Gerald Hendrick has been appointed senior vice president of Resort Venture and general manager of Bintan Lagoon Resort.
As senior vice president and general manager, Hendrick is responsible for the administration and operations of Bintan Lagoon Resort, which has a staff strength of 500, the resort’s ferry operations and the Singapore corporate office.
Previously vice-president – business development & hotel operations, Hendrick has been with the resort since September 2014. A Malaysian national and seasoned hotelier, Hendrick brings with him 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry.
He has worked with various hospitality management organisations within Asia and the Middle East, such as Hilton International, Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts, Raffles International, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Pan Pacific, Madinat Jumeirah and St Regis Hotel Singapore.
Team Frozen Lime Asia (from left): Pow Zhi Hoe, Aileene Thangaveloo, Serene Lam, Jagdish Sandhu, Adelina Pillai, Kenji Chen
Singapore-based Frozen Lime Asia is touting its one-stop, outsourced services that synergise revenue, distribution and sales & marketing functions for Asia’s tourism and hospitality clients.
Formed in October 2016, the company now works with clients to evaluate market demand and optimise revenues, build awareness, generate demand with marketing campaigns and communications and drive sales, as well as help ensure clients are getting the right mix to achieve business goals.
Team Frozen Lime Asia (from left) Pow Zhi Hoe, Aileene Thangaveloo, Serene Lam, Jagdish Sandhu, Adelina Pillai, Kenji Chen
Jagdish Sandhu, CEO and co-founder, said: “I believe we are one of the first independent companies in Asia to offer such a service to hospitality clients where they can totally outsource these functions to us, without having to maintain a large internal team.”
In the dynamic travel industry landscape of today, Jagdish said Frozen Lime Asia’s value proposition is in industry and functional leads who stay on top of trends across all channels. In addition, their experience in large and mid-size brands means they are equipped with knowledge of best practices and processes covering hotels, resorts, golf, food & beverage, pre-opening and launches.
Kurz expects interest from UK senior market looking to visit Penang
Qatar Airways’ new thrice-weekly flights between Doha and Penang, commencing February 6, 2018, are spurring hopes among Malaysian inbound agents of stronger European traffic to the northern region of the country.
The new service will be the first longhaul flight to Penang, an island destination that gets mostly air connections with regional destinations in South-east Asia and North Asia.
Kurz expects interest from UK senior market looking to visit Penang
Diethelm Travel Malaysia’s managing director, Manfred Kurz, believes that the new flights are “perfect” for promoting the northern region of Malaysia, where Penang is, to the Europeans. Popular destinations in the north include Langkawi, Kedah, and the Belum Temenggor Forest Reserve in Perak state.
Speaking to TTG Asia at the recent ITB Asia 2017, Kur said: “I foresee the UK senior market will be interested in these flights due to the country’s historical links with Penang.”
As the “Germans like to move around more and tend to end their holiday with a beach stay”, Kurz predicts that an open jaw arrangement would appeal to the travellers, where they start off in Kuala Lumpur before proceeding overland to Perak (state) and onward to Penang, and leaving for Doha on the new Qatar Airways flight.
The new flights are a boon to Malaysia’s business events specialists too, opined Yap Sook Ling, managing director, Asian Overland Services Tours & Travel.
She told TTG Asia that the flights will “provide an opportunity to promote Penang for business events and to attract more international conferences”.
Arokia Das, senior manager at Luxury Tours Malaysia, agreed: “Penang is relatively new to the business events scene. Corporates and associations intending to have their event in South-east Asia will see Penang as a fresh option (due to the improved access).”
And because “Qatar Airways has a solid reputation and airfares are reasonable”, Arokia thinks it will be easier now to sell Penang to the European market.
He added: “For the leisure segment, we are looking at selling just Penang or combining Penang with East Malaysia, which has rich eco-tourism and cultural offerings.”
Longhaul buyers at ITB Asia 2017 are equally upbeat about the new air link.
Jesko Krengel, senior product manager, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore at TUI Deutschland based in Hannover, said: “Our (best selling) tours combine Singapore and Langkawi. The new flights to Penang will provide us with options in creating new itineraries for the northern region of Malaysia. Qatar Airways is known for its good service and affordability, so promoting the airlines and the new route will not be too hard.”
A new buyer to ITB Asia, Joe Calstas, director general, board member at the Institute of Journalism and Communication based in Geneva, Switzerland, said: “We are considering holding seminars related to journalism in Penang, and improved longhaul connectivity will certainly help.
“We will be meeting with the Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau at ITB Asia to know more about the offerings in the state.”
Calstas shared that most of those attending his association’s events in Asia are Europeans.
But when asked if the new flights would boost Malaysia’s Middle Eastern footfalls, Ally Bhoonee, executive director at World Avenues, said he didn’t think so.
“Most Middle Eastern visitors to Malaysia are from Saudi Arabia, and in the past, many from Saudi Arabia used Qatar Airways. With the ongoing sanctions (placed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia), the new flights will only benefit Qataris and the expatriates living in Qatar,” he explained.
Loosened requirements welcome, but agents say competition with airlines for ticket sales still imbalanced
IATA will no longer mandate all its 242 accredited Philippine agencies to use credit cards for BSP payment transactions, to the relief of agencies who believe that the rule is an attempt by an airline group conspiring to run them out of business.
Of the IATA accredited agencies, only 46 are using credit card to transact while 196 don’t, a statistic revealed during a meeting in Manila among representatives of the Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA), Philippines IATA and IATA Singapore.
Loosened requirements welcome, but agents say competition with airlines for ticket sales still imbalanced
Hence, “only the 46 IATA-accredited agencies already using credit card for BSP payment transactions will have to be PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliant” by March 2018, PTAA notified its members in a circular dated October 5. PCI DSS is a set of information security standards to prevent credit card fraud. Agencies failing to comply risk losing their IATA accreditation.
But IATA appears to have become more lenient as it “withdrew the sanction of two irregularities given for noncompliance with PCI DSS”. Instead, it leaves it up to individual airlines whether to accept credit card transactions from non-complying agencies, according to the PTAA Circular.
The circular also noted that “there will be different treatment for non-payment and short payment” of remittances which “has no consequence anymore on (agencies’) ability to ticket” unlike in the current IATA ruling.
Before the change, travel agents complained it would be cumbersome to change to credit card payment due to the many documentation required for accreditation. Also, many customers prefer cash over credit card payment, which comes with a three to five per cent charge. There are also instances when customers switched to agencies accepting cash payment to avoid the credit card fee.
Adkins Travel general manager Francisco Lim lamented that airlines are now in a competing relationship with agencies for ticket sales, and the latter has come out short-changed, citing IATA’s last year implementation of the shortened BSP remittance period to one week from 15 days.
He explained that cashflow has been a problem for agents, especially those handling corporate accounts, because they have to make weekly remittances to BSP but payment from clients take up to 45 days to come in.
To stay afloat, Lim said agencies had to take out loans from banks or from individuals with interest rates.
A travel consultant said the weekly BSP remittance contributed to the demise of some travel agencies.
Moreover, the president of a travel agency said she deliberately did not accredit with IATA because of the costly bond requirement and the weekly BSP remittance, claiming that it’s better for her agency to buy international tickets from IATA-accredited agencies.
Having set its sights on budget travellers from India, MakeMyTrip is expanding its product line – currently comprising four- and five-star hotel accommodation in India and elsewhere – to include budget accommodation.
Chairman and group CEO of MakeMyTrip, Deep Kalra, said at the recent ITB Asia that his company is targeting Indians looking for rooms priced from US$25 and above when travelling within India and overseas.
Deep: budget travel segment is huge in India
Deep said: “The budget travel segment (in India) is huge. Roughly 200,000 Indians book online monthly through their mobile phones.”
To ensure only quality budget accommodation is offered, MakeMyTrip is enforcing an accreditation system.
“In India, we are accrediting budget accommodation in terms of amenity, hygiene and safety considerations, among others. By accrediting these independent properties, we give assurances to our buyers.
“Outside of India, we’re looking at 32 cities that are popular with Indian travellers and they include Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York and London. We use our partners overseas to help us with the accreditation, covering homestays and secondary homes.”
Emirates and a consortium of industry partners will collaborate on the world’s first sector-wide ideation lab of its kind, Experimental Lab (X-Lab) at Area 2071, in hopes of co-creating “the next era of human transportation”.
Area 2071 is an innovation initiative aiming to nurture efforts to “design the future” that was launched by UAE prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to become the experimental nucleus of the UAE Centennial Plan 2071.
Area 2071’s goal is to ask the world’s biggest questions and create solutions that shift paradigms, reshape markets, and improve the lives of people around the world
The Aviation X-Lab will bring together airlines, manufacturers, ground logistics, regulators, engineers, academics, and startups in order to envision a new transportation paradigm, and seek solutions that individual or piecemeal efforts would otherwise be unable to achieve.
Starting this year, the Aviation X-Lab at Area 2071 will host industry summits to envision challenges. It will then solicit applications from internal teams, independent engineering teams, academics, and startups, to help address these challenges by spending a full year working with senior industry executives and regulators to ideate new technologies and business theories, run experiments, and develop prototypes.
Finalist teams from around the world will meet in Dubai each April for an annual event where they will pitch their concepts. Winners of the pitch event will relocate to Dubai the following month along with their corporate and government counterparts to begin a rigorous curriculum co-created by academic and innovation institutions.
Applications for the inaugural Aviation X-Lab will open in November with the first pitches to be presented to the public in April of 2018.
Booking.com has released eight travel trend predictions for 2018, among which are an increase in pop culture-inspired travel and friends-based getaways.
According to booking.com, television shows, films, sport and social media in particular look set to have an increasingly significant sway over booking decisions.
The survey revealed more travellers are open to travelling with friends
The television programme locations travellers most want to visit in 2018 are Croatia, Spain and Iceland inspired by Game of Thrones (29 per cent), London as seen in Sherlock and the Crown (21 per cent and 13 per cent), New York and Manhattan from Billions (13 per cent) and Los Angeles viewed in Entourage (10 per cent).
On-screen locations from television, film or music videos will win over 36 per cent of travellers in the coming year. Twenty-two per cent of travellers say they will be tempted to travel for a major sporting event, with 43 per cent of those considering a summer of football in Russia. Reading blogs or watching YouTuber recommendations spark ideas for 39 per cent of travellers.
Meanwhile, in terms of choice of travel companions, the segment showing the biggest increase when compared to 2017 was travelling with a group of friends, increasing from 21 to 25 per cent.
Friend-based getaways also have financial advantages, Booking.com observed, as 42 per cent said that joint holidays with friends will allow them to stay in accommodation they wouldn’t be able to afford on their own.
Booking.com further pointed out that 2018 will see travellers looking to be even more economically intuitive. Nearly half (47 per cent) will take currency exchange rates into consideration when planning their travels for the year, and almost the same amount (48 per cent) will think about the economic climate of a destination before making the decision to travel.
Boding well for the retail industry, 30 per cent of travellers also plan to make more purchases from airport duty free shops in 2018 and 26 per cent will even go on holiday specifically to buy goods such as fashion items because they are cheaper than in their home country.
For more of Booking.com’s 2018 predictions, please click here.
Agents can now register for online classes and be certified by Switzerland Tourism as Switzerland Travel Experts.
Existing Switzerland Specialists, i.e. those certified before April 2017, are required to sign up on the new platform to upgrade their status to Expert.
Switzerland Tourism’s new online platform will help agents deepen their touristic knowledge about the country
The Switzerland Travel Academy offers a programme comprising core and specialisation modules (MICE, family, etc) that provide agents with information about Swiss destinations and travel products.
Agents will receive immediate certification once they’ve passed a final exam of a module.The certificate is valid until December of the following year, after which, the agent will be invited to do yearly refresher modules to maintain their expert status for another year.
Agents will be able to use the Travel Expert logo in marketing collaterals, websites, e-mail signatures, etc.
All new Travel Experts in 2017 also stand a chance to win a fam trip to Switzerland (December 6-12) this year. Flights will depart Singapore or Bangkok to Zürich with Swiss International Air Lines (Economy), and include five nights in Switzerland, a Class Swiss Travel Pass an a Certification Ceremony in Switzerland.
A maximum of 18 will get to travel to Switzerland (maximum one per company), picked from those who pass the following exams until November 17. Exams include the four core modules; the News module; the Gold Partner South East Asia module (under “Specialisation modules on Swiss Regions & Destinations”).
Winners will be informed on November 20 by e-mail. Selected agents are required to confirm their attendance until November 21 and provide a passport scan in order for bookings to be made.
United Airlines yesterday launched the world’s longest scheduled nonstop flight to or from the US, and first direct Singapore-Los Angeles flight.
Celebrating the launch are (L-R) United’s Marcel Fuchs (seventh from left), US Embassy Singapore’s Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath and Changi Airport Group’s Lee Seow Hiang
Flight UA 38 will depart Singapore’s Changi Airport at 11.00 daily, arriving at Los Angeles International Airport at 11.15 the same day. The return flight, UA 37,will depart Los Angeles at 21.25, arriving in Singapore at 06.20 two days later.
Flying time will be approximately 15 hours, 15 minutes eastbound, and 17 hours, 55 minutes westbound. According to United Airlines, customers on the new flight will be able to save up to nearly two hours journey time each way, compared with the current United schedule via San Francisco.
Whale shark watching in Oslob, Cebu is disturbing, the exploitation of these gentle giants abhorrent. But that’s getting ahead of how this profitable attraction, and all its flagrant violations of ethical, responsible and sustainable tourism, remains untouchable.
In August, a visiting American friend and I drove two hours from Cebu City to Oslob to see whale sharks, locally known as butandings. The daily watch and interaction begins at 06.00 in the morning, ending before noon. When we reached the centre at 06.30, it was noisy and teeming with local and foreign tourists. I counted more than 30 boats already in the waters.
There is a short orientation for tourists, only in English. How would non-English speakers cope? Held every 10 to 15 minutes, there are at least 50 tourists per orientation. The lady doing this has memorised her spiel, including the do’s and don’t’s like no touching of the butandings and no use of sunblock lotion. Questions are not encouraged and there’s no video support.
It seems easy to break the rules. For instance, have they bothered to check how many applied sunblock lotion that day? What did they do to penalise the violators?
For a 30-minute thrill, foreign tourists pay US$21 to snorkel while locals pay US$11 to snorkel and US$6 to watch the butandings from the boat.
It’s a lot of money for the 200 or so fishermen. I was told that they earn up to US$530 a month, a tidy sum in that part of the country compared to what they would have earned from fishing – which they have stopped altogether.
I stayed on the boat while my friend opted to snorkel. The boats are about 15 meters away from the shore, and the water is about 4.5m deep. Since a butanding can be about 4.5m in width, it cannot be in a comfortable horizontal position in that water level. The boatman told me they also have to make the butanding “stand” so tourists can see it.
The feeder on the boat has krill that stunk and attracted flies. This is the controversial daily feeding that’s been going on for years. Whale sharks equate the boat and people with food so they come unafraid.
As such, many tourists also choose come here because of guaranteed sighting unlike in Donsol, Sorsogon which has strict rules protecting these butandings.
The boatman said that each butanding needs 30kg of krill daily and there can be four to five in a day. There isn’t enough krill in Oslob so they buy from Dumaguete, Negros Oriental and freeze them.
I know from a previous whale shark experience in Donsol that butandings feed on plankton. These migratory creatures head to Donsol when plankton is in season then go elsewhere during off season. In contrast, butandings overstay in Oslob due to the daily feeding. I wondered whether krill was nutritious enough. Plus, how does the daily feeding affect the marine eco-system in Oslob, and the life and habits of these gentle giants?
My friend declared that snorkelling with butandings was the best highlight of her Cebu trip. But this was followed by a long discussion. For how long can the fishermen use poverty as an excuse to exploit the whale sharks?
My friend said the fishermen need to be informed and educated, and there are other ways of making this a better tourist attraction without harming the whale sharks.
For example, there’s no coffee shop nor restaurant nearby. It would be a good idea to open a restaurant, and perhaps a B&B. They can also improve the layout by moving the carpark from the beach front, add a souvenir shop, and offer a tour package that includes the nearby sandbar, hot springs, and waterfalls.
Upsetting as it is that these fishermen are exploiting the whale sharks, to me the bigger questions are what are the Department of Tourism, travel trade associations, local government doing to and start protecting the whale sharks, while educating these fishermen. Do they even care at all?
