THE Indian Embassy in Indonesia is working hard to increase Indonesian arrivals, especially the youths, through the Festival of India in Indonesia campaign that runs up to June 21, despite the lack of direct flights between the two countries.

Speaking at a press conference during the Indian Travel Congress 2015 in Bali, ambassador of India to Indonesia and Timor Leste, Gurjit Singh, said 30 events “targeted at young people” have been lined up in 16 Indonesian cities, including Jakarta, Bandung, Medan, Surabaya and Semarang.

The events include folk dances such as bhangra and Gujarati Garba, masked dances and puppet shows, photo exhibitions, and literary and cross-cultural exchanges with Indonesian authors.

The congress was held in Bali to support the campaign, by giving the Indonesian exhibitors an opportunity to network with Indian travel consultants and to experience Indian culture and cuisine, said Sunil Kumar, president of the Travel Agents Association of India.

This was the first time the congress’s travel mart component also had exhibitors from India promoting inbound tourism to India.

Gurjit added: “We are also promoting education tourism to encourage young people to study in India, and inviting Indonesian bloggers with big followings on tours to India so they will blog about their experiences.”

Additionally, Gurjit said the embassy wants to ride on Indonesia’s current Bollywood craze and has proposed to India’s Ministry of Tourism to introduce tours of four circuits where Bollywood films were shot.

From 2012 to 2014, Indonesian arrivals to India doubled from 25,000 to 50,000, while arrivals from India to Indonesia also doubled from 125,000 to 250,000.

NEPAL’S multi-industrial, transnational CG Corp Global last week inked a strategic deal with Concept Hospitality, owner of the Fern brand in India.

Through the partnership, Concept Hospitality is now a part of CG Corp Global’s hospitality arm, CG Hotels And Resorts, which targets to grow to 200 hotels worldwide by 2020.

“Right now we cannot share details regarding the nature of the investment. We wanted CG Hotels & Resorts to have a much larger platform and there couldn’t be a better partner than Concept Hospitality. The partnership gives us a strong footprint in an important market like India,” said Binod Chaudhury, chairman, CG Corp Global.

CG Hotels And Resorts now has eight brands in its portfolio, including The Zinc, The Fern, Zinc Journey, The Fern Residency, Glow, Zinc City, Beacon and Zinc Living with 88 operational hotels in 11 countries.

“We were interested to have an investor on board who has a background in the hospitality sector. We are now drawing a plan for our expansion strategy,” said Param Kannampilly, managing director, Concept Hospitality.

“Africa is going to be one of the major thrust regions for CG Hotels And Resorts. To begin with, we are looking to open properties in around five countries in the African continent which we believe has a dearth of international hotel chains. The first property for which we have already acquired land will come up in Rwanda under The Zinc,” said Chaudhury.

CG Corp Global also has a joint venture with Indian Hotels Company to start Taj Safaris India and to operate the Taj Samudra Hotel in Sri Lanka and the Taj Exotica in Maldives, as well as a stake in Alila Hotels & Resorts, which has two resorts operating in Goa and Bengaluru.

HONG KONG trade players are objecting to levies that the Airport Authority (AA) is proposing to impose on passengers and airlines, saying that the entity is capable of raising funds through other means.

Following the Executive Council’s approval to buid a third runway at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), AA has suggested a HK$180 (US$23) levy on departing passengers while airlines will have to pay an additional 15 per cent in airport charges from next year. The third runway wiill be situated on 650ha of reclaimed land and is expected to take eight years for construction.

Strongly opposing the levy, Gray Line Tours managing director, Michael Wu, said: “We support the new runway but AA should explore all funding options, like issuing bonds, before charging passengers.

“As far as I know, it hasn’t even tried to approach the Legislative Council for funding so it seems to me that AA hasn’t any strong reason for such a decision.”

Airlines have also chimed in. Home-grown LCC HK Express deputy CEO, Andrew Cowen, is concerned that increased landing fees and the introduction of an airport construction fee will affect business. “If there are additional charges on top of existing fees, more and more of our guests will end up paying more to use the airport than they do to actually fly with us. This doesn’t sound quite right, or how it should be.”

Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific Airways in a statement said it believes AA is fully capable of financing the construction of the runway through its own means without the need to impose a additional financial burden on travellers.

DIFFERENTIATION through value-adds is the key for travel consultants to staying relevant and unscathed by competition from OTAs and product owners who sell direct to consumers, advised speakers at the 62^nd Convention & Exhibition of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) last week.

Held in Bali from March 26 to 28, the theme of the convention was Reflections – Redefining Relevance, recommending tour operators to change approaches and embrace change. The conference attracted some 700 delegates.

One of the speakers, Dhananjay Saliankar, regional director, South Asia, Starwood Hotels & Resorts said travel consultants should view themselves as travel planners able to provide personalisation and unique experiences. He said: “They should ask themselves what they can do to be different from other consultants and to brush up their skills on being a ‘trusted advisor’ (to clients).

“They should be able to add-value for their customers such as providing solutions to complex trips which are not point-to-point journeys, and focus on customers with high value – those who have a lot of money but have little time.”

Niranjan Gupta, Founder & CEO of Trip 38, concurred, sharing that his company provides online solutions for travel consultants to upsell and engage with customers beyond airline ticket sales. It answers requests from customers who want complete information, from planning the holiday to experiences in the destination.

Sunil Kumar, TAAI president, told TTG Asia e-Daily that a substantial number of travel consultants across India are still dependent on ticketing. As such, the convention was TAAI’s first initiative to create opportunities for members about specialisations in the areas of MICE, destination management companies, luxury travel and destination weddings.

MELIÁ Hotels International is planting its flag on the up-and-coming holiday destinations of Phu Quoc in Vietnam, where it will open a Sol House resort.

Developed by local real estate development MIK and managed by Meliá, the four-star Sol House Phu Quoc will open in 2016 with 260 rooms and bungalows.

It will also feature a spa, two different dining spaces, a beach bar, a swimming pool and a beach sport centre.

Sol House Phu Quoc is Meliá’s third property in Vietnam. Phu Quoc island is 50km from the Vietnamese mainland and a 50-minute flight from Ho Chi Minh City.

THE scenic Huangshan is HK Express’ next landing pad as the LCC grows its network in China.

The twice-weekly service begins on March 29 and is the airline’s fifth Chinese destination.

On Mondays, flights depart Hong Kong at 09.20 to arrive at 11.15. The return leg will see HK Express leave at 11.55 and touch down in Hong Kong at 14.00.

HK Express will also fly this route on Fridays at an earlier time slot of 07.45 and reach Huangshan at 09.40. It leaves Huangshan at 10.25 and returns to Hong Kong at 12.35 on the same day.

“HK Express is unfolding the map of China and offering fresh wonders to our guests almost every month,” said Luke Lovegrove, commercial director, HK Express.

“Huangshan has always been popular with independent travellers and we are delighted to bring this great destination within easy low-fare reach of Hong Kong,” he added.

ACCESSIBILITY to the Philippines, a longstanding challenge for tourism, is improving markedly owing to the unprecedented increase in foreign ailrines flying into the country and new routes blazed this year.

Erwin Balane, head of the department of tourism’s route development team, told TTG Asia e-Daily: “The number of seats that we have already added is by the hundreds of thousands a year, which also means additional visitor traffic to the Philippines.”

According to Balane, foreign airlines coming in this year include Ethiopian Airlines’ thrice-weekly Addis Ababa-Manila service starting June 27; HK Express’ Hong Kong-Kalibo (Boracay) and Hong Kong-Cebu services, both twice-weekly with dates to be announced; and Garuda Indonesia’s Jakarta-Manila service four times a week, starting August 2.

Local carriers will also launch new routes: Philippine Airlines’ (PAL) thrice-weekly Manila-Jinjiang, China service from April 25; PAL’s twice-weekly Manila-Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea from June; and Cebu Pacific Air’s (CEB) twice-weekly Manila-Doha service beginning June 4.

This year, PAL also began flying to New York while CEB launched services to Hong Kong from Kalibo and to Tokyo (Narita) from Cebu.

Stressing the importance of air access in bringing the tourists, Balane said the Philippines is eyeing more links to Asia, including China, South Korea and Singapore.

His team is also working towards direct flights from Asia to secondary destinations such as Davao, Cebu and Boracay, since Manila’s airport is already congested for faster and more competitive travel.

IT’S game on in Australia where the city of Brisbane wants to attract Asia-Pacific’s gamblers with a ‘Singapore-style’ integrated resort.

Singapore’s The Straits Times reported earlier this week that the resort will be constructed on prime waterfront land at the Queen’s Wharf precinct to the tune of A$1 billion (US$780.8 billion).

The resort, which Queensland’s department of state development said draws on inspiration from Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands, will include luxury hotels, function centres, F&B outlets, residential units and a pedestrian bridge, as well as gaming facilities.

Competition for rights to operate the development has been intense. Crown Resorts, alongside China’s Greenland Holding is going neck and neck with Echo Entertainment that is partnering Hong Kong’s Far East Consortium International and Chow Tai Fook Enterprise, said the Straits Times report.

Australian casino giants Crown Resorts and Echo Entertainment are competing neck-and-neck for managing rights to the development, which is expected to bring in 1.4 million more visitors to Australia a year and create thousands of jobs.