SRI Lankan authorities will launch a new tourism promotion campaign next month with a little help from TUI.

“We are hoping to start a new promotion campaign next month focused on travellers from Europe, Asia and the Middle East,” Rumy Jauffer, managing director of the state-owned Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB), told TTG Asia e-Daily.

The bureau last Tuesday met with Aitken Spence Hotels, TUI’s local agent, to discuss how TUI could provide support for the campaign.

Jauffer confirmed that the initiative would be done mostly through TV advertisements as well as travel and tourism websites both locally and internationally.

TUI’s CEO, Peter Long, had last week revealed that the tour operator was looking into the possibility of cooperating with local tourism authorities for a marketing campaign, while TUI specialist UK managing director, Mathew Prior, pointed out that there is currently very little marketing of Sri Lanka as a destination.

Both Long and Prior were in Sri Lanka last week for talks on the resumption of weekly charters to Sri Lanka (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 16, 2014).

BENGALURU-BASED Air Pegasus will begin flights in March as the latest LCC to ply Indian skies.

The carrier will fly 25 routes daily to domestic destinations including Hyderabad, Chennai and Goa. Currently possessing three 72-seat ATR turboprop aircraft, it will expand its fleet to six by 4Q2014.

Shyson Thomas, chairman and mananging director, said: “We hope to offer fares lower by about Rs1,000 (US$16) compared to our competitors in all the sectors we fly. We will also create hubs in Kolkata and Ahmedabad soon.”

Air Pegasus also intends to run flights on the Thiruvananthapuram-Malé and Kolkata-Dhaka routes, should India abolish the requirement of airlines to have been in operation for five years and own 20 aircraft for launching international services, said Thomas.

Anil Punjabi, chairman-east, Travel Agents Federation of India, said: “More flights will cover more destinations and the increased competition (and lower fares) will benefit travellers. However, the government should rationalise aviation fuel taxes and airport charges to allow carriers to sustain profits.”

Another LCC, Hyderabad-based Air Costa, began operations in October 2013 to destinations in south India. AirAsia India and Tata-SIA Airlines are scheduled for take-off in May 2014 and 1Q2015 respectively (TTG Asia e-Daily, November 13, 2013).

TOUR operators and incentive organisers from Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines can now apply for group visas for their travellers who are visiting South Korea as of January 1.

The new policy reduces the hassle of individual travellers having to apply for visas when they are travelling as a group, Lee Sootaek, director of Asia & Middle East in Korea Tourism Organization, told TTG Asia e-Daily.

He said: “We are trying our best to remove all obstacles travellers may face, especially when it comes to visas, so this will make the travel process smoother.”

Welcoming the news, Indonesia-based Aneka Kartika Tours & Travel Service, operation manager, Ronald Gunawan, projects a 40 per cent boost in volume to South Korea this year as a result of the change.

He said: “We send at least one group to South Korea every month. As we are located in Surabaya, we need to send the application to Jakarta first before it can be sent to South Korea and this takes an even longer time. I am predicting the application time can be cut to four days now.”

Peter Pham Tien Dung, director of Vietnam-based Goldentour & Convention, said this would relieve him of much paperwork. “It normally takes up to two weeks for visas to be approved.”

He added that South Korea is his top-selling destination and is experiencing year-on-year demand growth of 20 per cent.

Robert Tan, executive director, JTR Events & Marketing Vietnam, who is currently arranging for 10 groups to visit South Korea over the next two months, said: “This will help us process the bookings and get confirmations faster.”

Arjun Shroff, managing director of Shroff International Travel Care Philippines, who handles corporate groups of up to 40 travellers, shared the same sentiments. However he suggested that the visa application process be made available online too.

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VIETNAMESE inbound tour operators have identified Muslim tourism as an emerging niche segment, especially with the rising spending power of Muslim travellers in South-east Asia and across the globe.

Direct air links recently established by Middle Eastern carriers as well as Turkish Airlines, in addition to Vietnam Airlines’ four-times-weekly Jakarta-Ho Chi Minh City flights since December 2012, have made it easier for Vietnam to court Muslim travellers from both longhaul and regional markets.

The Gulf carriers’ foray into Vietnam has enabled Lac Hong Voyages to pursue the high-yield market from the Middle East, which recorded 18-20 per cent growth last year, shared the company’s executive director, Jonathan Tran Vinh Loc.

“We’re also seeing growth in Muslim arrivals from Indonesia and Malaysia, and to a certain extent from Brunei too. We have recorded a strong volume growth of 20 per cent from Indonesia from 2012 to 2013, due to the direct Jakarta link by Vietnam Airlines,” he added.

“The Muslim market from Indonesia and Malaysia is particularly good; it has grown 25 per cent last year in comparison with 2012,” said Pham Ha, founder and CEO of Luxury Travel Vietnam, which revamped its Muslim holiday website late last year. “We expect to host 1,000 to 1,200 Muslim travellers in 2014.”

He added: “(This market) is not complicated. We just need to provide what Muslims would need when travelling, such as hotels that indicate qibla (the direction a Muslim should face when praying), a prayer mat, halal food, a toilet with washing facilities and a tour that allows for daily prayers.”

For Peter Pham Tien Dung, director of Goldentour & Convention, whose Muslim bookings in South-east Asia usually hail from Indonesia, Malaysia and Phuket, the market has grown by 10 per cent last year.

He commented: “In 2010, we received around 50 Muslim groups from Malaysia and Indonesia, but last year the demand rose to 60 Muslim groups and 30 FIT packages from these two countries. Muslim FIT numbers from Malaysia in particularly are growing fast. Last year the figure rose from 20 bookings in 2010 to around 60.”

Read the full story in TTG Official Show Daily – ATF 2014

BRUNEI has recorded a 40 per cent increase in cruise throughput in 2013 over the previous year, translating into 45,560 foreign arrivals from 24 port calls.

An even better performance is expected from the sultanate’s cruise tourism sector this year, with an estimated 37 port calls and 77,029 cruise arrivals predicted, said Noraini Haji Tersad, special duties officer at Brunei Tourism.

The latest cruise ship to call on Brunei is Star Cruises’ SuperStar Aquarius which homeports in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. The 756-cabin ship offers 4D3N cruises from Kota Kinabalu to Brunei’s Bandar Seri Begawan and Sarawak’s Bintulu on a weekly basis from November 6, 2013 to March 30, 2014. It is capable of carrying 1, 511 passengers, based on lower berths.

To further encourage the development of cruise tourism, Brunei’s Cruise Ship Centre underwent minor renovations recently to upgrade its tourist information counters.

“This year Brunei Tourism is also considering holding welcome receptions at the cruise terminal for cruise ships that call for the first time.

“Tour operators in Brunei are also encouraged to tap this market further and offer more packages for shore excursions,” said Noraini.

Read more from ATF 2014 in TTG Official Show Daily – ATF 2014

ENHANCED content and a more attractive layout will greet readers of TTG Asia and TTGmice in the first half of 2014 as TTG Asia Media celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

These initiatives are among many others that the company will roll out throughout the year, and they include a more engaging and mobile-optimised ttgasia.com, an additional issue of TTG Asia Luxury – out in July and December – and the debut of TTGassociations, a quarterly publication catering to association secretariats and association event planners.

TTG Asia Media will also extend its reach in the online sphere with Travel Trade e-Space, a virtual B2B travel mart. Roomonger, a B2B e-commerce portal offering real-time room bookings with instant confirmation, will also be revived.

As with all celebrations, there will be plenty of activities throughout the year for travel trade friends to partake in, from parties and fun runs to charity drives.

Darren Ng, managing director of TTG Asia Media, will spill details on these anniversary activities today (January 22) at 12.00 during the company’s hosted lunch for all TRAVEX buyers and media at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching, Room 12 to 14.

FOR a destination that has traditionally been reliant on its immediate neighbours for visitor arrivals, Laos is steadily emerging as a tourism force on its own, driven by the country’s growing direct air links in the region.

Rising air connectivity has allowed the landlocked country to cushion impacts of adverse situations in neighbouring gateway cities better than previous years too.

Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, director general, tourism marketing department, Saly Phimphinith, said: “Based on feedback from industry members, the current Bangkok crisis has affected longhaul arrivals from Europe and the US as they usually fly into Laos via Bangkok. But source markets in Asia-Pacific like China, Japan and South Korea have not been affected as tourists from these countries can fly direct into Laos from Kunming, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.”

Saly added: “Our Asian markets are growing faster than European markets. Regional arrivals, especially from Thailand and Vietnam, are still increasing to reach around 20 per cent growth over last year.”

The top three source markets for Laos are currently Thailand, Vietnam and China respectively.

Japan is an “emerging market” for Laos, despite there being no direct flights between the two countries, according to Saly.

South Korean arrivals have surged 50 per cent from 2012 to 2013, fostered by direct air links provided by national carrier Lao Airlines and South Korean LCC Jin Air, plus higher investment in Laos by South Korean companies, he commented.

The rising Korean tide has propelled Lao Airlines to turn chartered services between Vientiane and Incheon into a regular route in October 2013, with daily flights operated on an Airbus A320 aircraft, according to Manivone Ratanavong, deputy director of the airline’s commercial department.

Manivone said: “For South Korea, we have other chartered flights to Busan and Jeju, usually during the January/February and May-July period.”

She added: “Hong Kong and Japan are the next cities on our network development strategy, but route expansion is currently limited until new aircraft arrives.”

Read more in TTG Official Show Daily – ATF 2014