Image from the Japan Meteorological Agency showing the epicentre of the quakes

TRAVEL agencies in Asia are seeing no drop in overall demand for Japan in the aftermath of a series of quakes that tore up parts of the southern region of the peninsula last week.

An initial magnitude 6.2 tremor first hit last Thursday evening followed by a magnitude 7.3 quake a day later, devastating infrastructure, attractions and homes in southern Japan.

However, agents are still seeing good business despite the disaster, albeit having to make several cancellations and delays to scheduled trips.

“A tour group of 25 people who were supposed to depart for Kyushu and Honshu on April 21 has decided to delay their trip to another date,” said Cooper Huang, CEO, Malaysian Harmony Tours & Travel.

“We are still selling Kyushu, but we have customised the itinerary so that it does not cover the areas affected by the earthquake.”

Others are similarly taking the tactical approach to continue selling tours to Japan to meet client needs yet avoiding the disaster area in order to ensure safety.

“We have 25 per cent of our customers postponing their trips to Japan. Singapore travellers are more concerned about Kyushu specifically. Demand to other parts of the country remain intact,” said Shannon Hee, marketing and communications manager, ASA Holidays.

“Most of our customers are still willing to travel with alternative itinerary arrangements. As such, we have changed the destination port to Miyazaki.”

Golden Tourworld Travel managing director, Jason Lim, said: “Tours to Kyushu have been put on hold for the time being. However, forward demand for Honshu, Tokyo and Osaka is still strong for the June school holidays in Malaysia.”

As well, Chan Brothers Travel have groups departing daily to Japan throughout April as this is the peak period, with bookings and enquiries remaining consistent. Only demand for Kyushu, which comprise less than 15 per cent of their Japan business, is affected.

Jane Chang, head of marketing communications, Chan Brothers Travel, said: “Our tour group travelling to the Kyushu region yesterday was cancelled for reasons of customer safety and as a precaution.”

She adds that they are continually monitoring the situation with local operators on the ground in order to decide further action.

As the quakes coincided with the sakura season, agents say that business has largely been unaffected.

“This is the peak cherry blossom season and Indonesians continue to travel despite the earthquake. We do not see any cancellations. We have three groups going on Tuesday, one yesterday and four today,” said Rudiana, director of sales and marketing at WITA Tour.

Equally sanguine about business is Putu Ayu Aristyadewi, corporate vice president, marketing and communication at Smailing Tours.

“We have not seen any cancellations. The earthquake this time did not affect tourist attractions travellers go to, and not as disastrous as it was a few years ago,” he said, referring to the March 11, 2011 quake and tsunami in Japan.

Alicia Seah, director of marketing communications at Dynasty Travel paints a similarly positive sentiment: “We currently have 260 travellers in central Japan for the sakura season and Hokkaido for the spring season. We have another 120 travellers leaving for Japan this week and the next as well as another group leaving for Kyushu in early May.”

Additional reporting from Paige Lee Pei Qi and S Puvaneswary

AFTER nearly three decades, Nepal has revived direct flights to Sri Lanka with Himalaya Airlines’ new link between Kathmandu and Colombo.

The airline made the maiden flight, a charter service, last week aboard a 158-seater Airbus A320.

Newly-launched Himalaya Airlines is under joint Nepalese and Chinese ownership, with Himalayan Infrastructure Fund Aviation Investment and Yeti World Investment holding a 51 per cent stake, and Tibet Airlines owning 49 per cent.

Former national carrier Royal Nepal Airlines used to operate direct flights to Colombo during the 1980s, but flights were suspended due to poor loads that arose from armed revolt in Sri Lanka.

Suresh Mendis, CEO of Colombo-based Classic Travel, said that there is a market for direct services between Kathmandu and Colombo, as it cuts short travel time to about four hours from the current 10 hours.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan budget carrier Mihin Lanka has plans to launch scheduled direct flights to Kathmandu, but no dates have been finalised yet.

Sri Lanka is Nepal’s fourth largest source market after India, China and the US.

CEO and managing director of Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB), Christoph Mueller, has resigned from his post at the beleaguered national carrier and will continue working at the company until September to serve out his six-month notice.

Mueller will then remain on MAB’s board as non-executive director to see through the leadership transition. The airline is currently on the lookout for a new CEO.

The resignation comes as a surprise as it has been less than a year since Mueller took on the top job and was contracted by Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the sole shareholder of MAB, to implement a turnaround of the carrier over a period of three years.

“While we would have wanted Mueller to continue as planned, we also respect and ultimately agree to his decision to leave ahead of the end of his three-year contract, due to a change in his personal circumstances,” stated Khazanah in a release.

Mueller, known as a turnaround veteran in aviation, first joined MAB in May 2015 to save the ailing airline which went through two concurrent setbacks in 2014 – the disappearance of flight MH370 and the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine. The airline also posted severe net losses at the end of 2014.

According to Khazanah, MAB’s restructuring, which was spearheaded by Mueller, will carry on as planned despite his departure.

COSTA Group will be deploying its 1,800-guest Costa neoRomantica year-round in Asia come April 2017. This will be the fifth Costa ship to be based in Asia.

The Costa neoRomantica will reach Shanghai on April 10 after a 23-day positioning cruise departing from Mauritius. She will then be dry-docked in Shanghai to undergo customisation to better suit Asian guests before embarking on its first cruise itinerary on April 24.

At present, there are three Costa ships deployed in Asia, while a fourth, the Costa Fortuna, will arrive in Shanghai on April 22 this year.

Commenting on the deployment, Michael Thamm, CEO, Costa Group, said: “(This) will allow us to continue to significantly grow the Asian cruise market – in particular China, which is set to become the second largest in the world by the end of the decade.”

Costa also recently placed an order for two new ships for Costa Asia, to be built by Fincantieri in Italy, with delivery scheduled in 2019 and 2020.

PATA and the Reef-World Foundation (Reef-World) are joining hands to enhance awareness and promote knowledge-sharing on issues relating to sustainable diving, snorkelling and marine tourism.

With this partnership, PATA will officially endorse Reef-World as well as its UNEP- (United Nations environment programme) recognised Green Fins management approach, which promotes and measures compliance of destinations, dive operators and related ancillary products and services to stringent environmental standards and best practices for sustainable diving and snorkelling activities.

The partnership will also see PATA make available information relating to diving, snorkelling and marine tourism through its online sustainability web platform sustain.pata.org.

PATA CEO, Mario Hardy, said such improved access to information can enable change at the grassroots level across a wide range of marine tourism issues.

Reef-World has been active in the promotion of marine conservation since the 1990s. Green Fins, its main project today, is an outcome of a partnership with the UNEP and represents the only international environmental standard for diving and snorkelling activities.

THE Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) has plans to expand Krabi Airport to handle an estimated two million additional passengers per year with a view to grow tourism in Krabi and help manage the spillover from Phuket’s busy airport.

A full conceptual plan for the expansion is due to be inked in June this year, according to CAAT director Chula Sukmanop.

Chula said the plan will involve an initial step to improve and enlarge the facility’s service areas as well as increase the number of runways and parking bays to facilitate longhaul and LCC flights.

This will raise the capacity of the airport from three million passengers per year to “about five million”, he said.

He went on to add that the increased capacity will not only support tourism and business in Krabi but could also ease passenger traffic at Phuket International Airport, which is currently running at overcapacity.

The department is also in the process of selecting consultants for a ten-year development plan of Thailand’s airports, he shared.