From August 1 to October 31, guests can enjoy a Suite package at Park Hyatt Bangkok when they spend two nights or more at the hotel.
The offer includes accommodation in a Suite (from Park Deluxe); daily breakfast at the Embassy Room; an afternoon tea for two at the Living Room; a three-course set dinner for two at Penthouse Grill; a welcome drink each at the Cocktail Bar or Rooftop Terrace; round-trip airport transfer in a BMW Series 7; fast-track pickup service including buggy service for two; one bottle of Bollinger Cuvee Brut Champagne; and high-speed Internet access throughout the stay.
Ambassador Suite Living
To enjoy the deal, book on the hotel’s website with the offer code SUIPKG. Prices start from 22,500++ baht (US$688) per room per night.
A walk through one of the world's densely populated areas
Why
For those wanting to learn about how locals live, there is no better way than stepping right into the heart of neighbourhoods. Following the success of Old Town Central walks last year, Hong Kong Tourism Board this year repackaged cultural resources of Sham Shui Po, one of the world’s most densely populated areas, to encourage visitors to explore at their own pace.
A walk through one of the world’s densely populated areas
What
The three-hour walking tour set off from Sham Shui Po MTR station in the morning. As a local, I often visit Sham Shui Po to shop and dine, but my knowledge of the area has been confined to the Golden Computer Shopping Center and Apliu Street.
This time, as I’m on a small private group tour with Chan and our retiree tour guide William Ip, I was looking forward to gaining a deeper cultural and historical appreciation of the district.
The extensive itinerary covered Mei Ho House Museum (the first public housing in Hong Kong in 1950s), Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC; a former industrial building transformed into a hub of arts and creativity), Pei Ho Street and Tai Po Road junction, Kung Wo Soy Bean Product Shop, Ap Liu Street Market, and handcraft & lifestyle stores on Tai Nan Street.
What interested me the most was that the area is home to a tapestry of trade, taking in pawn shops, a toy street, as well as small businesses brokering umbrella repair, fabrics and audio equipment.
How
I particularly enjoyed the opportunities for local interaction, such as with an artist at JCCAC. Due to time constraints, however, the group did not get to catch snake queen Ms Chow while at the Shia Wong Hip Snake Soup shop. Still, the staff gave us a peek at the shop’s numerous displays, from live snakes in cages to bottles of snake wine.
I hope to make another visit to Shia Wong Hip Snake Soup to take pictures with the shop’s pet snake, named Kitty, under the supervision of Ms Chow.
Our final stop surprised me, as the shops and building in Sham Shui Po have received a facelift courtesy of HKwalls graffiti, a street art group that invited local and international graffiti artists to leave their mark.
For those wanting more insight and interaction, private tours are available upon request. Prices start from HK$1,800 (US$230), for groups of two to 18 pax. Alternatively for a big corporate groups of up to 200 pax, the company can arrange for multiple guides to be present.
I would also recommend doing the tour in the morning to avoid crowds.
Verdict
There is no better way to explore the city than on foot, to soak in the ambience and rub shoulders with the locals. My knowledgeable local tour guide made a huge difference as he could easily respond to all my burning questions.
Chinese visitor numbers dropped to zero after advisory was implemented
After recording strong growth in tourist arrivals from the Indian market in the first eight months of 2018, Indonesia is now stepping up efforts to improve air connectivity between the two countries.
“We are working to renew the air services agreement between the two countries to have more flights. The negotiation for renewing air service agreement will begin this year. We are pushing for direct flights between New Delhi-Jakarta sector,” Sidharto Suryodipuro, Indonesian ambassador to India, said during the New Delhi leg of a sales mission organised by the Ministry of Tourism of Indonesia.
An additional frequency is expected to be added on Garuda’s Denpasar-Mumbai route, launched earlier this year
The ambassador shared that one major Indian private airline and another Indonesian carrier are looking to mount direct flights between the two countries. Presently, no Indian airline flies directly to Indonesia, although two Indonesian carriers operate flights to India.
Garuda Indonesia began its first direct flight between India and Indonesia, connecting Mumbai and Jakarta, in December 2016. The Indonesian flag carrier introduced thrice-weekly flights on the Denpasar-Mumbai route earlier this year, and is expected to add one more weekly flight on the sector this month.
Apart from Garuda Indonesia, Batik Airways is operating flights from Chennai to Medan and Chennai to Denpasar.
“As of last year, all 27 fights per week entitled to Indonesian carriers were utilised but Indonesia AirAsia stopped flying to India post the volcanic eruption in Bali. This left 10 slots per week vacant, so now we are looking at filling those vacant slots before extending our air service agreement with India to add more flights,” said Sidharto.
The Indonesian NTO recently concluded a multi-city sales mission covering Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Furthermore, Badung, a regency in Bali with high concentration of tourism activities, also organised a sales mission in August with the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism to visit the cities of Chandigarh, Jaipur, Lucknow and Kolkata.
“We organised sales missions in India in the months of January or February. This time we organised additional sales mission in the month of August that saw participation from 21 Indonesian suppliers. We are planning to organise another one in November as well,” said Raden Sigit Witjaksono, director of marketing region III, Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia.
Indonesia’s target of 700,000 is a 40 per cent increase in its Indian tourist arrivals recorded in 2017. To achieve this target, the ministry recently also signed a strategic agreement with MakeMyTrip, one of India’s leading online travel companies to run promotional campaigns across its platforms to endorse Indian outbound to Bali, Jakarta and other regions in Indonesia.
Rajesh Magow, co-founder and CEO-India, MakeMyTrip said: “Indonesia, especially Bali, is one of the top favourite international destinations among Indian travellers and this partnership will help us tap into the massive potential.”
Nia Niscaya, deputy minister of tourism marketing, Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia, said: “The footfalls of Indian travellers holidaying in Indonesia have skyrocketed in the last couple of years. The ministry is taking additional steps to achieve incremental growth from India such as through our association with MakeMyTrip. We are also looking to extend partnership on the same lines with other major Indian travel companies like Cox & Kings in the near future.”
NDC is fast becoming a reality as industry adoption of the new standard becomes more widespread, although there remains work to be done to educate agents in understanding and adopting the standard.
Earlier this month, Amex GBT joined the Amadeus’ NDC-X programme to help test and familiarise itself with the new NDC flow of “shop, book, pay”. Gianni Pisanello, global head of Amadeus NDC X programme, said: “We are laying down NDC fundamentals for more airlines and agencies to use.”
Amadeus is on track in progressing with industrialisation of the standard, targeting GUI-readiness by mid-2019, before NDC deployment by 2020, Pisanello shared.
This means travel agents can look forward to a streamlined search, book, pay and service function by next year.
Gianni: on track to making NDC a reality by 2020
For now however, it is still very much about education from a travel agent standpoint. “At the immediate moment, travel agents should be informing themselves – figure out what the standards look like, what (the GDSs are doing with regard to NDC), and how they will deploy it,” said Pisanello.
Shedding light on why it may be worthwhile for agencies to consider NDC –without having to upend existing systems – he said: “Travel agencies are used to fast commands, which makes (the old way of booking) productive for those used to (the method). But for a new (entrant) who isn’t familiar with the commands, NDC is simpler to pick up, as it presents what you would typically find on a website – it’s a matter of search-click-pay.
“Overall NDC works for recruiting people not trained in cryptic commands, while being (slower) than what a pro-user of the command structure is used to. We plan to marry both worlds. “
Pisanello observes that in general, adoption of the standard tends to be slower in Asia-Pacific, although the region is likely to follow the lead of Europe and the US.
Pisanello said: “It’s about market dynamics. Asia’s travel industry is booming, and there is so much to take care of in terms of moving with that growth. In lower-growth markets such as in the US and Europe, there are more opportunities to think about further optimisation. It becomes more a question of priority (than about whether it is fruitful to advance with NDC).
“But once the best practices come through from Europe and the US, people in Asia will think about how they can apply.”
In the NDC revolution, Amadeus sees its role as “removing complexity” for travel agencies and airlines through providing technology solutions – but in the nearer term it is also doing its part to move travel agents forward through education. Last year, it conducted roadshows, both to educate industry players and mine feedback on travel agency needs for solutions design.
More recently, it launched an educational series on its website and worked with IATA on conferences, in addition to disseminating information through NDC champions in the travel agency sphere.
Pisanello said Amadeus is surprisingly on track in its timeline, “an unusual (feat) in the technology world”, but stressed that the NDC revolution was never cut out to be a quick change.
“Within the broader context, the current infrastructure took up to 40 years of optimising for ideas and features (year after year). We are going through a similar process with NDC,” he said.
Beyond the ease of search-book-pay-service lie more complex functions including multi-sector, multi-stop flights and refunds processing. But with “85 per cent of bookings being for point-to-point flights”, Amadeus has its eyes set on the immediate agenda.
View of Phang Nga Bay (Ao Phangnga National Park) from Samet Nang She Viewpoint
Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) will introduce an e-ticketing system at marine locations, effectively barring entry by walk-in, the Bangkok Post reports.
Proposed by the State Audit Office and the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the move is meant to regulate the number of visitors and increase transparency in revenue collection.
View of Phang Nga Bay (Ao Phangnga National Park) from Samet Nang She Viewpoint
The e-ticketing system will be rolled out first at Hat Noppharat Thara-Mu Koh Phi Phi Marine National Park in Krabi province, Ao Phangnga National Park and Mu Koh Similan National Park in Phangnga province.
Currently, there are three contenders bidding to become counter-service agents to sell e-tickets: 7-Eleven stores, Krungthai Bank, and Siam Commercial Bank.
Songtham Suksawang, director of the DNP’s National Park Office, told Bangkok Post that the bid winner – to be selected by a committee currently in the process of being set up by the department – will be announced by October.
Singapore Airlines is allowing its customers to use mobile boarding passes on Google Pay, the first time an airline in the Asia-Pacific region is offering such a capability on Google’s digital wallet platform and payment system.
With this initiative, customers can simply produce their boarding pass, which is saved to Google Pay, and proceed straight to the boarding gate after clearing immigration formalities.
SIA enter another partnership with Google
To save their boarding pass to Google Pay, customers need an Android mobile device on which they can use to generate the pass via the SingaporeAir app.
Prior to introducing this feature, SIA had also embarked on other digital projects with Google Flight, Google Now and the more recent Google Home to introduce greater ease in areas of flight information, receiving booking confirmation emails and setting reminders for upcoming flights.
Checking in for flights via a mobile boarding pass on Google Pay is available at the airports across the world. In Asia, cities include Singapore, Bangkok, Bali, Kuala Lumpur, Surabaya, Hong Kong, Seoul Taipei, Tokyo (Haneda and Narita).
Uber has shortlisted five countries to launch its Uber Air “flying taxi” service, three of which are in Asia-Pacific.
After announcing plans to introduce electric-powered air taxis to Los Angeles and Dallas, the company now says Japan, France, Brazil, Australia and India are in the running for the third launch location.
Screengrabs from Uber Air concept video
1 of 3
In a statement, Uber says its criteria for the third international city include having a metropolitan population of more than two million people, dispersed population hubs, an airport at least an hour away from the city centre, and a willingness to back carpooling services.
The move comes amid heightened interest in lightweight, electric-powered, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL, or eVTOL) aircraft. There are at least 19 companies developing flying car plans, including Boeing and Airbus, according to a report by The Verge.
Uber plans to announce the chosen country in six months, after which it will launch its flying taxi service within the next five years, although it should be noted that the technology is still in its early stages.
Vinpearl is offering 30 per cent off best available rates on all room categories for travel industry professionals booking a stay at Vinpearl Luxury Nha Trang and Vinpearl Luxury Da Nang.
Valid for stays up to December 20, 2018, bookings have to be made seven days in advance and by December 16. The deal includes breakfast and comes with the promotional code: TIDLUX.
Vinpearl Luxury Nha Trang
Trade professionals can make a maximum of two rooms per booking, and proof of employment within the travel industry is required on booking. The deal is subject to availability, along with other terms and conditions.
Located on Hon Tre Island, Vinpearl Luxury Nha Trang offers villas, including some with private pools, overwater spa salas and five restaurants and bars. Vinpearl Land Nha Trang amusement park and waterpark is just next door, connecting to the mainland by a cable car.
Vinpearl Luxury Da Nang offers a choice of rooms, suites and villas, some of which have private pools, plus Akoya Spa and five restaurants and bars. The property is situated by Non Nuoc Beach. Nearby, Vinpearl Golf Nam Hoi An is an 18-hole course, while Vinpearl Land Nam Hoi An is an amusement park of rides and aquapark slides with a cultural village, riverside shopping and a dining complex.
Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas has appointed Claudine Triolo to the role of regional director of sales and marketing for Thailand, Bhutan and Cambodia.
Triolo joins the group following an 11-year tenure with Bangkok-based Premier Resorts & Hotels, where she spent the past eight years as director of sales and marketing.
The American first began her hospitality and travel career with Asia Transpacific Journeys in Boulder, Colorado as a tour operation manager. She relocated to Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi in Chiang Mai in 2004 as director of guest communications before joining Premier Resorts & Hotels in 2012.
While the rebound of mainland Chinese traffic in 2H2017 uplifted the hotel business in Hong Kong, fluctuating and dynamic room rates remain a concern in the travel industry.
Last year, average room occupancy grew 2.3 per cent to 90.8 per cent and average room rates increased 3.4 per cent to HK$1,220 (US$155). And in April this year, average room occupancy hit 92.4 per cent with average room rates up by 13.3 per cent to HK$1,396.
The new Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is likely to shore up Chinese traffic into the city
Some in the industry anticipate further growth in Chinese traffic following the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and Express Rail Link, heightening concerns of rate increases and fluctuations.
This is an especially salient matter for agents such as PC Tours and Travel’s general manager Cary Chiu, faced with the challenge of dynamic pricing with the rise of OTAs and direct booking.
“Hotels have scrapped traditional contracts for room allotment arrangements. Room rates can be double the contract rate after the cut-off period. Some hotels even ask us to tell clients to switch travel dates in order to suit the available room dates,” Chiu said.
“As a B2B operator, how can I sell rooms to overseas agents with a markup, when clients can book direct? We can’t do much and just pray for ourselves,” he lamented.
“So far, only local hotels still stick to contract rate with us to promote their brand overseas but in the long term, I don’t think this partnership will last long once they establish their name with overseas clients.”
Simple Travel Services’ director Vandana Sachdeva pointed out that fluctuating room blocks and rates, while not a new trend, pose an added challenge for markets such as India.
She said: “It becomes more challenging (for the Indian market) as the contracts signed for a period go for a toss and then the agents in India lose trust in DMCs as the quotes given don’t hold any value after a period of time.
“With greater connectivity, the mainland market is bound to overtake other markets. The hotels need to evaluate which market/business they would like to support in the long run. If short-term profit is the only objective then it will definitely have an impact on the hotels in the long run when the Chinese market dips during any economic downturn,” Sachdeva added.
While Chiu is sceptical that the new connectivity infrastructure would drive up hotel demand, since easy accessibility promotes same-day return, he still welcomes new hotel supply especially in the underserved four-star category.
