BUSINESS and leisure travel between Hong Kong and Kazakhstan is set to take off following the implementation of a bilateral visa-free agreement on July 26, and the impending launch of direct flights by Air Astana.

Under the terms of the visa-free deal, Hong Kong passport holders are now able to avail of 14-day visa-free access to Kazakhstan, while Kazakh nationals can similarly spend 14 days in Hong Kong on a visa-free basis.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan flag carrier Air Astana will launch twice-weekly flights from Almaty – the former capital and currently the nation’s largest city – to Hong Kong on August 28. The service will be operated using Boeing 757 aircraft with 16 business-class and 150 economy-class seats.

“I am confident that the combination of visa-free travel and the launch of new direct services from Almaty to Hong Kong next month will result in major business and leisure traffic growth between these two destinations,” said Ibrahim Canliel, Air Astana vice president Marketing & Sales.

COX & Kings Global Services (CKGS) has kick-started its Schengen Visa & Residence Permit application service for the Royal Norwegian Embassy in India.

As part of the arrangement, CKGS will provide services such as disseminating information on visa and residence permits, pre-scrutiny of documents, and sorting of visa applications and passports received from the general public.

“The number of Indian tourists arriving in Norway has been on a steady incline,” said Ann Ollestad, Norwegian Ambassador to India.

“Our partnership with CKGS makes it more convenient for Indian nationals to acquire a Schengen visa or a residence permit, making it possible for diplomatic staff to focus on case handling, thus shortening the overall processing time and application procedure.”

To facilitate the receipt of visa and residence permit applications, CKGS has opened Schengen Visa & Residence Permit Application Centres in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Pune and Kochi.

Sanjay Bhaduri, CEO of CKGS, said: “We are certain that these centres will afford greater convenience to travellers wishing to visit Norway or the other Schengen countries.”

ORION Expedition Cruises has released its 2013 season brochure, detailing 33 voyages to 94 destinations onboard the Orion, an expedition cruise ship with capacity for 106 passengers.

Beginning with a golf cruise in New Zealand waters on February 16, 2013, Orion will offer a range of five- to 20-night itineraries to destinations including Borneo and Sulawesi, Australia’s Kimberley coast and Arnhem Land, the Great Barrier Reef, the Islands of Melanesia and New Zealand, the sub Antarctic Islands, and the Forgotten Islands of Sunda, Antarctica and Papua New Guinea.

Asian programme highlights for 2013 include a Borneo Discovery – including Camp Leakey, Borobudur & Sulawesi sailing scheduled to depart on September 29; and a Camp Leakey – Faces in the Forest (Borneo) – including Kuching, Natuna Islands & Bako National Park cruise scheduled to depart on October 25 and November 18.

Orion will end off its 2013 season with a 20-night Scott & Shackleton’s Antarctica – including sub Antarctic Islands cruise, scheduled to depart on February 8, 2014.

An electronic version of the Orion 2013 brochure can be downloaded fromwww.orionexpeditions.com/ebrochure

TTG Events, organiser of the upcoming IT&CM India 2012, has entered into a strategic partnership with the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) to raise awareness and buyer participation for the inaugural event.

Under the terms of the partnership, TTG Events and OTOAI have agreed to pool their resources to enhance the quality and quantity of domestic buyer registration.

Formed in November 2011, OTOAI is a non-profit organisation comprised of outbound tour operators and travel agencies based in India. With a membership base of around 130 companies, OTOAI affiliates jointly account for around 30 per cent of all outbound business from India.

Vineet Gopal, joint secretary of OTOAI, said: “We maintain stringent criteria for active membership. Only organisations of a certain scale, with recommendations from overseas suppliers as well as national tourism offices, can become members of OTOAI. In addition, active membership will be renewed every two years, on condition that the applicant completes 20 hours of training/seminars conducted by the national tourism boards.”

Dove Travels and Vayu Seva Tours & Travels are among the confirmed OTOAI buyers who will be participating at IT&CM India 2012, which is scheduled to take place from August 21–23 at the India Expo Centre & Mart in Delhi NCR.

SOLARE Hotels & Resorts will bid farewell to founding president & CEO, Tony Virili, on October 31. He will be succeeded by Kentaro Ujiie, former president & CEO of PGM Holdings, one of Japan’s largest golf course owner-operators.

The impending change of leadership at Solare heralds the end of a golden era for Virili, who has been instrumental in driving the success of one of Japan’s most progressive hotel chains.

Virili’s most significant achievement was perhaps the massive rebranding exercise he implemented in 2004-06, which saw the group’s core brands repositioned under the Solare umbrella, and involved a ¥5.4-billion (US$69 million) refurbishment programme, plus the construction of 22 Chisun Inns, adding more than 2,000 rooms to the market.

Solare’s Loisir Hotel brand was also launched and the new Healing Oasis, Loisir Spa Tower Naha became Okinawa’s most luxurious city resorts. Meanwhile, the group’s diversified strategies included the franchise of brands such as Marriott, Mercure, Nikko and Sheraton.

In 2011, Virili oversaw measures to guard Solare against a slowdown in investment and the shift from travel agency bookings to online distribution channels.

He took the opportunity to drive Solare’s expansion via third party management, franchising, and an associate hotels programme – an initiative allowing independent hotels to operate under their own brands, but with the added connectivity of Solare’s online distribution and sales network.

“Think of a hybrid between an OTA and RoomKey.com,” said Virili at the time. “We want an online distribution portal where hotel groups not competing in each other’s market can add value, by offering to their own guests, particularly loyalty programme members, direct connectivity in the form of a real-time bookable inventory of associate hotels.”

CHINA’s State Council has approved a new visa policy that will grant foreign transit visitors to Shanghai with visa-free access for up to 72 hours, an extension over the current 48-hour waiver.

Currently, a 24-hour visa-free stay is available to all international passengers passing through Shanghai, while the 48-hour waiver is available to citizens of 32 countries.

Lu Zhitao, deputy director of the Shanghai Exit & Entrance Frontier Inspection Station, said the expanded policy would “greatly benefit both passengers and airlines.” Authorities are still working out how the system will be implemented, and a timetable for its introduction has not yet been finalised.

Ding Jianmin, assistant general manager of Shanghai CITS International Travel Service, does not expect the new policy to increase business from the stopover crowd.

“Japanese tourists have been granted 72-hour visa-free stays for many years, and we never saw a surge in numbers. When tourists visit China, they usually spend at least 10 days. So a 72-hour visa-free stay is no big difference from a 48-hour policy,” he explained.

Beijing is also considering implementing a similar initiative that grants foreign tourists with visa-free access for up to 72 hours (TTG Asia e-Daily, May 31, 2012).

Reporting by Hong Xu

HAVING ramped up its airline IT business, Amadeus sees bright skies ahead in the growth area of airport IT, as its new division looks to sell a suite of some 20 modules to all relevant actors including ground handlers and airlines.

Recently-appointed head of airport IT, John Jarrell, told Asia-Pacific media that Amadeus had whittled down the 100 systems currently being used by airports by about a fifth. These will cover areas such as ground operations, passengers and bags, and will be different from the Altéa Departure Control System for Ground Handlers.

However, integration with Altéa, Amadeus’ technology platform used by over 100 airlines, is possible, which means flight information from the millions of passengers boarded can be tapped.

Said Jarrell: “Today airports are sorely lacking in information. How many times are (travellers) there when the flight is not there and the flight information display still says the flight is leaving on time? It happens all the time because they don’t have seamless information (transfers) with the airlines.”

He added that Amadeus’ USPs include its service model of providing software “in the cloud” and transaction-based pricing, which reduces the need for costly investments and makes it even easier for developing countries to adopt. As this platform will be sold around the world, it will also breed greater collaboration between airports.

Jarrell was not able to disclose specifics at this stage, but said more details on the modules would be available by early next year.

He estimated the airport IT market to be worth some €2.4 billion (US$3 billion) a year, but admitted that this was still just a small percentage of the money that could be made from airline IT. Ultimately, Amadeus wants to get all airlines onto a single IT platform, which it says will benefit all stakeholders.

According to Amadeus’ new report surveying over 800 passengers, expectations of airports are evolving: 62 per cent wanted to make airports and flying as part of the travel experience, and more than half desired location-based services and remote check-in and bag collection.

– Read more about Amadeus’ growth in Asia-Pacific in TTG Asia August 10, 2012

AMADEUS revealed it is developing solutions that will transform the way users search for travel, including one that harnesses motion sensor technology found on gaming devices.

Speaking to Asia-Pacific media at the Amadeus Executive Briefing Centre near Nice, Francois Laburthe, director, operational research & innovation, presented results from a recently commissioned study that showed the way travel bookings are being made is rapidly changing, with an increased emphasis on the search process.

“In the good old days, people would go direct to a travel (consultant) or airline or hotel chain to make their reservation. Now there’s a whole experience prior to purchase.

“This (means) players in the travel chain have to take into account not only the management of bookings but…the way they handle the shopping experience, how to display their products and enable easy comparison,” he explained.

Among the products demonstrated include a door-to-door search tool that will churn out address-to-address results combining various modes of transport required such as flights, trains, car rentals and even public buses and taxis. Prices can then be quoted to travellers and some segments will be bookable through Amadeus, with the entire itinerary available for storage on mobile devices.

The intent is to roll this out to all markets, and the solution is applicable for both leisure and corporate travel companies, said Laburthe, only confirming that the launch date was “soon”.

A separate solution that should become a commercial product this year is an iPad app that provides travel inspiration, he added.

Instead of the usual form-based requests, Travel Seeker relies on geo-location to display on a map flight prices from a traveller’s point of origin, destination activities and friends who have been there before via Facebook integration. Searches can then be refined to accommodate date selection and specific budgets.

This is already being showcased in the US to potential customers, and agreements are in place with OTAs to incorporate this technology while leisure agencies with a web presence can build their own version and load them onto the app store for their travellers to download. The solution could also allow non-Amadeus content to be pulled from other sources, said Laburthe.

The third innovation that is still a lab prototype is a new interface for travel search, using Microsoft’s Kinect device. Standing in front of a TV, travellers will be able to navigate using mere body movements.

“Games will become a future channel for e-commerce and the gaming industry is really large. The majority of gamers are no longer just teenagers or students,” said Laburthe.

– Read more about Amadeus’ growth in Asia-Pacific in TTG Asia August 10, 2012

THE LALIT Suri Hospitality Group has announced its impending entry into Europe with the scheduled opening of The Lalit London in 2014. The 70-room boutique hotel will also be the group’s inaugural property outside of India.

Situated near Tower Bridge in Central London, The Lalit London will be housed within the 140-year-old St. Olave’s heritage building, acquired by the group for 15 million pounds (US$23.5 million).

“It was very important for us to establish our footprint at the international level,” said Jyotsna Suri, chairperson & managing director, The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group.

“We expect a good response for our property, especially considering that the occupancy level of the hotels in London have been more than 85 per cent for the past few years,” he added.

Lalit Suri Hospitality will be pumping in approximately 12 to 13 million pounds into restoring the hotel. Scheduled to start in early 2013, the renovation is expected to be complete by end-2014.

Indian art and culture will be showcased throughout the hotel, which will also feature a bar, a fine dining Indian restaurant, a spa, a gym, and several meeting rooms.

Meanwhile, Lalit Suri Hospitality is also looking to establish a presence in Asia and the Middle East, through opening joint venture properties in Thailand and Dubai.

The company currently operates nine luxury hotels and resorts in India.

Reporting by Divya Kaul

TIGER Airways registered a loss after tax of S$14 million (US$11.2 million) for the first quarter of its 2012/2013 financial year, an improvement on the S$21 million loss recorded one year ago (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 5, 2011).

Total revenue for the quarter was S$181 million, 1.4 per cent higher than the S$179 million recorded the previous year. The increase was largely due to higher yield (+7.8 per cent), offset by a 4.5 per cent decline in capacity and lower passenger load factor (-2.2 percentage points to 83.3 per cent).

Total expenses increased 1.2 per cent to S$193 million as a result of an increase in average fleet size (+18 per cent), partially offset by lower fuel cost (-3.1 per cent) during the quarter. Cost per available seat-kilometre increased by 5.9 per cent.

Chin Yau Seng, Tiger Airways group CEO, said: “The group’s financial performance is gradually coming back on track with Tiger Airways Singapore turning in an operating profit of S$4 million this quarter. It recorded a healthy passenger load factor of 85.1 per cent as demand has caught up with capacity, which grew 14.3 per cent during the quarter.”

“Tiger Australia has also made good progress since the hiatus in services a year ago. (The outfit’s) operating loss narrowed from S$23 million to S$21 million this quarter,” he added.