Sarawak hopes to bolster tourism by creating greater awareness and appeal of the destination through the film industry.

Acting CEO at Sarawak Tourism Board (STB), Mary Wan Mering, said: “(Promotion efforts through) trade fairs, trade missions and consumer billboard marketing will still continue. But we must think out of the box to capture the market of travellers who are interested in entertainment.”

Wan: thinking out of the box

Citing the success of South Korea leveraging its pop culture and technology in tourism, she added: “They don’t spend on big billboards to create awareness. They use K-pop and Korean dramas. They get big corporations such as Samsung to promote the destination and their products using K-pop.”

Earlier this year, the STB set up a Filming Support Unit to facilitate international film production houses to obtain film permits, and provide them with ground support and hosting during location scouting in Sarawak.

The board is currently reviewing requests from several production houses in China and South Korea, Mary Wan revealed.

A Chinese romantic movie, Blue Tears, will air in Chinese cinemas later this month, featuring scenes such as the beach, longhouses and Mulu National Caves shot in Miri.

As well, White Rajah, a Hollywood movie with investment from the Sarawak State Government through the STB, will start filming in the state in mid-2018. The movie is based on the adventures of James Brooke in Borneo in the 1840s, and will be directed by Oscar-nominated director Sergei Bodrov.

Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea are expecting a fall in visitor numbers for a third straight year in FY2017 to 29.5 million – dipping under 30 million for the first time in five years – despite an increase of foreign guests to both parks in recent years.

Given that DisneySea marked its 15^th anniversary last year with special events, an official of Oriental Land, operator of both parks, attributed the overall visitor decline typically “seen in the year after an anniversary year”.

Tokyo DisneySea

Attendance may also have been hurt by the closure of a number of rides to make way for new attractions – work is under way at DisneySea on Nemo’s Undersea Rider, while a Beauty and the Beast attraction will open in Disneyland in 2020.

According to media reports, however, visitors have been put off by the crowds and long lines for rides, while entry prices were also raised in April 2016.

It’s a contrasting picture at other popular theme parks in Japan though.

“Visitor numbers increased by around 700,000 in the year to this April to 14.6 million,” said Johta Takahashi, a spokesman for Universal Studios Japan, which recently opened the Minion Park attraction.

Meanwhile, visitors to Sanrio Puroland were up 14 per cent to 1.8 million in fiscal 2016, while Yomiuriland saw an 11 per cent increase in guests to 1.9 million.

The biggest decline in attendance, however, was seen at Huis Ten Bosch, a Dutch-themed park in Kyushu, where arrivals dipped 6.9 per cent to 2.9 million and foreign guests contracted 19 per cent to 205,000, after Kyushu was struck by a series of major earthquakes in April 2016.

Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN) has launched an agent booking module for its Affiliate Voyager product, expected to grant agent partners an efficient way to access EAN’s hotel rates and availabilities in addition to its API and ‘Hotels.com for Partners’ template solution.

The booking module expands the range of tasks an agent can perform themselves. With comprehensive search, comparison and payment options on more than 290,000 properties, Affiliate Voyager allows agents to deal with customer enquiries and make or manage bookings directly rather than asking their hotel supplier to do it.

In addition to sending, reconfirming and cancelling itineraries, Affiliate Voyager allows agents to make changes to traveller’s personal information, travel dates, property, room type and bed configuration.

Agents can specify and change travellers’ special requests, view cancellation policies, and search booking and payment histories.

They can also create multiple itineraries in one shopping cart, view localised content with multi-language and multi-currency display options.

Ariane Gorin, senior vice president and general manager, EAN brand, said: “We estimate that Affiliate Voyager will result in more efficient sales and customer service experiences for agencies, with a 15-plus per cent increase in customer requests that the agent can handle without escalation and a five-plus per cent reduction in total handle time for affiliate agents.”

Affiliate Voyager, launched in 2015 as a way for agents to manage bookings made through the EAN API, is used by more than 2,500 of Expedia’s agents worldwide. It comes with face-to-face and online training to drive agent adoption, alongside reporting and full support from EAN.

Earlier media reports of Bangkok banning street food have caused a stir worldwide, but while the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has clarified that its stricter regulations do not equate to a crackdown on sidewalk vendors, trade players still express unease about the impact the changes might have on business.

The regulations will include measures to ensure that street food vendors meet universal hygiene standards and reflect local identities.

Street food vendor and tourist on Khao San road 

Kitichai Siraprapanurat, managing director of Bangkok Food Tours, welcomes the idea of putting order into Bangkok street food vendors by applying zoning regulations in Yaowarat (Chinatown) and Khao San roads, both popular areas for foreign visitors.

However, he said misleading foreign reports on the regulations have affected the company’s image as they created doubts among foreign customers on whether its tours would continue. Kitichai assured that it is business as usual for the company.

Benchawan Pholpituke, manager of Mama Travel and Tour, worries that BMA’s strict regulations may have some impact on tour operators, citing the example of the authorities preventing street vendors from selling food or products on Khao San Road every Monday for the last few years, resulting in reduced visitor traffic and loss of potential business from tourists on Mondays.

Meanwhile, BMA and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will jointly organise a Bangkok Street Food Festival in June 2017 to promote the country’s street food, considered a big tourist draw for Bangkok.