Kumamoto Castle in Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan

Prefectures in Kyushu are collaborating on an initiative to boost internationals arrivals to the island, following a government-led trend encouraging visitors to explore more of Japan.

To that end, the Find Your Kyushu campaign has been launched. “This campaign is rather unique in that all seven prefectures are collaborating to promote Kyushu as one destination,” said Miki Ito, spokesperson for tour operator OnJapan, which co-founded the campaign.

One of the campaign’s initiative was an event in Tokyo held earlier this month which offered showcases of the region, including musical performances, food and drinks, and workshops on making traditional crafts.

Misuzu Araki of the Fukuoka Prefectural Government’s Tokyo Office said that if Kyushu does not work together, tourists will not make the trip to the southernmost region of Japan’s main island. She added that the focus here is on repeat travellers.

“We are working in Tokyo to appeal to tourists who, on finding out about Kyushu, might visit there on their next trip or be persuaded to include it in their current travel plan,” she said.

Ito agrees, saying that “seasoned travelers or repeat travelers (to Japan) are now seeking different experiences at different destinations”.

As well, Meng Xu, spokesperson for HIS, which is helping to promote the campaign, said the travel agency is trying to be a bridge by introducing Kyushu’s nature and onsen attractions to tourists through its multilingual staff.

Still, challenges remain for Kyushu as a destination due to its lack of foreign language tourist information as well as poor local transportation infrastructure in rural areas, according to a representative from Kyushu Japan Holiday.

A tuk tuk driver waits for customers in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Members of the travel trade in Cambodia have welcomed a new tuk tuk booking app for helping increase safety and convenience for tourists.

PassApp Taxi, launched last month in Phnom Penh, allows users to book a tuk tuk – one of Cambodia’s preferred forms of transport – via the app.

While there is no shortage of tuk tuks in the Cambodian capital, EXO Cambodia general manager Pierre-Andre Romano said this brings many benefits for foreign travellers.

“It can be annoying for tourists to have to bargain for their ride, especially when they don’t know the standard, so it is good for this factor,” he said.

The app charges the first kilometre at a flat rate of 3,000 riel (US$0.75) with each additional kilometre costing 1,500 riel. Hailing a tuk tuk on the street requires haggling and can cost up to three times more.

Sambo Nov, assistant general manager at Sun and Moon Hotel, has been recommending the app to his guests, especially after dark when tuk tuks can be scarce in some places. She said: “It is very useful for guests who don’t know their location clearly or speak Khmer.”

Les Heng, general manager of tour operator Cambodian Experiences, added that the app also addresses security concerns. “Visitors know they are using a trusted driver and that offers extra reassurance.”

A similar app, Go Tuk Tuk, is set to launch within the next few months, with the added capability to pay for rides via Alipay, Paypal, debit cards and credit cards.

Ascott has opened the Metropole Bangkok, the first property under its The Crest Collection brand of luxury serviced apartments in Asia.

It features 116 apartments in studio and one-bedroom configurations and is sited in Bangkok’s Thonglor district.

Facilities in the complex include a swimming pool, fitness centre with cold onsen baths, a restaurant and lounge. Additional services such as laundry, dry cleaning and meal delivery are also available.

Bangkok is the only Asian location chosen for The Crest Collection, with all three other properties under the brand located in or scheduled for opening in Paris.

“Bangkok is one of Asia’s most dynamic cities and Thonglor is its most vibrant area, home to the city’s trendiest dining and entertainment,” said Jean Keijdener, Ascott’s country general manager for Thailand.

Ascott has 17 serviced residence properties located in Bangkok, Pattaya and Si Racha, with seven more scheduled to open between 2017-2024.

An aerial view of Colombo

Sri Lanka last week introduced a tax for online accommodation bookings, increased its airport embarkation tax to US$50 from the current US$35 and announced plans to launch a budget domestic carrier.

These proposals were made during the government’s budget speech for fiscal 2017, presented by finance minister Ravi Karunanayake on November 10.

The minister said a common platform will be established for the country’s hotels to integrate portals like Agoda, Airbnb and Booking.com, and through which taxes would be applied per booking.

Karunanayake said the move addresses concerns from hoteliers regarding OTAs expanding their operations without paying any tax.

Meanwhile, the increased embarkation tax replaces an earlier proposal by the government to impose a 15 per cent tax on all air tickets. The latter proposal was objected to by local travel agents.

No schedules were given on the implementation of these tax schemes. However, the government stated that a new domestic airline, formed jointly by the authorities and the private sector, is slated to launch before March 31, 2017.

The airline, still unnamed, will operate using Sri Lankan Air Force planes to destinations within the country. An initial investment of 50 million rupees (US$340,000) will be injected, said Karunanayake.

Currently, while the privately-owned Cinnamon Air operates flights to a few domestic destinations, the government wants a daily, more affordable LCC to help ease travel from the capital Colombo to popular tourist spots that take a long time to travel to by road.

(From left) Bob Chapek, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts; Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company; and Fan Xiping, chairman of Shanghai Shendi Group recently broke ground on the new Toy Story Land at Shanghai Disneyland

Shanghai Disneyland is set to get its seventh themed area, Toy Story Land, come 2018.

The new zone will be set in the backyard of Andy – the boy from the Toy Story movies – and will feature three new attractions and a character greeting area.

Currently, Shanghai Disneyland already has the Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue attraction themed after Toy Story. Shanghai Disney Resort is also home to the only Toy Story-themed resort hotel in the world

According to Shanghai Disneyland, characters and stories from the Toy Story franchise have strongly resonated with Chinese guests so far.

Meanwhile, Fan Xiping, chairman of the theme park’s developer, Shanghai Shendi Group, revealed that Toy Story Land is part of an accelerated expansion plan for the first phase of the theme park, and that more attractions will be launched in the future.

Yong kang Street in Taipei

Though Chinese groups heading to Taiwan have plunged, overall arrivals there have risen due to growth from other source markets, according to C.T Su, chairman of the Taipei International Travel Fair (ITF Taipei), which held its annual trade and consumer show earlier this month.

Total visitor arrivals in Taiwan for the first three quarters of 2016 reached nearly 8 million, up 4.8 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Su explained: “The Mainland Chinese market is estimated to drop 800,000 this year though we welcomed four million of them in 2015. But markets like South-east Asia, the US, South Korea and Hong Kong performed well with positive growth. As far as I know, only group tours are affected. Chinese FIT traffic has kept growing.

“What we can do is to focus more on promoting in South-east Asia. The Taiwanese government has added Thailand to its visa waiver programme since August to allow 30-day visa-free stays and the Philippines will be getting e-visa facilities. This really helped.”

Kathy Yuan, international affairs division section chief of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, confirms Su’s observation. “Since August, visitor numbers from Thailand has started to rise steadily… previously, our visa application procedure was quite stringent and required proofing documents.”

Easing of Taiwanese visa requirements and procedures were also made in the South-east Asian nations of Myanmar and Cambodia earlier this year.

Accommodations solutions provider HRS has rebranded its corporate business segment and at the same time unveiled its new multisource hotel booking solution.

The rebranding comes as HRS seeks to distinguish its full-service offerings for corporates from its leisure business, which is unmanaged and functions more like an OTA.

Its refreshed corporate brand boasts a new logo to encapsulate its range of solutions along the entire value chain, from purchasing, analytics, optimisation, rate negotiation and booking on all channels, through to its MICE segment tools via its Meetago platform.

“We recognised very early that companies are not just concerned with the number of hotels in the portfolio – they are looking for holistic end-to-end services that offer real added value,” said Tobias Ragge, CEO of HRS.

“Managed travel is a completely different environment to the consumer segment and HRS has offered much more than just a quick way to book an overnight stay for a long time. With our new brand presence, we are now looking to make this difference visually clear.”

Concurrently, HRS is showcasing its new multisource tool, announced at the GBTA Conference 2016, taking place in Frankfurt now from November 14-16.

The tool overhauls the technology behind its corporate booking platform and essentially allows the booking of rooms at the best available rate from an array of distribution partners, such as Expedia, eLong, MakeMyTrip and the main GDSs, without leaving the HRS ecosystem.

This means that unlike metasearch engines, users won’t be redirected to a third party site to complete bookings, while still having the convenience of comparing prices and availability across multiple channels on one interface.

“For customers, price remains the most important booking criterion. In addition, business travellers, in particular, want to book their hotel rooms quickly and with ease – without time-consuming price comparisons or redirection to unknown providers,” added Ragge.

Around 20,000 hotels currently use multisource. HRS plans to gradually convert its entire global hotel portfolio to the new booking procedure.

Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii

It is business as usual for Malaysian agents selling US travel products even as America’s president-elect Donald Trump, known for his harsh stance against Muslims, begins to take over administration of the White House.

Desmond Lee, group managing director of Apple Vacations & Conventions, which has an incentive group of 25 people of mixed religions from Malaysia, including Muslims, travelling to the West coast of the US for nine days later this month, said there are no concerns over safety issues from his clients.

He added that departures for December series tours to the American West Coast and Hawaii continues as normal and there are no worries voiced from his tour members, some of whom belong to the Islamic faith.

Abdul Rahman Mohamed, general manager of Mayflower Holidays, said: “Donald Trump’s speeches about banning Muslims from the US might just be campaign rhetoric with no truth in it. We’ll have to wait and see if the new government (actually puts in place those policies). (For now), it is still too early to predict demand for the first half of 2017.”

He comments that other factors such as currency will play a bigger role. “I think a large part of the decision making will depend on the exchange rate. The US dollar is four times the value of the ringgit which prohibits many from choosing to holiday there. The total cost of travel in the US is also much higher than holidaying within Asia,” he said.

He added, however, that forward bookings may be affected as many Malaysians intending to go to the US for a holiday in the near future will be closely monitoring the political situation in the country for calm before making a concrete decision to travel there.

Tcurkan Iurii

Russia’s travel trade is sharpening its attention on China, reflecting the growing economic as well as tourism ties between the two giants.

The Russian-Chinese Tourism Promoting Association (RCTPA), which was established in May this year, has taken it upon itself to promote the message that Russia is a safe and friendly destination for visitors.

“More Chinese want to visit Russia and Russian businesses are putting their hands out (to welcome them),” said Tcurkan Iurii, chairman of RCTPA. “We are trying to show the world that Russians are friendly and we are doing our best to make visitors feel at home.”

In Russia, the association has set up a visitor helpline manned by English- and Chinese-speaking operators to offer immediate information and support to foreign tourists seeking assistance.

Already, the RCTPA has rendered assistance to more than 200 people in its six months of existence, Iurii said.

The Department of National Policy, Interregional Relations and Tourism of Moscow is currently developing a China-friendly programme in the city, with more than 30 enterprises having received conformity certificates in accordance with the programme, according to a statement.

Likewise, inbound travel agencies in Russia are also stepping up their game to woo Chinese tourists.

For Moscow-based Red October, one of two companies under the Fortuna Managing Company, the focus has since this year shifted to the Asian market, of which Chinese travellers form a large part, according to Laura Lazibnaya, general director of Red October and Fortuna.

This marks a significant change in Red October’s market focus since it began operations 15 years ago to specialise in the the cruise business and the US market.

Explaining its new focus, Lazibnaya said: “Europe is dying and European travellers have no money, while Americans are travelling less. Asia is rising and Asian travellers are now very strong.”

And alongside the growing affluence of the Chinese, Lazibnaya noted a rising number of moneyed Chinese travellers arriving in Russia in small groups.

Despite these encouraging developments, some outbound operators in China expressed concerns that visa application for Russia remains a hassle.

Although the Chinese authorities were reported to have sought a visa-free regime with Russia, for now only tour operators accredited by China and Russia are entitled to bring Chinese groups of between five to 50 pax into Russia without visas.

Iurii added: “We launched a programme that helps Chinese people coming in organised groups (to adhere to and access) the (conditional) visa-free policy between Russia and China. In order to implement this in the correct ways, we put our representatives in every airport of Moscow in very large numbers.”

On the other hand, Lazibnaya does not see visas as an issue for Chinese tourists to Russia. “Even with small groups, we are able to provide them the necessary papers in few days,” she remarked.

According to the Department of National Policy, Interregional Relations and Tourism of Moscow, the number of arrivals from China under visa-free exchange is rapidly growing.

Over 1.1 million Chinese visitors arrived in Russia in 2015, almost 90 thousand more than in 2014.

Outrigger Fiji Beach Resort

Affiliates of Outrigger Hotels and Resorts and KSL Capital Partners have signed a deal for KSL to acquire all 37 of Outrigger’s multi-branded portfolio of hotels, condominiums and vacation resort properties.

Outrigger’s current management team will continue to lead the company and it’s headquarters will remain in Honolulu, Hawaii.

“As one of the world’s leading investors in hospitality, KSL has the capital capacity to elevate Outrigger to the next level – infusing additional resources into our current assets and helping to accelerate our long-term growth goals,” said David P. Carey, president and CEO of Outrigger Enterprises Group.

Marty Newburger, partner at KSL added that the well-run, self-owned properties of Outrigger are an enticing investment option for them. “Outrigger owns and operates resorts in truly remarkable destinations and KSL is excited be a part of the next chapter of Outrigger’s extraordinary story,” he said.

Outrigger currently operates or has under development 37 properties with approximately 6,500 rooms located in Hawaii, Guam, Fiji, Thailand, Mauritius and the Maldives.