SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) and Virgin Australia launched earlier this month the first phase of their alliance (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 7), commencing an initial interline agreement and offering reciprocal lounge access to their respective customers.

SIA’s executive vice president commercial, Mak Swee Wah, said: “Customers can now experience the first benefits of this landmark agreement with Virgin Australia.”

Through the initial interline agreement, SIA customers are able to connect to a range of Australian destinations served by Virgin Australia on one ticket, with terminal transfers included.

SIA’s KrisFlyer Elite Gold and PPS Club members will have access to Virgin Australia’s six domestic lounges, while Virgin Australia’s Velocity Gold members will have access to SIA-operated lounges in 14 cities.

Virgin Australia ditched similar arrangements with Malaysia Airlines in June (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 30).

MARRIOTT International is marking its return to Sri Lanka through the management of a 150-room beach resort in the country’s south.

Luxury Hotels International Management, a Marriott-linked special purpose vehicle for Sri Lankan operations, has signed an agreement with Weligama Hotel Properties, a subsidiary of local hotel developer East West Properties, to operate the resort.

Construction on the US$18 million property located in the Weligama Bay area is scheduled to start later this year and be completed within two years.

Nahil Wijesuriya, chairman of East West Properties, said: “Marriott is also in talks with us to manage two or three more properties in Sri Lanka.”

He added that the prospective plans involve five more resorts in Dambulla, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya.

AIRLINES and outbound operators in Indonesia are anticipating the upcoming Hari Raya holiday season to be a busy one, despite it falling barely a month after the end of the summer school holiday period.

Lebaran, the end of the Muslim fasting month, is traditionally the country’s biggest holiday season, with Indonesians travelling en masse to both domestic and overseas destinations.

The peak travel period is one week prior to and after Hari Raya Idul Fitri, which falls on August 30-31 this year.

Bayu Buana Travel Services outbound manager, Nurdin Supena, is expecting a 50 per cent increase in business over last year’s Hari Raya.

“Demand for neighbouring countries and mediumhaul destinations like Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China is big. Even Europe is in big demand,” he said.

According to Supena, the relatively robust Indonesian currency and increasing European connections offered by Asian and Middle Eastern carriers have contributed to the increased demand.

Carriers such as Cathay Pacific, Garuda Indonesia, China Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Batavia Air have added extra flights to cater to increased demand over the holiday period.

THE MALAYSIAN Association of Tour & Travel Agents (MATTA) will add a travel trade show and conference to its consumer-oriented MATTA Fair from next edition onwards.

According to MATTA president, Mohd Khalid Harun, the success of the biannual event was the driver for the expansion. “We have had 65 NTOs participate in our fairs. Many of them bring their agents and suppliers to the fair and organise meetings with our travel trade,” he said.

“By organising a travel mart, we can facilitate such business-to-business dealings and transactions.”

To facilitate the expanded programme, the next edition in March 2012 will be extended to five days from the current three, with the first two days reserved for the travel mart and conference.

“MATTA will be looking out for larger premises as the Putra Trade World Centre (the current venue for the fair) is already at full capacity,” Khalid said.

Khalid added that the theme for the inaugural conference would be Islamic travel. Linked to this was a recently-signed memorandum of cooperation between MATTA and the Chinese Muslim Travel Association (CMTA).

“Both MATTA and CMTA will promote bilateral tourism. There are 35 million Muslims in China,” he said.

Meanwhile, the MATTA Fair August 2011 launched today featured 945 booths. Organising chairman, John Tan, said: “We expect a sales turnover of 100 million ringgit (US$33 million) and an attendance of 80,000 consumers.”

By N. Nithiyananthan

PATA Singapore Chapter has launched the second installment of the travel and tourism industry’s productivity competition: Our Productivity Story 2011, with a total of six cash prizes worth S$36,000 (US$29,700) to be won.

To participate, send in a write-up by September 15, 2011, describing in less than 1,500 words a productivity initiative which has contributed positively to your company’s operational performance.

The best two essays from each of the following travel and tourism categories: (a) Hotels, (b) Travel Agents and (c) Others, will qualify for the next round.

The six finalists will then work with a dedicated video production company to turn their stories into short videos (finalists are not required to pay for production costs), which will be published online for public voting.

Winners will be scored based on how many votes they receive (50 per cent of score) and judges’ evaluation.

The first and second prizewinners in each category will walk away with S$8,000 and S$4,000 in cash, respectively.

Visit www.patasingapore.org.sg/pata_new/comp_story.php for more details.

PHILIPPINE tourism secretary Alberto Lim has resigned, catching the industry by surprise as he had just delivered the opening address of the PhilippineMICE Conference 2011 (MICECon2011), being held in Cebu until August 13.

A statement released by Edwin Lacierda, presidential spokesperson, Presidential Communications Group, revealed that President Benigno Aquino III had actually accepted the resignation last Monday, but had delayed making the announcement to permit Lim to attend MICECon2011.

Lim cited he resigned for personal reasons, although industry members have been calling for him to step down. The resignation is effective August 31.

Lim’s tenure at the Philippines Department of Tourism (DoT) was hit by two major setbacks early on: the Hong Kong tour bus hostage situation in Manila in August 2010 (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 23, 2010), and a tourism slogan fiasco in November last year (TTG Asia e-Daily, November 24, 2010).

Several factions in the tourism industry also claimed lack of fair representation within the sector, especially in connection with Lim’s perceived bias towards foreign airlines because of his new open skies policy.

“I would like to spend more time with my family. My responsibilities require a great deal of travel and time away from my loved ones,” he said this morning at a press conference in Malacañang, the official residence and workplace of the Philippine president.

Lim’s departure puts a question mark on the Philippines’ tourism development and marketing plan.

In the last few days, the DoT was ready to present the final version of its National Tourism Development Plan for 2011-2016. A new tourism slogan was slated for release by early 2012, together with a full marketing campaign.

In a speech delivered during MICECon2011 yesterday, Lim discussed the potential of MICE business in boosting the country’s tourism arrivals, and had set a goal to place the Philippines in Asia-Pacific’s top 10 MICE destinations by 2016.

“We have to strive to be in the top 10 or at least two more ranks higher than our 2008 level, which is but realistic to become our priority goal as a tourism development and marketing strategy,” he had said.

MILLENNIUM & Copthorne Hotels & Resorts (M&C) has signed a global distribution partnership with China-based air travel and tourism IT solutions provider, TravelSky.

The agreement will allow TravelSky customers to access M&C’s global portfolio of Grand Millennium, Millennium, Copthorne, Kingsgate and Studio M hotels, while giving M&C an expanded presence in China through TravelSky’s GDS and travel agent network.

Since last August, all six M&C hotels in China have started using TravelSky’s hotel distribution system, a move that has so far achieved favourable results.

The extension of this cooperation will include M&C’s properties in North America, UK/Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East in the initial stages, and New Zealand later.

Another international hotel chain, Worldhotels, signed a similar agreement with TravelSky in June (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 24).

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) has placed an order for eight additional Boeing 777-300ER aircraft to support growth plans for the future.

The fleet expansion comes despite the airline posting an 82 per cent drop in first quarter net profit, from S$253 million (US$208 million) a year ago to S$45 million.

Goh Choon Phong, SIA CEO, said: “These additional B777-300ERs will help support our ongoing programme to further strengthen the Singapore Airlines network, providing more travel options to our customers.”

The new aircraft, scheduled for delivery starting 2013/14, will be configured in a three-class layout and operated on medium- and longhaul routes.

The aircraft will join 19 B777- 300ERs already in service.

Meanwhile, the airline is planning to boost capacity on the Singapore–Jakarta route to meet increased demand, with the introduction of an eighth daily service from September 15.

The additional service will be operated using a 288-seat Boeing 777-200 aircraft in a three-class configuration.

With the additional daily flight, SIA will operate a total of 77 weekly flights to Indonesia, including 21 weekly flights to Bali. Regional arm SilkAir also operates 53 flights per week to eight points in Indonesia.

EMIRATES’ new services from Dubai to Geneva (launched in June), Copenhagen (launched on August 1) and St Petersburg (starting November 1) are expected to snare even more of the Indonesian economy and premium outbound market to Europe.

Mohammad Al-Nahari, Emirates country manager for Indonesia, said: “The new services follow higher demand, not just from business travellers but also leisure travellers, and will boost the number of Indonesians travelling to these destinations and vice-versa.”

Al-Nahari added that the new Copenhagen services would serve as a gateway to Scandinavian destinations. “The route is already proving popular, demonstrated by the number of passengers from Jakarta booked on the first week of flights,” he said.

Al-Nahari said Emirates started to see significant growth from the longhaul corporate outbound market after introducing twice-daily direct Jakarta-Dubai flights in March last year.

Emirates sales manager Indonesia, Ilonka Leiwakabessy, said: “With our aircraft capacity between 385 and 400 seats in two classes, our average load factor is between 75 per cent and 85 per cent, or about 800 passengers a day.”

Leiwakabessy said Indonesia’s growing premium-class market, especially from the corporate sector, had boosted Emirates’ business-class load factor by between 75 and 100 per cent compared to 2010.

Asked if there were plans to increase capacity or introduce three-class configuration services from Jakarta, Al-Nahari said the airline would first concentrate on maximising available services.

ESCALATING land prices and costly leases are affecting the development of new hotels in Sri Lanka, which is aiming to triple the current inventory of 15,000 rooms to 40,000-45,000 by 2016.

Land in the 500-acre (five hectares) Kuchchaveli development zone in eastern Trincomalee is going for an upfront fee of 20 million rupees (US$182,400) an acre. In Kalpitiya on the northwest coast, 1,000 acres is available at three million rupees an acre. In both Kuchchaveli and Kalpitiya, a 99-year lease is available at the annual rate of 25,000 rupees per acre.

Meanwhile, two hundred acres in Passekudah, also in Trincomalee, has already been allocated to investors on a 33-year lease, at the annual rate of 25,000 rupees per acre.

Anura Lokuhetty, president of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, said land prices had become a bone of contention for hotel developers. “If an investor is asked to pay 20 million rupees an acre, for 10 acres he has to pay 200 million rupees upfront. This will definitely raise the question of the project’s viability.”

Malin Hapugoda, managing director of Aitken Spence Hotels, agreed that prices had spiraled out of control. “Hotel projects need to be viable, land needs to be sold at reasonable prices,” he said.

The government has been shifting from 33-year to 99-year leases over the past year, after investors requested longer lease terms. The upfront payment option is a new development, and was introduced as a means of funding post-war infrastructural development.