The Indonesian government has allotted Rp3.5 trillion (US$250 million) of the national budget for tourism development in the Lake Toba Area, North Sumatra.
Speaking at the Sipinsur Park Geosite, North Sumatra, on Monday, Indonesian president Joko Widodo said he was setting aside the budget to turn Lake Toba into a “classy destination”.
Lake Toba
“However, the products need to be improved (and) the brand needs to be uplifted so that it becomes a must-visit destination,” he said.
The development will require huge investments and an integrated public-private partnership approach, of which private-sector investment is likely to be several times more than the government funding.
Joko said the area has 28 potential tourism sites, which will be further clustered into different concepts spanning cultural, historic and natural.
The government will also need to integrate the product offerings, human resources, packaging, brand image and the environment, in order to position Lake Toba as a unique destination in Indonesia.
‘As such, when travelling to the country, visitors will find that (Toba) is different from Bali, Mandalika (Lombok) and other destinations,” Jokowi said.
He added that development of the tourism facility at Toba would start this year and is expected to be completed within a year.
Infrastructure development in Lake Toba has been underway since 2018, and currently only 21km of the 123km-long Samosir Ring Road awaits completion.
Sri Lanka has cancelled roadshows for the remaining year and instead relies on offering free on-arrival visas for 45 countries, including India and China, from August 1, to entice visitors back to Sri Lanka as the country’s tourism industry recovers from the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings.
According to tourism minister John Amaratunga, the free on-arrival visas offered to 45 countries was initially set to take effect from May 1, but was delayed due to the April 21 bombings of three luxury hotels and three Christian churches that killed more than 300 people, including 50 tourists.
Sri Lanka wants visitors back; Galle Fort pictured
Sri Lankan Tourism Promotion Bureau chairman Kishu Gomes noted that roadshows were being cancelled as some industry stakeholders felt that they are less effective and, hence, not a priority at this stage.
Large tourism businesses, essentially DMCs, are the ones opposed to roadshows, saying the government needs to first speed up its promotion and marketing campaign.
A new tourism promotion and marketing campaign worth 916 million Sri Lankan rupees (US$5 million) was originally slated to roll out in mid-July but has been delayed due to bureaucratic procedures, according to Gomes.
The decision to turn away from roadshow promotion has, however, also prompted outcry among members of the Sri Lanka trade.
Rasika Rajapakse, general secretary of Association of Small and Medium Enterprises in Tourism Sri Lanka (ASMET), said roadshows, which are subsidised to the trade, were vital to small businesses that are unable to expend large sums of money to participate in trade fairs.
ASMET is planning to appeal to prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the tourism minister John Amaratunga to restore roadshows, Rajapakse said.
Singapore-based budget hotel booking platform RedDoorz raises US$45m in Series B funds
Singapore-based hospitality management booking platform RedDoorz has raised US$45 million in a Series B round led by Chinese venture capital firm, Qiming Venture Partners.
Other co-investors include Indonesia-based media company MNC Group, as well as existing investors Jungle Ventures, Hendale Capital, International Finance Corporation and Susquehanna International Group.
Singapore-based budget hotel booking platform RedDoorz raises US$45m in Series B funds
RedDoorz said it will use the funds to aggressively pursue growth strategies and increase its lead in South-east Asia’s hospitality segment.
Amit Saberwal, founder and CEO of RedDoorz, said: “Our growth in 2018-2019 has been exponential. It has been such an important period for us as we were able to set the pace and establish new industry benchmarks in the affordable hospitality segment in South-east Asia.”
Helen Wong, a partner at Qiming Venture Partners, said: “We have seen the trend of budget hotel chains in China about 15 years ago, and believe that standardised accommodation at affordable prices will appeal to consumers and business travellers in South-east Asia too. As online penetration of the travel industry grows, RedDoorz will be a key beneficiary with the most extensive network of hotels in the region.”
RedDoorz recently announced that it is on track to achieve one million occupied room nights per month by year-end. As of July 2019, RedDoorz is growing five times year on year and it has reached 500,000 occupied room nights, said the start-up.
The start-up currently has operations across more than 80 cities in four countries in the region, namely, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. It operates more than 1,200 budget hotels and properties.
Masakazu Yamashina, Executive Vice President NEC Corporation and Jeffrey Goh, Chief Executive Officer, Star Alliance
Star Alliance airline network and Japanese technology company NEC Corporation have signed an agreement to “develop a biometric data-based identification platform” that will significantly improve the travel experience for frequent flyer programme customers of Star Alliance member airlines.
Poised for introduction at a Star Alliance airport hub by 1Q2020, the service will be available to customers who are enrolled in one of Star Alliance’s frequent flyer programmes, and who have authorised the use of their biometric data.
NEC Corporation’s Masakazu Yamashina and Star Alliance’s Jeffrey Goh
Personal data, such as photo and other identification details, are encrypted and safely stored within the platform. Customers only need to enrol once with their mobile device, and will then be able to use their biometrics data multiple times at biometrics touchpoints at any participating airport whenever they travel with a Star Alliance member airline.
NEC also added in a statement that “the system has been designed in compliance with applicable data protection laws making use of the latest facial recognition technology”.
Regardless, passengers may still be required to show their passport during security and immigration procedures.
Once implemented, Star Alliance customers who opt-in to biometrics will have a seamless and handsfree passenger experience, allowing them to pass through curb-to-gate touchpoints within airports, such as check-in kiosks, bag-drop, lounges and boarding gates.
Takashi Niino, president and CEO of NEC Corporation, said in a statement: “Facial recognition is truly revolutionising the airline industry and making flying more enjoyable, just as it was always intended. In support of this partnership, similar to our implementations in the US, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, NEC will mobilise its global resources and provide local assistance to each of the member airlines to leverage this secure, interoperable platform and rapidly bring our common vision to reality.”
Best Western Hotels & Resorts has appointed Venushe Wickramarathne as regional director of commercial – Asia.
Based in Best Western’s regional head office in Bangkok, Wickramarathne will oversee the sales and marketing activities for the group’s entire collection of hotels and resorts in South-east Asia and Japan, encompassing all 16 of the company’s brands.
The hospitality professional has obtained his work experience through a series of roles in Europe and Asia, rising from night manager at an AccorHotels property in Zurich to deputy head of sales – events & banqueting for the Cinnamon Grand hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
In 2017, he joined Centara Hotels & Resorts, initially as area director of sales & marketing for Colombo, before moving to Thailand in January 2018 to become the company’s area director of sales & marketing for Krabi.
Chan Brothers Travel has unveiled its first Global Classroom Edition, a curated series of family educational tours to Australia, Dubai and New Zealand.
The Global Classroom Edition has been designed to foster education outside the bounds of the traditional classroom, and aims to cultivate learning through innovative and enriching experiences. Aside from promoting experiential learning with lots of hands-on opportunities, these curated tours are expected to offer bonding opportunities for families during the school holidays.
Children can learn about Australia’s flora and fauna during these trips
For instance, an edu-travel itinerary in New Zealand would include a farm experience at Walter Peak High Country Farm; a cable car ride and luge ride; and a guided tour at the National Kiwi Hatchery Aotearoa.
In Australia, travellers can either gain deeper insights into agricultural practices at Collingwood Children Farm in Melbourne, or learn how honey is made at Superbee Honeyworld in Gold Coast.
In Dubai, children will be treated to an Emirati cultural immersion at Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding, and get to attend a henna painting lesson.
In its first step towards becoming a global DMC powerhouse, Buffalo Tours Asia has announced its merger with Olympus Tours Americas – an established ground operator for Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic – to create an experience company named Discova.
Operating under the Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), Discova will focus on enhancing destination expertise and local guiding, delivering on-ground solutions to business partners around the world as well as rolling out more sustainability efforts on a larger scale.
Lee: keener focus on B2B partners with creation of new DMC
Speaking to TTG Asia in an exclusive interview ahead of the announcement, Discova’s managing director for Asia, Suyin Lee, previously managing director of Buffalo Tours, said: “Part of this brand change (involves) a strong refocus on our B2B partners. For a long time, we’ve noticed that a lot of DMCs look and feel a little bit B2C. If you look at their websites and offerings, they’re targeting the B2C market as well. But we’ve come to realise that for us, we can add the greatest value to our B2B partners.”
The new Discova brand entails providing stronger in-destination support for clients and their travellers by improving and maintaining consistent service standards, said Lee. Any subsequent DMC acquisitions by FCTG will also fall under this brand.
“The plan for the global DMC network is to continue to grow across the world through acquisitions or organic start-ups. When that happens, it’s very difficult to maintain so many brands across the world and it confuses our customers,” she shared.
Discova currently operates in 14 countries in Asia, Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with plans for further expansion to Sri Lanka, South Korea, the Philippines, within the Caribbean, Jamaica and Hawaii. Lee said that Discova has plans to establish a name in Australia and New Zealand where it currently has “no inbound presence at all”.
Greg Kitchen, managing director of Discova, said in a statement: “Discova is also able to create tailor-made in-destination solutions. The strong position Buffalo Tours has had in responsible tourism will be carried into the new brand and strengthened through further initiatives and implementations across Discova’s expanding number of destinations.”
“This will allow us to expand our global reach so that we can remain at the forefront of in-destination travel services and connect our partners and customers to a world of possibilities through discovery and adventure,” he added.
“Our knowledge base, our people and our love of travel is at the heart of our business. This merger is not about changing who we are – it’s about underscoring our core values and strengthening the alignment between our businesses,” Kitchen said.
The new brand positioning will be completed by end 2019 and showcased at the World Travel Mart in London in November.
The board of directors of Philippine Airlines (PAL) yesterday confirmed the appointment of Gilbert Santa Maria as president and COO, replacing the widely respected Jaime Bautista who retired on June 30 after a 26-year career with the flag carrier.
This follows the earlier short-lived appointment in June of Vivienne Tan, daughter of the airline’s owner Lucio Tan, as the officer-in-charge. The younger Tan is currently the airline’s executive vice president and chief administrative officer.
A handpicked nominee of PAL chairman and CEO Lucio Tan, the 53-year old Santa Maria has no prior aviation industry experience but has three decades of executive management and leadership experience gained across multiple industries in companies around the world.
According to a press release issued by PAL, Maria was a contributor in the Philippines’ business process outsourcing (BPO) industry for the last 15 years. Until early 2018 he was COO of Washington, DC-based BPO company Ibex Global. Before IBEX, he was COO and CFO of IQ BackOffice, a California-based Finance & Accounting outsourcer that was an investee company of LiveIt Investments, Ayala Corporation’s BPO holding company.
He supported the governance of LiveIt’s investee companies as a member of the boards of IQ BackOffice; Integreon, a London-based KPO; and Stream, a Massachusetts-based global Call Center company. Before this, he led corporate development for Stream, having joined its leadership after its 2009 merger with Arizona-based eTelecare Global Solutions, where he led corporate development and eTelecare’s 11,000-employee Philippine Operations through the integration of the two companies. He joined the startup eTelecare in 2004.
Prior to joining the BPO industry, Santa Maria led a Singapore-based Internet 1.0 startup called Similan.com. He was executive director of Argosy Partners, which was organised by Filipino business leaders in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1998 to be the Philippine affiliate of global private equity funds. He was also one of the youngest general managers of Pepsi Cola Products Philippines’ Manila operations.
Santa Maria was also a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton in New York where he led various strategy and operations consulting engagements for global clients. The Mindanao native started his career as a management trainee in production and engineering at Unilever in Manila.
Construction is poised to begin this year for the Philippines’ first-ever dedicated cruise pier and terminal, which stands adjacent to the Solaire Resort and Casino in the Entertainment City hub along Manila Bay.
Targeted for an August 2021 opening, Solaire Cruise Centre Manila is designed for the world’s largest vessels, including Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas and Genting Cruises’ Global Class. It can berth two ships of heights 348m and 310m at one time, Guillaume Lucci, senior adviser of cruise operator Bloomberry Cruise Terminals, told TTG Asia.
An artist’s impression of an aerial view of the Solaire Cruise Center
The cruise and marina complex is a “milestone” and “game-changer” crucial to the advancement of the Philippine’s cruise tourism, said Jing Esmana, Department of Tourism’s (DoT) head, cruise team, office of product and market development.
It is understood that all Philippines ports are built for cargo operations, including Manila’s Pier 15, the current port of call for cruise ships, which is 75 to 85 per cent utilised for cargo operations.
The lack of cruise facilities led the DoT and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority to eye having a cruise port within the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex. But a feasibility study noted certain challenges owing to other proposed developments in the area, including a huge reclamation project.
There was also a proposal to build a cruise pier within the Manila Yacht Club but Bloomberry Cruise Terminal beat it by being the first to submit the Solaire Cruise Center plan, and there cannot be two cruise ports in Manila.
An artist’s impression of the arrival plaza of Solaire Cruise Center
After obtaining its Environmental Compliance Certificate from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in May, Solaire will begin construction of two linear berths totalling 685m and an additional two mooring dolphins.
“The wider berth close to shore is designed for homeport vessels (and) the second berth designed for port of call (international) vessels,” Lucci said.
The next phase in the construction of the cruise centre involves the development of the terminal building for homeport passengers and a yacht marina. Planning is underway in terms of demand and the timeline is dependent on the planning process.
Upon completion, Solaire Resort and Casino will also be home to a marina with yacht and charter boat facilities. The yacht marina will complement the tourism offerings with the eventual provision of yachts for shore excursions to nearby islands.
“We expect this facility to play a role of catalyst for the expansion of sustainable cruise tourism in the Philippines. A high-end world-class mega yacht marina is long overdue in the region. We fully expect that the combination of the luxury of Solaire Resort and Casino and a world-class mega yacht facility will be a successful combination that will serve the fast- growing Asian yachting market”, Lucci explained.
He added: “The cruise market in Asia homeported from Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong is growing, and the cruise lines need more destination traffic. The market to and from Manila is already growing, and having a dedicated berth for cruise lineswithout having to compete with cargo and traffic will be a significant step forward.
“In regional terms for cruising, the increased demand for a world-class cruise facility between the two cruise regions centered around Singapore to the south and Shanghai/Hong Kong to the north makes the timing of the development of Solaire Cruise Center ideal not only to enhance the offering of the existing world class facility, but also for the Philippines as a whole.”
Having attracted growing interest from both overseas and Japanese large-scale investors, soaring property prices in Japan’s Niseko has led to the emergence of a new tourism storyline with numerous luxury hospitality resorts coming soon to the alpine resort destination.
Besides the soon-to-open Park Hyatt Hanazono, the incoming development pipeline includes the ultra-luxury Aman in Moiwa, Ritz-Carlton Niseko Village and Pavilions Hirafu, according to C9 Hotelworks’ new Niseko Tourism and Property Market Review.
Niseko in Japan
Research into the alpine real estate sector this past high season by C9 revealed that pre-sales of condominiums topped US$1.3 billion and house and/or land plots edged close to a quarter of a billion US dollars. One clear sign of the times is a new entry from top Singapore property group SC Global with their mixed-use Setsu project on the main street of Hirafu.
Shifting tourism demand is demonstrated in a three-year CAGR of 13 per cent for mainland Chinese, with direct flights to the gateway New Chitose airport numbering eight. Overall, the key airlift metric has seen the introduction of new international routes to Taiwan, Russia, Finland and the Philippines.
Bill Barnett, managing director of C9 Hotelworks, said: “Emerging regional buyers from Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia reflect the new Niseko reality. Meanwhile, domestic buyers, especially from outside Hokkaido, are targeting investments in hotel branded projects and family-friendly properties. We are seeing Hirafu’s spillover demand radiate to peripheral areas including Higashiyama, Annupuri and Hanazono, while broader alpine real estate development is spreading to farther away areas such as Furano.”
He added: “Niesko has become Asia’s fastest appreciating resort real estate markets. We are seeing premium pricing levels in prime projects attain levels of US$15-20,000 per square metre. Alpine property is becoming more of an object of desire for high-net-worth Asians versus the legacy tropical pool villa asset class.”
Moving towards 2020, C9’s forecast sees larger new hotel-type projects coming into the pipeline in areas such as Hirafu, Hanazono and Moiwa. In a growing sign of market maturation, the large legacy of real estate condominium properties and stand-alone chalets looks to be challenged by bigger year-around full-service hotels.
