Myanmar’s growing list of visa-exempt Asian nationalities now includes Hong Kong and Macau, the most recent additions after Japan and South Korea.
Since October 1, passport holders from Hong Kong and Macau can board a plane to visit Myanmar without making any prior visa arrangements. On arrival, no payment or proof of pre-arrangements is needed, according to a statement from Myanmar Tourism Marketing (MTM).
Yangon city with Shwedagon Pagoda in the background
The government will also grant Chinese nationals from mainland China for visas-on-arrival (VOA) at Yangon International Airport, Mandalay International Airport and Nay Pyi Taw International Airport, at a fee of US$50.
In early September, the government allowed all nationalities to enter Myanmar through the two overland borders, Tamu and Rih Khaw Dar, and continue to travel overland to Thailand using any of the four borders.
The entry visa through these borders can be approved within three days, MTM says.
Overland travellers who want to pass through Myanmar with their own motorised vehicle still need to apply for a caravan permit with the Ministry of Hotel & Tourism.
The above visas are all valid for 30 days, extendable at an immigration office within the country, or at a US$3/ day fee for overstay.
Thailand’s famed Maya Bay in Krabi, originally meant to reopen on October 1, will be closed to tourists indefinitely, the Bangkok Post reports.
The decision by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) was made in view of the extent of environmental damage caused by large numbers of tourists and the time it would take for recovery.
Maya Bay shot to fame as the backdrop to The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio
Over 1,000 corals have been planted across four hectares of the bay, an area set to be expanded.
Reportedly, DNP consulted experts who shared their concern over coral reef damage, but not local residents who may be reliant on tourism.
Quoting a local tourism business association chairman, the Bangkok Post article anticipate the closure of Maya Bay would have knock-on effects on tourism to the elsewhere in Krabi province.
Flight Centre Travel Group’s hotels and accommodation business BHMA has appointed Paul Wilson to the role of executive vice president commercial.
In his new role, Wilson will oversee sales, revenue, distribution, e-commerce and marketing communications for BHMA, offering extensive commercial experience leading major brands across the Asia-Pacific, London, South Africa and Australia.
Wilson was most recently vice president of sales, revenue and distribution for Thailand’s Centara Hotels & Resorts, where he was in charge of 16 global offices, 11 national account managers, property DOS teams and the company’s revenue and distribution structure.
The experienced hotelier has also worked as regional sales & marketing director and national conference & incentive director for the Australian Mantra Group and meeting and events director for Park Plaza Hotels and Resorts in London.
This appointment is effective from October 3, 2018.
Air Italy launches Milan-Bangkok service
Air Italy has launched flights between Milan Malpensa and Bangkok, operated with Air Italy’s new longhaul Airbus A330-200, which offers up to 24 seats in Business Class and 228 in Economy Class. Flights depart Bangkok on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with a Sunday flight to be added from October 28. From Milan, flights depart on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with a Saturday flight to be added starting October 28.
Vietjet to connect Seoul to Phu Quoc, Nha Trang to Danang
After recently welcoming its first passengers on the Nha Trang-Danang route, Vietjet will in December launch flights between Phu Quoc and Seoul.
The Nha Trang to Danang route operates daily with a flight time of one hour. The flight departs from Nha Trang at 11.45 and arrives in Danang at 12.45. The return leg leaves Danang at 13.20 and lands in Nha Trang at 14.20.
Starting December 22, flights will depart Phu Quoc daily at 15.30 and arrive in Seoul at 22.45. The return leg will depart from Seoul at 01.45 and land in Phu Quoc at 05.35.
Lac Hong Voyages named Vietnam GSA for Sriwijaya Air Group
Ho Chi Minh City-based Lac Hong Voyages has been appointed the Vietnam GSA for Sriwijaya Air and Nam Air. With a fleet of 53, Indonesia’s Sriwijaya Air Group services more than 64 domestic destinations – including those in Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Bali, Sulawesi and Papua – and 11 international such as Penang and China’s Guangzhou, Wuhan and Haikou.
Aeromexico reappoints Discover The World in Indonesia and Thailand
After an absence of nearly two years, Aeromexico, Mexico’s flag carrier, has reappointed Discover the World for sales and marketing representation in Indonesia and Thailand.
According to Carolina Garcia Posada, Aeromexico’s regional director Asia, “We needed to partner with Discover the World to reactivate our brand in these two markets. Discover will help us feed our 15 weekly flights from Tokyo-Narita, Shanghai-Pudong and Seoul-Incheon airports to Mexico City and beyond.”
Aeromexico operates more than 600 scheduled flights per day, with service to 43 destinations in Mexico and 49 international destinations from Mexico, including 22 in the US, 10 in Central America and the Caribbean, seven in South America, four in Europe, three in Canada and three in Asia.
Octraves Technology spent six years developing TravelCompute, a platform providing a big data solution for travel and tourism, and one-stop travel reservation platform.
The big data solution integrates data from various public, proprietary, governmental and non-governmental sources, processes the information and renders insights for tourism organisations, TMCs, tour operators and airlines.
Syed Mohd Razif Al Yahya
It includes more than 10,000 industry reports on travel and tourism across the globe, including destination insights sourced from social media tracking, historical data on tourism arrivals and receipts over the past 15 years, top 10 outbound destinations from main international airports, and global social media tracking of the top 25 visited attractions in a destination.
Syed Mohd Razif Al-Yahya, group managing director/group CEO of Sutra Group of Companies, which Octraves Technology is part of, shared: “We started marketing it in 2017 and have one client so far, which is Tourism Malaysia. We are also marketing this to state tourism organisations in Malaysia and foreign NTOs. We offer them a convenient tool to build a profile of potential travellers, understand the destination and make immediate informed decisions.”
Separately, the travel reservation platform is used by its associate company, Sri Sutra Travel for both B2B and B2C bookings.
It went live in 2016 and provides end-to-end solutions in areas such as customer relationship management, back office system, tour management system and inventory management system. It has the ability to perform real-time booking of flights, hotels, homestays, transfers, car hire, tours, travel, buses (tour and express buses) insurance and cruises.
The platform connects directly with various kinds of travel suppliers via the patented Dynamic Integration Technology. Partners include GDSs and wholesale travel suppliers.
Currently Octraves Technology has two joint venture overseas partners who will market the platform within their countries, while Octraves provides the technical and knowledge support. The partners are Wupi.id, a B2B outbound agent in Indonesia operated by Panorama JTB, and Tour Booking Network in Vietnam which services both B2B and B2C.
Octraves and partners earn a transaction fee for every online booking made.
“By this year end, we hope to get a third partner in Saudi Arabia,” shared Syed Mohd Razif, who is targeting at least 20 foreign partners by 2023.
The platform saw around 300 bookings monthly in its first year, and this has grown to over 3,000.
Why
Malaysian food presents a true culinary adventure, a reflection of the diverse origin of its multi-ethnic population.
To let guests have a taste of hidden culinary gems in Kuala Lumpur, local tour operator Adventoro has rolled out a unique food trail around the Sungai Buloh-Kajang MRT line. Participants visit local restaurants and hawkers serving some of the best of Malaysian classics, such as banana fritters, chendol, prawn mee, asam laksa, beef noodles, nasi lemak and satay, to name a few.
Streetside eats
What
All food stops are within walking distance from MRT stations along the Sungai Buloh-Kajang line.
The tour starts at Brickfields and ends at the famous Sate Kajang Hj Samuri. During the walk from the MRT station to the food outlet, my guide, Ken Lau, shared snippets of history and interesting facts about each location.
What impressed me was his commitment to ensure I had a good time, even if it meant taking me to food places that were not on the list.
For example, at Shin Kee coffee shop near Central Market, which served the best beef noodles I had ever tasted, we started talking about durian and I mentioned that I hadn’t eaten one for a long time. To my surprise and delight, Lau decided we should drop by Petaling Street for a durian feast by the roadside – Malaysian style!
The coffee shops we visited were not fancy, but don’t let their appearance fool you. On closer look, you will see numerous awards the shop has collected over the years hanging on the walls.
Similarly, an entire wall at the eponymous Auntie Lora Kopitiam was filled with pictures of Auntie Lora with Malaysian politicians and local celebrities who had dined there in the past, as well as newspaper articles of food reviews and awards. Auntie Lora Kopitiam has been operating in Kuala Lumpur since 1981, after moving from Penang.
Lau said it served the best prawn mee and asam laksa in the city, and it only took a sampling of these dishes for me to be utterly convinced.
I was lucky to have picked Wednesday for this tour, which also happens to be the day Taman Connaught night market comes to life. This is the longest night market in Malaysia with more than 700 stalls, half of which sell food, including fresh vegetables and meat.
By the time we arrived at Sate Kajang Hj Samuri nearly eight hours after the tour started at 12.30, I was almost full. But I had to taste Sate Kajang to find out why people travel here from Penang and Johor just for the satay. The secret lies in the thick, fragrant peanut sauce, which comes with a separate plate of chilli paste. The chicken sticks are also almost twice as large as you would find elsewhere.
How
The tour is sold online on the Adventoro.com website. The tour price is inclusive of an English-speaking guide, MRT tickets to various locations, plus food and drinks. On average, there are six food stops. Portions are kept small so guests are able to sample different types of food.
A day or two prior to the food tour, guests be notified via email or WhatsApp of the food stops. At this point, they may request to change some of the outlets.
Verdict
The food outlets in this tour have been well researched and almost all have won food awards of some kind. I would recommend this to foodies visiting Kuala Lumpur.
Duration Full-day tour departing at 12.30 Rates RM190 (US$46) per person Contact details Website: www.adventoro.com
InterContinental Singapore Robertson Quay has appointed Tania Getzova as general manager.
An accomplished hotelier with over 20 years of experience, Getzova has held various general manager and leadership roles across luxury and boutique hotels in New York, bringing with her a wealth of knowledge in luxury hotel operations, strategy and business acumen. InterContinental Singapore Robertson Quay is her first foray into Asia.
The Bulgarian native joins the hotel from Hotel Indigo Lower East Side New York, where she was the opening general manager since 2014.
Former Hokkaido Government Office in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Travel companies across Hokkaido are welcoming an initiative from the national government that will provide subsidies of up to 20,000 yen (US$176) per night for tourists who stay in the prefecture, which was rattled by a major earthquake on September 6.
The scheme was introduced on October 1 for domestic travellers to Hokkaido, with OTAs providing the discounts through coupons provided by the national government to cover up to 70 per cent of their travel costs for up to three nights. A similar scheme is being rolled out for foreign visitors, but up to a maximum of five nights.
Both domestic and foreign travellers to the region will get former subsidies; former Hokkaido Government Office in Sapporo, Hokkaido pictured
The Japanese government is setting aside 15.3 billion yen to fund the programme, as well as increasing the number of staff at a call centre managed by the Japan National Tourism Organization to provide information to foreign travellers.
“We had a number of foreign travellers cancel their holidays with us immediately after the earthquake, but not so many Japanese tourists as they are perhaps more used to situations like this,” said Misa Kawata, head of international inbound travel operations for Sapporo-based Hokkaido Treasure Island Travel Inc.
“Facilities and services are all back to normal now, but we still appreciate this assistance because it will be an important promotion to encourage more people to come to Hokkaido,” she told TTG Asia.
The initiative also saw positive reception from Chris Pickering, director and group general manager of Hokkaido Tourism Management. “There were similar coupon incentive programmes in the past and those worked because more people came to Hokkaido,” he said.
“We had some cancellations immediately after the earthquake, because the airport at Sapporo was shut and it was difficult for people to get here. But everything is back to normal now and the rest of October is looking to be very busy for us.
“Anything that can be done to get the word out that it’s business as usual here is welcome,” he added.
Takahiro Yoshioka, head of tourism promotion for the City of Sapporo, echoed that sentiment, saying: “While it is a sizeable cost (to the government), we think it will be an effective way to boost demand in the tourism sector here.”
The areas struck by the quake and tsunami were not big tourist regions, some tour operators say; the now collapsed Ponulele Bridge in Palu
As Indonesia picks up the pieces from the deadly earthquake that hit Central Sulawesi last Friday, trade players interviewed report that Sulawesi tour programmes remain largely unaffected.
Ricky Setiawanto, director of business development Africa, Europe, and Baltic States of Panorama Destination said Palu, Donggala and Mamuju – the trio struck by the tsunami following the earthquake – are not main tourist destinations and hence not included in its Sulawesi overland tours.
The areas struck by the quake and tsunami were not big tourist regions, some tour operators say; pictured, the now collapsed Ponulele Bridge in Palu
Each year, Destination Panorama sees an average of 10 tour groups, each with around 20 participants, taking up its Sulawesi Overland Tour. The trip starts in Manado, North Sulawesi to Makassar, South Sulawesi or vice versa. The only stops in Central Sulawesi are in Togean Island, Ampana and Tentena, which are quite far from Palu, Donggala and Mamuju.
Ricky explained: “At the time of the earthquake, we had a tour group in Tentena, Central Sulawesi. They were a little shaken but not affected. Now the group is already in Toraja and the tour goes as usual.”
Palu and the affected areas are also not featured in Sulawesi tour programmes for Makassar-based Incito Vacations although some of its clients transit in Palu.
Ng Sebastian, owner of Incito Vacations, said: “The impact (from the recent disaster) is minimal as only a few of my guests want to transit in Palu. Most of them fly directly from Makassar to Poso or Gorontalo.”
For those who have booked through Palu, Ng will divert the route directly to Poso as the Mutiara Sis Al Jufri Airport in Palu resumes operations.
Based on updates given by the Ministry of Transportation, there is a little damage in the airport. Other airports around Palu like Jalaludin Airport – Gorontalo, Kasiguncu Poso Airport and Tanjung Api Ampana airport appear to be intact with all flights operating as usual.
Ng said: “(Travellers spend up to) 23 days on overland tour (in Sulawesi), but the route does not pass through Palu, Mamuju nor Donggala.
“The closest tourist attraction from Palu is Lore Lindu, and this is not in the overland tour package. Special interest tourists, such as the bird-watchers visit here,” he said, adding that travellers could still visit the area via Poso.
Arief Yahya, tourism minister was quick to assure that other destinations in Indonesia remain safe to visit. He said: “The Java Islands in general, Bintan and Bali are safe.”
Currently the Ministry of Tourism, through the Tourism Crisis Center, continues to monitor the situation in Central Sulawesi.
Arief said: “Our current priority is evacuation. The government will do the best to help the people in Palu, Donggala and Mamuju. After the emergency response period is over, we will begin the recovery process.”
The Ministry of Tourism will focus on handling human resources and the overall recovery of affected destinations, while simultaneously conducting promotions and marketing.
Palu and Central Sulawesi in general are an industrial area, particularly in the nickel industry.
A deadly earthquake and tsunami hit the area on late Friday afternoon, when the city of Palu was celebrating its anniversary with a number of events, among which were the Cross Country Paragliding Championship and Palu Nomini Cultural Festival.
Thailand’s second largest tourism market, Pattaya, has pushed through the volatility hangover of the 2014 era, with its hotel sector now showing signs of rising stability.
According to the latest available data, strong demand from the Thai domestic sector accounted for 38% of hotel guests at Chonburi province accommodation establishments.
C9 notes the rising stability in Pattaya’s hotel sector
Greater Pattaya’s expanding gateway aviation hub of U-Tapao International Airport has been a critical stimulator of demand, where passenger arrivals over a three-year period rose at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 79, according to a new report from consulting group C9 Hotelworks.
According to C9, the Thai government finalising plans for high-speed rail links between U-Tapao and Bangkok’s two airports, Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang, is undoubtedly a game changer for the Eastern Seaboard area. New international routes into U-Tapao grew dramatically through the past three years as airlift arrivals increased significantly with a CAGR of 59%.
Translating airlift into hotel metrics, global data provider STR recorded an 8.7% year-on-year spike in key indicator RevPAR at the end of 2017. By mid-2018, market-wide occupancy hit 77.9%.
While the current number of accommodation establishments in Chonburi province is 1,046 with 81,607 keys, most of the growth is centred in Greater Pattaya. C9 Hotelworks report shows 11 new hotels in the development pipeline which accounts for 2,645 additional rooms.
C9’s managing director Bill Barnett said: “There is a substantial influx of branded select service and economy hotels including Holiday Inn Express, Ozo, Cosi and Citadines which are targeted at not only mainland China and India but regional South-east Asian markets.
“The impact of this new supply in the short to medium period will take time to absorb and likely create rate issues in the economy and midscale tiers, until such time as the EEC development becomes more pronounced. Though at the same time, Chonburi province last year racked up more than 16,000,000 hotel guests at accommodation establishments and there is little doubt that Greater Pattaya is moving into a broader tourism platform.”
