The Mulia, Mulia Resort & Villas in Nusa Dua, Bali is keen to build up the reputation of its complex and Bali as a desirable destination for honeymoons and wedding with a recent dedicated weddings convention.

Marry at the Mulia, a four-day event held last August, was attended by more than 50 wedding and special event planners from across the globe, director of communications Adhiyanto Wongso told TTG Asia during a media update in Singapore last week.

Apart from highlighting the hotel’s many indoor and outdoor venues, restaurants and recreational facilities, the convention also brought attendees to Ubud for an introduction to Bali’s rich culture and connected them with various suppliers needed for a celebratory event.

“Ideally the destination wedding showcase would be led by the local tourism board, but we found the process for approvals, planning and execution too tedious,” said Adhiyanto, revealing that the event was largely funded by The Mulia itself. “Running it ourselves allow us more flexibility,” he added.

“Most Asians know about Bali but it is relatively unknown in the US or Europe; some only heard of Bali for the first time through us. Most of the planners from these longhaul markets are not sure how a wedding could be conducted there. We hope to change that through Marry at the Mulia,” he said.

When asked if the event had generated strong business leads, Adhiyanto said it was still “too soon to tell” as couples needed months to consider wedding plans and logistics attached to a destination wedding held overseas.

“This is a long-term investment for us. Although there are no bookings yet, the number of enquiries have gone up,” he continued.

Adhiyanto added that the high-profile wedding of Taiwanese singer/actor Ken Chu and Chinese actress Han Wenwen last September had significantly raised the popularity of The Mulia complex in the regional market and led to to enquiries from many Asian couples.

The Mulia, Mulia Resort & Villas is made up of the ultra high-end 111-key all-suite The Mulia, the 526-key Mulia Resort and 108-unit Mulia Villas.

Amadeus will begin to act as a sales agent for rail operators in a new merchant model, which it says will enable railways to expand their global reach and simplify commercial links to travel agencies.

With the model, Amadeus is hoping to provide travel agencies globally with one link to sell multiple railways, bypassing the need for one-to-one commercial relationships between both parties.

Meanwhile, foreign travellers can more conveniently book rail travel through their travel agency before flying and have their entire trip – including air, hotel and rail – on the same itinerary.

Rail companies could also save costs as Amadeus takes care of all setup, billing and settlement activities, and assumes financial and legal risks of selling via travel agencies. With Amadeus as a sales agent, the model will enable railways to reach new travellers in new markets.

Currently the model houses full offers of Germany’s Deutsche Bahn (DB), Spain’s RENFE, France’s SNCF (French, available in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe only), Italy’s Trenitalia and select eastern European rail operators, with more expected to join soon.

“Rail travel today is still largely domestic but this will soon change – our merchant model marks the beginning of a new era, giving the industry what it needs to take a global leap, and unlock growth,” said Antoine de Kerviler, global head of rail and ground travel at Amadeus.

This new agreement will enable Deutsche Bahn to “vastly extends its global network.” and the rail operator will “improve the availability of (its) tickets to all travel agencies, particularly those with a wide travel offer,” said Ronn Kostecki, project manager at DB.

Alessandra Bucci, commercial director of long haul passenger division at Trenitalia, added that the Amadeus partnership marks a further step in the company’s “ambitious project of offering (its) customers an integrated travel solution, covering their trip door-to-door in Italy”.

Yotel has announced several key appointments at the senior level as it prepares to launch multiple new hotels in Asia, Europe and the US.

In the newly established role of senior vice president of global operations is Belinda Atkins, who will head the company’s global operations including all existing and future Yotel and Yotelair hotels, reporting directly to Hubert Viriot, CEO of YOTEL. She previously held senior positions in the hospitality industry, including brand CEO at Amba Hotels and vice president of brand operations for the Wyndham Hotel Group.

Yotel New York

Atkins will be assisted by Keir Wingrove, who has been named assistant vice president for openings and transitions to manage and coordinate the pre-opening and transition programme, managing support for all new Yotel hotels under development.

Yotel has also promoted Rohan Thakkar to the role of vice president of development, focusing on the rest of the EMEA region.

The trio will be based at Yotel’s headquarters in London.

Meanwhile, Yotel has also appointed Nikhil Manchharam as managing director of business development for Asia. Based in Singapore, Manchharam will oversee the sourcing of new opportunities and develop the Yotel and Yotelair brand throughout Asia, as well as manage relationships with investment partners in the region. He was most recently vice president of acquisitions and development at Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.

The tech-centric hotel chain currently has four Yotelair properties – London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Amsterdam Schiphol and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport – and one Yotel in New York.

In 2017, Yotel will open three city centre hotels in Boston, Singapore and San Francisco, followed in 2018/2019 with London (Clerkenwell), Dubai (Business Bay), Miami, Williamsburg (Brooklyn) and Yotelair Singapore Changi

Singapore Airlines and regional arm SilkAir are set to fold fuel and insurance surcharges into base airfares, simplifying the fare structure for its customers.

Although this will not result in immediate changes to “all-in” fares, with the removal of the surcharges as a separate component, customers will be presented with a single base airfare when purchasing tickets.

The new format will kick in progressively by region from March 28 and is expected to be completed by May 2017. However, codeshare flights operated by other airlines may still include surcharges.

In addition, fuel and insurance surcharges will also no longer apply to KrisFlyer frequent-flyer programme redemption bookings, effective March 23, 2017.

The KrisFlyer programme will also undergo changes the same day, including the removal of a 15 per cent discount for redemption bookings made online. Adjustments are also being made to redemption award charts in the Saver category for selected zones.

U-Fly Alliance, the first LCC alliance in the world, expects to have 10 members by year-end and has ambitions to expand beyond its North Asian roots into South-east and South Asia in the long term.

Deputy CEO Steven Greenway, interviewed on the sidelines of the Aviation Festival Asia in Singapore recently, said there are lots of small LCCs and full-service carriers (FSCs) that are “waiting and watching” how best they can expand in the future and LCC alliances are part of the game.

Steven Greenway

Having done well in their markets, these carriers, typically with a fleet of around 50-60 aircraft, are constrained to break out of their “geographical fix”. The trend of setting up subsidiaries such as what AirAsia has done in Thailand or Jetstar Asia in Singapore has also slowed, while joint ventures can pose the risks of losing their identity and independence.

“We are building everything to be usable around the world, we’re not just a North Asia LCC alliance,” said Greenway.

“There are many airlines out there, even FSCs, with 50 or so aircraft. Few get to above 100 aircraft. If they are around the same size, are like-minded and are confronted by the same challenges, they are a logical fit. Not a carrier who’s lightyears away coming in and telling you how to do it.”

U-Fly, launched in January last year, has five members – HK Express (Hong Kong), Lucky Air (Kunming), Urumqi Air (Urumqi) and West Air (Chongqing). Combined, they have a fleet of 111 aircraft serving over 23 million passengers to 106 destinations and 206 city pairs in North Asia.

The alliance coordinates on behalf of members’ “central projects” across five working streams, namely strategy network, system connectivity, marketing and branding, plus cost synergies and airport operations.

Greenway said a lot of the focus in the past year has been on cost savings, even though U-Fly has also raised incremental revenue for the members through interlining via GDS and soon, B2C promotions on its website.

“A lot of small LCCs never had the opportunity to get cost savings. With 20-30 aircraft, they may have good crewing costs and lease costs on aircraft, but struggle to get to the cost base of the AirAsia’s and Jetstar’s because they don’t have group buy. I probably spend a tenth of the effort to save a dollar (through bargaining power) than raising a dollar by increasing connecting traffic,” he said.

When asked if Value Alliance, another LCC grouping which launched six months after U-Fly, is a competitor, Greenway said: “Value (Alliance) is very much a South-east Asian play, how it pans out on one knows, and there may be a different dynamic there with Tigerair and Scoot being owned by Singapore Airlines.”

Tigerair will also be merged and carry Scoot’s name by year-end. Aside from Scoot, Tigerair Singapore and Tigerair Australia, other Value Alliance members are NokAir, NokScoot, Vanilla Air, Cebu Pacific and Jeju Air.

Greenway said LCC alliances are “very new, each promising slightly different things, and it’s still a short time frame for anyone to get an evaluation of what they are about”.

“It’s very experimental at the moment but that’s better than sitting on the bench doing nothing. We have to prove that the concept is demonstrably productive and beneficial to members. Otherwise we deserve to die,” he said.