FAIRFAX Financial Holdings, which owns Thomas Cook India and is backed by billionnaire Prem Watsa, is on the prowl for more acquisitions even when the ink is barely dry on its recent purchase of Kuoni Group’s travel businesses in India and Hong Kong.

Thomas Cook India’s managing director Madhavan Menon told TTG Asia e-Daily the company was looking at Asia “more actively”, particularly at “niche” travel businesses which it could buy, such as its acquisition of Sri Lankan DMC Luxe Asia Travels last July.

The purchase of the Kuoni businesses in India, comprising outbound travel brand SOTC and DMC Sita, and the Hong Kong tour operating, made through Thomas Cook India, along with Luxe Asia, was “a way to mitigate the risk for Thomas Cook”, whose foreign exchange business was “exceptionally large”, Menon said.

The company would also be losing the Thomas Cook brand name in 2025 as part of the agreement when it was acquired by Fairfax from the Thomas Cook Group UK in 2012.

“The value of SOTC, 59 years old, and Sita, 55 years old, is far higher. More importantly, by acquiring them (we are acquiring) exceptional management teams, people such as Depak Deva (CEO, Destination Management India and South Asia of Kuoni Travel India) and Vishal Suri (CEO, SOTC).

“With the Hong Kong acquisition, we’ll grow organically. Asia is where the action is going to be. China, Indonesia and India are primary travel source markets for the next few years, while South-east Asia is also going to be a stronger inbound market. So now, we will expand further into Asia by looking at other opportunities. But while we will be a mass market player in India, we want to be niche in Asia.”

Menon is eyeing “well-run” niche travel businesses which will be allowed independence post-purchase. “We don’t have the ability to run them. It’s never our policy to interfere. It’s the same when we were acquired by Fairfax and it’s exactly what we’ll replicate,” he said.

SOTC, Sita and Kuoni Hong Kong will remain independent, he said. The Kuoni name is licensed to Fairfax/Thomas Cook India for one year in India and five years in Hong Kong, but brands such as SOTC, Sita and Distant Frontiers are transferred.

“For businesses that are retail and customer-facing, I don’t want to tangle with the customer. Let them choose which (brand) they want to buy from.”

Asked about the future of tour operating, since Kuoni wanted out, he said: “There’s a future absolutely. Kuoni sold off for totally different reasons: it wants to concentrate on the B2B space and focus on its DMCs. I don’t have a problem with that. I believe there is a future as a packaged tour provider, and when it comes to complex itineraries, you need the balance between bricks-and-mortar and digital. That’s what we will provide.”

BRAND USA will intensify its focus on emerging South-east Asian markets like Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand following its success in growing the brand in this region.

The US welcomed 9.6 million Asians last year, up six per cent from 2013.

The main markets, in both size and growth, were China, India, Japan and South Korea. But markets such as Vietnam, though still small, are conspicuous by their stellar rises. There were 86,000 travellers to the US last year, a 34 per cent year-on-year increase. In particular, the number of Vietnamese travellers to New York shot up by 113 per cent to 32,000 last year, from 15,000 in 2013.

Makiko Matsuda Healy, senior vice president, global tourism development of NYC & Co, said: “One of the reasons could be that the economy in these emerging South-east Asia markets is stabilising and there is a rising middle class population.”

Tom Garzilli, senior vice president-global sponsorships for Brand USA, said in addition to Brand USA’s current promotional efforts and educational seminars launched in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, it would be “following the emerging economies closely”.

Plans are also underway to extend the USA Discovery programme to these countries, but no definite timeline was given.

Additionally, Brand USA will soon launch an online education and certification programme for the trade in Southeast Asia, said Garzilli.

The growing Asian market is also whetting the appetite of more US exhibitors to learn more about the market. Garzilli said new US exhibitors at ITB Asia this year include the Philadelphia Convention & Visitor Bureau and the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board.

IN light of a greater proportion of mobile savvy FITs emerging from China, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has announced a bevy of digital services to better connect with and attract such visitors to Singapore’s shores.

While this is not the first time STB is penetrating China’s digital and mobile space, it is the most comprehensive initiative yet, comprising four first-time partnerships and two new product launches with current partners.

First-time partners are online travel services Alitrip and Tuniu, and social review sites Dianping and Mafengwo. All of them signed a MoU with STB on October 21, 2015, agreeing to curate and distribute content on Singapore, over a period of two to three years, to their users.

Meanwhile, current partners WeChat and Baidu have both launched new products. The digital partnerships will feature attractions such as the River Safari and Gardens by the Bay in a new YourSingapore WeChat account, while offerings at the Sentosa HarbourFront precinct will be detailed in a new Baidu Connect service. More partnerships will be announced at a later date.

Khoo Shao Tze, chairman of Sentosa Harbourfront Business Association, said: “We still utilise publicity tools through traditional media to access the Chinese market, but if Chinese tourists want to go deeper, then there is that limitation. Baidu Connect will allow that depth”.

Singapore has seen a 19 per cent year-on-year increase in Chinese arrivals in the January to August 2015 period, and the partnerships are aimed at fuelling this growth.

In 2014, 1.7 million visitors from China visited Singapore – the second largest contributor of international arrivals – and this contributed to tourism receipts worth US$1.8 billion. Out of the total number of Chinese visitors, 80 per cent were either FITs or free-and-easy travellers.

“We are seeing more Chinese FIT visitors in recent years. Besides the need for comprehensive information for trip planning, they also desire real-time useful tips, navigation, payment and translation tools to explore a destination independently,” said Edward Chew, STB’s regional director (Greater China).

Darren Oh, director of business development at Gardens by the Bay, is sanguine about the partnerships. He said: “Chinese visitors are among the top five markets for us and we are seeing a huge growth in that segment. For us, we have lesser resources compared to larger attractions in the country, so going onto online platforms will really help us get the message across.”