Gem Valmores has been appointed director of sales and marketing by the Edsa Shangri-La, Manila.
Valmores will drive the strategic business direction of the hotel and oversee all key departments of the sales and marketing division – namely room sales, events management, customer sales, communications and revenue management.
The hospitality veteran has 24 years of experience under her belt. She first joined Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts in 2004 at the Makati Shangri-La, but left in 2012.
Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts will be the official hotel operator for a planned mixed-use development scheduled for completion in Melbourne’s CBD in 2022.
Artist impression of the mixed-use development
Shangri-La Hotel, Melbourne is expected to feature 500 guest rooms and facilities including a sky lobby, restaurants, spa, fitness centre, pool and ballroom.
The second tower in the development by Malaysia’s S P Setia will include some 300 luxury residential apartments as well as office space. A sky bridge will connect the two towers, and retail space will occupy the lower floors.
The two-tower luxury complex will be located on Melbourne’s Exhibition Street and overlook the UNESCO World Heritage Carlton Gardens.
Wuhan International Tourism Expo (WITE), the first of its kind to be held in Central China, will be inaugurated in November this year.
To take place at the Wuhan International Expo Center from November 23 to 25, 2017, the event will cover an estimated area of 10,000m2 and feature 300 exhibitors from across 30 countries such as Ghana, Malaysia, Malta, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the US.
The three-day expo is expected to attract over 4,000 trade visitors on the first two days and some 10,000 members of the public on the last day.
The first day will see a panel discussion featuring leaders in the aviation industry in ASEAN and China. The second day will focus on big data and analytics and travel technologies, with workshops running concurrently.
As the organiser, Conference & Exhibition Management Services (CEMS) will be running pre-event roadshows in various cities and regions within China to create awareness for WITE 2017. Participating exhibitors will be invited to join the pre-event publicity campaigns to attract buyers.
“Wuhan is one of the fastest growing outbound tourism markets and it ranked ninth in China’s outbound generating market in 2016,” said Edward Liu, group managing director of CEMS.
For more information, visit www.WITEChina.com.
Luxe City Guides has launched Luxe Directory, a B2B tool allowing hotel concierge teams, travel consultants and remote concierge service providers to create personalised shortlists and share them with travellers.
Travel consultants can choose from a database of more than 6,000 recommendations, organised by category and location. The directory currently covers 30 global destinations and all relevant categories such as accommodation, dining, shopping, activities and spa and beauty.
In addition, Luxe Directory can be personalised to allow companies to add new content and recommendations in their database, place their logos and create custom emails and PDFs to share with clients.
The directory can be accessed via any browser and on any device. For more information, view the Luxe Directory presentation at www.luxecollaborations.com/directory.
Travel retailer Flight Centre Singapore has launched a series of Game of Thrones-themed tour packages visiting iconic set locations of the HBO series in Europe during winter.
In Dubrovnik, Croatia, travellers can visit King’s Landing – the main filming location of the show – as well as Gradac Park, the site of the Purple Wedding, and the abandoned Hotel Belvedere, where The Red Viper met his end.
Dubrovnik, Croatia
A tour to Iceland will traverse from Reykjavik — where the scenes Beyond the Wall, and with the White Walker’s, were filmed — to Thingvellir National Park, home to two of the Gullfoss waterfall and Geysir hotspring.
There are also tours to Alcazar of Seville, where the 14th-century Spanish castle was the setting for the Water Gardens of Dorne.
Qantas has since June 5 expanded its codeshare arrangement with Jetstar Airways to include travel between Melbourne/Sydney and Ho Chi Minh City on the latter’s Boeing 787 aircraft.
Qantas customers can choose the non-stop Jetstar service to Ho Chi Minh City on one direction of travel, and travel via Singapore on Qantas and Jetstar Asia in the other direction.
Those opting for the codeshare service will be entitled to Qantas Frequent Flyer points and status credits; hot meal and a pre-landing refreshment; access to the Jetstar seat-back in-flight entertainment; a comfort pack; access to Qantas Club Lounge in Sydney and Singapore for eligible passengers; Qantas International baggage allowance; and an option to stopover in Singapore.
Tailor-made itineraries are rapidly gaining traction among China’s luxury travellers in recent years, with the demography becoming better travelled, more globally-oriented, more plugged-in to the gamut of products available and motivated by more complex needs, said buyers at the recent ILTM Asia.
According to Hurun’s The Chinese Luxury Traveller 2017 report, the proportion of wealthy Chinese choosing standard packages fell from 37 per cent in 2015 to 26 per cent last year, with over half showing preference for fine-tuned packages (27 per cent) or fully-customisable packages (23 per cent).
“A lot of companies previously were about groups and having charters and fixed departures, which (continues) to happen in the luxury segment. But now the ‘real high-end’ (segment) looks for tailor-made experiences, niche destinations and properties with few Chinese guests,” said Aymeric Naudin, assistant general manager at China’s Sparkle Tour.
Wealthy travellers now have desires more sophisticated than “spending money and being flashy”, he explained. They want to learn on their travels and live like a local, and are better able to realise these goals, being “less shy to interact with locals” and with “(lesser) language barriers”.
Even Ctrip, China’s largest OTA, now provides on-request itineraries to “high-end clients” via its luxury brand HHTravel. “Clients often turn to us with requests for something unique and we connect them to an ‘experience guide’ who will design an itinerary for them,” said Luigi Deng, market manager Italy, accommodation business, Ctrip.
Li Changsong, managing director at Deluxe MICE Tour & Luxury Travel, foresees the Chinese luxury market would ultimately turn into a tailor-made one. He said: “There is a great phenomenon happening – people are now more aware of new products and more (discerning) about quality.”
Despite being a proponent of the value of personalisation, Li admitted that packages continue to make up 30-40 per cent of his business. “It takes time for the market to mature,” he told TTG Asia.
Meanwhile, Kevin Wang, business development manager at Megastars, a B2B company selling packages, has seen sustained demand for the fixed format, while acknowledging the need to continually incorporate new products to stay relevant.
Vietnam’s extension of visa exemption for several European countries is a welcome move, but trade players interviewed said that conditions limiting single-entry stays to 15 days need to be revisited.
The Vietnamese authorities recently announced that they will extend the current visa waiver scheme for France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK for another year from June 30.
Tourists in national park in Quang Binh
The scheme has been in place since mid-2015 and resulted in double-digit growth in arrivals from Western European countries in the first four months of 2017.
Jose Gregorio Manzo, general manager of Asian Trails Vietnam, said his company has seen an increase of 30-40 per cent from these markets since the introduction. In 2017, he saw largest growth from Spain and the company is on track to surpass the 40 per cent increase seen in 2016.
However, he said the 15-day limit is insufficient as longhaul customers normally make enquiries about two- to three-week holidays in Vietnam.
Hoang Minh Ngoc, Saigon office manager at Indochina Charm Travel, agreed: “In my experience, Europeans prefer more time (in the destination) after having spent about 24 hours to get there.”
Pham Ha, founder and CEO at Luxury Travel Vietnam, added that the single-entry condition is proving a damper for the suggested three-week, multi-entry itineraries.
“European travellers usually holiday for two to three weeks in South-east Asia,” he said. “They combine Vietnam and countries such as Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar and often want to return to Vietnam. Therefore, they still have trouble getting visas while travelling.”
Florencia Allo Morena, general manager at Khiri Vietnam, said a duration of 15 days (17 including flights) is typically enough for clients. However, if this becomes an issue, a multi-country programme would be opted.
Travel technology provider Open Destinations has acquired a majority stake in Tineri, a Bangkok-based mobile itinerary startup designed for the tour operator market.
The acquisition is a result of the demand Open Destinations has witnessed among its worldwide customer base, as well as its vision of where the industry is heading, according to CEO Kevin O’Sullivan.
Owing to the higher levels of engagement tour operators are now seeking with their customers, and Tineri will enable them to “(keep) their customers informed and provide high levels of service throughout the trip”, said O’Sullivan. “Tour operators who invest in an app like Tineri can reinforce their brand and build customer loyalty.”
Tineri allows tour operators to engage with their customers and collect real-time feedback, both during the holiday and after they have returned home. Travellers will have access to in-depth itineraries which are integrated with Google Maps, allowing them to follow their trip in a map view with pop-up destination information along the way.
The white label app is available for download through the Apple Store or Google Play. Tour operators can connect to the app through a web-based CMS or, with the Enterprise version, by pushing itineraries directly from their reservations system.
Tineri is founded in 2016 by Tim Russell, who will continue to head the company as CEO.
Amadeus and payment technology provider Ingenico have launched Amadeus Airport Pay, the industry’s first wireless payment solution that accepts EMV1 chip card payment and can be used by multiple airlines, ground handlers and banks.
Lufthansa Group, as the launch partner, will this month start rolling out the solution at check-in desks and ticket offices in over 170 airports around the globe.
For airlines with separate airport counters for check-in and ancillary payment, this solution provides an opportunity to convert more ancillary sales by eradicating the related inconveniences for passengers. Because Amadeus Airport Pay is not bound to any physical infrastructure, airlines and ground handlers can take payments anywhere in the airport.
“Amadeus Airport Pay enables our travellers to choose customised ancillary services for their flight while checking in or at the gate – securely and with a variety of payment options, and without the need for detours,” said Kai Schilb, head of payment at Lufthansa Group Hub Airlines.
Celia Pereiro, head of travel payments at Amadeus, added: “Airlines and ground handlers can open the door to a smoother trip – imagine roaming agents approaching you while queuing to offer the ancillary service you need – it’s a win-win for the airline and the traveller.”
The new solution also makes it easier for airlines and ground handlers to connect to their banks of choice. Amadeus Airport Pay can be fully integrated in the airline’s sales flow so payments are faster, more accurate and automatically accounted for.
EMV cards have enhanced anti-fraud capabilities at the physical point of sale. At airports, EMV terminals are ubiquitous in duty-free shops but still a rarity in airline check-in desks.
