JULIA Noordraven, a veteran in Indonesia’s tourism industry, passed away in Kuala Lumpur last night at the age of 81. The funeral takes place today in Bandung.

Julia had spent two days in Kuala Lumpur being treated for a heart problem in the city’s State Heart Institute.

Julia was president director of Vista Express Tour & Travel, one of Indonesia’s pioneering travel companies. Vista Express, which has been in business since 1973, helped to open up Indonesia as a port of call in the early 1990s.

Indah Wisata Melawai Chapter’s travel consultant, Theo Setlight, who had been with Vista Express then, remembers Julia as a “hands-on” leader.

He said: “(The port openings) started when the company won business from Hapag-Lloyd. MS Europa was the first cruise ship visiting Ambon (Maluku). After that, new destinations followed such as Agats (West Papua) and Bitung (North Sulawesi), which were remote places with no proper facilities for cruises.

“This happened because of Julia’s eagerness to show off Indonesia’s exoticism, her leadership and determination in putting out the best service. She had always been hands-on with the preparations.”

SLOVENIA-BASED Adria Airways yesterday inked a codeshare pact with Air India, weeks before the planned launch of a jointly operated New Delhi-Ljubljana service.

The agreement was signed by Rohit Nandan, chairman and managing director, Air India, and Mark Anzur, CEO, Adria Airways, in New Delhi.

Said Anzur: “We will have daily flights from New Delhi to Ljubljana with a stopover in Frankfurt. Air India is the operating carrier for New Delhi to Frankfurt, and Adria from Frankfurt to Ljubljana. We are hopeful that air traffic between both countries will witness an increase with the codeshare agreement, thus strengthening our tourism ties.”

The service is expected to commence by the second week of December. Indian arrivals to Slovenia numbered 5,000 in 2012.

Adria is a member of Star Alliance, a point of significance for Air India, which is keen to join the alliance.

Air India, Aerodrom Ljubljana and Adria had previously signed an MoU in June 2012 to forge greater cooperation and improve traffic between the two countries, clearing the way for yesterday’s codeshare agreement. Earlier this year Adria also appointed Dex Aviation as its general sales agent for India (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 26, 2013).

PELICAN Hotel Solutions is serving up a new solution that will allow hotels to harness the power of social media to attract potential guests.

This takes the shape of a widget that can be added to hotel website booking pages, through a tie-up with social seating and booking platform SeatID.

Potential guests log into their choice of social network, Facebook or Linkedin, and are shown a list of social network contacts who have stayed at the hotel, user comments, the number of likes, and evidence of multiple bookings.

According to Pelican, this represents the first implementation of social widgets for ticketing and booking websites in the hospitality industry, and is already in use by Wharney Guang Dong Hotel Hong Kong.

Hartono Liman, CEO of Pelican Hotel Solutions, commented that social booking is “one of the latest and most innovative trends in online booking”.

TOURISM Malaysia is running a special week-long programme for tour operators, celebrities and the media from around South-east Asia this week, the country’s largest source of tourists.

Known as the ASEAN Explore Quest Malaysia 2013, the NTO has invited 92 people to participate in the trip and explore Malaysia’s various destinations. The programme, held in conjunction with the upcoming Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2014, began on Monday and will end on Sunday.

Mirza Mohammad Taiyab, director-general of Tourism Malaysia, said: “With good land connectivity, an established network of low-cost regional airlines and a growing trend of impulse travel among urban working adults and families, South-east Asia will remain by far the top source market for Malaysia’s tourist arrivals in the coming years.”

He described the week-long programme as an “educational tour” as participants will get a first-hand experience of the tourism products in Kuala Lumpur, Perak and Langkawi. “Throughout the journey, participants will be exposed to various tourism elements such as local cultures, heritage, nature and luxury tourism.

“By giving travel consultants a first-hand experience of the various parts of Malaysia, we hope they can provide exciting and attractive holiday packages, while the media can share first-hand experiences with their readers and South-east Asian celebrities can help to boost the promotion of the country’s tourist destinations and raise awareness of VMY 2014 through social media and their fan clubs.”

Krizia Tan, manager at Davao-based Travel Best Guide, said she would be able to better promote Malaysia to her customers and come up with innovative packages having experienced the attractions first-hand.

Arrivals from South-east Asia last year numbered 18.8 million, or 75.1 per cent of the 25 million tourists to Malaysia. The country is aiming for 28 million arrivals to Malaysia during VMY 2014, of which 20.6 million are expected to come from the region.

THAILAND must focus on attracting quality tourists instead of the mass market or risk straining the country’s infrastructure to breaking point, said the permanent tourism and sports secretary.

Suwat Sidthilaw said that an arrival growth rate of around three per cent would be more sustainable in the long term than the current 20 per cent.

“Income is more important than numbers,” he said. “That means (attracting) quality tourists should play a key part in our strategy.”

“Ideally we don’t want more than 20 to 25 million tourists (annually). We only have limited resources and we are already facing infrastructure and capacity problems.”

Suwat, who opposes the current proposal to waive visa requirements for Chinese tourists, said Thailand started experiencing problems when visitor numbers exceeded 20 million last year. The country received 21.7 million tourists from January to October, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, and is targeting 28 million international tourists next year up from 22.3 million in 2012.

“We don’t have enough buses, guides or hotels. Hotels are not happy with the situation. Tour operators are (the only people) really benefiting,” said Suwat.

Thailand’s hotel market is struggling to keep up with the demand for low to midscale accommodation, as over 70 per cent of properties coming up in the next few years are in the upscale segment, according to STR Global.

Jesper Blomqvist, Asia-Pacific area director at STR Global, said: “There are not enough mid-scale hotels coming in to meet demand…Where are the mass tourists going to stay?”

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) is confident that its joint-venture carrier with Tata Sons will take off smoothly, as it prepares for the New Delhi-based, full-service airline to start operations mid-next year (TTG Asia e-Daily, September 20, 2013).

Following the verbal approval on October 24 by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board in India, Goh Choon Phong, CEO of SIA, said the carrier is now awaiting further official clearance.

Explaining that the new airline is SIA’s strategy in participating directly in a “huge growth market”, Goh said: “The choice of India is obvious due to its immense market potential with its increasing middle-class population. The number of trips per capita in India is still very low at 0.04, compared to China which is 0.3 and developed countries like the US and Europe at 2.

“This allows us to diversify our traffic base and not just depend on the Singapore base,” he added.

“There are challenges (such as the competitive domestic market) and we are not taking them lightly. But we have the confidence to make this work otherwise we would not go in there.”

During a media briefing today, Goh also revealed SIA’s operating profit of S$87 million (US$70 million) for the second quarter of the 2013-14 financial year, which was up by 24.3 per cent year-on-year. The group net profit for this period registered a 78 per cent increase to S$160 million.

In a separate media statement this morning, the carrier announced that travellers flying SIA and SilkAir will enjoy 10kg extra in baggage allowance across all classes from November 15. Economy customers will be entitled to 30kg of baggage, up from 20kg now, while business class passengers will be allowed 40kg from the current 30kg.