Ovation of the Seas

THREE of Royal Caribbean’s largest cruise ships, the Ovation of the Seas, Mariner of the Seasand Voyager of the Seas, will be homeporting from Singapore starting October.

This marks the cruise operator’s longest homeport season from the city-state yet, which will run for eight months totalling 55 cruises and is expected to bring an estimated 200,000 guests to ports in South-east Asia.

The deployment of these three ships will increase Royal Caribbean’s South-east Asia capacity by 30 per cent in 2017 over 2016.

Initiating the season is Mariner of the Seas starting October till March next year with 39 sailings that range from three- to seven-night itineraries to destinations like Penang, Langkawi, Port Klang, Phuket, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City.

This Mariner of the Seas season sees the introduction of a three-night Penang Weekend Cruise and a four-night Phuket Cruise. Other highlights include festive Christmas and New Year cruises and themed cruises featuring salsa and cosplay themes.

Royal Caribbean’s newest and largest ship, Ovation of the Seas, will then homeport from Singapore in the months of March and April 2017, as announced earlier.

It will make 10 sailings comprising three- to five-night itineraries to Penang, Phuket and Bangkok as well as a 12-night one-way cruise to Tianjin with port calls at Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, Hong Kong and Seoul.

Following this will be Voyager of the Seas making six sailings of between three to five nights from May 2017.

Itineraries include calls at Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Phuket, plus one eight-night one-way cruise to Hong Kong with stopovers at Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang.

Credit: TAT

FOLLOWING the recent bombing incidents in Thailand, a raft of initiatives were put together by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) in an effort to assure travellers that the nation remains safe and welcoming of visitors.

A Situation Monitoring Centre was immediately opened on August 12, the second day of the attacks, so that government officials could maintain timely and accurate communications. The centre monitors local and international news, collects statistics on tourist arrivals, bookings and cancellations as well as data from airline and tourism-related companies.

A campaign was also launched to galvanize local communities to host tourists and to encourage everyone working in the field of tourism to wear special white-yellow ribbons as symbols of peace and unity.

“We want to show that Thailand and the Thai people genuinely care for the well-being of all tourists. And we want tourists to know that by visiting Thailand, they’ll make memorable travel memories and enjoy experiences that will entice them to return time after time,” said TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn.

Going forward, TAT is also hoping to boost travel arrivals and spending for the rest of the year through several events and festivities.

While the tourism industry in Thailand has proven resilient post-disaster in the past, Yuthasak said in a statement that approximately 100,000 to 200,000 travel cancellations could be resulted due to the incident. “That would cost about 5.08 billion baht (US$146.6 million) to 10.16 billion baht,” he said.

However, Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports remains confident in reaching its target of 2.4 trillion baht (US$69.3 billion) of tourism revenue in 2016.

Currently, TAT is seeking cabinet approval for a special long-holiday weekend in September to coincide with World Tourism Day held in Bangkok. The ministry hopes that the actual celebration day on September 27 will be declared a public holiday and for the Monday prior on September 26 to be an extra day off.

According to TAT, a four-day break would encourage travel and spending nationwide while boosting confidence among travellers.

In addition, a number of mega events and special tourism promotional campaigns will take place. The Jazz Run Cycling Hua Hin Festival is scheduled for the first week of September, and will comprise a jazz music festival, food fair, marathon, and cycling event. A major golf tournament will also be held, featuring Thailand’s lady golf ambassadors Pornanong Phatlum and Ariya Jutanugarn.

Another large-scale event, titled Magnificent Thailand, will be held in Bangkok, possibly in Lumphini Park, from October 1-7. It will comprise a street food festival, local food fair, city street light decorations, mapping shows, and shopping street.

As well, there will be an ExpatFest held at the end of September to showcase unique Thai culture, traditions, cuisine and tourist attractions to the expatriate community in Thailand with an aim to encourage them to travel more domestically.

TAT has also scheduled to launch a new domestic tourism promotional campaign to encourage locals to travel in Thailand’s southern regions. Named the Cross Regional Travel Challenge, the initiative will start on October 1 featuring the attractions in southern Thailand such as beaches, islands and rainforests.

Also making a return is the Thailand’s Luckiest Visitor campaign which rewards each millionth traveller who enters the country from June to December.

“We believe that all these special measures and initiatives will help stimulate travel during the rest of the year, and allow Thailand to reach the 2016’s revenue target of 2.41 trillion baht,” Yuthasak assured.

HONG Kong tourism authorities are set to introduce food trucks at attractions around the city with an aim to add vibrancy to the destinations.

The initiative first started as part of Hong Kong’s 2015-16 Budget Speech and will finally come into fruition by end-2016.

The eight designated tourist spots to feature food trucks include the Golden Bauhinia Square; Central Harbourfront Event Space; Ocean Park; Tsim Sha Tsui Salisbury Garden; Tsim Sha Tsui Art Square; Energizing Kowloon East Venue 1; Wong Tai Sin Square; and Hong Kong Disneyland.

From a pool of over a hundred applicants, 16 managed to obtain the licences to operate the food trucks. The licensees were determined from a cook-off challenge.

“We trust that food trucks will enrich tourists’ experience when visiting these attractions. We will launch a series of promotional activities for the food trucks and will explore opportunities to collaborate with the tourist industry to use this new initiative to boost tourism,” said an official spokesperson.

“We are also planning to have them operating at major tourism events organised by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, such as the Dragon Boat Carnival, the Hong Kong Cyclothon and the New Year Countdown. Moreover, a mobile app for tourists and locals to track the locations of food trucks will be developed.”

Henry Lo, director and general manager of Lantau Tours believes the initiative is ideal for FITs. “(However), we organise day tours for leisure groups and will not purposely promote or include it in our itinerary because of limited free time.”

Managing director of Sincere International Travel Service, Charles Ng, welcomed the move and said: “Our local food culture definitely draws visitors. It’s vital to drum up noise for this new offer from the outset. But it’s hard to assess its immediate benefit to arrival figures as it’s a long-term investment.”

THE Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has introduced new initiatives to grow arrivals and increase the length of stay of business travellers and families on holiday with young children from Malaysia.

With this, STB hopes to combat declining arrivals from Malaysia, which remains the third largest source market for Singapore after Indonesia and China.

Arrivals from Malaysia had declined from 1.28 million visitors in 2013 to 1.23 million in 2014, then to 1.17 million in 2015. “Arrivals from Malaysia were flat in the first half of 2016, showing no growth or decline,” said Edward Koh, STB’s executive director of Southeast Asia.

He said the declining numbers from Singapore’s nearest neighbour was partly due to the challenging economic environment over the last two years as well as due to the increased usage of virtual meetings leading to the decline of face-to-face meetups.

But according to statistics, families with young children are a segment showing potential for growth. In 2015, Singapore welcomed more than 90,000 children below the age of 14, representing close to 8 per cent of total visitor arrivals into Singapore that year.

STB has thus launched Singapore Junior, a seven-episode web series which will kick off on August 19. Co-hosted by two young children below the age of 10, they embody the sense of wonder and excitement from a child’s perspective and provide travel advice and ideas to parents with young children.

To grow the business travel segment, which currently represents 33 per cent of tourist arrivals, STB has introduced a meetings and incentives rewards scheme for Malaysian corporates.

It offers complimentary activities such tours to Marina Barrage, National Gallery Singapore, Gardens by the Bay and the Singapore Zoo, among others. To qualify, groups have to number at least 20 people and stay for at least two nights in Singapore. The group must also complete their travel by March 31, 2017.

Promotional image for the launch of U-Fly Holidays

HONG Kong-based budget carrier HK Express has entered into the OTA space with the launch of U-Fly Holidays.

The platform, which launched earlier this week, allows users to book HK Express flights, hotels, tours, ground transportation and bundled packages. With an accommodations inventory of over 500,000 properties in 21,000 cities, U-Fly Holidays is more comprehensive than some OTAs already in the market.

However, the platform currently only offers flights by the LCC, limiting destinations to those served by HK Express only.

“At the moment, U-Fly Holidays focuses exclusively on flights from HK Express, where guests will be able to find a wide range of great deals on the platform just within a few clicks,” said Charles Johnson, general manager of U-Fly Holidays.

But revealing future expansion plans, he said: “It’s certainly our goal to align our product offering to include more offers from the U-Fly Alliance group of airlines.”

The other airlines under the U-Fly Alliance are co-founding members Lucky Air, Urumqi Air and West Air, along with HK Express, while South Korea’s Eastar Jet was recently inducted.

For now, the U-Fly Holidays site offers HK Express’ South-east Asian services. “The remaining HK Express network will be added this month. Airport transfers and travel insurance will be added in the near future, and expanded products and fare deals will be enhanced over the coming months,” added Johnson.

Explaining the move for the low-cost carrier to enter the OTA space is Andrew Cowen, director and CEO of HK Express. He said: “Our vision is to empower everyone to explore Asia at an affordable price and encourage guests to expand their horizons through travel.

“We have expanded to 26 destinations in Asia and carried five million guests since (transforming into a Hong Kong-based LCC), and have achieved profitability with a revenue of HK$2.4 billion (US$309.5 million) by 2015 year’s end, while the fleet has been aggressively expanded to 15 in August.

“All in which have motivated us to go a step further and reflect on the ways to take our offering to the next level.”

Cowen added that the move has always been part of the company’s plan as part of efforts to streamline the travel planning phase for its customers. Having the platform also allows the airline flexibility to offer packaged deals and offers at their discretion.

Asked if this changes the distribution strategy, he said: “HK Express has seen strong demand from our guests on budget travel since the airline transformed into an LCC in October 2013.

“We believe in a multi-channel distribution strategy, so we offer guests the chance to transact with us in the manner they prefer best. Of course our best fares and full range of services will always be offered on our own website, whereas other channels may have more limited options available.”

In a press statement, Cowen also affirms the new platform’s positioning as an OTA.

“Over the next 12 months we will continue to develop U-Fly Holidays including launching into new markets and welcoming additional content ranging from airlines to accommodation and activities making U-Fly Holidays a strong, competitive force in the online travel space.”

LCC Scoot will be launching its first nonstop service from Singapore to Europe on June 20, 2017, to the Greek capital of Athens.

This is the longest flight operation of any budget carrier with a journey time of 11 hours and flight distance exceeding 10,000km.

Four-weekly flights operated by a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner will depart from Changi International Airport on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 02.00 and arrive at Athens International Airport at 08.30.

Return flights leave Athens on the same days at 12.00 and will arrive in Singapore at 04.25 the next day. Flights will feature a two-class configuration with 329 seats total.

As a launch promotion, Scoot is offering one-way all-inclusive standard fares starting at S$288 (US$214) and for ScootBiz seats starting at S$888 for travel between June 20, 2017 to October 31, 2017.

The sale period will end at 23.59 on Aug 31.

THE Crimson Resort & Spa Mactan in Cebu has achieved Muslim-friendly status, the second hotel in the Philippines to attain the accolade after Manila Marriott Hotel first got it earlier in May.

Leading halal travel authority CrescentRating gave the resort a commendable rating of five – the highest score being seven – for catering to the needs of Muslim travellers property-wide.

“(The high score) means we are able to provide more than the basic services and facilities, including halal food, Qurans, Qiblas, prayer mats, a prayer time guide and facilities like a bidet and female attendants, among others,” explained the resort’s general manager Kristofer Quadros.

Crimson Resort & Spa Mactan already received halal certification for its kitchen last April. CrescentRating then assessed the resort facilities for compliance to the specific needs of Muslim travellers for the entire property. The resort’s staff are also trained to cater to the needs of Muslim travellers.

“We now see a number of Muslim-friendly setup requested by guests through our website. This is free-of-charge and can be requested in advance upon booking or can also be done upon check-in,” added Quadros.

“With this service, we are able to better prepare the rooms for our Muslim guests. And we are optimistic to see more of these as promotion efforts kick in.”

THE fastest growing source of cruise passengers worldwide is Asia.

The region experienced an unprecedented 24 per cent increase to 2.08 million people from the region taking an ocean cruise last year, according to the lastest Asia Cruise Trends study conducted by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

China accounted for almost half the region’s cruise passengers, with 986,000 Chinese passengers taking a cruise in 2015, up 40 per cent from 703,000 in 2014.

This figure makes China the world’s fastest growing source nation for cruise passengers in 2015, with source markets like Hong Kong (126,800), India (125,900), Japan (179,900), Singapore (182,700) and Taiwan (228,700) also in the lead.

Consequently, sailings in the region have increased with 1560 sailings scheduled for 2016, up 43 per cent on last year. This is achieved with 60 ocean cruise ships sailing in Asia versus 52 operating in 2015.

In terms of passenger capacity in Asia, the industry has seen a 54 per cent increase year-on-year, with the number expected to reach 3.2 million by the end of 2016.

“The cruise industry has been nimble and responded quickly to the demand for cruise travel in Asia by delivering cruise ships with amenities and experiences tailored to Asian travellers,” said CLIA president and CEO Cindy D’Aoust.

“Asian cruise travel has also become an enticing way for international guests to visit Asia’s fascinating destinations in a comfortable and convenient way.”

CLIA’s report also showed that passengers from the region continue to prefer shorter ocean cruise lengths. In 2015, almost 30 per cent of passengers continued to choose cruises two to three nights in length and half chose four to six night cruises.

Meanwhile, almost a fifth of passengers chose extended cruises of seven to 13 nights. As a result, the average length of cruises offered in the region has increased slightly from 5.2 nights in 2014 to 5.3 nights in 2015.

Cruising in Asia includes more than 204 destinations across 17 countries. Japan remains the most popular destination country with 1526 port calls in 2016, followed by China (850), South Korea (745), Vietnam (466) Malaysia (422) and Singapore (391). The most visited port in 2016 will be Jeju Island with 460 calls.

“China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam are the top five destinations in Asia, experiencing more than 4,000 calls in total,” said CLIA Asia secretary general David Goh, citing the report.

It was further revealed that 84 per cent of Asian passengers cruised within the region with 38 per cent of all cruisers being aged below 40 years.

HOSTS of short-term private accommodations, such as via Airbnb, can now engage GuestReady for a range of operational services.

Targeted at shared economy hosts, homeowners and investment property owners, the startup provides services such as laundry, cleaning as well as check-in and check-out of guests.

It also offers property management, which includes guest communication, maintaining listings on multiple short term rental sites, and ensuring the property generates the maximum possible yield. This is not unlike the way traditional hotel operators work.

“As the short-term rental industry is maturing, there is a natural need for more efficiency, professionalism and standardisation,” said the company’s CEO Alexander Limpert.

“Especially with business travellers, the property and any service related to a stay need to be of immaculate quality. For non-professional hosts, this is hard to achieve, which is where we step in.”

GuestReady officially launches today in six countries in Europe and Asia, namely London, Paris, Amsterdam, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. There are plans to expand to other markets soon.

The startup is backed by Switzerland’s Swiss Founders Fund for an undisclosed sum.