(From left) Gede Supriatna, chairman of local house of representatives of Buleleng; Douglas Foo, SMF president & chairman of Sakae Corporate Advisory; HE Ngurah Swajaya, the ambassador of Indonesia; HE Putu Agus Suradnyana, regent of Buleleng Bali; Haryono Eddyarto, president director of PT Baruna; Dewa Ketut Puspaka, regional secretary of Buleleng Regency; Saharto Sahardjo, president commissioner of PT Baruna Indonesia

SAKAE Corporate Advisory, Buleleng Regency and PT Baruna Indonesia have signed an MoU for the development and management of North Bali Airport, set to be located in Kubutambahan, Bali.

North Bali Airport will be developed in stages, with the signing signalling the kick-off of runway upgrades on the existing airport to accomodate larger planes.

The first phase will then see the establishment of a transit hotel and a parking area for private jets, while the second stage will see the development of a ferry terminal and a seaport designed for cruise ships and private yachts.

No further details are available, but Sakae Corporate Advisory is currently calling for investment in areas such as ground handling, operation and maintenance of supporting facilities, and infrastructure of the new airport.

SRILANKAN Airlines will be discontinuing flights to Paris soon after a major convention of French travel agents concludes in Colombo on the first week of November.

It had earlier on May 1 cut flights to Rome. Flights to Frankfurt and London will continue for now, it’s only remaining stops in Europe.

The airline, which reported an accumulated loss of 140 billion rupees (US$958 million) as of March 31, is being restructured to make it more attractive for acquisition, said Eran Wickremaratne, deputy ministry of the Public Enterprise Development in Sri Lanka to parliament on Tuesday.

“We have to dress up the bride to seek a proper suitor,” said the deputy minister, whose ministry handles the airline.

The airline has been in the news over the past few weeks after its burgeoning debt situation and weak financials were released by the government.

It is also currently undergoing staff cuts with a voluntary retirement scheme on the cards for its 7,000 strong workforce.

SriLankan Airlines’ chairman Ajit Dias says the goal now is to change its focus, especially towards India, and will position itself as an Asian carrier.

The airline currently has 100 weekly flights to India and is now sourcing for a local public relations agency there.

THE fate of EgyptAir flight MS804 is still uncertain, but airlines with businesses in the Middle East and Europe can already expect backlash from the incident, at least for the near future, according to consultancy Global Market Advisors.

“(We are) short-term financially negative for airlines with exposure to the Middle East region, largely affecting European and Gulf state carriers,” said Jonathan Galaviz, senior industry analyst – airlines at Global Market Advisors.

“(There will also be) significant frictional costs over the next few weeks from increased security, media coverage, and operational security at airports located in the MENA region.”

Global news media have spread word of flight MS804’s disappearance from radar tracking systems since yesterday, but it is still inconclusive what happened to the A320 with 59 passengers and 10 crew members onboard.

Confusion is now rife after conflicting reports of the plane’s fate hit news outlets. EgyptAir earlier reported that the plane’s debris have been found before backpedaling to say that it does not belong to MS804.

The latest official statement from EgyptAir, which is wholly owned by the Egyptian government, indicates that the search is still ongoing with the Egyptian air force, navy and army all mobilised. Search teams from France, Greece, the UK and the US are also onsite.

The leading suspicion now is terrorism, according to Egypt’s aviation minister Sherif Fathy.

Galaviz said that the last major flight incident involving Egypt (but not EgyptAir) was outbound Russian flight Metrojet 9268 leaving Sharm el-Sheikh city on October 31 last year, which happened about seven months ago.

“The investigation on that flight continues but terrorism was the defined cause,” he said.

As for the current ongoing incident, Galaviz predicts that “in the short-term there will be conflicting information and worry about the aviation sector in the region, but we remain bullish on the long-term prospects on airlines flying out of and headquartered in the Gulf States.”

Queen Victoria Memorial Clocktower in Georgetown, Penang

THE annual George Town Festival in Penang will take place from July 29 to August 28 this year, with more than 100 events set to spring up all around the city.

According to festival director Joe Sidek, the homegrown event attracted some 250,000 visitors over a one month period last year, and he expects the same crowd for this seventh edition.

Events, ranging from art and photography exhibitions to music and theatrical shows, will be held in a variety of venues including Dewan Sri Pinang Hall, Penang City Town Hall and Esplanade Padang Kota Lama.

Sidek says this year’s highlights will involve some of the best talents from Australia and South-east Asia in a two-day outdoor event called the A+SEAN Showcase.

Other highlights include the Snuff Puppets, gigantic hand-made art installations from Australia, as well as Svara Bhumi, George Town Festival 2016’s opening act featuring Australia’s leading aboriginal band, the Black Arm Band, New Zealand’s Ria Hall, and many others.

Meanwhile, The Eastern & Oriental Hotel located in the heart of George Town will serve as the backdrop for a theatre and dance show titled Pearl of the Eastern & Oriental, helmed by Singaporean artists Lim Yu Beng and Tan Kheng Hua.

The George Town Festival is inaugurated in 2010 in celebration of the city’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 2008.

The Sun & Moon Urban Hotel

CAMBODIA’s hotels are gearing up to better cater to the surge in Chinese tourists, especially FITs, to the country.

According to Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism’s latest figures, there were 81,032 Chinese arrivals in the month of February compared to 70,965 the same time last year, a 14.2 per cent hike.

While most traditionally came in tour groups, hoteliers have noticed a shift towards independent travel.

“More Chinese young professionals are staying with us. They are mostly couples who aren’t attracted to mass tourism and are familiar with the highest standards in the hospitality industry,” said Alexis de Suremain, co-founder of hospitality group Maads.

The group owns several boutique hotels, including The Plantation and The Pavilion in Phnom Penh, and Templation in Siem Reap.

This sentiment is echoed by Sarai Resort & Spa’s resident manager, Chea Sokhon, who said the hotel welcomed a rising number of “solo, couple and small group” travellers from China.

China also rose to become Sarai’s top source market this year, up two spots from 2015.

“To reach out to this segment, we will focus on digital marketing, including promotions on websites directed at this specific market, Chinese bloggers and joint marketing with Chinese specialist partners,” he said.

The Sun & Moon Urban Hotel in Phnom Penh is also seeing more guests from China, said Sambo Nov, the hotel’s executive assistant manager, adding that they will be offering more services catered to them such as having more Chinese speaking staff.

INDONESIA’s civil aviation authority has frozen ground handling operations for Lion Air at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and Indonesia AirAsia at Ngurah Rai International Airport for five days as of May 17.

The sanction was given after another passenger mishandling took place at Bali’s airport on Monday night, when one of the three transit buses ferrying passengers of AirAsia QZ509, which flew in from Singapore, wrongly alighted travellers at the domestic terminal instead.

The incident took place barely one week after Lion Air’s transit bus mistakenly dropped passengers off at Jakarta airport’s domestic terminal rather than at Terminal 2.

Suprasetyo, director general of air transportation, Ministry of Transportation, said during a press conference yesterday that in addition to the operation freeze, both airlines will have to appoint new ground handling agents by the time the suspension period is over.

“(The sanction) is taken to improve airline services,” he said.

Investigations are ongoing and the government is now reviewing procedures and qualifications of existing ground handling agents in order to avoid such mishaps in the future.

Following the government sanction, Lion Air and Indonesia AirAsia issued statements yesterday, assuring the public that their air operations at both Jakarta and Bali airports will continue as scheduled.

Sunu Widyatmoko, president director of Indonesia AirAsia in the statement said: “It is our priority to make sure that (air) operations remain smooth and passenger comforts are met.

“We will continue to coordinate with related parties in terms of the investigation and will take steps to prevent such incidents from happening again.”

Edward Sirait, general affairs director of Lion Air, said: “We appeal to our passengers not to worry about the freeze as our operational activities will run as per normal.”

An EgyptAir A320

AN EgyptAir flight from Paris enroute to Cairo has disappeared from radar tracking systems at 02.45 local time today.

Flight MS804, an A320, carried 59 passengers and 10 crew when it took off from Charles De Gaulle Airport at 23.09 Parisian time, before losing contact approximately three hours and 40 minutes into its journey.

The airline stated that the plane was at a height of 37,000 feet and 10 miles into Egyptian airspace when communications were lost.

EgyptAir’s latest statement says that they have informed all relevant authorities and are now working with rescue teams to investigate further.

Auschwitz, Poland

TRAVEL to locations associated with a history of death, suffering and other instances of the macabre has become popular among tourists.

Pablo Escobar’s Medellin, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Auschwitz gas chambers in Poland, Jack the Ripper’s back streets of London, and the apartheid jail cells in Africa are examples of this.

But according to MyTravelResearch.com, ethical implications such as the tendency to trivialise past suffering and dredge up painful reminders for local communities are surfacing as a result.

The citizens of Medellin, for example, initially resisted dark tourism, unwilling to be reminded of their murderous history. As well, survivors of Auschwitz raised fears that such forms of tourism was trivialising tragedy after seeing tourists take selfies at a genocide site.

However, Carolyn Childs, co-founder of MyTravelResearch.com, said that this can be avoided by making sure sensitivities are properly managed.

“Firstly and most importantly, the community including victims and survivors must be consulted from the beginning and throughout the project,” she said.

Childs, who has assessed dark tourism sites around the world, added that the quality of historical interpretation and portrayed narrative is also vital. The story needs to be brought to life, she stressed, citing the example of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.

There, visitors are randomly assigned a white or non-white tag, who then enter the museum through different corridors, all the while being visible to one another, leading to a visceral and disconcerting experience.

While selfie and travel tick list trivialisation is unfortunate, Childs insists that dark tourism is a force for good by being able to promote solemn learning and personal growth.

“Visiting sites such as Auschwitz are occasions for profound reflection and learning,” she said.

“Particularly, if you combine them with visiting Kazimierz and Podgorze. If you are visiting Krakow and only see the positives of this beautiful city, you aren’t seeing the whole picture.”