Chiang Mai’s current poor air quality is raising concerns on the potential impact on tourism as Thailand’s Songkran water festival approaches, although other business challenges appear to weigh more on the minds of travel players.
Smog has been a yearly occurrence in Northern Thailand, but this year the situation appears to be the worst with Chiang Mai topping the air pollution ranking and media reports swirling.
La-iad Bungsrithong, general manager of Ratilanna Riverside Spa Resort and president of the Thai Hotels Association (Northern Chapter), shared that there appears to be a short-term decline in the market.
However, she attributes the current performance to March being part of the traditional low season rather than the pollution, adding that there has been no booking cancellation from leisure or MICE guests.
The Songkran festival typically sees leisure demand for Chiang Mai from South-east Asia, Europe, China and Thailand. According to La-iad, room occupancy in April last year was 65 per cent, reaching 85 per cent during the Songkran period (April 12-14).
She expects similar figures for Songkran this year but also greater competition arising from new hotels in Chiang Mai and Airbnb.
Similarly, a spokesperson of Standard tour, Somchai Sandnee, said the company’s business has not been affected by the air pollution. Chinese tourists are less perturbed by smog issues than political turmoil and recent events such as the boat accident in Phuket last year, Somchai pointed out.
Chotechuang Soorangura, associate managing director of NS Travel & Tours, too does not see the smog having an impact on sales.
“The smog is considered an annual situation and our company always (issues) an advice to customers. In the case where customers really want to visit Chiang Mai, we will suggest they limit their stays in the city in favour of other provinces instead such as Sukhothai,” Chotechuang explained.
Japan Airlines (JAL) and Travelport Worldwide will establish a joint venture to take ownership of Travelport Japan KK and JAL’s fully owned subsidiary, Axess International Network, and establish a GDS tailored to the needs of the Japanese travel industry.
The proposed joint venture, which will operate under the unified Travelport Axess brand name, is expected to be formed on June 1, 2019 following the signing of a definitive agreement between both companies.
Under the planned agreement, Travelport will hold a majority stake in Travelport Axess, with JAL controlling the remaining stake and playing an active role in the joint venture.
Travelport Axess will continue to offer travel agents services through Axess’ GDS platform, Axess, and enable access to Travelport’s GDS platforms, Apollo and Galileo.
The proposed joint venture will provide online, mobile and corporate travel propositions including global booking and expense management tools as well as access to New Distribution Capability (NDC) content for Japanese travel agencies and their customers.
Gordon Wilson, president and CEO of Travelport, commented: “This announcement and our ongoing partnership with JAL is a significant advance in the provision of state-of-the-art technology for the Japanese travel industry. We are very excited about the growth opportunities it presents for our mutual travel agency customers.”
Yoriyuki Kashiwagi, JAL’s executive officer of international passenger sales, said that Travelport Axess will enable “Japanese travel agents to respond to growing global demands by offering services based on state-of-the-art technology”.
Travelport Japan and Axess will continue to operate independently, with a gradual integration programme to combine the two organisations commencing later this year.