WebBeds has penned a major new agreement to promote Macau to the travel trade in Indonesia, as part of the Macao Government Tourism Office’s (MGTO) efforts to attract more visitor arrivals from South-east Asia’s largest and most populous country.
Under this exclusive new partnership, WebBeds and the MGTO will embark on a nationwide promotional campaign from August 1 to December 31, 2019.
WebBeds partners MGTO to promote Macau to Indonesia’s travel trade (Pictured; from left: WebBeds’ Yuniar Putri, MGTO’s Viona Maliki and Yohanes Tarigan, and WebBeds’ Risa Supena)
The campaign kicked off with a recent Jakarta workshop hosted by WebBeds for its key travel agency clients in Jakarta. Held at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Jakarta – Diponegoro, the event enabled MGTO representatives to meet with local travel agencies and showcase Macau’s attractions to Indonesian travellers.
In addition, WebBeds has also partnered several prominent hotels in Macau, including MGM Cotai and Hotel Lisboa, to offer exclusive rates through this campaign to attract more Indonesians to the city.
WebBeds will also offer triple FIT Points for all bookings of Macau hotels made by its Indonesian clients during the campaign period, as part of its popular FIT Rewards programme.
In 2018, 173,836 Indonesian travellers visited Macau, which makes it the city’s 10th largest source market. However, the MGTO believes there is strong potential for future growth due to rising affluence in Indonesia and the country’s vast population of 264 million people.
India-based Oyo Hotels & Homes has acquired Danamica to leverage the Copenhagen-based data science company’s machine learning and business intelligence capabilities, particularly in dynamic pricing, in its expansion of business in Europe.
Earlier in August, the company had invested €300 million (US$330 million) in the vacation homes business in Europe, with a special focus on strengthening the relationship with homeowners and enabling them with the resources, including technology investments, required to deliver chic hospitality experiences.
Oyo Hotels & Homes has acquired data science business Danamica (Pictured: Kim Holmsted, COO, Dancentre, Oyo Vacation Homes (middle) with Danamica’s founders Mads Westberg and Rune Larsen)
With the acquisition of Danamica, Oyo says it will be able to drive top-line growth by leveraging dynamic pricing across all its brands – Oyo Home, Belvilla and DanCenter. Additionally, Oyo and its real estate partners around the world will benefit using data sciences for improved yield. Starting with Europe, Danamica’s technology innovations will benefit Oyo’s global vacation homes business.
Maninder Gulati, global head, Oyo Vacation and Urban Homes, & chief strategy officer, Oyo Hotels & Homes, said that the Danamica acquisition “will help us be more accurate with pricing, leading to higher efficiencies and yield for our real estate owners and value for money for our millions of global guests”.
He added: “Data sciences across pricing, AI, and imaging sciences have been a cornerstone of Oyo’s proprietary revenue enhancement technology. It is also a huge missing piece in the way traditional vacation rentals industry is run. We are glad to have found Danamica, which has built expertise in these areas.”
With the implementation of Danamica’s machine learning-enabled pricing and revenue management, customers will be able to book a vacation home at the best price.
Similar to airlines and ride-sharing companies, Oyo has introduced dynamic pricing in the hospitality industry to create a level-playing ground even for an independent or small hotelier or homeowner. Oyo’s pricing, inventory allocation and revenue management are driven by a machine learning-based algorithm for prediction and dynamic pricing.
The algorithm analyses 144,000 data points every hour and makes 60 million price changes every day with a prediction accuracy of 97 per cent. It allows each hotel to drive max RevPAR based on its micro-location.
It allows pricing to adjust dynamically to supply and demand. In peak times, pricing adjusts to deliver high RevPAR, and in low times, it goes down to allow for maximum customers to experience the product while increasing overall yield for owners.
Prince Harry has joined forces with several major travel firms to launch a new global initiative to make travel more sustainable, coming just weeks after the Duke of Sussex received criticism of his private jet use for holidays.
Launched in partnership with Booking.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, TripAdvisor and Visa as co-founders, Travalyst aims to promote sustainable tourism practices across the travel industry that will improve conservation, environmental protection and expand local community economic development.
Prince Harry (third from left) has partnered several major travel firms to launch a new sustainable travel initiative. (Pictured: Tripadvisor’s Kanika Soni, Booking.com’s Gillian Tans, The Duke of Sussex, Ctrip’s Jane Sun, Visa’s Suzan Kereere and Skyscanner’s Bryan Dove)
This initiative brings together global businesses – those at the centre of connecting customers and operators in the travel market – to utilise their unique position to educate, raise awareness and promote positive change.
Working with companies, consumers and communities, the “bold new partnership” will initially push solutions that help drive sustainable practices and consumer choices in areas including the supporting of local people, protecting wildlife, tackling climate change and environmental damage as well as alleviating overtourism.
The new eco-friendly initiative will tackle problems such as overtourism
Travalyst is intended to capitalise on the strength and breadth of the global travel market, foster increased collaboration across the industry, and stimulate and support new solutions and initiatives in sustainable travel. The founding partners want to spark a movement of like-minded companies, organisations, NGOs, and changemakers to transform the future of travel into a more sustainable one.
The Duke of Sussex said: “Travel has the unparalleled power to open people’s minds to different cultures, new experiences and to have a profound appreciation for what our world has to offer. As tourism inevitably grows, it is critically important to accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices worldwide and to balance this growth with the needs of the environment and the local population. Bringing companies, consumers and communities together is our best chance to protect destinations and ecosystems for future generations.”
Chiefs of the other co-founders also echoed similar sentiments, with Bryan Dove, CEO, Skyscanner, saying that the biggest players in the travel industry “have a responsibility to use our collective scale to lead this change”.
“Collaboration is the only path forward if we want to create a real paradigm shift in travel,” added Gillian Tans, chairwoman, Booking.com. “Even though we don’t have all the answers yet, we are determined to find them together.”
No concrete plans or actions were shared by the companies involved in the Travalyst partnership, but a press statement issued stated that further details of new initiatives will be announced in due course.
Individuals and organisations can learn more about supporting this work by visiting www.travalyst.org.
An increasing number of Singaporean travellers are venturing to further-flung destinations in Eastern Europe and Africa, driven by a growing desire for exotic experiences, reported agents at the Travel Revolution: The Event consumer fair which took place over the weekend.
Destinations in hot demand include Turkey, Morocco, Madagascar and Ukraine, where sightseeing and cultural experiences are big draws.
Singaporeans are travelling to further-flung destinations in Eastern Europe and Africa, said agents at the recent Travel Revolution: The Event consumer fair (pictured: Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, Turkey)
CTC Travel’s head of department, marketing & public relations, Kelly Toh, said: “Turkey is becoming an evergreen (destination). We get a lot of bookings for Turkey – our customers like the different scenery and culinary experiences.”
To enhance the appeal of these destinations and attract more customers, some agencies have rolled out unique packages that add a new dimension to exotic travel. For example, CTC Travel has been marketing “celebrity” tours with the company’s managing director as the tour guide.
Chan Brothers Travel, on the other hand, has introduced more niche tours for hobby groups such as photography tours, and is cashing in on the burgeoning popularity of the Balkans to promote river cruises down the River Rhine and Danube River.
Nam Ho Travel’s consultant Joe Lim observed: “We have to offer exotic tours like gourmet trips in Eastern Europe – places that customers wouldn’t be able to plan by themselves.”
With self-guided tours on the rise, agencies are creating hybrid tours to lure customers back – such tours provide added value for travellers who do not wish to participate in large group tours.
“Many customers no longer want to join group tours where they have to wake up early every day, or spent a limited amount of time at attractions. So we have launched flexi-tours, where we arrange the itinerary for travellers and they can take the tour at their own pace,” said CTC Travel’s Toh.
She shared that flexi-tours pushed out by the tour agency have become so popular that returning customers have went on to book tours in destinations such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia that could have been easily booked online.
A significant increase in travel intent to Singapore during the Formula One Grand Prix has been recorded for most regions this year, according to a study by travel data marketing firm Sojern.
The study showed a 19 per cent increase in global travel searches between the week before and week of the Singapore Grand Prix (GP) – a 10 per cent rise from the same period last year.
Sojern’s study shows a 19% increase in global travel searches for Singapore during the Grand Prix
There has also been a notable uptick in travellers from Western Europe, Oceania, South-east Asia and North America searching for trips to Singapore GP as compared to previous years, said the report.
The Oceania region saw an 85 per cent increase in intent to travel during the race week as compared to the week before – a 38 per cent rise from last year and significantly higher than any other region.
However, a significant 18 per cent decline in travel intent from East Asia was recorded for the race week as compared to the week before.
The report also said that there has been far fewer East Asia travellers searching for trips to the Singapore GP this year, possibly due to the fact that public holidays fell at a more favourable time in previous years. To put this into context, in 2017, there was a 23 per cent increase; and in 2018, a 17 per cent jump in travellers’ intent to be in Singapore.
The pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong is also potentially impacting travel from that region, said the report, adding that the trend could continue to decline if the situation does not stabilise.
Here are other insights from the study:
This year, the top five origin countries for travellers searching or booking trips to the Singapore Grand Prix are from: (1) Australia, (2) the US, (3) the UK, (4) Singapore and (5) Japan.
In 2018, Australia also topped the list, followed by Singapore and the UK. Last year, Germany appeared as fourth but is missing from this year’s list of top five countries.
This year, the most popular days of arrival include Thursday and Friday in both the week prior to the race and also during race week.
In 2019, most arrivals by travellers into Singapore will occur on the Friday of race week, same as in 2018. In previous years, Saturday was also a popular day for weekend travellers to arrive.
This year, the majority of travellers are looking to stay five days or less – 68 per cent for the race week and 66 per cent for the week prior. Last year, the majority of travellers seemed to have spent more time in Singapore – 12 days or less – possibly due to regional public holidays that fell at the same time.
There has been no significant number of Singaporeans searching for or booking outbound trips out of Singapore during the race week, similar to last year.
Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) has created a new division to service the B2B travel market, offering direct access to the travel company’s broad range of contracted products.
The Travel Junction – Connecting You has been designed to act as an intermediary linking travel sellers outside of the traditional FCTG retail brands to the product powerhouse of the global procurement business with direct contracts in hotels, tours, experiences and cruise.
James Whiting, general manager of The Travel Junction, said the new division offered a connectivity service for B2B businesses to access the company’s specialised range of travel products across wide reaching markets that may not have been feasible to access previously.
He added that The Travel Junction “offers a single distribution point” to guide their partners through the entire product journey.
“The key focus is on minimising the current disadvantages seen within the market today and being caretakers for the end to end customer experience, from supplier to end traveller,” he said, adding that the brand “will be the face of FCTG’s strategic move into the world of product accessibility for businesses outside of the group”.
Diethelm Travel Group has appointed Christian Stoeckli as general manager for Diethelm Travel Thailand.
Stoeckli joins the company’s Bangkok headquarters from his most recent role as CCO and acting CEO for Meeting Point Asia.
In his new role, Stoeckli will be responsible for guiding the Diethelm Travel Thailand office’s overall strategy, including continuing to extend its line of customisable services and offerings.
Originally from Switzerland, Stoeckli boasts more than 35 years of experience specialising in product management and contracting for South-east Asian destinations, including for companies such as Kuoni, FTI Touristik and TUI Switzerland.
The speaker line-up for this year’s edition of Seatrade Cruise Asia Pacific, which will be held in Baoshan, Shanghai, from October 9 to 11, have been confirmed.
Colin Au, chairman, Genting Hong Kong; Michael Bayley, president and CEO, Royal Caribbean International; Arnold Donald, president and CEO, Carnival Corporation and Pierfrancesco Vago, executive chairman, MSC Cruises will be taking the stage at the three-day event to discuss the state of the Asia-Pacific cruise industry.
This year’s edition of Seatrade Cruise Asia Pacific will be held in Shanghai in October
During the conference session, which will be held from 15.10-16.30 on the second day of the event, these senior cruise line leaders will provide insights into the recent development of the cruise industry in Asia-Pacific.
The speakers will discuss and present topics including market dynamics, address the challenges in each sector of the industry, and share their current and future plans for the region.
Recent figures from Cruise Lines International Association’s (CLIA) 2019 Asia Cruise Deployment and Capacity Report show that this year will see a total of 1,917 sailings, and generate capacity for four million cruise passengers in Asia. Some 39 cruise brands are now active in Asian waters, deploying a total of 79 ships.
This year’s total passenger capacity has reduced by 5.7 per cent year-on-year after several years of rapid expansion. The decline was mainly due to the reduction of short cruise itinerary options from China. Nevertheless, the 13 million passenger destination days forecast in 2019 will translate to more potential onshore visits from cruise passengers, creating a stronger tourism impact for destinations across the region.
In terms of destinations, CLIA suggests that Asian passengers prefer to stay closer to home with a massive 90 per cent of sailings taking place within Asia. Shorter sailings also remain the dominant choice of Asians with an average sailing duration of 4.9 days – the lowest amongst source market regions in the world.
The following topics will also be discussed during the three-day event: The development of source markets in Asia-Pacific, the sustainability of cruise tourism in Asia, an update on China’s cruise shipbuilding and repair sector,
trends in Asia-Pacific deployment and Asia ports infrastructure update.
More details about the full programme can be found here.
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts will be opening three more properties in Thailand under its upscale Wyndham brand by the end of 2020.
Joon Aun Ooi, president and managing director, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, South-east Asia and Pacific Rim, said: “Thailand’s tourism industry is riding the crest of a wave, with record numbers of visitors travelling to the country in search of its idyllic tropical climate and iconic attractions.”
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts' New Openings
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Wyndham Wongamat Pattaya
Wyndham Wongamat Pattaya
Wyndham Nai Harn
Wyndham Nai Harn
Wyndham Nai Harn
He added: “Within the next two years, Wyndham will launch a series of exceptional new hotels and resorts in many of Thailand’s most sought-after regions, expanding the capacity of established destinations and bringing international accommodation to exciting new markets.”
In its pipeline, the company has a trio of new hotels slated to open in Thailand by 2020.
Wyndham Nai Harn Resort Phuket, scheduled to open in 4Q2019, will become the first internationally-branded hotel in the Nai Harn area of Phuket. Owned by Cissa Group, the resort will boast a large swimmable lagoon covering the entire ground floor, flowing between the buildings and directly accessible from many of the 353 rooms and suites. Other features include restaurants, a swim-up bar, a rooftop garden and lounge, a spa and wellness centre as well as meeting rooms.
Wyndham Chalong Phuket, slated to open in 2Q2020 and also owned by Cissa Group, will feature 150 pool villas, including two- and three-bedroom options. Located near Chalong Bay, the resort will also offer an all-day restaurant, a bar, a spa, a fitness centre and modern meeting spaces.
Wyndham Atlas Wongamat Pattaya, expected to open in late 2020 on the country’s popular Eastern Seaboard, will feature 192 rooms and suites, a restaurant, a lounge, a fitness centre and meeting space. The hotel will be crowned by a rooftop pool and a garden with views of the sea.
Earlier this year, the company opened three new hotels as part of its ongoing expansion plans, including a milestone development of its first two hotels in the Krabi province – Ramada by Wyndham Aonang Krabi and Days Inn by Wyndham Aonang Krabi – and Ramada Plaza by Wyndham Chaofah Phuket.
Wyndham states that South-east Asia remains its fastest-growing region, surging 22 per cent year-over-year and currently comprise over 24,000 rooms.
Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) will host the fourth edition of Halal Restaurant Week Korea, a two-month promotional event designed to attract Muslim visitors to South Korea, from September 1 to October 31.
The annual event, which partners 150 Muslim-friendly restaurants to offer special discounts, is designed to promote South Korea to tap the rising important of the global Muslim tourism market.
Indian eatery Manokamana, which is a certified Muslim-friendly restaurant in South Korea, is one of the 152 dining spots across the country taking part in this year’s Halal Restaurant Week Korea
The Halal Restaurant Week Korea promotion was initiated to mitigate the difficulties that Muslim tourists often face during mealtimes due to the lack of halal-friendly restaurants in South Korea, as well as improve the tourist infrastructure of the country to better serve the needs of Muslim tourists.
The promotion will provide Muslim tourists with information on halal offerings and discounts, and to combine the showcase the adaptability of Korean cuisine to halal requirements.
During this period, visitors to South Korea will have access to discounts and other benefits from KTO-designated Muslim-friendly restaurants and major tourist sites.
This year’s event will include 152 Muslim-friendly restaurants and 40 major tourist sites and experience programmes to allow a greater range of benefits as compared to last year’s event.
Visitors will also have access to the Halal Restaurant Week Korea coupon book through the KTO offices in major Muslim-tourist regions, namely, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, New Delhi, Dubai, Istanbul and Almaty. The book includes discount coupons with values of KRW3,000 (US$2) and KRW10,000 which can be used at Muslim-friendly restaurants. It also contains coupons for key attractions and the experience programme. In addition, 54 Muslim-friendly restaurants will offer special set menus during the promotion period and coupon discounts up to KRW10,000.
Since 2016, KTO has been trying to steadily increase the number of Muslim-friendly restaurants in South Korea. Muslim restaurants all over the country are subdivided into four categories – halal-certified, self-certified, Muslim-friendly, and pork-free – depending on detailed criteria such as their usage of halal ingredients and pork. The number of designated Muslim-friendly restaurants rose from 135 in 2016 to 250 by end 2018.
KTO’s support project also includes the establishment of a mobile prayer room in Jeju’s “Tamnara Republic” for the convenience of Muslim travellers to perform their prayers. Additional prayer mats are also provided in prayer rooms located in major tourist sites and hotels. Moreover, KTO seeks to develop new tourist packages in K-Wave and other fields catering to Muslim tourists, in addition to premium packages like medical tourism to offer a diversified response to different demands from Muslim markets.
These combined efforts have led to South Korea’s growing reputation as a Muslim-friendly destination. In the 2019 Global Muslim Travel Index report, South Korea emerged the eight most attractive destination among Muslims in the world. The number of Muslim visitors to South Korea annually is expected to exceed the one million mark for the first time in 2019.
More event information, coupons and list of participating organisations for the Halal Restaurant Week Korea can be found here.
