SRI Lanka’s Aitken Spence Hotels is expanding its footprint in the Maldives with the acquisition of two new properties, making it the largest foreign hotel operator there.

It revealed yesterday that some US$5 million was spent leasing the Raafushi Island in Noonu Atoll for a new four-star resort.

The company will also invest another US$50 million in a five-star property with 163 rooms on the uninhabited Aaarah Island on Raa Atoll.

The group already operates resorts in Meedhupparu, Hudhuranfushi, Rannalhi and Vadoo in the Maldives, with a total of 24 hotels and resorts or over 2,000 rooms in Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Oman.

A NEW training, language and communication platform for the hospitality industry has been launched to boost the demanding service standards of luxury and boutique hotels alike.

Qooco, a global mobile training solutions provider, unveiled the platform last week at the Hotel Management Thailand Summit in Bangkok.

The suite of mobile solutions include: Qooco Voice, Qooco Upsell, Qooco Link, Qooco Pro and Qooco Core.

Language learning app Qooco Voice focuses on improving the English- and Mandarin-language skills of hotel staff through interactive lessons, imparting the vocabulary and dialogue necessary for real-life situations.

Qooco Upsell trains staff to encourage customer spending in self-paced lesson plans in both Asian and European languages, while Qooco Link allows hotel managers to send messages to specific departments or employees from their mobile devices for faster responses to situations.

On the other hand, Qooco Pro is a vocational training solution featuring practical lessons based on real-life scenarios, designed specifically for F&B and housekeeping departments.

Qooco Core drills hotel staff on the most commonly used hospitality phrases in English and Mandarin, presented like flash cards with sentence use for context and comprehension to build confidence.

Each app comes with a gauge of progress, frequency of use, and performance reports, and are all compatible with Android and iOS mobile devices.

David Topolewski, CEO of Qooco, commented: “Mobile learning is revolutionising the traditional training approach, changing the way employees develop and learn and enabling self-study of targeted training modules anytime to deliver results-driven outcomes.

“With Qooco’s suite of products for the hospitality industry, our core focus is to maximise the effectiveness of mobile learning through our proven language and communication solutions and to empower hoteliers and training managers to fast-track critical service skills development as well as improve guest satisfaction, loyalty and RevPar.”

THE islands of Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) are banking on sports to capture more visitors from the Indian market, but travel consultants here say there is still much to be done in air connectivity and brand awareness.

Its NTO this year roped in cricketers Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Dravo of West Indies Cricket Team as ambassadors to the India market, said Haseeb Mohammed, charged affairs, High Commission of Republic of Trinidad & Tobago – Delhi, who noted that Asian arrivals surge particularly around Carnival time from February to March.

Meanwhile, major markets to T&T are still North America, the UK, the Caribbean and Scandinavia.

Shibani Phadkar, senior vice president & head – leisure travel outbound, Thomas Cook India, said that “T&T is perhaps known as a cricketing nation” to the every man, but it compares “unfavourably” to US neighbours while connectivity is an issue.

Nagsri Prasad, head – outbound, Mercury Travels also pointed out that awareness generally remains low. “It is important that awareness (of T&T) is increased manifold and hence the tourism board needs to increase their marketing budgets in India. Besides, it’s important that we have good inbound travel consultants in T&T who can develop programmes suited to the clients and also be proactive and committed to the market.

To this end, Huzan Fraser, India rep, Tourism Trinidad & Tobago, revealed that T&T is “undertaking several online and offline programmes to educate trade in India”.

SHERATON Langkawi Beach Resort will discontinue its affiliation with Starwood Hotels & Resorts when its management agreement ends on June 1.

The property will be renamed Century Four Points Resort, and be managed and operated by Century Four Points Resort, said its acting general manager – group of hotels, Peter Athan.

Owned by Mashyur Mutiara, the resort has been linked to Starwood Hotels & Resorts since it took on the Sheraton name in 1991.

Athan said that he would stay on with the property and there would be no changes to top and middle management staff going forward, while all confirmed bookings will be honoured.

TTG Asia e-Daily understands that the property will contact the trade soon to advise on new contract rates.

Describing the property, Yap Sook Ling, managing director of Asian Overland Services Tours & Travel, said: “It is a lovely property. The set-up and layout is very nice and we don’t have issues with the service. However, the rooms need to be renovated.”

Another inbound travel consultant, Ally Bhoonee, executive director of World Avenues, agreed that the hotel needs a facelift if it were to maintain its five-star rank and compete in the international marketplace.

He said: “It will also make it easier for travel consultants to market the hotel if it is up to the standard of a five-star hotel.”

But asked if there were any plans to renovate the hotel, Athan replied: “Not at the moment.”

SOUTH-EAST Asia’s only indoor skydiving wind tunnel attraction, iFly Singapore, has launched a new event space, the Sky Garden.

Occupying over 558m² on the top of iFly Singapore at Sentosa, the Sky Garden comprises of both an indoor and outdoor space catering to wedding and corporate events.

The outdoor terrace offers an open-air rooftop lawn against a picturesque beachfront view, with twice-nightly fireworks and sunsets as backdrop. The venue also features a stage, bar and private area.

Over S$800,000 (US$598,000) was spent on the expansion project, including landscaping of the rooftop, Canon imaging systems, LED lighting for events and a state-of-the-art sound system by K-array and Bose.

The company’s catering partners are Orange Clove Catering, Purple Sage Group and Rasel Catering Singapore, which is halal-certified.

A range of wedding and corporate packages are available for a minimum of 100 pax, starting from S$120++ per pax for a wedding buffet lunch and S$90++ per pax for a corporate dinner-and-dance buffet.

Meanwhile, iFly Singapore’s indoor skydiving remains a popular teambuilding activity for corporate and incentive groups because of its thrilling nature, said Lawrence Koh, founder and managing director of iFly Singapore.

“The thing about iFly is that it is something that (many) have never tried before…This makes the corporate event memorable,” he added.

By Jerlene Ng

ANOTHER travel agency in Singapore has surprised trade and consumers alike with the sudden announcement of its closure just ahead of the peak holiday season in June.

Local weekly The Sunday Times reported yesterday that staff at Asia-Euro Holidays were told to work earlier than usual, after which the agency posted a notice on its front door and on its Facebook account to say that it had closed and will stop providing services immediately.

It also told customers whose passports it was holding on to, to contact an agent in charge of visa applications.

An Asia-Euro Holidays spokesperson was quoted as saying that the company had bought 14 properties in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in 2010, and accumulated losses of S$2 million from this.

According to the visa agent, many employees have also not been paid, said The Sunday Times report.

Meanwhile, Mandarin-language daily Lianhe Wanbao said approximately 500 customers have been left stranded by the closure.

Asia-Euro Holidays is not the first Singapore-based travel agency to close abruptly. Five Star Tours’ sudden shutdown last year ahead of the Lunar New Year period left thousands of travellers in the lurch.

In response, Singapore’s Consumers Association of Singapore’s launched a pilot programme last February requiring travel agencies to take out insurance against sudden closures in order to protect customers.

ALILA Hotels & Resorts will be launching three new properties in the second half of the year, including its first hotel in China.

Opening in September is the Alila Seminyak, located on Bali’s south-west coast and decorated with pools and vertical gardens. The fifth Alila property on the Indonesian hotspot will offer 240 rooms, a Spa Alila, gym and wellness centre, leisure concierge and an open-kitchen restaurant.

In a different part of Indonesia, Alila Solo will begin welcoming guests in October. Close to the artistic hub of Java, the hotel features four Alila suites with their own terraces and swimming pools.

A restaurant serving Indonesian-European food, a spa, gym, MICE facilities and a kids’ club can also be found within hotel premises.

Alila Anji breaks new ground for Alila Hotels & Resorts as the group’s pioneering property in China. Situated on a hillside overlooking a lake in the heart of Zhejiang province, Alila Anji bears resemblance to a traditional Chinese village.

The resort is made up of 74 villas with lake views and will also come with the Spa Alila.

Alila currently has 19 more new projects in development that will debut by 2018, including nine more properties in China.