STARWOOD Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is implementing today a 10-point plan to get Sheraton Hotels and Resorts back on track as the global brand of choice.

The plan includes reclaiming Sheraton’s status as a meetings brand, launching a new tier, Sheraton Grand, and re-evaluating brand standards and fee structures to improve owner economics. A US$100 million marketing campaign from this year to 2017 has also been promised.

One of the oldest brands around, dating back to 1937, Sheraton is widely thought by the hotel industry to have lost its positioning and been eclipsed by new brands launched by chains catering to increased customer sophistication and changing demographics.

Acquired by Starwood in 1998, Sheraton is the largest in the chain’s stable and second oldest after Westin Hotels & Resorts.

The 10-point plan is as follows, with immediate effect:

1. Introduce new Sheraton brand positioning
Reinvigorate Sheraton with a new vision; create a new visual identity for Sheraton that incorporates its iconic logo; enhance the digital experience and develop compelling content

2. US$100 million Sheraton marketing campaign
Roll out a multichannel global advertising campaign through 2017; execute the richest Sheraton-focused SPG promotions in Starwood’s history; ramp up media buzz and social strategy to engage consumers across all channels

3. Launch Sheraton Grand
Elevate over 100 premier Sheraton hotels to new Sheraton Grand tier; showcase Sheraton’s best properties and create a halo effect; focus first on global gateways to lure high-value travellers; encourage more owners to renovate properties to achieve new Sheraton Grand stature

4. Earn owners’ confidence in Sheraton
Laser-focus on revenue and profit-driving initiatives and programmes to boost owner value; balance building and conversion costs with exceptional guest experience; re-evaluate brand standards and fee structures to improve owner economics

5. Ignite associates’ passion for Sheraton
Enlist Sheraton general managers as leaders of change

6. Get service right at Sheraton
One way is to “tackle lowest-performing hotels, move the middle, and learn from the top”

7. Reclaim Sheraton’s status as the meetings brand
It will kick off a global customer blitz and amp up booking rewards and incentives

8. Innovate the Sheraton guest experience
Offering unique and imaginative premium sleep, entertainment, fitness and bath experiences; invigorating F&B; harnessing Sheraton Club potential

9. Differentiate Sheraton through design
Transform public spaces and guestrooms, and leverage lobby design to drive revenue

10. Strengthen Sheraton
Open 150-plus new hotels by 2020 through conversions, adaptive reuse and new-build projects; develop the right properties in the right markets with favourable returns for owners and their investors; create a flexible new-build product that enhances hotel profitability in secondary and tertiary markets.

A NEW consortium made up of Vietnam’s biggest hotel names was launched this week to target affluent tourists to the country.

The Quintessential Collection has five founding members: the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi; The Nam Hai in Hoi An; The Reverie Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City; La Residence Hotel & Spa in Hue; and Paradise Cruises on Halong Bay.

All are represented on the Quintessential Collection digital platform, which also acts as a destination information resource for travellers.

Each month, a general manager from one Quintessential hotel will give his or her own insider tips to luxury living in the destination, e.g. where to get a tailor-made tuxedo in Hanoi, and where are the best watering holes in the city.

“Knowing where to go for the quintessential Vietnamese accommodation experience is the first best thing to know,” said Jim Sullivan, managing director of Balcony Media Group, the platform’s developer.

“But what to do when she gets there, what to read before he goes, what to watch, what to listen to, who to look for — all of this essential information is going to drive the site.”

SRI Lanka is doubling capacity at Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) from the current seven million to 15 million passengers by 2020, in a move that has been welcomed by the trade.

The cabinet said last week that Japan will provide 45.4 million yen (US$364,589) in funding for the project, which includes the creation of two separate terminals to handle inbound and outbound passengers. BIA currently has one terminal.

The airport’s runway is also to be expanded along with more check-in counters and more on-arrival immigration desks.

Colombo’s main airport handled 7.8 million passengers last year, up from 7.3 million in 2013. Tourist arrivals are rising and expected to reach 2.5 million in 2016 and two million this year, compared to 1.5 million in 2014 and fewer than 500,000 five years ago.

Commenting on the announcement, Travel Agents Association of Sri Lanka president, S Paramanathan, told TTG Asia e-Daily: “Any airport with a sharp rise in tourist arrivals needs this kind of expansion.”

Nilmin Nanayakkara, managing director of NKAR Travels, said with numbers going up year on year, passenger movement needs to be freer and expanding the airport is vital.

MORE visitors to Myanmar are entering by land crossings, according to the country’s travel authorities.

According to the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, about two million out of three million visitors entered the country through border gateways in 2014, as compared to 465,000 in 2012.

In line with economic and political reforms, Myanmar began allowing land entry from neighbouring countries like China and Thailand, while the Myanmar-Laos Friendship Bridge was launched last month.

Khiri Travel has been offering packages for tourists to cross the Thai Myawaddy-Mae Sot border, a trip that general manager Edwin Briels said is popular with high-end and adventurous travellers. Budget travellers continue to arrive by flight due to high costs associated with travelling overland.

Lee Sheridan, general manager of Peak Adventure Travel, said that although overland travel numbers remain relatively low, he expects to see a significant increase over the next 12 to 18 months.

However, challenges still remain for tourists arriving via land borders.

Thomas Burrows, product manager of Exo Travel Myanmar, said: “The road conditions to most of the borders are fairly bad. They tend to wash out frequently in the rainy season and you run into the problem of one-lane roads serving two-way traffic.”

“There are also security issues with sectarian violence, mostly along the Myanmar-Chinese border,” he added.

Nevertheless, the country continues to inspire travellers.

While interest in the Big Four destinations of Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan and Inle Lake remains high, more visitors are adding excursions to less-visited sites such as Mawlamyine, Hpa An and Ngapali Beach to their itineraries, commented Burrows.

JUST ahead of International Luxury Travel Market Asia Shanghai 2015, Switzerland has declared its intentions to woo China’s luxury, free-and-easy travellers.

A Swiss delegation comprised of 10 members met travel trade players and media in Hong Kong and China to share what they have in store for Chinese travellers, before heading off for the luxury tradeshow.

Swiss Deluxe Hotels, a collection of five-star hotels, has just launched a single booking platform for its 39 properties, available in Chinese. Managing director Siro Barino said: “Efforts have been made to woo Chinese visitors, eg recruiting Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking staff, and adding congee to our menus.”

Member property Hotel Guarda Golf has just published its first bilingual brochure in English and Mandarin, and rolled out a new wellness package for Chinese guests, said general manager Simon Schenk.

While Asia generates five per cent of Swiss Deluxe Hotel’s total room nights, the number of Chinese guests is growing at between 19 and 25 per cent annually.

“Compared to a decade ago, we’ve four times more Chinese traffic (now) and we target high-end FITs who can afford our rates of US$400-$3,400 per night,” said Barino.

Switzerland Tourism is also ramping up its marketing in China with the launch of the Grand Tour campaign in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, promoting self-drive journeys in the country.

Batiste Pilet, district manager Beijing, North China and Taiwan, said the NTO is working with four travel agencies specialising in high-end travel.

“Chinese people are more confident in organising their own travel. Moreover, the weaker euro is spurring more traffic from China to Europe,” he commented.

TRAVEL consultants can now sell theatre, attraction and sightseeing products as part of their programmes thanks to a new plugin accessible via the Travelport Smartpoint platform.

The Ingresso Entertainment Tickets plugin, free to download from the Travelport Marketplace, allows travel consultants to find and sell tickets to their customers, representing a new channel of revenue for travel consultants who are on the Travelport platform.

Furthermore, the plugin allows travel consultants to set their own pricing and commission levels with no invoicing required, choose from best ticket prices across a range of international events, search by airport code or general terms like “New York tours”, and fully integrate purchased tickets into passenger name records and back-office systems. Immediate email confirmation is also guaranteed.

Pieter van der Voort, director partnership and alliances, Travelport, said: “The plugin offers a real cross-sell opportunity and travel consultants can set the price and choose the commission they charge in order to boost revenue. This latest announcement is part of Travelport’s strategy to invest in developing new technologies and ideas, all on an open platform that delivers expansive content and improves customer service.”

THAI travel businesses have embraced mobile channels faster than their regional counterparts with 71 per cent of companies saying they have a mobile presence, reveals new research from PayPal.

The figure compares with 54 per cent of travel companies in Malaysia and 50 per cent in Singapore, according to PayPal Insights: The Digital Future of Travel 2014, which was published in March.

Travel companies can further maximise their mobile and online channels by pricing products and services in the currencies of their target markets, said Rahul Shinghal, country manager at PayPal South-east Asia, speaking yesterday at the PayPal — The Travel Edition South-east Asia seminar in Bangkok yesterday.

“Listing in the buyer’s currency is essential,” he said. “There’s a 12 per cent conversion drop for not doing this. Many online buyers still fear hidden costs from forex conversions online.”

Key concerns preventing 29 per cent of Thai travel companies surveyed from not developing a mobile presence are: no time or resources (44 per cent), did not find good mobile reception (41 per cent) and worried about additional investment required (37 per cent).

Hotels form the majority of travel businesses using PayPal. Shinghal said the payment solutions company was predominantly focused on consumers and was not likely to be adopted by traditional travel businesses, such as DMCs, in the near term.

However, hotels selling rooms through a number of OTAs could use the service to manage online payments more efficiently. “They can use PayPal to receive all of their payments from OTAs which means they can significantly reduce transactional costs.”

BRITISH Airways’ (BA) daily direct Kuala Lumpur-London service that began yesterday has been well received both by passengers and the travel trade.

Flights today and yesterday were almost full, with only two spare seats available, Jamie Cassidy, BA’s area general manager, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, told TTG Asia e-Daily.

Malaysian travel consultants have welcomed the new flights, which offer more capacity and better flight timings on a route once monopolised by national carrier Malaysia Airlines (MAS).

Jill Sin, senior manager MICE, Panorama Tours Malaysia, said: “For MICE groups travelling to the UK, the new services, coupled with MAS’ twice-daily flights on this route using the Airbus A380, will allow group sizes of up to 350 to travel on the same day. Before, such groups had to be split and moved in batches.

“Although the ringgit has depreciated against major currencies such as the pound and the euro, multi-level marketing companies and insurance companies are still incentivising their top-tier achievers with reward trips to the UK and US. This has not slowed down.”

Inbound travel consultant, Arokia Das, senior manager at Luxury Tours Malaysia, also said: “The new service is good for our travel consultant partners in the UK as it makes it easier for them to communicate with the airline and negotiate for better rates.

“We have a group of 50 leisure tourists from the UK coming to Malaysia on BA in the third week of December.”

When asked if BA intends to increase the frequency on this route in future, Robert Williams, British Airways regional commercial manager, South-east Asia, sidestepped the question: “We’re happy with our offering, double overnight services that allows our passengers from Kuala Lumpur to get a good night’s rest and arrive in London fresh in the morning. We offer passengers a choice of four cabins.”

On the other hand, BA is upgrading its thrice-weekly, A380 London-Singapore service to daily from December 1, said Cassidy.

AUSTRALIA-BASED StayWell Hospitality Group is set to open its maiden Park Regis property in the pink city of Jaipur.

The 72-room Park Regis Jaipur, which is currently known as Holiday Inn Jaipur, is scheduled to begin operations with its new identity on July 2, following a refurbishment.

The hotel group signed a long-term franchise agreement with Craft Palace Hotels, which owns the property, to introduce its second brand in India.

Park Regis Jaipur is the first of 11 hotels StayWell is looking to open in India by early 2016. “The mid-market is growing much quicker than the luxury segment in India, so a lot of our future new openings will be under the Leisure Inn brand,” said Rohit Vig, managing director of StayWell Hospitality Group in India.

StayWell presently has two hotels bearing the Leisure Inn name.

It is also in talks to acquire a hotel group, which will make it the third-largest hotel group in India, but details are still under wraps.

Separately, StayWell is also introducing a new boutique brand along the lines of Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ W, with its first property scheduled to open in London next year.

Vig revealed that the group will probably bring the new brand to India by end-2016.

THE MICE hub of the Visayas will get its first major convention centre in the SMX Convention Centre Cebu when the new facility opens its doors in 2017.

Revealing the news to this publication at the Asia Premium Travel Mart was Dexter Deyto, vice president and general manager of SMX Convention Specialists, that will start construction on the convention centre this August.

SMX Convention Centre will be part of a development built on a piece of reclaimed land in Cebu city and modelled on Manila’s Mall of Asia to come with a hotel and indoor arena for sports, concert and other events.

The size and capacity of the convention centre in Cebu is still being determined.

Meanwhile, the group’s existing trade halls within SM Department Store in Cebu City will likely be maintained, said Deyto.

He observed that while Cebu is the MICE hub in Visayas, the city does not have a convention centre. The opening of SMX Convention Centre Cebu will therefore help fill up hotel rooms in the city.

The Cebu property is SMX’s fifth, joining its other convention centres in Manila, Bonifacio Global City, Davao and Bacolod.