ENQUIRIES and new bookings for Japan have stopped at two of Singapore’s largest travel agencies following the natural disaster and ongoing nuclear crisis in the country.

There were also cancellations and postponements from travellers scheduled to leave for Japan from now until April, which is a popular travel period for Singaporeans because of the March school holidays and Japan’s cherry blossom season.

CTC Travel’s senior vice president, marketing & PR, Alicia Seah, told TTG Asia e-Daily that 80 per cent of the 1,000 clients scheduled to travel to Japan until mid-April have chosen to postpone their trips or switch to Hong Kong and other nearby destinations.

Chan Brothers has chosen to cancel all tour groups departing for Japan until April 10 and has taken the destination off its promotions.

The move follows a Ministry of Foreign Affairs advisory released on Monday that “strongly urged Singaporeans to defer non-essential travel to Japan”.

A spokesperson for Chan Brothers said the company was projecting a 20 per cent drop in sales from April to June: “The current situation will certainly take a toll on bookings with departure from April to June, although this is also highly dependent on the pace of containment and recovery of the current situation.”

EUROPEAN travellers remain unfazed by the spikes in flight prices due to the oil crisis.

Despite raising its fuel surcharge last week for the third time in four months, Singapore Airlines general manager of Germany, Austria, Central & Eastern Europe, Leslie Thng, said there had not been any significant drop in demand for travel during the popular June and July summer period.

In fact, sales figures for its Singapore Stopover Holiday packages for January to March had increased compared to the same period last year, he added.

Thailand’s Exotissimo Travel general manager for Germany, Pantanida Jantsakool, said: “Germans might complain about the increase in price but they know that a holiday in Asia is still cheaper than in Europe.”

Myanmar-based Golden Trip Travels & Tours director Tilly Sand added that the increases of between 20 euros (US$27.80) to 35 euros were still a small percentage of the total airfare into Asia from Europe, which is an average of 1,000 euros or more.

Singapore-based Star Holiday Mart managing director Dennis Law said there might be an “overall minimal impact of a few percentage loss” on Asia as the problems in the Middle East meant that the region was also gaining some diverted business.

Tour operators, however, pointed out that escalating fuel surcharges were likely to derail longhaul demand if the currency situation in Europe worsened and the inflation rates in Asia continued to climb.

AUSTRALIA-based hospitality human resource specialist, Hostec, has opened a regional office in Singapore to tap the Asian market and address the pressing need for talent in the region.

Kerry Healy, Hostec’s general manager – Asia, said the biggest challenge for hospitality human resource in Asia was the lack of quality staff.

She said: “Massive (hospitality) developments in China are sucking all the talents. The inflated cost of living in Singapore has pushed talents to destinations such as Macau and China, where expatriate packages are attractive.”

The Singapore office, led by Healy, will boost Hostec’s headhunting and human resource training capabilities in Asia, with its Sydney office providing support for education programmes. Two more staff are expected to join Healy’s team by April.

Hostec’s headquarters is in Sydney and the company has satellite operations in Melbourne, the Gold Coast and London.

HUA HIN will be getting more hotel rooms, even as local hoteliers complain the destination is facing oversupply.

The Thai Ministry of Tourism and Sports reported that Hua Hin had 233 hotels and 7,015 rooms last year, up from 169 hotels and 5,805 rooms the year before.

Paul Stevens, Accor’s operations director for Thailand, believes there is room for growth for mid-scale and upper mid-scale brands.

Accor will be opening the 210-room Ibis Hua Hin in the third quarter and rebranding the 118-room Veranda Resort and Spa Hua Hin-Cha Am under its MGallery collection on April 1.

InterContinental Hua Hin Resort owner Suwat Liptapanlop is reportedly in talks with InterContinental Hotels Group to develop a Crowne Plaza convention resort with more than 300 rooms in Hua Hin.

A 74-room Centara resort and a 63-key Best Western resort are facing delays and opening dates for both remain uncertain.

– Full report in TTG Asia, March 25

By Sirima Eamtako

GERMAN-based Kempinski Hotels will grow its portfolio in China from nine to 30 hotels by 2015, with six five-star properties scheduled to open this year.

Kempinski’s vice president – sales & marketing for China, Bobby Ong, told TTG Asia e-Daily: “This year, we’ll select and identify certain strategic cities for expansion, including major and secondary ones. We won’t overextend ourselves, as we have a policy of one Kempinski hotel for each city.“

Aside from Kempinski Hotel Huizhou, Kempinski Hotel Guiyang, The ONE Executive Suites Shanghai, Kempinski Hotel Xiamen, Kempinski Hotel Qingdao and Kempinski Hotel Haitang Bay Sanya—all of which are scheduled to open by end 2011— the group will branch out into Chongqing and Taiyuan next year. This will be followed by Yixing and Sanya in 2013.

According to Ong, the group performed better than expected last year, with the strong growth of China’s economy. Though hotels are set to increase their rates, Ong said the change would be gradual.

INDONESIAN outbound agents are postponing group tours to Japan scheduled this month due to concerns over the recent earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear emergency, but have yet to see cancellations to the destination.

Bayu Buana Travel Services, which had two 28-pax groups scheduled for seven-day Japan tours this month, postponed travel for a group that was supposed to leave yesterday, according to product and pricing manager Henky Dharmawan.

Dharmawan said: “They will now travel on March 27, but the trip may have to be postponed again if the situation is not conducive. We are communicating with our partner in Japan for further updates.”

Panorama Tours Indonesia, which has more than six groups scheduled on its Japan Classic Tours this month and next, has postponed travel for a group scheduled to leave on March 18. These tours include Tokyo Disneyland and Odaiba, both of which have been affected by the tsunami.

Panorama’s managing director Leisure Travel Management, Meity Monica Lukito, said: “We are combining the group with the one scheduled for March 26-27.”

“Should any of our clients want to cancel their booking, we will not charge any cancellation fee,” she added.

FOLLOWING the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, industry players in Bali sought to reassure tourists that they were well-prepared for similar emergency situations.

Bali Hotels Association (BHA) chairman Jean-Charles Le Coz said: “The ties between Bali and Japan are strong. The Japanese people have long visited Bali and we have always warmly welcomed them on the island. The news has been devastating to us.

“Bali is still safe to travel to, especially given the measures we have taken to ensure visitor safety in the event of a disaster like this.”

Le Coz explained that BHA runs its own targeted tsunami early-warning system, receiving data directly from the geophysics agency in Jakarta. It has also been conducting tsunami-ready training for its member hotels for the past three years.

While not widely reported, an earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale also hit some parts of Central Indonesia on Friday. The epicentre was 165km north-west of Sumbawa Island to the east of Bali, but was too deep to cause a tsunami, according to the Indonesian Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency.

Meanwhile, Garuda Indonesia reported that their flights to Japan were now running normally. Garuda corporate secretary Pujobroto said: “Narita airport was closed following the earthquake, but it was reopened by 7.00 pm Tokyo time, enabling our flights from Jakarta and Bali to depart as per normal.”

WHILE agents at the MATTA and Mayflower travel fairs in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 2) reported zero new bookings for outbound travel to Japan following the earthquake and tsunami there, they still remain upbeat about the destination.

Malaysian Harmony’s CEO, Cooper Huang, said he was expecting some cancellations for leisure travel bookings, but his 50-pax meetings-cum-incentives group combining Tokyo and Osaka scheduled for the month has not given any indication whether they would cancel or postpone.

Mayflower Acme Tours’ deputy general manager, Abdul Rahman Mohamed, said: “We have not received any cancellations for business travel to Japan.”

Skyzone Tours & Travel executive director David Lai said: “We’re optimistic there will not be many cancellations. The main destinations we promote and sell are Tokyo, Osaka and Hokkaido, and these areas are not affected.”

THAILAND is gearing up to host more events, including two from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

Thailand will co-host Regional World Tourism Day with UNWTO in Ayuthaya from November 26 to 28. The event’s theme will be in line with the country’s year-long celebrations to mark Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s seventh cycle birthday on December 5, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.

The 24th Joint Meeting of UNWTO Commission for East Asia and Pacific and UNWTO Commission for South Asia will be held in Bangkok in March 2012. Vietnam hosted about 300 delegates last year, while this year’s meeting will be held in Sri Lanka from March 24 to 26.

Meanwhile, Thailand will also be hosting the World Sports Destination Expo’s Sport Tourism Expo from September 27 to 29 in Bangkok. The expo offers a trading platform for the US$600 billion-a-year global sports tourism market.

The Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau is expecting 720,000 MICE visitors this year, up from an estimated 630,000 visitors in 2010.

SYNERGY Tours Malaysia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Advance Synergy Limited in Malaysia, is expanding to new markets like Thailand, Cambodia and the UK.

According to CEO Fabio Delisi, Synergy signed an agreement last November to purchase a 49 per cent stake in Thailand-based travel agency EasySmile – which also has an office in Siem Reap – by this December and exercise management rights.

This will be Synergy’s second overseas office in South-east Asia after Synergy Panorama Tours Bali, a joint venture between Synergy and Panorama Destination Indonesia, opened last year.

Synergy wants to extend its share of inbound business from Malaysia’s traditional markets such as India, the Middle East and China, to emerging markets such as Russia and the Eastern Bloc.

Delisi said: “We are scouting around for opportunities to purchase inbound tour companies in Malaysia, which have a strong base in these markets.”

Delisi said Synergy was also developing new distribution channels in Europe through acquisitions and that it was targeting the English, German and French-speaking markets. Just last month, Synergy bought out the shares of an outbound travel agency in London.