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.
French hospitality group Accor and China’s retail giant Alibaba Group have sealed a strategic collaboration to develop a series of digital applications and loyalty programmes to improve the consumer and traveller experience over the next five years.
The strategic collaboration will enable Accor to gain access to Alibaba’s nearly 700 million consumers across its China retail marketplaces. Alibaba’s travel arm Fliggy will allow consumers to book Accor hotels, access catering services, book entertainment and take advantage of other lifestyle services, while payments can be made using Alipay, a digital payment service operated by Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial.
Accor’s Gary Rosen and Alibaba Group’s Angel Zhao seals partnership to develop a series of digital applications and loyalty programmes
Already, Accor has developed Haoke (which means “welcome” in Chinese), a certification programme that ensures Accor’s hotels are ready to welcome Chinese guests by incorporating Chinese-language, Chinese dishes on menus, Chinese-speaking staff, and other services and payment systems that meet the needs of Chinese travellers.
The collaboration between Accor and Alibaba will be instrumental to the roll-out of Accor’s soon-to-be-launched lifestyle loyalty programme, ALL – Accor Live Limitless, according to Accor leaders. Alibaba will make the programme’s services and benefits available to its massive consumer base, leveraging its ecosystem, consumer insights and digital marketing capabilities, accelerating the roll-out of ALL in China and around the world.
Sebastien Bazin, Accor’s chairman & CEO, said: “China’s importance to the world’s tourism industry and this key collaboration with Alibaba will symbolically strengthen economic ties between China and France, while giving Chinese travelers access to exciting events and benefits through ALL – Accor Live Limitless.”
“ALL forms an integral part of Accor’s aggressive and visionary digital strategy leveraging the growing Chinese travel market,” said Gary Rosen, chairman and COO, Accor Greater China. “This is a milestone collaboration endorsed by two forward-looking nations, and extremely significant for Accor.”
Daniel Zhang, executive chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, said: “Over the past 20 years, Alibaba has formed two flywheels with one focused on consumers and the other on enterprises. Our consumer-facing business facilitates and stimulates consumption, of which travel consumption is an important segment. Through the Alibaba Business Operating System, we enable tourism industry partners such as Accor to fully digitise their business operations, from sales to marketing, brand building to member management and service innovations.”
The announcement was made at a special ceremony in Beijing during the 2019 China International Import Expo, of which Accor was among the delegation of French companies accompanying French president Emmanuel Macron on a state visit to China.
China-based OTA Trip.com Group (formerly Ctrip) has entered into a strategic partnership with TripAdvisor to expand its global footprint, including a joint venture, global content agreements and a governance agreement.
Ctrip Investment Holding, a subsidiary of Trip.com Group, has entered into a joint venture with TripAdvisor’s subsidiary, TripAdvisor Singapore. Trip.com Group will be the majority shareholder of the new joint venture entity and will contribute cash and market expertise. TripAdvisor will own 40 per cent of the joint venture and will contribute a long-term exclusive brand and content license and other assets of its China business.
Trip.com forges partnership with TripAdvisor to expand global reach
The joint venture, which will operate globally as TripAdvisor China, will see both companies sharing inventories in travel categories at the joint venture level.
As well, Trip.com Group and TripAdvisor have entered into global content agreements providing for distribution of select TripAdvisor content on major Trip.com Group brands, including Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner and Qunar.
Furthermore, both parties have entered into a governance agreement which will give Trip.com Group a nomination right for one TripAdvisor board seat after approval from relevant regulatory authorities. To maintain the board seat, Trip.com Group shall acquire up to US$7 million TripAdvisor shares or TripAdvisor shares valued at US$317.6 million through open market transactions within one year following regulatory approvals.
TripAdvisor and its controlling shareholder Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings (LTRP) have separately agreed to provide Trip.com Group with certain information rights with respect to potential transactions for the sale of TripAdvisor Class B shares or LTRP Series B shares, respectively.
The broad strategic partnership pairs Trip.com Group’s market leadership in travel booking capabilities and China travel market expertise with TripAdvisor’s unique brand strength, rich global user-generated content, and points-of-interest database, as well as best-in-class in-destination supply. The strategic partnership marks an important step for Trip.com Group to realise its globalisation vision with greater quality services, and for TripAdvisor to further strengthen its position as a global travel leader.
“China is one of the largest and fastest growing travel markets in the world. Trip.com Group, with its established brands and travel market leadership, is the perfect partner to help us achieve our long-term goals in the region,” said Stephen Kaufer, president and CEO, TripAdvisor.
Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group, said: “As we expand our footprint overseas, it is important that we offer not only seamless access to global travel inventory, but also quality reviews, opinions and pictures generated by other fellow travellers. We are very excited about this strategic partnership, which will undoubtedly further enhance the travel experience for our customers worldwide.”
Short-term home rental company Airbnb said on Wednesday it will introduce new safety measures in the wake of a fatal shooting at an Airbnb rental in Orinda, California last week, including a 24/7 hotline and review of “high risk reservations”, according to a Reuters report.
Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky was quoted by the report as saying at a conference that the company would plough a “significant investment” in the new measures. He also added that it would not have an impact on plans to go public next year.
Airbnb to step up security measures in wake of fatal shooting
Following last week’s fatal shooting incident, where five people were killed at a massive Halloween party inside a rental home, Airbnb has banned “party houses”, according to the report.
In a Twitter post, Chesky said that Airbnb will broaden manual screening of high-risk reservations, first to North America and then globally next year.
The company will also launch a 24/7 hotline for neighbours of Airbnb properties to report concerns anytime, anywhere in the world, he said in another Twitter post.
Chesky also tweeted that Airbnb will be offering a “guest guarantee” from December 15 so customers dissatisfied with the accuracy standards of a listing can rebook at another property or get a full refund.
The company will also begin a verification process for all seven million listings on its platform in bid to regain customer trust, with the objective of verifying all listings by December 15, 2020.
