China Eastern launches two flights to Myanmar
China Eastern Airlines has started direct flights between Wuhan, China, to two destinations to Yangon and Mandalay in Mynamar.
The Yangon route will utilise a Boeing 738 aircraft with a seat capacity of 174. The once-weekly flight will depart from Wuhan at 23.00 on Wednesdays, arriving in Yangon at 01.35 the following day. On Thursdays, the China-bound flight leaves Yangon at 02.35, and arrives in Wuhan at 07.45.
The Wuhan-Mandalay flight will operate twice weekly, also utilising a Boeing 738 aircraft. MU2605 will depart Wuhan at 19.10 on Mondays, and arrive in Mandalay at 20.35. The return flight will depart Mandalay at 21.30, and arrive in Wuhan at 01.50 the following day.
Cebu Pacific to launch Shenzhen-Manila service
Cebu Pacific will launch four-times-weekly flights between Shenzhen and Manila stating July 2. Flights will leave Shenzhen for Manila in the early mornings of Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, with the overall flight time taking two hours and 40 minutes.
VietJet debuts flights to Island of the Gods
VietJet has commenced a five-times weekly service between Ho Chi Minh City and Bal. Flight time will take around four hours, and will operate every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. The flight departs Ho Chi Minh City at 08.05 and arrives in Bali at 13.05. The return flight takes off from Bali at 14.05 and lands in Ho Chi Minh City at 17.05.
Singapore’s Seletar Airport yesterday unveiled its Business Aviation Centre (BAC) to cater to the growing segment of private jet passengers, who are demanding more seamless travel and personalised service.
The highlight of the BAC is its private bag check and immigration lane, which is touted as the first for any business aviation centre in the world. This exclusive lane ensures a smooth and direct travel experience for passengers, who can journey from lounge to post-immigration within 10 minutes.
Seletar Airport Business Aviation Centre
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Other offerings at the BAC include plush waiting and relaxation areas, shower facilities, a business lounge and express laundry services.
It also provides a personal shopper service and a kitchen that prepares a premium menu of dishes for in-flight service, which includes made-to-order requests.
The centre is managed by SATS Seletar Aviation Services (SSAS), a joint venture company SATS formed with Jet Aviation and Universal Aviation.
Bob Chi, chairman of SSAS, said that having a business aviation centre “has been in the cards for a long time”, and until recently, private jets were operated out of Changi Airport.
Now, however, the growing segment and its changing demands has called for a dedicated centre. Chi said: “We’re looking at a five per cent growth every year. We look forward to having more private jet operators locating here.”
Private jets are also facing strong competition from commercial airlines that have stepped up their in-flight menus to include wellness brands and cuisine by celebrity chefs.
To beat the competition, BAC’s dedicated kitchen is able to cater to private jet passengers’ specially requested dishes, desserts and more, which is a service that commercial airlines cannot offer, said Chi.
Since its first flight at Seletar Airport on November 19, 2018, SSAS has handled more than 4,000 flight movements, of which close to 70 per cent are attributed to business aviation.
Chinese GDS TravelSky has sealed a five-year deal to integrate ATPCO’s Routehappy Rich Content, Ancillaries and the Next Generation Storefront standards that are in development.
The agreement will TravelSky broaden the reach of retailing content throughout Asia, as the Chinese IT solutions provider will now get all its pricing and retailing content from one source, making integration much easier.
Chinese GDS TravelSky is now testing all three of Routehappy’s rich content types
TravelSky is currently testing all three Routehappy Rich Content types; Amenities, Universal Ticket Attributes (UTAs), and Universal Product Attributes (UPAs) and plans to integrate Amenities first into its OpenSearch airfare search engine to modernise and enhance its flight shopping display. TravelSky will work closely with ATPCO’s Retailing Solutions team and continue testing to determine customer preferences.
Amenities provide at-a-glance information about flight features while UPAs provide relevant media to describe an airline’s product and services by aircraft type, cabin, time of day, and more. UTAs provide benefits and restrictions, like cancellation, refundability and boarding priority by fare.
Qiongwei Sun, deputy general manager, airline business department at TravelSky, said: “With simple API integrations we are able to give our flight shoppers a next-generation purchasing experience with deeper information about the ticket and product attributes related to the flight they are searching, translated in either traditional or simplified Chinese.”
TravelSky, one of the first channels in China to integrate Routehappy’s rich content, is now urging more Chinese and Asian carriers to partner with ATPCO in the creation and distribution of rich content so it can consume their Amenities, UTA and UPA content and get them in front of more passengers.
ATPCO first partnered with TravelSky a decade ago to open the North Asia fares support office, which helped onboard more than 20 Chinese carriers to distribute fare data via ATPCO. ATPCO then provided consultancy services as TravelSky starting building an agency pricing engine five years ago.
CDL says it has received 'irrevocable undertaking' from key minority shareholders of M&C; Millennium Hotel Rotorua in New Zealand pictured
Singapore-listed real estate firm City Developments Ltd (CDL) is taking another stab at buying Millennium & Copthorne (M&C) Hotels in a deal that values the London-listed company at £2.2 billion (S$3.9 billion).
Channel News Asia reported that the offer represents a premium of about 37 per cent to M&C’s closing price of 500 pence last Thursday.
CDL says it has received ‘irrevocable undertaking’ from key minority shareholders of M&C; Millennium Hotel Rotorua in New Zealand pictured
Currently, the company, part of Singapore’s Hong Leong Group, owns approximately 65.2 per cent of M&C. This offer is final and will not be increased, according to the Channel News Asia report.
CDL had in 2017 offered to take M&C private in a deal valued at £1.8 billion. The offer fell through last January as CDL did not satisfy the minimum acceptance condition of more than 50 per cent of M&C’s shares that it did not already own.
The move will return M&C – which operates the Millennium, Grand Millennium, Copthorne and Kingsgate hotels – to billionaire Kwek Leng Beng’s property empire.
In its current attempt, CDL said it has received “irrevocable undertakings” from key minority shareholders, who hold a combined 43.6 per cent of M&C shares not already held by CDL, to accept the final offer.
Quoting Sherman Kwek, CDL’s group CEO, CNL reported that the decision to take M&C private is in line with the company’s focus on boosting recurring income and enhancing underperforming assets.
Izumisano City, one of the 33 cities in Osaka Prefecture, has announced several upcoming tourism developments in Rinku Town, located a 10-minute drive from Kansai International Airport, the main gateway for air travel into Japan’s Kansai region.
The city made an effort to raise its tourism profile around six years ago, when the then mayor pushed for more integrated resorts (IRs) and hotels to be built in Izumisano to unlock the area’s potential, shared Ryota Nakahira, planning general manager for Izumisano City.
A rendering of the upcoming SICC
And while the city lost the IR bid to nearby Yumeshima – a reclaimed area in Osaka Bay – Izumisano fought on to capture the throngs of international leisure and business visitors passing through Kansai International Airport yearly.
A prominent project will be the Setia Izumisano City Center (SICC), a two-hectare mixed-use development scheduled to open in 2024. SICC will house serviced apartments, a four-star hotel, a 1,600-pax convention centre, offices, a conservatory with fountains and waterfalls, gardens, and F&B and retail shops.
The developer is S P Setia, a Malaysian real estate specialist that is also behind Setia SPICE Convention Centre in Penang and Setia City Convention Centre in Selangor.
“We’re working closely with our hotel partner to ensure that we cater for diverse tastes in food. We want to bring in Malaysian and South-east Asian food, and let Japan experience Malaysian hospitality,” S P Setia’s executive vice president, Koe Peng Kang, told TTG Asia.
As for the area’s selling points, Koe said: “Izumisano offers a genuine way to experience the Japanese way of life without the hordes of tourists.”
In addition to the SICC, other upcoming attractions in Izumisano include the Kanku Ice Arena (opening December 2019); as well as an expansion of Rinku Premium Outlets by 2020 that will add another 60 to its existing 210 shops.
As well, new hotels on the cards include the Hen na Hotel Kansai Airport with 98 keys (opening November 2019); the Oriental Suites Kansai Airport with 258 guestrooms (opening winter 2019); and the Hotel WBF Grande Kansai Airport with 700 guestrooms and a rooftop bar (opening 2020). With these new developments, Rinku Town will boast 2,834 rooms, up from the current 1,778 rooms.
Aside from capturing the inbound crowd heading to Osaka for the World Expo 2025, Koe also shared plans to capture more Muslim travellers.
Calling the segment “a well of untapped potential”, he believes that the SICC will “inspire confidence in visiting Muslim tourists” due to Setia’s “experience and knowledge of designing and constructing Muslim-friendly buildings and environments. Moreover, Kansai International Airport is already a Muslim-friendly airport, featuring halal-certified F&B options, as well as a prayer room.
“There are many things to be seen here, we just have to polish and generate the story,” concluded Koe.
The controversial elephant rides at Angkor Wat will cease next year, Metro UK reported.
The 14 elephants that now ferry tourists to Angkor Wat are believed to be overworked, with the crowded attraction receiving over 2.5 million international tourists each year.
Angkor Wat will end elephant rides by next year
The Angkor Elephant Group Committee confirmed to Metro that these elephants will be transferred to a conservation and breeding centre by early 2020.
Last year, a petition to end elephant rides garnered over 14,000 signatures in just 48 hours after an elephant working at the attraction died from exhaustion. This followed another elephant death at the site in 2016.
Bangkok was the top tourist destination by arrivals for the third consecutive year
China and India continue to be big drivers of Expedia Group’s Thailand bookings, while the UAE, Israel and South Africa are emerging as high-value markets according to the group’s data.
Thai accommodation partners are enjoying steady growth as evidenced by Expedia Group’s data, which showed the overall inbound demand to Thailand has increased by 10% year-on-year over the past 12 months.
Bangkok was the top tourist destination by arrivals for the third consecutive year
Based on demand generated by Expedia Group’s extensive portfolio of travel brands, the US remains as the largest market to Thailand, with demand growing by 20% year-on-year.
China now is the second largest market to Thailand, surpassing Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea for the first time in the past two years.
Alongside China’s strong performance, India also upped its game, moving up three ranks to gain a place in Thailand’s top 10 international markets.
Notably, Chinese and Indian travellers show growing appetite for premium accommodation – more than 60% of the bookings made by Chinese, 55% of bookings made by Indians were for four- and five-star hotels.
This trend is in line with the Thai government’s focus to attract more high-end arrivals from China and India.
In terms of popular destinations, Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya are the most visited cities among Chinese and Indian travellers.
Hua Hin (110%), Koh Phi Phi (100%) and Koh Lipe (100%) are rising markets with Expedia seeing triple-digit demand increase during the same period.
In particular, the data uncovered that Chinese travellers are the driving force behind the strong demand for packages into Thailand – almost one in three international package bookings were made by Chinese. China is also the fastest growing market for packages as demand skyrocketed by 200% year-on-year.
India is trending in the same direction, with package demand up by 160% . Other markets tracking triple-digit growth in package demand include Ireland (130%), South Korea (120%) and Indonesia (100%).
Diving deep into some new emerging international markets that showed impressive growth momentum, Expedia Group confirms that the UAE, South Africa and Israel are the new high-end markets that hoteliers should capitalise on.
Travellers from these markets typically spend 15% more on accommodation and stay one day longer than the average international counterparts. Moreover, a whopping 70% of the total bookings made by these nationalities were in four- and five-star hotels where travellers paid 50% more on daily accommodation.
Accommodation partners wanting to capture this new stream of high-value travellers need be aware of the peak seasons, Expedia advised. The OTA’s data showed that UAE travellers prefer travelling from June to September and December to January, while both Israeli and South Africa travellers prefer travelling from December to February.
Royal Caribbean International has rolled out RoyalUp in Asia-Pacific, its new bid-based upgrade programme for guests to score upgrades to their staterooms.
Guests booked on eligible sailings will be notified via email on stateroom upgrade options available 45 days prior to departure, and will be invited to make an offer online.
Loft Suite
Accepted offers will be automatically charged, and guests will be upgraded to their desired staterooms. In the case of unsuccessful bids, guests will keep their original staterooms without incurring any charges. Bid offers are based on double occupancy, so only the first and second guests will be charged, even for triple and quadruple sharing staterooms.
The RoyalUp programme is currently available for most Royal Caribbean International ships, including Voyager of the Seas in Singapore. Guests will have a chance to bid for upgrading to a variety of higher category staterooms including the two-storey Loft Suites on available sailings of the Oasis and Quantum Class ships.
Angie Stephen, managing director, Asia-Pacific of Royal Caribbean Cruise, said: “We are seeing very strong response for RoyalUp from our other markets because of the great value it brings to our guests, and we believe that many guests in our region will likewise take advantage of this programme to pamper themselves even more on our cruises, starting from their accommodation.”
From left: Boutique Corporation's Ekanut Ungphakorn; MontAzure's Setthaphol Boottho; Boutique Corporation's Prab Thakral; Accor's Patrick Basset and Victor Pang
Boutique Corporation has appointed Accor to manage its new 230-room hotel under the Mövenpick brand, which will be located at MontAzure, an integrated resort community in Kamala, Phuket.
The 230-room Mövenpick Hotel Kamala Beach Phuket is set to open in 1Q2021.
From left: Boutique Corporation’s Ekanut Ungphakorn; MontAzure’s Setthaphol Boottho; Boutique Corporation’s Prab Thakral; Accor’s Patrick Basset and Victor Pang
Prab Thakral, president and group CEO of Boutique Corporate, said: “Phuket is one of the world’s most sought-after tropical destinations, well-known for its beautiful beaches and a plethora of tourist attractions.
“We were impressed by the development quality of the MontAzure project in Kamala, and are fortunate to expand our presence with the upcoming Mövenpick Hotel Kamala Beach Phuket. This is our second hotel managed by Accor, targeting families with children-friendly facilities.”
Avis recommends road trips in Europe as part of Mediterranean Luxe campaign
Avis has partnered with Mediterranean Luxe for a second year to roll out its exclusive road trip recommendations.
This year Croatia, and its capital city Zagreb, joins the line-up of Mediterranean Luxe partner countries which also includes Spain, France and Monaco.
Avis recommends road trips in Europe as part of Mediterranean Luxe campaign
Angeline Tang, regional director – leisure travel & partnerships, Asia, Avis Budget Group said: “Our continued engagement with Mediterranean Luxe helps travellers discover and explore some of the region’s most scenic spots by road and helps guide them to the best routes to make the most of their trip. Our prestige fleet allows to travel in luxury while to soaking in the local culture, discovering hidden gems not (reachable) by public transport and giving them the freedom to plan and experience their own unique adventure.”
Avis Prestige provides luxury car rentals in Mediterranean Luxe partner countries such as France where customers can experience the scenery in premium vehicles such as an Audi or Mercedes-Benz. As well as the comprehensive travel guides, Avis provides its customers with a list of recommended scenic routes, undiscovered locations and driving rules for each country.
Avis has a guide to the latest destination to the partnership, Croatia, offering travellers a scenic driving experience along the Adriatic Highway. The coastline runs along a beautiful beachside stretch and vantage point to views of mountains, parks and ocean.
In France, Avis’ recommended journey showcases the southern coast, starting in Montpellier and venturing through Nîmes, Provence, the seaside town of Toulon and Saint Tropez.
Another road trip Avis recommends is to the Bay of Biscay which takes drivers right to the Spanish border starting from Bordeaux through the Parc Naturel Régional des Landes de Gascogne – a national park famed for its scenery and abundant birdlife.
Travellers can also access Avis guides to explore other key locations in Spain by road to discover the cultural hubs of Barcelona and Bilbao, as well as the vibrant capital Madrid and resorts on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts.
China Eastern launches two flights to Myanmar
