HARNESSING the reach of Ang Lee’s movie, Life of Pi, India has announced its new tourism campaign, Land of Pi.

The film, based on Yann Martel’s book of the same name, was largely shot in Puducherry in Pondicherry and Munnar in Kerala.

The campaign will run in English, Mandarin, Japanese, French and German, with roadshows held in mainland China and Taiwan initially. India’s tourism ministry will also run Land of Pi online contests, in which two winners each month stand to win air tickets to Chennai or Kochi and holiday packages to Puducherry and Munnar. Special walking trails and tours have also been finalised for tourists on Land of Pi itineraries.

Tourism minister, K Chiranjeevi, said the ministry would roll out incentives and promotions for international filmmakers who wish to shoot their films in India.

“Life of Pi is a beautiful film with images that leave a lasting impression. The locales used have been portrayed aesthetically and should give viewers an attractive preview of our destinations. I expect the Land of Pi campaign to elicit great interest in south India as an inbound tourist destination,” said Johny Abraham George, managing director, Intersight Tours & Travels Cochin.

TURKISH Tourism Office has doubled its promotional budget for India from last year and will ramp up cultural showcases in a bid to further encourage further growth from the market.

Turkey received 78,000 visitors from India between January and October 2012, a 25 per cent increase over the same period the year before.

“We plan to invest US$2 million in the Indian market in 2013 – half of which will go to advertising and the rest to participating in tourism fairs, organising film festivals and cultural shows and joint promotional campaigns,” said Özgür Aytürk, culture and tourism counsellor, Turkish Embassy New Delhi.

Turkish Tourism Office is also looking to establish a Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Center to showcase its culture and offer Turkish language lessons.

Turkish Airlines has also applied for approval to double the number of daily flights it runs from New Delhi and Mumbai. The airline has also applied to operate services to Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Amritsar.

“Turkey has become very popular among Indian travellers. Efforts to increase the number of promotional campaigns or flights will add to its visitor arrivals from India,” said Prem Syal, CEO and managing director, Hi! Tours.

GARUDA Indonesia and Indonesia’s Directorate General of Immigration have renewed their Immigration on Board service, expanding it with a new Immigration at the Lounge feature and a Fast Track Immigration lane at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

The Immigration at the Lounge service allows business class passengers and Garuda Frequent Flyer Platinum members to have their immigration documents cleared at the airline’s executive lounge. They can also zip through immigration via a fast track lane at the airport.

Garuda’s two new services augment its existing Immigration on Board service. Passengers who obtain a visa on arrival (VOA) voucher at Garuda offices or their airports of origin for US$25 will receive their VOAs and have their documents checked on board, allowing them to bypass the queues at immigration upon arrival at their destination.

The airline has signed an agreement with Bank BRI to issue the VOA vouchers.

Immigration on Board is available on selected Garuda routes: Tokyo (Narita)-Jakarta, Seoul-Jakarta, Sydney-Jakarta, Tokyo (Narita)-Denpasar, Osaka-Denpasar and Sydney-Denpasar.

Said Garuda president and CEO, Emirsyah Satar: “(These) services have given Garuda Indonesia a competitive advantage since the beginning (of the joint agreement with the Directorate General of Immigration), and now with BRI as well.”

DOMESTIC ferry operator 2GO in the Philippines is working to attract value-conscious leisure travellers from overseas, as well as event bookings.

Stephen Rey Tagud, 2GO vice president and chief commercial officer, explained that there were a lot of Indians who wanted to travel around Asia and the Philippines with their families, but were on a tight budget.

The company has been pursuing leads from India and Taiwan obtained at PATA Travel Mart in Manila last September.

Amy G Leyes, assistant vice president for passage group sales, said: “We’re partnering a Taiwanese party organiser (with networks in the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia) to sell Boracay as a party destination.”

She added that leisure enquiries were also streaming in from Latvia, Scotland and South Korea.

2GO has also secured a pink market group for 1Q2013, and some 500 to 600 participants are expected. Theme parties on board and in Boracay will be offered in the five-day/four-night programme, as well as bundled packages that include buffet meals, airport transfers, day tours to Intramuros and Tagaytay for early morning arrivals, shuttle services from Manila to Batangas port, and land and boat transfers to Caticlan. A cruise-fly option is also offered to travellers planning on extending their visit in Boracay or elsewhere.

Meanwhile, 2GO is marketing its Batangas-Boracay and Manila-Cebu overnight ferry trips to overseas MICE markets, offering corporate groups on option to host themed meetings and events on board its vessels.

Seminars can be conducted on vessels plying the Cebu route, with setups available for 200 pax in theatre style. Boracay-bound vessels offer converted space in the cafe and an open deck. Ships on both routes can be used for deck parties with band performances, karaoke nights and teambuilding sessions. Free Wi-Fi would be offered from this year and on board e-gaming facilities were being considered, said Tagud.

Top local companies are being targeted, and 2GO is looking to build ties with the Philippine travel trade too. Corporate rates are available for groups of 10 or more.

KEMPINSKI Ambience Hotel Delhi has cancelled its official opening celebrations planned for January 18, citing ongoing unrest in the city as a reason.

Vella Ramaswamy, general manager of the property which had soft opened last October, denies that the move was due to cancellation of bookings from leisure and business clients as a result of the anti-rape protests that have been held in the city since mid-December.

Ramaswamy told TTG Asia e-Daily: “The Kempinski Ambience Delhi is located in the heart of the city and therefore has to respect the ongoing sentiment of the capital. The city is (concerned about) the safety of its citizens and we would like to contribute in our own way by not celebrating the grand opening of the hotel.”

He added: “The entire political and administrative leadership is pensive over the current situation. New Year celebrations in the city were also curtailed in most of the places.

That said, Ramaswamy is confident of “hosting substantially big events in the first quarter of 2013”.

The hotel is still open for reservations, although no definite date has been set of the official opening.

INDONESIAN outbound travel consultants are expecting stronger demand to the US this year with the recent formation of the Visit USA Committee by the US embassy in Jakarta.

Panorama Tours Indonesia managing director – corporate incentive management, Vidya Hermanto, said: “There have been no tourism marketing and promotional activities between Indonesia and the US in the last 10 years or so, and obtaining a visa has been difficult due to security reasons.

“The Visit USA committee has shown interest in enticing the Indonesian outbound travellers to the US again, not only from the leisure sector, but also from corporates and students.”

The US was one of Indonesians’ favourite destinations in the 1990s, connected with direct air services, including Garuda Indonesia. However, the market declined in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and Garuda’s suspension of its US services.

According to WITA Tour director of sales, Rudiana, the US embassy had recently eased the visa application process, such as waiving interviews for travellers who had been previously granted a US visa.

Smailing Tour vice president MICE, Lucky Albertinus, said: “The interest to travel to the US has never been totally dead for us – there are FITs, families or small groups. These are mostly (travellers) who already hold a multiple visa, so they just need to book a flight and go.

“There may not be a drastic change in visa application requirements in the short term, but we can generate more interest from Indonesian travellers with new products (in the US). Honestly, the products we have been selling are the same old ones, so we would like the trade in the US to introduce and promote new destinations and products here,” he urged.

“The Visit USA committee opens up (opportunities) to develop the market, not only for outbound but also inbound traffic from the US as well.”

WHILE 2014 may be still a year away, both the Ministry of Tourism and Tourism Malaysia are already making preparations for Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2014, vowing to look into areas such as tourism infrastructure, security and next year’s event line-up.

A target of 28 million tourists has been set for the VMY campaign, two million more than this year’s goal of 26 million, revealed tourism minister Ng Yen Yen during a press conference today.

Having received the green light from the Cabinet for the VYM 2014 since July 2012, it was not until October that a secretariat for the campaign was set up.

Ng said: “We don’t want to rush into things. We want to do it well and prepare the country to welcome the world. Hence, this whole year, we will be preparing the nation for Visit Malaysia next year. Areas we will look at include tourism infrastructure, security, and introducing new events in 2014 and hyping up existing events.”

From January 18, a three-day carnival will take place at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur to create awareness of the economic importance of Visit Malaysia.

The promotional campaign, together with its logo and theme song, will be officially launched by Malaysian prime minister Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak on January 19.

A PERSISTENTLY weak euro and improved consumer confidence at the start of this year have led to stronger forward bookings for Insight Vacations’ European tours.

Sheryl Lim, regional director of Asia, Insight Vacations, told TTG Asia e-Daily that year-to-date forward bookings out of Singapore had risen some 30 per cent, compared to the start of 2012.

“Our forward bookings suffered early last year because the government had advised a possible recession in 2012, causing Singaporeans to think twice about spending. We saw Singaporeans holding back on their mid-year holidays. Fortunately, as the year-end approached, travel bookings came forth strongly. Perhaps Singaporeans realised that if they did not take any holidays by the year-end, they would not have had a proper rest for the whole year,” said Lim.

She added: “It helps that the euro’s exchange rate against the Singapore dollar is still very attractive, making tours much cheaper than before and shopping opportunities in Europe most appealing.”

Lim said as much as 30 per cent of travellers who had booked Insight Vacations tour packages were repeat clients.

“Some travel with Insight Vacations on an annual basis, while others return on a three- to five-year cycle,” she said.

Lim expects a clearer picture of bookings out of Singapore to form after the NATAS Travel sales fair on February 22-24.

“We hope to end 2013 with a 15 per cent increment in bookings out of Singapore – and that is a conservative expectation. Singapore is in fact Insight Vacations’ largest market in Asia, and if the euro continues to stay down, the year could turn out to be very good for us,” she said.