Brought to you by The Travel Corporation
Behind the 42 award winning brands of the Travel Corporation (TTC), remains the same family that has owned and operated the company since day one. Operating in 70 countries, TTC’s exceptional portfolio includes Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Contiki, Costsaver, Luxury Gold, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection, U River Cruises, AAT Kings, Inspiring Journeys and The Red Carnation Hotel Collection.
2020 marks a century of The Travel Corporation (TTC) where the company started with just one small hotel in South Africa in 1920. “Driven by Service” is the singular guiding light for TTC’s 42 brands, which offers customers the opportunity to enjoy a fantastic, diverse range of high-quality holiday styles, be they independent or guided, luxury travel and hotels, safaris or river cruises.
The Travel Corporation’s CEO Brett Tollman’s grandfather, Solomon Tollman first opened a hotel in South Africa on 1920. Today, 100 years after his first hotel, TTC continues to build on his enduring legacy with the same values as a fourth-generation family owned business.
When you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.
Everyone in TTC is dedicated to making travel dreams real, whether it be in a hotel, on a river cruise, or on a guided holiday with one of TTC’s award-winning brands. Over four generations, the Tollman family and their extended TTC family of passionate staff have lived and breathed travel.
As TTC marks the milestone of celebrating 100 years of travel excellence, everyone at TTC is dedicated to the next 100 years and re-affirms its commitment to Innovation and to its Travel Partners. One key evolution to equip agents with the best tools for success is the TTC Online Travel Portal.
With 42 award-Winning Brands travellers not only have ample selection but each brand offers something unique. To learn more about TTC and our brands, please click here
Trafalgar is the cornerstone of TTC as the travel company’s flagship brand. With 74 years of expertise, each Trafalgar holiday is a carefully-crafted itinerary packed with real experiences that will connect guests to the soul of the places visited. Trafalgar offers guided holidays to all 7 continents with over 350 trips worldwide catering to different travel styles and interests. From seeing the icons, to stays with stories and connecting with locals in their homes, travellers will enjoy a real holiday without worrying about a thing. With expert Travel Directors, comfortable transport, quality accommodation, plenty of meals and unique Trafalgar Highlights included, each guest has the freedom to just be; be in the moment, be happy, be inspired.
Contact Trafalgar
mae.cheah@trafalgartours.com
Welcome to the art of travelling in style. Insight takes guests beyond the landmark sites and allows them to get up close and personal with the destinations they visit as they travel in comfort with coaches with extra legroom. From meeting local characters to sharing meaningful experiences with a smaller group of travelling companions, hotels are handpicked for their great locations and dining experiences allow everyone to savour local specialities across a variety of dining styles. Magic isn’t imaginary, it’s just well-planned as Insight’s knowledgeable Travel Directors provide a seamless travel experience from start to finish.
Contact Insight Vacations
anthony.lim@insightvacations.com.sg
Costsaver offers guests unparalleled holiday experiences at an unbeatable value. Costsaver’s innovative ‘Essentials by Us, Tailored by You’ travel style allows guests to tailor their holiday, by providing quality inclusions such as 3 and 4-star hotels, transport, must-see sights and expert travel directors, allowing guests to enjoy free and easy touring the option to choose from a selection of carefully curated optional experiences or enjoy time exploring on their own. Costsaver offers a best price guarantee on its ‘Ready to Go’ rates to help agents close a sale.
Contact Costsaver
mae.cheah@trafalgartours.com
Luxury Gold sets an unmatched standard with its collection of award-winning journeys. Guided by a Travelling Concierge, Luxury Gold is a journey beyond the ordinary, where guests enjoy exclusive VIP Experiences, savour exceptional dining and relax in luxury hotels. With about 50 worldwide extraordinary journeys to some of the world’s most spectacular destinations, guests enjoy the perfect blend of guided and independent exploration. On selected departures, as part of the Chairman’s collection of exclusive VIP experiences, meet with iconic local legends such as a member of the Austrian Habsburg family. a duchess from England or a former Olympic athlete.
Contact Luxury Gold
anthony.lim@luxurygold.com
Uniworld is the world’s most luxurious all-inclusive river cruise line – featuring one-of-a-kind ships, exclusive excursions, farm-to-table cuisine, and one of the highest staff-to-guest ratios on the rivers – in Europe, Russia, China, Vietnam and Cambodia, India, Egypt and the Amazon.
Uniworld elevates every aspect of luxury river cruising to an unmatched level. Every element of an all-inclusive Uniworld cruise seamlessly blends together to create the most impressive experience on the rivers.
Contact Uniworld
info.asia@uniworld.com
Since 1912, guided holiday experts, AAT Kings has been helping travellers discover and explore Australia and New Zealand. With a broad range of holiday options including Guided Tours, Short Breaks and Day Tours, AAT Kings are the holiday experts.
Breaking the boundaries of one-size-fits-all travel experiences, AAT Kings offers unique travel styles to suit everyone’s dream holiday desires.
Contact AAT Kings
yankit.wong@aatkings.com.au
Inspiring Journeys invites travellers to embark on a truly immersive and exclusive exploration, discovering ancient cultures and the unique landscapes of Australia and New Zealand. With intimate journeys that venture off the beaten track, uncovering secret trails and the roads less-travelled, guests will travel in a premium, small-group setting of not more than twenty persons. Indulge in local flavours, visit renowned wineries or simply unwind in hand-selected heritage lodgings, and choose from twelve different itineraries (eight across Australia and four in New Zealand).
Contact Inspiring Journeys
yankit.wong@aatkings.com.au
U River Cruises has innovated the travel industry with river cruising reimagined for the young and young at heart. Move seamlessly throughout Europe on a chic floating boutique hotel which docks in the heart of the most amazing cities. With meals, transportation from city to city and activities all built in, and only needing to pack and unpack once, U offers active cruises designed for those with a passion for exploring and a taste for authentic adventures.
Contact U River Cruises
info.asia@uniworld.com
Contiki are the world leaders in travel experiences for 18-35’s. Travellers choose Contiki trips as they are all about discovery, once-in-a-lifetime moments, human connections, and making every second of being young count. With over 300 trips in 50 plus countries, each itinerary is crated to get to the beating heart of a destination, understanding the local way of life and unearthing No Regrets experiences.
Contact Contiki
asia.res@contiki.com
The Travel Corporation’s mission statement is to Make Travel Matter, with a commitment to creating a positive impact by helping to safeguard the people and the communities we visit to help protect and respect wildlife, and to care for our planet for generations to come.
As someone who has multiple tabs open at the same time in my mind all day every day, Taiko drumming forces me to shake off all concerns and focus only on the rhythmic rise and fall of my arms as I attempt to keep pace with my instructor. My Taiko crash course at Tokyo’s Taiko-Lab was led by an effervescent young man who instructed me on several short sequences that were eventually combined to form a complete heart-pounding, bicep-straining performance. Here, take my pen. I’m ready to move from editor to Drum Tao extraordinaire!
My most memorable trip this year was to Rotorua, a town on New Zealand North Island. Despite having been there a couple of times, the city always manages to surprise with new experiences, thanks to the ever-creative local travel operators and authorities.
What makes any travel experience memorable is having the company of like-minded companions, which was what I enjoyed when I visited Sky Mirror in Kuala Selangor. I visited the attraction with three other like-minded friends who shared a similar interest of looking for Instagrammable places, before ending the day’s tour with a hearty meal. The full day experience gave us a chance to catch up and rekindle friendships, as we had not been in touch for quite some time. And the best part? We all went home with gorgeous pictures.
Exploring Indonesia’s Komodo National Park was the icing on my travel cake this year. Diving into clear waters teeming with colourful fish, I saw a manta ray glide by for the first time (I squealed into my regulator), countless hawksbill turtles munching on coral, a few moray eels playing hide-and-seek, and several white- and black-tipped sharks sleeping on the ocean floor. Back on land, watching the sun kiss the land from the peak of Padar Island – illuminating the rocky outcrop, turquoise waters, and sandy beaches in the process – took my breath away.
I tried out skiing for the first (and probably, last) time at Jeongseon’s High 1 Resort, the highest elevation ski resort in South Korea, and it was memorable for all the wrong reasons. My ski coach, Aron, gave me a crash course in skiing before sending me out on the beginner’s course. Barely 1km into the course, my totally unathletic self had already crashed into everything from the orange fencing to a ski patrol house and uh, three Korean kids. Aron sighed a bit too loudly as he grudgingly lifted me off the ski slope for the umpteenth time. I felt like David trying to conquer the gently-sloping Goliath. When I finally emerge not-so-triumphantly – it took me 1.5 hours to conquer the 2km course – I was perspiring like I was back in sunny Singapore. For trepid first-time skiers, here’s a tip: Stick to dry running on the bunny slopes before battling the big bad beginner’s course.
The Sabre Technology Exchange in Las Vegas gave me the perfect opportunity to hop on the hot activities trend, so I packed into a van with a local land-sailing instructor and drove out to Ivanpah Dry Lake in California. We spent the afternoon racing through the desert against a backdrop of mountains and mirages – definitely the best kind of experience that could come out of getting into a stranger’s van!
A recent trip to Hong Kong, my safe and happy home for nine years in the 90s, was an emotional journey. I attended the wedding of James Lam, whom I have seen grow from a young boy joining us in watching Chinese concerts to a young man committed to farming. James is the youngest son of Via Vai Travel owner Sef Lam, an industry contact who has since became a close friend over the decades. It was a happy occasion catching up with the Lam family and meeting old TTG Asia friends like Hong Kong correspondent Prudence Lui and former TTG Chinese editor Jenny Wong.
I experienced a once-in-a-lifetime journey on The Eastern and Oriental Express in early September. During the 50-hour train ride from Singapore to Bangkok, the experience was beyond my expectations, thanks to the brand’s top-notch software and hardware. As the train was only 50 per cent full, I enjoyed even more attentive services from my Thai butler and other service staff. Having acclaimed French chef Didier Corlou onboard took guests’ satisfaction to the next level because the ‘spice atelier’ excited our tastebuds with his best of Vietnamese and French cuisine, serving up a ‘four-hand’ dinner and signature afternoon tea.
A week on the Indonesian archipelago of Karimunjawa in September blew my mind. Days were spent exploring the smattering of coral-fringed deserted islands with powder-white sand lapped by turquoise waters and an almost tourist-free main island teeming with nature, lush mangroves and rolling hills. The area’s pristine marine parks also delivered my first unforgettable foray into the underwater world with a day scuba diving among adorable clownfish, corals in rainbow colours, and curious parrot fish.
For Jakartans, spending a weekend in Puncak may sound boring, but my Puncak trip in May was fun because I got to re-experience attractions I had visited as a kid, such as taking in sights of beautiful flowers of diverse origins in Taman Bunga Nusantara and the rolling tea plantations in Puncak Pass. I also visited other popular attractions, such as the replica of a hobbit house at the Pinewood Lodge & Organic Farm Cisarua. Until I could realise my dream to travel to New Zealand, visiting a replica of a hobbit house was enough to make me happy. However, this spontaneous journey not only evoked memories of the past, but also reminded me of dreams that must be realised.
The most memorable activity this year is celebrating a presidential election because this was my first time voting. In the previous two elections, I did not cast my ballot because I was out of town to do a quick count for a pollster. I later regretted after realising that my salary could not compensate for this very important moment. Therefore, since last year, I was committed to show up to vote and promised myself to reject any assignments on the voting day in April. I left Jakarta two days before the big day, taking a train to go back to my hometown of Bondowoso, a small city in East Java. The 17-hour road trip was exhausting, but well worth the effort because my favourite candidate won.
Though the Maldives is always a favourite destination of mine for work and recreation, it has often been a case of more work than play and not enjoying the multitude of attractions this destination offers; even the simple luxury of sitting in an over-water villa and absorbing the sunset often escaped my attention. During my June visit, I simply sat down outside the villa watching as the orange rays of the sun set on the horizon, sipping a beer for comfort. I was so mesmerised by the amazing sight that I forgot to take pictures. Well, perhaps next time!
My visit to Siddhabali Temple, located in the Kotdwara town of the Indian state of Uttarakhand, was not just memorable because of my devotion to Lord Hanuman but also due to its tranquil surroundings. The hilltop temple is surrounded by greenery which adds to its beauty and calmness, and one can see the banks of the Khoh River from its premises.
The most memorable travel experience this year would be the Vespa tour that I had in Hanoi. As I had never been on a motorbike before, I was so fearful in the beginning that I even said my prayers as the motorbike took off. The Vespa zipped through Hanoi’s traffic while cars drove past in all directions, before going down the narrow lanes between buildings. During the ride, I also got to see houses and shops tucked beside a railway track, offering me a glimpse of local lifestyles. It was an exciting and eye-opening experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed the motorbike tour.
My most memorable travel experience would be our company retreat in Mauritius this May. As part of our company teambuilding programme, we got to drive a quad bike through some of the most beautiful places on the island, from lush sugarcane plantations to Pont Naturel – a volcanic rock structure set like a bridge over roaring turquoise sea water below. Overall, Mauritius impressed me as a scenic and interesting country that I would like to bring my kids to visit one day.
Naritasan Omotesando is a charming street lined with traditional Japanese houses and quaint shops selling interesting Japanese food and handicrafts. It was one of the memorable places that I stumbled upon by chance during my recent visit to Japan. I love the variety of unique products for sale. The streets were amazingly clean with beautiful blooms of flowers lining most shops. Shinshoji Temple in the area has an amazing Japanese garden filled with colourful flowers, a discovery I made during a leisurely walk around its grounds.
