A RESTRUCTURE at Tourism Australia under months-old managing director Andrew McEvoy sees one of the NTO’s best-known faces, Richard Beere, leaving the organisation on April 22.

This is a result of the International Operations, currently broken down into East and West, being renamed Marketing Operations. Beere is executive general manager Eastern Hemisphere based in Sydney, while Francis Anne Keeler is executive general manager Western Hemisphere. Anne Keeler will head the merged entity. Business Events will also report through this area to bring the team closer to the corporate end-users.

Beere told TTG Asia e-Daily: “I am looking to stay in tourism and engaged with Asia, but have not yet decided exactly what this means and am looking at a number of possibilities.”

Beere has been with both the Australian Tourist Commission and Tourism Australia for over 20 years, responsible for managing marketing programmes to consumers and trade as well as business development activities across eastern tourism markets including Japan, North and South-east Asia and the Gulf countries.

INDONESIA’s former tourism minister Joop Ave has called the relevance of the country’s tourism associations into question, urging the industry to be more pro-active in resolving its issues.

Speaking at the Panorama Management Conference over the weekend, Ave delivered a scathing assessment of the current state of affairs of tourism-related associations in the country, declaring that the Indonesian tourism industry “has never been as weak as it is today” and that the “associations were irrelevant”.

He said: “If 40 per cent of the hotels in Indonesia are not part of the Indonesia Hotels and Restaurants Association, then something must be wrong. The ‘restaurant’ part also has no representative even though the Indonesian restaurant industry is booming. Maybe, here in Indonesia, you just need no association?”

Ave added that the Association of the Indonesian Tours and Travel Agencies (ASITA) had become irrelevant, saying: “I am sorry to see that the whole of ASITA is kaput (no longer working). The Jakarta chapter, which is the biggest and most productive, is not even recognised by the central board.”

Ave was Indonesia’s Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications from 1993 to 1998.

THE KUONI Group acquired on Monday Stockholm-based luxury tour operator Lime Travel, which specialises in tailored longhaul travel with a particular focus on Bali, Mauritius, the Maldives and the Caribbean.

Lime Travel’s products are sold almost exclusively through direct customer contact at its own travel offices and over the phone.

“In acquiring Lime Travel, we are expanding our business activities in the Swedish luxury travel sector,” said Leif Vase Larsen, executive vice president northern region of the Kuoni Group and CEO of Kuoni Scandinavia.

He added: “Our new acquisition should offer synergies with existing premium Kuoni products. It should also enable us to expand our luxury travel business in our Norwegian and Danish markets.”

Lime Travel, which was founded in 1995 and generated turnover of around CHF 9.3 million (US$10 million) last year, will be integrated into the Swedish unit of Kuoni Group’s Division Market Region North. All its 14 employees will be retained, and the present co-owner and company CEO will remain at the helm.

AIRFARE promotions by local and foreign carriers are driving sales of Malaysian agents’ ground packages, ahead of the series of outbound fairs in Kuala Lumpur this month as well as the school holidays in May.

MATTA, Mayflower Travel and Reliance Travel are all holding travel fairs in the middle of March.

Zenmax Travel & Tours executive director Steven Choo said he was seeing strong demand for Australia and Europe, mainly from parents visiting their children studying overseas. He said the current airfare promotions allow savings of RM1,000 (US$328) or more.

Choo added that demand was also swelling for Hong Kong, China and Macau, especially during the May school holidays and the last week of August, which coincides with the Hari Raya and National Day public holidays.

Nantha Travel & Tours managing director M Nantha Gopal said his company had been experiencing strong demand for regional destinations such as Bali and Bandung in Indonesia, Phuket and Bangkok in Thailand, as well as Siem Reap and Hanoi, mainly over the coming school holidays.

Gopal noted that Malaysian travellers have more purchasing power now. “Last year, there were a lot of couples travelling. This year, they are travelling with their children. They are also opting for better hotels, and do not mind paying more for comfort.”

VIETNAM Airlines will shift its Singapore-based operations from Changi Airport’s terminal one to terminal three from March 27.

The airline will also double its Singapore-Hanoi services to twice-daily from June 16, using Airbus A321 aircraft with 16 business class and 168 economy class seats.

The additional service will bring Vietnam Airlines’ services from Singapore to twice-daily operations to both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

THAI Airways International (THAI) has set aside 457 billion baht (US$14.9 billion) to acquire 75 new aircraft between this year and 2022 as part of plans to modernise its fleet.

The Thai national carrier will spend 216 billion baht between this year and 2017 on 11 narrow-bodied and 26 wide-bodied planes. Another 241 billion baht will be invested between 2018 and 2022 on 38 wide-bodied aircraft.

The investment will be on top of existing orders for seven Airbus A330-300s and eight Boeing 777-300ERs to be delivered between this year and 2013, while six A380-800s will join the fleet within the next two years.

The carrier will gradually decommission some 21 aging planes by 2024, in the process reducing the average age of its aircraft from 11.9 years in 2010 to 8.5 years in 2017, and eight years by 2024.

Meanwhile, THAI yesterday inked a shareholder agreement with Tiger Airways to establish new regional low-cost carrier (LCC) Thai Tiger Airways, following a memorandum of understanding signed last August (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 2, 2010).

The LCC was slated to take off sometime this month, but has faced delays due to opposition from Thai authorities (TTG Asia e-Daily, September 3, 2010).

THE SINGAPORE Tourism Board (STB) has emerged victorious in a five-year legal wrangle with British event organiser Anthony Hollingsworth over the latter’s failure to stage the two-day Listen Live concert in 2005.

Singapore’s Court of Appeal dismissed in February an appeal by Hollingsworth against an earlier High Court order for him to return a sum of over S$6 million (US$4.7 million) to STB.

Hollingsworth, together with his companies Children’s Media and Tribute Third Millenium, were joint organisers of the concert, originally scheduled for September 30 and October 1, 2005.

STB was the main sponsor for Listen Live and paid funds towards its staging, but the event failed to materialise even after successive postponements. STB commenced legal proceedings to recover its investment in March 2006.

In May 2008, the High Court of Singapore decided that Hollingsworth, Children’s Media and Tribute Third Millenium were liable for all of STB’s damages arising from the dispute.

The defendants subsequently submitted a series of appeals, before Hollingsworth appealed before the Court of Appeal in February.

With the dismissal of this final appeal, the original High Court order is now final, binding and conclusive on the defendants.

IATA will shift its 67th annual general meeting from Cairo to Singapore in the wake of political upheaval in the Middle East country.

Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general and CEO, said: “We regret not being able to host this event in Egypt as originally planned. We look forward to hosting a future AGM in Egypt when its political transition is complete.”

Taking place from June 5 to 7, the aviation industry’s premiere executive event will attract about 800 delegates, including some 150 to 200 CEOs from airlines, manufacturers, airports and other industry partners.

This will be the second time that Singapore will host the IATA AGM. The last time the event was held in Singapore was in 2004, when the industry decided to move to 100 per cent e-ticketing globally.

This year’s AGM will take place as the industry continues its recovery from the global financial crisis. The meeting’s agenda will comprise major topics facing air transport today, such as the drive for better environmental performance, the impact of rising fuel prices on weak industry profitability and efficiency gains through technology.

One highlight of this year’s event will be a long-term look at aviation’s future, with the presentation of the results of IATA’s Vision 2050 initiative.

GARUDA Indonesia’s fleet expansion (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 13) will result in an oversupply of seats if infrastructure and accommodation within and beyond Bali cannot support resulting traffic growth, warned Panorama Destination CEO, Dharma Tirtawisata.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Panorama Management Conference over the weekend, Tirtawisata said: “Looking at inbound traffic to Indonesia today, most tour itineraries include Bali. Future infrastructure and accommodation development should not only focus on Bali, but other Indonesian regions as well. Then travellers can reduce the length of stay on the island and visit other destinations.”

He added: “Even then, Bali will still need more rooms. Tour operators have been crying over the lack of rooms there. Most hotels in Bali are running at 80 per cent occupancy and above, even during the low season of February.”

Tirtawisata said the Bali provincial government should improve infrastructure linking the southern and northern regions to encourage investors to build hotels in the north, echoing a similar call by Bali Tourism Development Corporation executive director I Made Mandra (TTG Asia e-Daily, February 22).

Meanwhile, Garuda recently signed an agreement with GE Capital Aviation Services to finance six new Boeing 737-800NG aircraft and three CFM56-7B engines, for delivery between this year and 2013. The airline had earlier signed similar agreements with Pembroke Group and RBS Aviation Capital.

US-based The Travel Corporation, parent company of Insight Vacations, Contiki and Thompsons Gateway – Africa, is bringing its boutique river cruise brand Uniworld into the region by establishing its first Asian office in Singapore.

Working under the same roof as its three sister companies, Uniworld will start selling packages by year-end, group president and chief executive Brett Tollman told TTG Asia e-Daily at the opening of the trio’s new office in Parkview Square.

“We think very highly of the market here and see good prospects as we know Singaporeans are keen on new experiences,” he said. The city-state contributes one of the highest volumes in Asia for Insight and Contiki, and Tollman expects to receive 500 to 1,000 bookings a year for Uniworld.

He explained that the cruise product had good congruence with Insight’s tours, which also target luxury travellers.

“We’re already seeing a lot of people opting for both a river cruise and tour on their holiday,” Tollman said, adding that there would be “no one better” than Insight’s regional director of Asia, Robin Yap, to oversee Uniworld’s growth.

Uniworld has a fleet of some 15 ships that can take between 130 and 180 guests on average, with sailings through major rivers in Europe, as well as Russia, Egypt and China. Vietnam will also soon be included in the line-up.