Indonesian travel agents at the Ke Singapura Yuk event organised by GTA 

KUONI Group’s Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) saw a record number of bookings into Singapore last year with a 22 per cent year-on-year sales growth.

The growth was driven largely by performance in key source markets, which include Indonesia, Australia, the UK, UAE, South Korea, China, India and Japan.

“The strong performance by GTA was led mainly by strong bookings to hotels in Orchard Road (up 30 per cent) and the Marina Bay area (up 16 per cent),” said Daryl Lee, regional vice president of sales and marketing for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, GTA.

Lee also shared that GTA commenced several key projects in 2015, including the Strategic Partnership programme. It brought together players from the hotel industry and initiated a marketing collaboration with SilkAir, seeing a co-investment of over S$2 million (US$1.4 million).

GTA also had success with the Premium Collection campaign, which focused exclusively on promoting top-tier hotels and products.

“We expect growth this year to be supported by the traditional markets but also new developing markets such as Iran, Sri Lanka and the Philippines,” Lee added.

SHILLA Stay has opened its eighth property in South Korea in Seoul’s digital district of Guro.

Spanning 25 floors with three room categories – standard, deluxe and grand – the 310-key Shilla Stay Guro is located a five-minute walk away from Guro Digital Complex Station and within close proximity to the Guro Digital Complex.

The business hotel offers three multi-purpose meeting rooms equipped with state-of-the-art audiovisual systems. A business corner also reside in the hotel and is equipped with high-speed Internet computers, with complimentary usage for guests.

Other facilities include a fitness centre on the 21st floor and an F&B outlet on the second floor serving a buffet selection of international and pan-Asian favourites for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Shilla Stay Guro is offering a special introductory package to guests staying in the hotel this month. They will receive a Shilla Stay bear, complimentary breakfast for two, free Wi-Fi, and access to the fitness centre with room rates starting from 130,000 won (US$108.5) per night.

INDONESIA’s tourism ministry has stepped up efforts to market Indonesia to travellers from India and improve flight connectivity between the two countries.

With a hefty US$9 million marketing budget, which is ten times that of the previous year, the ministry hopes to record 350,000 (20 per cent more) Indian arrivals in 2016.

“Last year we had just five promotional activities in India. But we plan to organise 20 promotional activities in India in 2016,” said Vinsensius Jemadu, director for Asia-Pacific tourism promotion, Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia.

The ministry plans to deploy print and electronic advertising, a five-city sales mission covering New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata, as well as direct promotions in shopping malls in Mumbai and New Delhi.

Also planned for this year are Indonesian cultural festivals, including the Wonderful Indonesia festival in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, and a culinary festival in Kolkata and New Delhi.

The ministry is also angling for greater flight connectivity and has an agreement already in place for Garuda Indonesia to start flying directly to Mumbai later this year. Garuda is likely to also start direct flights to New Delhi and Chennai.

HONG KONG has emerged as the top city destination in the world for the sixth consecutive year with 27.8 million international visitors in 2014, according to the latest Euromonitor International’s annual Top 100 Cities Destination Ranking.

Ranked second on the list is London with 17.3 million international visitors, which overtook Singapore and Bangkok with 17 million and 16 million international visitors respectively last year. Meanwhile, Paris ranked fifth with 14.9 million international visitors.

The overall ranking indicates Asia as the dominant region in ranking with one-third of the top 100 cities belonging there. Constant growth was also seen in both arrivals and departures from Chinese cities while cities in the US, except Miami, showed little dynamism.

Rio de Janeiro marked a significant increase in international arrivals at 46.6 per cent up in 2015. On the other hand, Kiev is removed from the ranking for the first time while Saint Petersburg and Moscow recorded double digit declines.

Additionally, the ranking marks 2014 as a record year for Greece tourism with three Greek cities entering the ranking, including Athens with double digit growth.

MINOR Hotel Group has acquired Portugal’s Tivoli Hotels & Resorts, marking its entry into Europe and Latin America.

The 294.2 million euro (US$320..6 million) transaction is the largest ever in Portugal’s hospitality sector, and the biggest deal Minor has ever undertaken, resulting in almost 3,000 additional rooms at approximately 102,000 euros per key for the hotel group. With this, Minor now owns all 12 of Tivoli’s properties in Portugal as well as two in Brazil.

Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of Minor Hotel Group and COO of Minor International, said Tivoli will be kept as a separate four to five star brand within the group.

Alluding to the Group’s prior acquisition of the Oaks Hotels and Resorts range, Rajakarier said Minor will adopt similar long-term growth strategies to reposition Tivoli as a global brand. There is a possibility of bringing it into the Portuguese-speaking parts of Africa, such as Angola and Mozambique, for instance.

“We would like to extend our base into other European countries,” he added. “We are looking at Spain, the UK, Germany, Norway and other Nordic countries. There are other deals I hope can be announced (within a year).”

TRAVEL search engine Kayak.sg has found that 49 per cent of all searches for February departures are for travel on February 5 and 6, the start of the Lunar New Year weekend, with most flights heading to the Thai capital of Bangkok.

It is the most searched shorthaul destination with an average return flight cost of S$306 (US$214) per person, followed by Kuala Lumpur with an average flight cost of S$167. Penang is positioned third on the list with flights costing S$310 on average. Phuket and Taipei come next with average flight costs of S$339 and S$497 respectively.

Meanwhile, Dubai tops the list of longhaul destinations for the Lunar New Year weekend with an average cost of S$713 per return flight. Gold Coast and Darwin follows with flights costing S$719 and S$512 respectively on average. Lastly, Abu Dhabi and Cairns is positioned fourth and fifth with an average flight cost of S$932 and S$807 each.

Travellers who wish to avoid the airport crowd are advised to travel on February 4 as only nine per cent of searches are for departures on that day.

SINGAPORE is the second most vacation-deprived nation in the Asia-Pacific and third most vacation-deprived globally, a study commissioned by Expedia finds.

The Vacation Deprivation Report 2015 found that a staggering 70.8 per cent of Singaporean respondents indicated that they feel very or somewhat vacation deprived, with an overwhelming portion of this group attributing the sentiment to work-related reasons, including insufficient vacation days (67 per cent).

Even though Singaporeans acknowledge the importance of vacationing for their general happiness and well-being, they tend to prioritise work commitments and career aspirations above vacationing needs.

While 80.1 per cent of Singaporean respondents recognise and derive happiness from vacationing, 45.1 per cent have cancelled a vacation due to work. Furthermore, 70 per cent indicated that they would rather receive a pay raise than be entitled to more vacation days.

WHILE most international hotel chains command multiple brands to target different market segments, Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts is sticking to a single brand growth strategy.

Andrew Langdon, senior vice president Asia, explained that being “the only single-branded international hotel (group) in the world” means they are the only ones giving property owners the confidence that their properties are being managed exclusively.

“You cannot be too greedy. You do what you do best,” said Langdon, adding that the singular focus is the “key differentiator” for Mövenpick as an upscale hotel brand.

Mövenpick currently operates eight properties in Asia (four in Thailand and one each in Singapore, China, Vietnam and the Philippines) with 11 more in the pipeline, including the opening of Mövenpick Pattaya last week and Mövenpick Boracay and Mövenpick Bali in the second half of 2016.