Ireland has been picked as the location for Trafalgar’s 2020 Acclaim rewards trip, a destination the company claims “will appeal to agents all around the world”.
Supporting the brand’s “deep-seated and ongoing commitment to making a positive impact in the places they visit”, 2020’s Acclaim itinerary will focus on experiencing the brand’s JoinTrafalgar initiatives in the Emerald Isle.
Tralfalgar dangles Ireland rewards trips to agents
“Responsible travel is not a passing fad; it’s essential. As both travel companies and travellers, we have a responsibility to ensure that the places we love and the cultures we experience are available for future generations to enjoy too,” said Trafalgar CEO’s Gavin Tollman.
“It’s with this in mind that we’re thrilled to announce Ireland as the location of our 2020 Acclaim trip, giving our valued agent partners the opportunity to experience first-hand the impact that their sales of Trafalgar make to our JoinTrafalgar responsible travel pillars of people, places & wildlife and the planet in just one of the countries we visit,” he added.
Through this rewards trip, agents will receive both the VIP treatment and have the ability to share how the brand makes travel matter with their clients back home, Tollmann added.
The company said the announcement of its Acclaim destination is made earlier than the previous year to offer agents the opportunity to close more Trafalgar bookings during this key selling period and bring themselves one step closer to securing a spot on the rewards trip.
Peter Tichy has been appointed opening general manager for the Radisson Blu Resort Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.
With more than 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, Tichy has previously managed four of Radisson Blu’s hotels, as well as properties under its sister brand, Park Inn by Radisson.
Tichy has also managed and successfully launched new hotels in Russia, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Egypt, and Nigeria.
Tourism villages have the potential to become a key engine of Indonesia’s tourism growth and spur the development of small- and medium enterprises across the archipelago, said the country’s industry players.
Speaking at a recent national dialogue on tourism organised by the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association (PHRI), Irfan Wahid, coordinator of Quick Win Team at the Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Investments, said that a tourism village strategy could become a powerful tool in the development of the 10 New Bali’s in Indonesia.
Indonesia’s tourism stakeholders propose building more tourism villages to attract visitors; Pujon Kidul tourism village in Malang, Indonesia pictured
The strategy, which Irfan recently proposed to president Joko Widodo, encourages the government to annually create 1,000 digital-based tourism villages across the archipelago to boast culture, ecotourism destinations, as well as agricultural, horticultural and aquatic products.
He said: “A four-legged table will crack if a very heavy load is placed on it. But if it has a thousand legs, it will be much stronger. For me, a tourism village is a leg. The more, the merrier. A tourism village will empower small and medium enterprises. We target one village to focus on producing one export-oriented commodity.”
An example is Pujon Kidul in Malang, East Java, which after becoming a tourism village attracted 241,525 tourists in 2018, up from 619 in 2013. Homestays also rose from 178 properties in 2013 to 758 in 2018, with occupancy rates increasing from 10 per cent to 35 per cent. The Pujon Kidul village contributed 5.3 billion rupiah (US$379,000) in tourism revenue in 2018, up from 34 million rupiah in 2013.
“The more tourism villages we have, the more tourist spots we can develop together,” Irfan said.
In support of the initiative is PHRI’s deputy chairman Maulana Yusran, who believes that tourism villages can showcase the uniqueness of each village and attract more visitors.
However, Maulana expressed concern over the uneven playing field between hotels and homestays, and exhorted the government to exercise greater regulation in the accommodation sector to ensure that all players abide by regulations.
There should be stricter enforcement of homestay owners having to obtain a Tourism Business Registration License (TDUP), said Maulana, as it is a regulation that hospitality players have to comply with because it also entails safety measures. As such, he raised concerns about the safety of tourists who stay in unlicensed homestays.
“The government’s weak law enforcement (around TDUP) has resulted in unfair competition in the accommodation sector. Today, big cities like Jakarta and Bali are oversupplied with homestays, including the unlicensed ones which do not pay a tax that the ministry already stipulated in the regulation,” he said.
Umberto Cadamuro, COO inbound of Pacto, said that the government should prevent oversupply of homestays to prevent diminishing of occupancy rates. But homestays will not disadvantage hotels, he added, because they both have different target markets.
He opined that the Indonesian government should train homestay owners in tourism villages to go digital, and help facilitate partnership deals with accommodation booking platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb so that visitors can make online reservations.
Umberto said that creating homestay facilities was easy but developing a tourism village required careful planning. Therefore, he recommended relevant stakeholders to hire consultants to analyse the target market of each village and to preserve and protect the culture of the villages.
Despite the challenges, he said the initiative to grow homestays and tourism villages across Indonesia “is a feasible and very good idea”.
Filipino tycoon and founder of JC Summit Holdings, John Gokongwei Jr, passed away on Saturday night at the age of 93.
The news was confirmed by his son, Lance, in a text message sent out on Sunday, according to media reports.
John Gokongwei Jr passes away at age 93
Today, the Gokongwei Group is one of the Philippine’s largest conglomerates with interests in various industries, including airline, telecommunications, hospitality, and petroleum, among others.
The elder Gokongwei launched budget airline Cebu Pacific in 1996, with the business now headed by Lance as CEO.
“We, the 75,000-strong employees of JG Summit Holdings and Robinsons Retail Holdings, join the nation in paying tribute to the founder of the first Philippine multinational conglomerate, a philanthropist with a passion for education,” the group’s employees said in a statement.
“Mr. John, as we fondly called him, was a visionary. He was an inspiration to entrepreneurs and businessmen around the nation, with his pioneering ideas, his strong work ethic, his passion, and perseverance.”
Gokongwei is survived by his wife of 61 years, Elizabeth, and his children Robina, Lance, Lisa, Faith, Hope and Marcia; his in-laws and grandchildren; brothers Eddie and James Go, sister Lily; and his nieces and nephews.
The family requested in a statement that in lieu of flowers that donations be made to respect-payers’ favourite charity.
Artist’s impression of Legoland Shanghai’s gate entrance
Merlin Entertainments, Madame Tussauds and the Dungeons have entered into an agreement with the Shanghai Jinshan District Government, CMC and Kirkbi to develop a Legoland Resort in Shanghai’s Jinshan District.
Under the terms of the agreement, all parties will form a joint venture company and contribute funding to the construction and development of Legoland Shanghai. The total project investment is expected to be approximately £500 million (US$642 million). The project’s schedule is still to be determined, but it is not expected to open until after 2023.
Legoland Shanghai
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Artist’s impression of Legoland Shanghai’s gate entrance
Legoland Hotel
Legoland Discovery Center Beijing
Hotel Legoland
(From left) Merlin Entertainments’ Nick Varney, Kirkbi’s Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, Executive vice mayor of Shanghai Chen Yin, and CMC Inc’s Li Rui Gang at the signing to build a Legoland Shanghai
This latest news follows Merlin’s earlier announcement to build and operate a Legoland Resort in Sichuan Province in Western China, in collaboration with Global Zhongjun Cultural Tourism Development.
Legoland Shanghai will be one of the largest Legoland Resorts in the world and will incorporate a 250-room fully-themed hotel on opening.
China is a strategic growth market for the Lego Group, which has significantly expanded its retail operations in the past few years and is projected to have 220 stores in more than 50 cities by end-2020.
Dependent on opening schedules, Legoland Shanghai will be opened after Legoland New York (scheduled to open 2020) and Legoland Korea (scheduled to open 2022).
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has signed agreements with Ho Tram Project Company (HTP) to rebrand The Grand Ho Tram at the Ho Tram Strip integrated resort to InterContinental Grand Ho Tram within a year after refurbishments.
The rebranded 533-key InterContinental Grand Ho Tram will be an integrated resort with three F&B outlets, outdoor pools, gym, spa, golf course, along with a retail space featuring a multitude of entertainment options including restaurants, bars, lounges, clubs and a casino gaming floor.
The Grand Ho Tram will be rebranded into InterContinental Grand Ho Tram
A new-build Holiday Inn Resort Ho Tram Beach, the brand’s first in Vietnam, will also open in 2020 as a 502-key hotel to feature family-friendly facilities such as swimming pools and a 360-degree rooftop bar. As well, the hotel will have direct access to facilities including a cinema, bowling arcade, food court and water park.
The two properties will also offer MICE facilities, including a convention centre inclusive of a large ballroom and five meeting rooms which can host up to 1,300 people combined, a casino for international visitors, F&B options as well as entertainment activities. Plans are underway to increase capacity to cater for larger events for up to 3,000 people.
IHG currently has 13 hotels in Vietnam, with more than half under the InterContinental brand, including the InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort and InterContinental Phu Quoc Long Beach Resort.
Asia continued to dominate the supply of international visitor arrival numbers (IVAs) into Asia-Pacific in 2018, generating close to 63% of the 696.5 million IVAs into the region, according to data from the Annual Travel Monitor 2019 Final Edition released by PATA.
In percentage growth terms between 2017 and 2018, Africa outbound into Asia-Pacific had the strongest annual increase at over 13% year-on-year, followed by Europe at almost 11% and then Asia at 7.3%. The nondescript ‘Others’ category increased by 7.5% in 2018, year-on-year.
Intra-Asia travel remains dominant force in region: PATA
By annual increase in the absolute volume of foreign arrivals over that same period, these positions changed somewhat, with Asia generating close to 30.3 million additional foreign arrivals, followed by Europe with more than 8.5 million and then the Americas with just over 5.9 million.
Africa generated a volume increase of just under half-a-million IVAs.
Out of Africa, it was North Africa that generated the largest volume of additional foreign arrivals into Asia-Pacific between 2017 and 2018.
Across the Americas, North America produced the strongest annual incremental increase in foreign arrivals into Asia-Pacific in 2018, generating almost 4.2 million of the 5.917 million increase in arrivals from the Americas between 2017 and 2018 (70.8%).
In Asia, North-east Asia as an origin market showed the strongest increase in absolute numbers out of this region between 2017 and 2018.
The collective markets of Europe added more than 8.5 million IVAs into Asia-Pacific between 2017 and 2018, with West and East Europe supplying the bulk of that additional volume between those two years.
Additional IVAs into Asia-Pacific from the Pacific between 2017 and 2018 were mostly out of Oceania.
At the individual origin market level, those with the strongest annual percentage growth rates into Asia-Pacific in 2018 were ranked as:
All told, 46% of the 245 origin markets (including ‘Others’) covered in this report had annual growth rates in excess of 10%, while 66% grew by five per cent or more between 2017 and 2018.
For the absolute volume increase between 2017 and 2018, the strongest source markets into Asia-Pacific were ranked as:
Interestingly, each of these top five origin markets are within the Asia-Pacific region. Intra-regional travel remains very strong.
Of the source markets covered in this report, 12 (about 5%) generated annual volume increases of more than one million each, while 20 (about 8%) produced more than half a million additional IVAs into Asia-Pacific between 2017 and 2018.
Early 2019 data for foreign arrivals into 37 Asia-Pacific destinations shows strong early performances from a number of destinations including:
While Europe’s Greece and Bulgaria both represent extra-regional increases into Asia-Pacific in early 2019 over early 2018, the remainder in this group are all from within Asia-Pacific.
While only two origin markets have so far added more than one million additional IVAs into Asia-Pacific between early 2018 and early 2019, just under 10% of these 232 markets had already generated more than 100,000 additional arrivals into the region over these periods. Included among these are:
PATA’s CEO Mario Hardy said: “Asia-Pacific is still the major generator of arrivals into Asia-Pacific, with Asia especially playing a lead role in that regard. Outside of Asia-Pacific, Europe is an important contributor, with both West and East Europe in particular, supplying significant numbers of additional arrivals in early 2019.”
“Nothing remains the same however and various tumultuous activities that are currently playing out globally and in the Asia-Pacific region will undoubtedly affect the origin and distribution of international arrivals by the end of the year.
“It remains imperative therefore that the international tourism sector remains agile and able to shift its marketing focus to areas of higher potential as these interventions peak and then ultimately fade. The provision of appropriate and timely intelligence as to what these areas of higher potential may be has never been more critical and could easily spell the difference between growth and contraction for players in this field and at this time.”
Qantas will be announcing a round of redundancies as part of a head-office restructure, but it’s unclear how many jobs will be cut at the airline, according to a recent report by The Sydney Morning Herald.
The airline staff were informed there would be moves in head office as human resources boss Lesley Grant is set to retire at the end of the year, said the report.
Qantas to retrench staff amid restructuring
Her position will not be filled and staff working under her will be absorbed into other offices, it added. Qantas’ CEO Alan Joyce was quoted by the report as saying that the move would reduce “complexity” and improve efficiency in the business.
Joyce flagged after a soft first-quarter trading update that Qantas would have “strong focus on cost reduction” given lower demand for air travel, according to the report.
This latest announcement comes as Joyce confirmed that the airline plans to place a multibillion-dollar order with either Boeing or Airbus by end 2020 to replace its ageing shorthaul fleet.
41 hotels and resorts under the KataKaron Business Association sign MOU to foster green initiatives
The KataKaron Business Association (KBA) in Phuket, comprising local hotel and resort owners, has signed an MoU pledging that they will achieve four major objectives over the coming year for the benefit of the environment and the local community.
KBA’s president Angkana Tanetvisetkul led Supaluck Damrongchuea from the Phuket Public Health Department and TAT Phuket’s deputy director Montee Manator, as well as owners and representatives from the 41 hotels & resorts, to sign the MOU.
KataKaron Business Association members sign MOU pledging to sustainable tourism practices
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41 hotels and resorts under the KataKaron Business Association sign MOU to foster green initiatives
Objectives for the deal include reducing the garbage generated and all plastics used in daily operations by 80 per cent by end 2020; making guest rooms in all hotels, resorts and beaches (zoned) non-smoking; encouraging visitors to carry garbage back from their day on the beach for sorting at the hotels and resorts; and developing local community projects to encourage local restaurants to install grease traps and monitor the water being discharged from their outlets.
Rosidah Abdullah has been appointed director of sales & marketing at the soon-to-open Four Points by Sheraton Kuala Lumpur, Chinatown in Malaysia.
In her new role, Abdullah will head the hotel’s sales, marketing, events, revenue management and reservations divisions, while developing business strategies that drive growth, maximising all revenue streams and exceeding business goals of the hotel.
With 15 years of sales and client management experience in the hotel industry, Abdullah previously served as director of sales at a sister property of the Marriott group in Malaysia, The Westin Kuala Lumpur.
Prior to that, Abdullah was assistant director of sales at Grand Millennium Hotel Kuala Lumpur under the Millennium Hotel and Resorts. She was also the senior sales manager of Hilton Worldwide Malaysia’s national sales office for four years where she oversaw key accounts for six Hilton hotels nationwide.
