JAPAN is aiming to take advantage of its traditional strengths in technology, sciences and medicine to attract more MICE events and particularly hopes to win more business from Europe and North America.

“We have many Nobel Prize winners in these areas and we feel that the opportunity to meet and learn from them will attract participants from all over the world,” said Katsuaki Suzuki, executive director of the Japan Convention Bureau.

“We are (telling) potential delegates from abroad that they will be able to meet with Japanese scientists and researchers,” he added.

Leveraging the appeal of these experts, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has introduced the use of these experts as conference ambassadors to promote the country to foreign markets.

“At the moment, we have 21 university professors who serve as ambassadors and the scheme has had some success,” said Suzuki.

However, he admitted that some issues must be overcome before Japan’s MICE sector can fully take advantage of its unique position.

“Firstly, there is not enough support – financial and human resource – for organisers of conferences and events,” he said. “(The human resource limitation) is partly due to a lack of people with the necessary English language skills.”

Now that solutions are being devised to overcome these challenges, Suzuki believes the sector holds potential for Japanese companies.

“Incentive travel, particularly from markets in South-east Asia, has huge potential for us,” he said. “Those economies are developing rapidly and the JNTO is strengthening its marketing in those areas, such as through the opening of our Jakarta office last year.”

Ultimately, markets further afield are his prime targets. “We would like to attract more MICE business from Europe and North America as we have relatively little business from those areas and those events tend to be high-quality and, as a result, bring in a lot of money,” he added.

ANANTARA Hotels, Resorts & Spas is marking its 15th year in the business with a rebranding exercise, introducing a new brand philosophy, move towards greater digital and social strategies, and a redesigned logo.

Changes to the brand philosophy come on the back of shifting global growth strategies, resulting in a new Life is a journey slogan that is meant to reflect on the brand’s core value of natural luxury and guest-centric focus, it said in a statement.

The move towards greater use of social and digital platforms will involve the creation of a new website and blog, as well as a mobile strategy push to offer guests greater conveniences.

Anantara’s logo will also be redesigned, its iconic water jar and cushions remaining intact, while adding a new golden colour palette.

“Fifteen years later, the way in which people travel and experience the world has changed, and Anantara’s brand refresh has taken shape to meet the expectations, inspire the passions and delight the tastes of new explorers in city and resort destinations,” explained William E Heinecke, CEO and chairman of Minor International.

Minor Hotel Group, CEO, Dillip Rajakarier, added: “The development of the Anantara brand marks the start of the dynamic new journey, both in terms of strategic international footprint and enhancements to the guest experience.”

THE ongoing geopolitical tensions between Tokyo and two of its nearest neighbours have made selling China and South Korea “very difficult”, according to a spokesman for the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA).

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily at the JATA Tourism Expo Japan in Tokyo last week, Yuzo Murakami of the association’s World Campaign Promotions Office, said the situation has become so dire that many outbound companies have “basically given up on those markets”.

The association’s most recent figures reinforces the claim, with 2.7 million Japanese visiting China in 2014, an enormous slump from 2012’s 3.5 million high. A similar picture is painted for South Korea, which recorded 2.3 million Japanese visitors in 2014 versus 3.5 million in 2012.

“With China, it has mainly been a problem over political issues,” said Murakami, pointing to territorial disputes and differing interpretations of history between the two governments. “Also, big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have an image of being badly polluted,” he said.

South Korea also has political disagreements with Japan, but the bigger push factor for Japanese tourists was the end of the boom in K-pop imports, explained Murakami.

The losses experienced by China and South Korea, however, are other destinations’ gains.

“We are seeing strong interest in South-east Asia now, particularly to Taiwan, which is very cheap, close to Japan and where the people have an image of being kind,” Murakami said.

Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Hong Kong are also increasing in popularity, he added.

“These destinations are popular with groups of women in their 20s to 40s, as well as older couples in their 60s, because they are friendly, easy to get to and cheap.”

FROM its traditional core in travel distribution, Amadeus has been steadily diversifying its core business to airline technology, hotel bookings and payments, and has been actively beefing up its acquisition portfolio in recent years.

“We have always been very stringent with creating business very adjacent to our core technology in distribution, data centre, etc,” Holger Taubmann, senior vice president, distribution at Amadeus told TTG Asia e-Daily.

“Now we’re going into similar transaction-based businesses in the airline IT world, and the next thing we’re trying to do is give the same distribution tools to hotels,” he said.

“A fair bit of our business is coming from selling hotel bookings. We are extending that into hotel IT, which is a similar move as we have done on the airline side, going from the distribution part down to the core IT of a hotel,” he added.

Payment is another focus area that the travel technology giant has its attention on, explained Alex Luzarraga, vice president, corporate strategy at Amadeus. “Payments are in a revolution, in particular in Asia. More and more applications are based in the mobile space for payments and (many of these are) in its infancy because it’s so much related to new technologies. In parallel, we have also created a payment unit in Amadeus.”

Albert Pozo, president of Amadeus Asia-Pacific, commented: “Going forward, it’s not just working very closely with airlines but also payment providers, airport solutions, etc. It’s about taking a 360 degree view of the industry and trying to create synergy and connecting the dots for different parts of the industry.”

Amid its diversification drive, personalisation hence offers a compelling differentiator for Amadeus in a diverse geographical region as Asia-Pacific, which is home to such massive population centres as India and China to countries like Indonesia which calls for specific local content.

“Amadeus is going more and more into adapting our technology proposition to the regional or country market’s needs,” said Luzarraga. “(With technology) we now have this window to interact with the traveller at any stage of the experience, and this is fostering new opportunities and ways of bringing value to the traveller experience in Asia.”

At the same time, the growing wave of innovation among smaller players and entrepreneurs in the travel technology field has played nicely into Amadeus’ diversification cards, as the company seeks to foster new and original ideas in travel through its various initatives.

In addition to Amadeus Ventures, which was launched to provide early-stage minority investments for travel startups that have technology as a backbone, the global travel technology leader has also set up Amadeus Next, a programme that is run from Bangkok to nurture, mentor and partner with travel startups in Asia-Pacific.

Said Luzarraga: “(Asia’s) a very fresh market where things happen faster than other regions with more inertia as players (there) have been established for very long, (and) here you have a mix of lots of new travellers and new travel providers, distributers and specialised players who want to start things from scratch.”

THE iconic heritage Sandstone buildings in Sydney, comprising the Lands Building and the Education Building, are slated to be reestablished as a new luxury property.

Singapore-based Pontiac Land Group (PLG), in agreement with Government Property New South Wales (NSW), will be spending A$300 million (US$210 million) to redevelop the heritage site into a hotel, creating approximately 240 rooms.

PLG will be responsible for all design and planning requirements, with construction scheduled to begin in 2018 when current tenants have vacated.

The hotel is expected to be operationally ready roughly three years later, with the operator to be announced in due course.

Dominic Perrottet, New South Wales minister for finance, services and property, said: “This is great news for NSW, with a 240-room luxury hotel to be built in the heart of Sydney’s tourism and financial hub, which means hundreds of new construction and hospitality jobs, and an estimated A$185 million boost to the NSW economy over 20 years.”