ADDITIONAL airports around Asia will be home to more than 40 TravelersBox kiosks by the end of 2016.

These kiosks allow travellers to deposit their leftover foreign currency into online accounts such as PayPal, Skype, iTunes and Starbucks gift cards. There is also a donation button for travellers to donate to a preferred cause.

Tokyo’s Narita International Airport is the second airport in Asia to receive the physical-to-digital currency convertor kiosks after Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Tomer Zussman, co-founder and CEO of TravelersBox, said: “For the Asian market we’ve given specific attention for each of the local travellers’ nationalities. Solutions such as Nets Flash Card for Singaporeans, Lazada for South-east Asian travellers and more, will soon be available.”

The company has also entered into a partnership with Baidu wallet, tapping the Chinese market.

TravelersBox currently have over 75 kiosks located in airports around the world.

The Glasshouse, Edinburgh

MALAYSIA’s YTL Hotels is expanding its portfolio with the recent acquisition of three properties, one each in Edinburgh, Berkshire and London.

The Glasshouse Hotel, located in the heart of Edinburgh, is part of Marriott International’s Autograph Collection.

This acquisition reinforces YTL’s partnership with Marriott, which began in 1995 through the ownership, management and future development of seven properties including JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur and The Ritz-Carlton Koh Samui.

The second property that will come under YTL’s hotel portfolio is Monkey Island in the village of Bray in Berkshire, renowned as the only village in the world with four Michelin-star restaurants and pubs.

YTL also acquired the Academy Hotel in London’s West End. The hotel comprises five restored Georgian townhouses and is a stone’s throw away from The British Museum.

With these, YTL’s global portfolio has increased to 29 assets across Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, China, France, Spain and the UK.

ACCORHOTELS has brought the co-living concept into the hospitality space with the launch of new brand Jo&Joe.

Accor describes Jo&Joe as “a brand that blends the best of private-rental, hostel and hotel formats” that caters to the needs of millennial travellers seeking community living, such as shared kitchens and sleeping areas.

Plans are for 50 properties to open by 2020 in destinations popular with millennials, such as Bangkok, Warsaw, Budapest, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, with openings in the cities of Paris and Bordeaux first in 2018.

All Jo&Joe venues will take root in bustling city-center locations that are close to public transport and in proximity to major points of interest, said Accor.

Giving an idea of how the pioneering concept might work in a hotel setting, Frédéric Fontaine, senior vice president, global marketing innovation lab at AccorHotels, said: “More than just an accommodation solution, Jo&Joe has been conceived as an experience enhancer thanks notably to its offbeat design, innovative digital ecosystem and catering offerings.

“With its ‘open house’ concept, the brand diversifies the customer journey by welcoming guests as well as locals, who treat Jo&Joe venues as an annex of their living room.”

The concept is designed to promote interaction and foster community living thanks to common areas that are open to both guests and public, where activities such as a concert, yoga class or workshop can be held.

Room formats are also unconventional and caters to different needs. The Happy House, for instance, is a private area where travellers can relax, work, cook or wash their clothes, while Together, the brand’s flagship room type, is a modular sleeping area with recreation spaces and bathrooms that guests share without sacrificing privacy.

Jo&Joe’s concept is co-conceived by UK design company Penson, known for creating spaces for brands such as Google, YouTube, Playstation and Lotte World Tower.

Local Cambodian seller at a floating market

CAMBODIAN agents are favourable towards a new ecotourism legislation currently being drafted.

Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism revealed that the law, now in an early developmental stage, aims to better tap into the global ecotourism trend by keeping tourist offerings competitive while at the same time protect natural resources and boost conservation efforts.

The legislation is being developed with the help of the French University of Toulouse and Acting for Life, an NGO which specialises in sustainable tourism, to identify necessary criteria to govern and support the growth of the sector.

Tourism minister Thong Khon said: “Ecotourism is a new tool to attract foreign tourists and it is a trend that should be focused on to develop our tourism industry. Ecotourism can benefit local people directly and play an efficient role in reducing poverty.”

He added that arrivals for ecotourism and community-based tourism (CBT) are growing by almost 20 per cent year-on-year.

Somborath Dy, operations manager at Cambodian Rural Development Tours, which promotes ecotourism in Northeast Cambodia, said: “Cambodia has the potential to develop ecotourism because it not only has rich cultural resources but also diverse natural resources.”

He adds that It is essential the plan encourages private and public bodies to work together to enhance training, capacity building and financial backing to promote sustainable growth and overcome challenges such as insufficient infrastructure, illegal hunting and excessive logging.

Heng Vuthy, general manager of Mekong Dreams, which focuses on CBT, said: “Cambodia has many sites that are perfect for ecotourism to be developed, helping provide authentic experiences while providing support to many struggling communities.”

For 1H2016, 37,385 international tourists visited Cambodia for ecotourism, an increase of six per cent compared to the same period last year.

PRELIMINARY traffic figures for August released by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) showed an increase in international air passenger demand, albeit with a decline in load factor and projections for moderation of growth rates in the near future.

Andrew Herdman, AAPA director general, said: “For the first eight months of the year, Asian carriers registered a healthy 6.5 per cent increase in the number of international passengers carried to a cumulative total of 196.3 million, on the back of continued strong demand for both business and leisure travel.”

The region’s airlines carried a total of 25.9 million international passengers in August, 4.1 per cent more than the same month last year. Measured in revenue passenger kilometre terms, international passenger demand grew by 4.2 per cent, supported by traffic growth on both regional and longhaul routes.

However, capacity expansion of 6.2 per cent outpaced the growth in demand, resulting in a 1.5 percentage point decline in the average international passenger load factor to 81.5 per cent for the month.

Looking ahead, Herdman concluded: “Asian economies are still growing, and demand for air travel has been boosted by rising incomes and the widespread availability of affordable airfares, but growth rates may moderate as oil prices have now stabilised, adding to competitive pressures.”

MALAYSIA’s Sunway Hotels & Resorts has opened its first regional sales office in Shanghai in an effort to better serve the Chinese market.

The office, opened on August 1, is developed in partnership with Century Holiday International Travel Group and will be responsible for Sunway’s key corporate accounts in China and to represent the hospitality group’s 11 properties in Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam.

“Our presence in China affirms Sunway’s commitment to further strengthen the brand’s footprint, catering to the robust Chinese outbound corporate travel and leisure tourist markets,” said Albert Cheong, CEO of Sunway Hotels & Resorts.

“Working alongside Century Holiday will provide Sunway the platforms to capture a significant share of a growing number of Chinese outbound travellers across all segments of the market,” he added.

Following the opening of the regional sales office, Sunway organised a three-city roadshow from September 19-23 to promote several of Sunway’s facilities as a major tourist and convention destination.

The roadshow, done in collaboration with Tourism Malaysia, Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia and Century Holiday, toured the major cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou before concluding at the 3rd Sichuan International Travel Expo (SCITE) in Emeishan, China.

SOME 500 delegates from 60 countries convened in Bangkok from September 26-28 to take part in the annual World Tourism Day. The theme this year was Tourism For All: Promoting Universal Accessibility.

During the two-day event, policy frameworks, capacity building and business strategies were discussed. National delegates also exchanged best practices and experiences on accessible tourism, and declared their commitment to advance universal accessibility to ensure that all citizens enjoy the benefits of travel regardless of their abilities.

Prayut Chan-o-Cha, Thailand’s prime minister who presided over the official celebrations on September 27, said: “One billion people across the globe have some kind of disability, (hence) accessibility becomes and will continue to be a major concern for us all.”

This sentiment was echoed by Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, Thailand’s minister of tourism and sports. She added that “no one should be left behind” and more was needed to be done to better understand the needs of such groups.

Also in attendance was Ivor Ambrose, director of the European Network of Accessible Tourism, who said that by 2050, as much as 22 per cent of the world population will be over 60 years old and thus have specific access needs.

UNWTO’s secretary-general Taleb Rifai, added: “People with disabilities, aged citizens, families with children and many more find obstacles when they travel. As tourism is a human right, the sector should advance to ensure that all citizens enjoy seamless travel in an equal manner.”

“All of us have somebody who finds difficulties when travelling: family members, friends and colleagues, so we all are affected and can benefit from accessible travel measures,” emphasised Mario Hardy, CEO of PATA.

But making the world more accessible also bodes well for business. David Scowsill, president and CEO, WTTC, said: “Products and services aiming to increase the accessibility of travel add value to destinations and constitute an immense opportunity for the business sector.”

Next year’s World Tourism Day will be held in Qatar with the theme Sustainable Tourism – a Tool for Development.

CRACKDOWNS on zero-dollar tours have caused package prices to double, forcing operators to reinvent their products, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).

TAT has revealed that the price of a China-to-Thailand package now exceeds 3,000 yuan (US$450). It is now close to the price of a package from China to Japan, which starts at around 4,000 yuan.

It is hard for tour agents serving the Chinese market to woo clients as most agents had relied on zero-dollar tours for more than a decade.

“We must create value-for-money packaged tours. Beaches and food must be core products to compete with Japan because beaches in Thailand are more popular than those in Japan,” Chuwith Sirivajjakul, the director of TAT’s Shanghai office, said in his video call to the monthly meeting of the Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA) on Thursday.

As package prices rise, Thailand’s tour agents must now aim for higher-end tourists with higher purchasing power.

On the same occasion, ATTA president Charoen Wangananont said association members were hoping for minimum package prices to be set at 2,500 yuan in order to be competitive. They will propose the pricing to TAT and the details of will be finalised in October.

TAT accepted that package tour sales for the Golden Week (October 1-7) significantly dropped. During the holidays, it projected that arrivals from some Chinese cities to Thailand would decline around 30 per cent. Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket will be the most affected.

“It is a difficult time for Thailand’s tourism industry but it will be short. Our image will be better (in time),” said Charun Chuennaitom, TAT’s director in Chengdu.

Charun added that even though Thailand has lost market share to neighboring countries, Chinese tourists and agents in general reacted positively to the crackdown on zero-collar tours because they knew that they would not suffer maltreatment anymore.

ATTA reported that as of September 20, international tourist arrivals via its members increased 12.7 per cent to 4.37 million visitors. Its top three markets were China, Russia and Vietnam.

Arrivals from China grew 24 per cent year-on-year to 2.79 million visitors. Those from Vietnam increased by 20 per cent to 193,398 visitors while Russian visitors decreased by 20 per cent to 266,017 visitors.