Royal Caribbean’s Empress of the Seas

Both Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) and Royal Caribbean International have been given the green light from the Cuban government to operate cruises to the country in 2017.

All three of NCL’s brands – Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises – have received the approval.

NCL’s first cruise will set sail from Port Miami on Oceania Cruises’ Marina on March 7, 2017, with select Caribbean itineraries featuring calls on Havana. Seven Seas Mariner, of the Regent Seven Seas Cruises fleet, will call on Havana during two cruises in April 2017. As well, Norwegian Sky will also offer a selection of four-day voyages that will overnight in Havana in May 2017.

Royal Caribbean’s revitalised Empress of the Seas will make its first visit to Cuba during a five-night sailing departing Miami on April 19, 2017. The ship will then reposition to Tampa, and offer two itineraries with calls to Havana on April 30 (seven-night sailing) and May 20 (five-night sailing). These Empress of the Seas sailings are now open for bookings.

From there, the Empress of the Seas will homeport in Tampa for the 2017 summer season – the cruise line’s first-ever summer programme from the destination – offering a series of four- and five-night sailings, including port calls to destinations in Cuba.

Vietnam’s real estate firm VinaCapital, together with Hong Kong’s Gold Yield Enterprises and the Suncity Group of Macau, have entered into a joint venture to develop Hoiana, a new resort destination located south of Hoi An in central Vietnam.

The US$4 billion beachfront project is scheduled to open its first phase in 1Q2019 with a casino, 445-room hotel complex, 200 apartment-suites for sale on a buy-to-let basis operated by Hong Kong’s New World Hotels, a luxury Rosewood spa with 75 villas and 25 residences, as well as a Robert Trent Jones II-designed golf course.

Leisure activities include a beach club and entertainment venue, live shows and events, watersports and dive centre, retail promenade and a range of new bars and restaurants.

Subsequent phases will happen over the course of 10 to 15 years, where a township of hotels, residential and lifestyle zones, beachfront village and retail district, convention centre, hospitality training college, water sports hub, second golf course and a new lagoon are currently being envisioned.

Hoiana’s chairman, Don Lam, said: “This integrated resort and leisure playground will set a new benchmark for high-end tourism in Vietnam, bringing economic prosperity and opportunity to Quang Nam province.”

Lam expects the mega resort to inject significant income opportunities into the local economy, but added that the developers will seek to minimise the venture’s impact on the environment.

The expansion of the nearest Da Nang International Airport has since been fast-tracked by the Vietnamese government to accommodate the expected influx of visitors when Hoiana is completed.

An electronic tourist visa facility will be made available to select nationalities visiting Vietnam from February 1 next year as part of a two-year trial scheme, the latest announcement in a series of visa relaxation initiatives to facilitate travel into the country.

Under the scheme, visitors can apply for 30-day single entry visas through a website and have them issued by the immigration authority within about three days, according to local media reports.

Vietnam’s tourism authorities are certain that such improvements in visa policy will make entry into the country much easier and boost the destination’s competitiveness.

“We try our best to make the (visa application) process more convenient. Many travellers today, including those from Singapore, value convenience and (time-savings) instead of just cash savings,” said Ha Van Sieu, vice chairman of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, at a roadshow in Singapore last Friday.

The list of nationalities eligible for the new e-visa facility has not been disclosed.

Other recent developments include the extension of temporary visa exemption for citizens of the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany till June 30, 2017.

Currently, Vietnam’s visa-exempt countries include Japan, South Korea, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia and ASEAN countries.

The temporary suspension of some operations at China’s travel e-commerce aggregator Shijie99, which ran into financial troubles recently, had affected many suppliers in Hong Kong and dented their confidence in working with Chinese online platforms.

The Beijing-based company had issued a letter of apology to all cooperating partners on November 27, stating it would reassess all cooperation channels and various business streams and resume all operating platforms on December 2.

Utour, parent company of Shijie99, had also agreed to inject more than RMB40 million (US$5.8 million) into the company.

Westminster Travel has since taken actions to curtail any disruptions arising from Shijie99. Said CEO Larry Lo: “We have stopped supplying air tickets to the site as it still owes us money. Typically, millions of transactions are generated per month from the site as the booking traffic is immense.”

Lotus Tours, which is also awaiting payment from the company, has stopped issuing air tickets online except for bookings via QQ or email. CEO Ken Ng said: “Our monthly transaction is small, less than HK$10 million (US$1.3 million), so we are not seriously affected.

“However, it’s an issue of business trust so once the management clears their internal issues, we may resume the service,” he added.

For Nan Hwa (Express) Travel Service executive director Jason Shum, on the other hand, business has resumed with Shijie99 since early December after the Chinese B2B site cleared the issues. He said: “We have been paid through weekly BSP and booking traffic is starting to come in again. Frankly, the site generates a lot of business for us.”

However, Shijie99’s predicament is not confined to Hong Kong only, as “quite a number” of suppliers in Singapore and Taiwan were affected by Shijie99’s partial closure of services, Shum told TTG Asia.

Since its establishment in April 2014, Shijie99 has grown to become one of China’s leading travel e-commerce aggregators with over 300 staff.

Penang’s luxury heritage hotel, The Edison George Town, has begun partnering OTAs to move its 35-key inventory and is looking to work with travel agencies specialising in high-end markets to broaden its clientele.

The hotel’s executive assistant manager, Ivan Khoo, said: “Being an affiliated member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World allows us to reach into longhaul markets but we hope to grow (our distribution) by working with OTAs and soon luxury travel agencies too. We are particularly keen on those with direct flights into Penang.”

According to Khoo, the hotel has been performing at an average occupancy rate of 60-plus per cent since opening in July this year, with top source markets being Singapore, Hong Kong Australia, the US and the UK in the respective order.

“We have been doing very well for a young property, and we have bookings all the way to June 2017,” he added.

With three 12-seat private cabanas on offer, along with the possibilty of property buyout, Khoo said he was also open to working with corporates and business event planners.

William Costley

Hilton Hotels & Resorts is exploring opportunities in Sri Lanka while stepping up efforts to cater to a growing Chinese clientele, according to a senior Hilton official.

During a visit to Colombo last week, Hilton’s vice president for South-east Asia and India, William Costley, spoke of plans to increase the chain’s presence in the country beyond the existing 382-room, 29-year-old Hilton Colombo.

This comes on the back of Sri Lanka announcing its ambitions to increase arrivals from 1.7 million to five million by 2020 and to inject an additional 50-60,000 rooms to the country’s current inventory of 32,000 registered rooms.

Costley said the group is considering locations in Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Dambulla, as well as resorts in the south including Yala wildlife safaris and possibly Jaffna.

In Colombo, the group is looking at the possibility of a smaller hotel under the DoubleTree by Hilton brand.

The Hilton Colombo has undergone an extensive renovation project over the past 18 months, adding a new Chinese restaurant to cater to its growing Chinese clientele.