lumpur will continue to operate as usual.

Abdul Rahman Mohamed, deputy general manager, channel management of Mayflower Acme Tours, said: “With only Malaysia Airlines flying on the Kuala Lumpur–Paris-Charles de Gaulle route from October 26, I foresee a shortage in capacity to Paris during the peak outbound travel period during the year-end school holidays.

“Passengers from Johor will not mind taking an Air France flight from Singapore but for those in Kuala Lumpur and the city outskirts, they will still prefer a direct connection.”

MALAYSIA is aiming to surpass Thailand and Singapore to become the top medical tourist destination in South-east Asia by 2020.

Currently in third place in terms of number of health travellers in the region, Sherene Azura Azli, CEO of Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) — a body set up in 2009 under the Ministry of Health to develop and promote Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry — said the main challenge is the lack of awareness about Malaysia as a health tourism destination.

Speaking at the Tourism Summit 2015 in Kuala Lumpur last week, Sherene said: “Middle East travellers come to Malaysia for a holiday but go to Thailand for medical treatments. We don’t shout loud enough about our unique value proposition in our marketing and communications.”

Sherene said plans include strengthening public partnership with all private hospitals involved in medical tourism and do more collective marketing in key markets to promote Malaysia as a top-of-mind medical tourism destination.

These key markets include South-east Asia, the Middle East, China, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Kazakhstan.

In 2014, Malaysia earned RM730 million (US$191 million) in revenue from medical tourism and this year, the target is to reach RM1 billion.

INDONESIA’S Ministry of Tourism is investing 15 billion rupiah (US$1.2 million) this year in joint tourism promotions with 21 European tour wholesalers to boost arrivals to the country.

Arief Yahya, Indonesia’s minister of tourism, said: “Tour operators in Europe have a big influence on travellers’ destination choices. Data showed that 70 per cent of European travellers use tour operator services.

“Therefore, it is important that we do hand-in-hand promotions with them.”

I Gde Pitana, deputy minister for international tourism marketing, said: “This is the first joint promotional effort with European tour operators that the tourism authority has done on such scale.

“With the joint promotion agreement, these operators will promote our brand, include Indonesia in their catalogues, websites and social media, and include Indonesia in different events they participate in.”

Pitana declined to disclose the investment of each individual tour operator, but said it was a “50:50” investment scheme.

On the choice of the wholesalers, Ratna Suranti, deputy assistant for international tourism marketing strategy, said: “These wholesalers either have an existing office here or have partnered Indonesian DMCs.

“With the support and assistance from PATA Indonesia Chapter, the ministry has managed to knock on these wholesalers’ doors and formed agreements with 20 tour operators and one online company which does training and campaigns for tour operators in Europe.”

This year, the ministry is aiming for over one million arrivals from Europe. Last year, the continent contributed 893,000 arrivals.

HONG Kong Airlines will launch its first thrice-weekly service to Australia next year, commencing on January 8, 2016.

The service comprises a triangular flying route starting from Hong Kong to Gold Coast, continuing to Cairns en route back to Hong Kong. The route will be operated on an Airbus A330 aircraft with 292 seats, including 32 business class seats.

Li Dian Chun, commercial director of Hong Kong Airlines, said: “The route is designed to cater to the growing demand for tourism in Gold Coast and Cairns, both of which are popular destinations for leisure travel.”

Australia has seen a steady rise of travellers from Hong Kong in the past six years.

Total visitor count from Hong Kong to Queensland rose markedly by 15 per cent year-on-year in 2014, with leisure travellers contributing 72.5 per cent of Hong Kong visitors to the state during the same period, according to statistics from Tourism and Events Queensland.