TMC The Appointment Group has entered into a partnership with Singapore-based Giglifeasia.com to launch a new travel package product targeted at music festival goers in Asia.

The packages – which include event tickets, F&B credit, return airfares, transfers and accommodation – is being launched first in conjunction with Wonderfruit Festival 2016, held in Pattaya this December, with package prices starting from S$900 (US$652).

“Many of my friends attended Wonderfruit in previous years, but many who wanted to were not able to due to the effort required for them to get there,” said Priya Dewan, founder of Giglifeasia.com, on the motivation behind the partnership.

“We wanted to eliminate this obstacle, for this and future events, by providing people a one-stop logistical solution at one fixed price that fits their budget.”

She intends to continue partnering with festivals in the future to launch more packages.

From left: Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts’ Holger Jakobs, vice president sales & marketing Asia; Bruno Huber, vice president operations; Jens Reichert, vice president development Asia; Andrew Langdon, senior vice president Asia; and Nusasiri’s Khun Visanu Thepcharoen, chairman; Siriya Thepcharoen; Somchitr Chaychana; Sithichai Sereepattanapol

Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts has signed an agreement with developer Nusasiri to manage three new properties in Thailand: Mövenpick Residences Ekkamai (4Q2016), Mövenpick Resort Khao Yai (4Q2016) and Mövenpick Resort Mai Khao Phuket (4Q2017).

With this, Mövenpick’s portfolio in Thailand, including those in the pipeline, is increased to seven.

Andrew Langdon, Mövenpick’s senior vice president Asia, said: “This marks our second property in Bangkok and the debut of our serviced apartment brand, Mövenpick Residences. It’s (also) our third resort in Phuket, while in Khao Yai we are delighted to be opening up the first internationally-managed resort there.”

Mövenpick Residences Ekkamai will consist of 160 serviced apartments in configurations of one-, two- or three-bedrooms. Facilities on-site include an all-day dining restaurant, swimming pool, fitness centre, and rooftop lounge and bar.

Meanwhile, Mövenpick Resort Khao Yai will have 114 rooms comprising hotel suites and two-, three- and four-bedroom villas, as well as a clubhouse that contains an all-day dining restaurant, swimming pool, fitness centre and spa.

Lastly, Mövenpick Resort Mai Khao Phuket will feature 220 rooms and offer amenities such as meeting spaces, a beach club, kids club, three swimming pools and a spa.

Mövenpick currently has eight hotels in operation in Asia, four of which are in Thailand.

Other Mövenpick properties due to open in Asia soon are Mövenpick Resort & Spa Boracay by end 2016, followed by Mövenpick Resort & Spa Jimbaran Bali in early 2017. By 2020, the company hopes to manage over 30 hotels in Asia.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) intends to officially include Thai street food as a tourism offering to generate more FIT demand, in line with their current Local Experiences initiative.

“Street food is a strong (selling) point for Thailand,” said TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn, adding that it not only helps to increase traveller spending but also aids in distributing income to the local vendors.

More than 60 per cent of international tourist arrivals in Thailand are repeat travellers, and TAT sees street fare as a new item for them to explore, at the same time differentiating Thailand from neighboring South-east Asian nations who are more inclined to promoting their natural attractions.

“This is a trend of global travel. Sightseeing at beautiful places are not enough anymore. We must also give them experiences they are unable to find elsewhere,” commented Yuthasak.

The Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA) agrees that the promotion of street food will not benefit tour businesses directly, but finds the effort worthwhile in terms of increasing the awareness of Thai cuisine, said its president Charoen Wangananont.

He suggested authorities should guarantee food hygiene and the safety of pedestrians in the exercise of this initiative, and consequently travel agents may add street food venues in their tour programmes.

Yuthasak accepted that street food vendors had caused inconveniences to pedestrians in the past, but that it will take time for the problem to be rectified given the many parties involved.

Since the Thai government launched its footpath clean-up campaign in mid-2014, sidewalks in 60 areas in Bangkok, including Khlong Thom, Pratunam, Bang Lamphu and Siam Square have benefited from more accessible walkways.

Norwegian Star

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) has opened a contact centre in Hong Kong dedicated to assisting members of the travel trade in the region.

A team of specialist cruise consultants, able to speak in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, will be made available at these centres to help provide the trade with enhanced customer service and assistance with bookings, pre-cruise activities and also to form bespoke on-board experiences.

“Establishing a local contact centre to deliver enhanced service and assistance to local trade was a top priority for us when setting up NCL’s Hong Kong office,” said Felix Chan, ‎vice president of sales Asia at NCL.

“Our specialist team of contact centre staff have all completed intensive training to effectively and rapidly respond to service calls, new bookings and assist with enquiries from our valued trade partners,” he added.

The contact centre operates from Monday to Saturday, 09.00 to 21.00 local time, and on Saturday from 09.00 to 18.00.

Christophe Peymirat

Expedia’s corporate travel outfit Egencia has reorganised internally to break down divisions by geographic region, forming two global organisations in its wake.

Instead of clustering its 65 offices worldwide under the Asia-Pacific, Americas and EMEA umbrellas, Egencia now has two reporting lines, one comprising Egencia’s current sales and account management teams, and the other focused on scaling Egencia’s business operations and on supplier partnerships

Christophe Peymirat, who was most recently senior vice president, Europe & APAC at Egencia, will assume the newly created role of chief commercial officer and lead the former team.

Meanwhile, former Egencia senior vice president – Americas, Mark Hollyhead, will take charge of the latter team as chief operating officer.

Peymirat and Hollyhead are both long-standing members of the Egencia leadership team and will continue to report to Egencia’s president, Rob Greyber, in these new roles.

Greyber hopes the restructuring will help further drive innovation for the company in the corporate travel space and sees the move as fitting for the needs of the industry in the coming years.

SOUTH Korea’s airlines have been ordered to abolish fees for international flights that are cancelled three months ahead of the departure date, effective from next year.

The nation’s Fair Trade Commission has ruled that forcing passengers to pay a cancellation fee more than three months before their flight is unfair. However, airlines will be permitted to increase cancellation fees for flights with less than 90 days left till departure.

Korean Air, the nation’s flag carrier, says the ruling will not affect their operations.

“We believe this will not have much impact because three months is a long time and (the duration) permits us to fill any cancelled seats,” Nathan Cho, a spokesman for Korean Air, told TTG Asia.

The airline will monitor any effects once the new system is introduced, Cho said, adding that the biggest impact will likely be among travel firms operating on leisure routes that are unable to fill their quota of pre-booked seats or who have last-minute cancellations.

Still, South Korea’s largest agency have welcomed the move, saying it helps spur demand for longhaul travel.

“We believe this is a good development because the present system unfairly punishes people who want to cancel tickets long in advance,” said Min Woo, head of public relations at Hana Tour.

“People who book longhaul flights, to places like Europe or North America, tend to do so a long time in advance, but they are being put off by the cancellation fees if they fear they may have to change their plans,” he explained.

At present, a passenger who cancels a flight is required to pay a fee based on the price of the ticket and the distance travelled.

That translates to a cancellation fee of about 70,000 won (US$63) for an economy class seat with Korean Air to destinations in South-east Asia.

Under the new system, a levy scale ranging from 30,000 won to 110,000 won will be applied, depending on how close to the departure date the cancellation is made.

TripAdvisor and its subsidiary Viator will cease ticket sales to hundreds of wildlife entertainment products, months after supporters of nonprofit World Animal Protection signed a petition against the travel search engine’s selling and promotion of controversial wildlife tourist attractions.

Activities that bring travellers into contact with captive or endangered wildlife will be removed from TripAdvisor’s booking content, including elephant rides, tiger petting venues and “swim with” programmes where tourists touch or ride dolphins.

Along with the revision in booking policy, TripAdvisor said it will also launch an education portal with information on animal welfare practices and linked to every one of its wildlife attraction listings.

World Animal Protection will work with TripAdvisor on this new portal, along with other wildlife conservation and sustainable tourism partners such as Global Wildlife Conservation, Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and PATA.

This represents a victory for World Animal Protection, said its CEO Steve McIvor, which earlier this year had launched a campaign against cruel tiger tourist venues and had called TripAdvisor out for promoting and selling tickets to such attractions.

Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of PETA, said: “By refusing to sell tickets to businesses that treat animals as entertainment or playthings, TripAdvisor is making a precedent-setting statement about the use and abuse of animals for entertainment.”

McIvor added: “We hope it will only be a matter of time before TripAdvisor will also come to realise that it has to end sales to all cruel wildlife attractions such as SeaWorld, where animals endure a lifetime of abuse and highly stressful training to perform.”

“Until then, we will provide the best education we can on TripAdvisor’s website to steer people away from cruel venues like these.”

TripAdvisor will discontinue sales of some attractions immediately and plans to have both the educational portal and booking policy changes fully implemented by early 2017.

The travel site stated that the policy amendment will not apply to domestic animal attractions such as horseback riding stables; children’s petting zoos with domestic animals like rabbits; aquarium touch pools used for educational purposes; feeding programmes where tourists are under supervision of professionals; voluntourism programmes for endangered species preservation at zoos; and aquariums or sanctuaries that make possible some level of physical interaction with an animal.

For attractions that can provide evidence that they are in-policy, but were impacted by TripAdvisor’s decision, there will be an appeals process to re-establish ticket sales.