NONGLUCK Narkman becomes director of sales & marketing at The Westin Grande Sukhumvit, Bangkok effective May 6.
She has over 20 years of experience in both sales & marketing and conventions & catering fields, and has worked for brands such as Shangri-La, Conrad and Sheraton.
Prior to the appointment, she was director of sales & marketing at Sheraton Hua Hin Resort & Spa before being posted to Sheraton Hanoi Hotel.
ALILA Hotels and Resorts has announced new general mangers for its four new hotels in Indonesia and China.
Eleanore Astier-Petin joins the pre-opening team at Alila Solo in central Java as general manager. Over the last decade, she has worked with luxury hotels and resorts, including the renowned Hermitage Hotel Jakarta. She will now oversee operations and management of the 257-key Alila Solo.
Pierre Lang will lead Alila Seminyak Bali, scheduled to open in September as the group’s fifth property on the island. With over 15 years of experience in the hospitality industry, Lang has worked for international brands including Armani Hotels & Resorts and Hyatt.
Over in Jakarta, David Baldwin joins Alila SCBD Jakarta and will oversee its opening in early 2016. He brings to Alila 10 years of experience, having worked with leading hotels across the region.
Michael Brooks has been named general manager at Alila Anji Zhejiang. He is tasked with launching Alila’s first property in China, which will open its doors in 3Q2015. Prior to this, he was general manager of The World, a private floating community of 169 islands in Dubai.
FREE fuel vouchers and a night-time bonfire are being offered by the Sebel Kirkton Park for business events held at the resort between now and end-June.
Available via The Conference Shop – a new, free website service to help companies plan business events in regional areas – the special offer gives corporate organisers a A$500 (US$385) fuel voucher to cover the journey from Sydney, and a post-dinner bonfire under the stars, complete with mulled wine, hot chocolate and marshmallows.
Surrounded by Hunter Valley’s famous vineyards, the resort offers 71 rooms and free Wi-Fi to all delegates. Meetings can be held in its five conference rooms and four breakout rooms.
The offer is valid with a minimum spend of A$10,000. Special conference accommodation rates from A$155 per delegate per night are also available, including breakfast.
For more details, visit www.theconferenceshop.com.au.
THE Tokyo metropolitan government has announced the latest appointment of tourism representatives in 12 cities in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, to be overseen by the Tokyo Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The cities are Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Munich, Milan, Madrid, Sydney, Beijing and Seoul.
Chitose Maeda, director for city sales, tourism division, Bureau of Industrial and Labor Affairs, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, said: “We are excited to work closely with our 12 representatives including the two additional cities, Beijing and Seoul, to promote Tokyo as one of the greatest tourism destinations in the world. All 12 representatives’ wealth of knowledge and well-established relationships in the industry make them a great asset to Tokyo.”
It is the first time the city appoints representatives in Beijing and Seoul.
Japan is working towards 20 million international visitor arrivals by 2020, when it will host the summer Olympic Games.
US-BASED MD Events has opened an office each in Singapore and Sacramento, bringing its current global network of operations to six.
The two new offices, joining existing ones in London, St Petersburg, Philadelphia and Hong Kong, will comprise three divisions to deliver MD Events’ specialisations in life sciences, corporate and destination management.
General manager Tarquin Scadding-Hunt said in a press statement that MD Events needs to base its services where clients need them.
Scadding-Hunt said: “Singapore is a hotbed of business for a number of industries, especially pharmaceutical R&D, which was demonstrated recently with companies like Takeda and GSK establishing a presence there.
“There (are) lots of activity in the US’ West Coast and we think it is a logical step to expand our footprint in the US.”
Jowyn Tan, account director of Asia and Australia, told TTGmice e-Weekly that she expects all three divisions in the Singapore office to flourish.
“Singapore is home to regional headquarters within Asia for the pharmaceutical industry and we are expecting at least a 30 per cent increase in meetings for the life sciences division within the next five years. The corporate division is specially tailored for our existing and new clients dealing in non-life sciences meetings. We will be increasing our client base to other industries including IT, electronics, banking & finance, and insurance, etc.
“Meanwhile, our DMC division allows us to demonstrate our knowledge of Asia and Australia. We will expand our client base to event companies that are not based in this region,” Tan said.
Commenting on the company’s decision to open a second office in the US, Agnès Canonica, general manager of the Americas, said: “(There are) many life sciences companies in the San Francisco and San Diego area. In addition, we are targeting IT companies on the corporate side of things, so our presence in Sacramento aligns with our growth strategy.”
Canonica revealed that most of the demand for the US, specifically the West Coast, is from the north-east corridor where most of its current clients are located.
“In a couple of years, we feel that will be spread evenly throughout the East Coast, Midwest (Chicago area) and West Coast, in addition to Canada, based on our diversifying marketing strategy.”
She expects demand from Asian clients to rise five years from now.
Just as hoteliers were starting to look forward to stronger business prospects with Indonesia’s robust tourism targets, the new government’s austerity drive is causing waves.
Indonesian president Joko Widodo has set an ambitious target of 20 million international arrivals and 275 million domestic travel movements by 2019, huge jumps from 9.4 million international arrivals and 250 million domestic movements in 2014.
When the new government came into office in October last year, Jokowi also prioritised reducing official spending, including cutting the cabinet’s travel and meeting budget for 2015 to Rp25 trillion (US$1.9 billion), from Rp41 trillion last year.
In line with that minister of state apparatus and bureaucratic reform Yuddy Chrisnandi last November issued circulars instructing government officials to limit meetings outside office facilities as part of the administration’s effort to trim the state budget.
According to Yuddy, the leakage of government fiscal resources reached 30 per cent, and civil servants’ spending on unnecessary meetings organised outside offices was one of the violations.
Yuddy was also quoted by Bisnis Indonesia Daily as saying that within two months of the introduction of the state budget efficiency programme, the government managed to save Rp5.2 trillion for all sectors, including travel expenses and meetings in hotels.
While the circular sought to “limit” and not “ban” meetings outside government-owned facilities, it did not detail the do’s and don’ts, resulting in government agencies cancelling a majority, if not all, of hotel meetings, to devastating effect.
Since regional autonomy took place in Indonesia over a decade ago, regional businesses have grown and prompted investors to develop hotels, big and small, with meeting facilities across the archipelago. Many of these were used for government and state-owned company meetings, trainings and seminars that could account for up to 40-50 per cent of the MICE business, according to the Indonesia Hotels and Restaurants Association (IHRA).
Hotels in Bandung, Yogyakarta, Makassar and Lombok, for example, reported receiving massive cancellations for November and December last year, typically busy months for government meetings.
TTG Asia understands that a recent tourism stakeholders meeting in Yogyakarta revealed that in November and December last year, the city lost Rp70 billion worth in government meetings.
Occupancy across the country dipped by as much as 50 per cent while rates declined between five per cent and 20 per cent, according to Yanti Sukamdani, outgoing chairman of IHRA and chairman of Indonesia Tourism Promotion Board.
Meanwhile, several hotels in Bali and Jakarta were reportedly experiencing a similar situation. Yanti commented: “Hotels have mushroomed everywhere (in Indonesia) in the last few years, and many are relying on MICE.
“The government should remember that tourism is the fourth largest contributor to the country’s GDP, which means that it is an important agent of development,” she added, stressing the need for strong political will in prioritising the tourism sector.
She also called for deeper cooperation between the government and private sector.
Following much outcry from the hospitality sector, the government finally issued a formal guideline in end-March to clarify the guidelines given earlier.
Government meetings could be held outside of government offices but they must produce clear results, through transcripts of the meeting, reports and a list of all attendees, signed by the official in charge.
National and regional government agencies must also come up with further terms, conditions and standard operating procedures to perform such evaluations, Yuddy elaborated.
Hoteliers like Don Tiganov, e-commerce marketing manager, Lombok Raya Hotel, lauded the move and have since received inquiries from government agencies for meetings, and expects them to translate into bookings.
Vivi Herlambang, director of sales, marketing & business development of Sahid International Hotel Management & Consultant, said: “We unofficially heard about the new directive last month and managed to convince some government agencies to book with our hotels.
“The official announcement has made us more confident of the business coming back, although not as big as it was before.”
However, she pointed out that besides the more stringent regulations on meetings, government offices have cut meeting budgets significantly for this year and all additional budget approvals would require time for parliament to clear.
For others, the furore surrounding Indonesia’s austerity drive stems from what is essentially a problem of supply and demand.
Addressing the industry’s laments during the opening of the IHRA National Assembly on February 17, Indonesian vice president Jusuf Kalla said that the biggest problem the hospitality industry faces is the result of the massive hotel development that took place amid a slowdown in demand.
“Hotel development in Indonesia grew by 100 per cent in the last five years. It is this development which has created an oversupply at a time when demand is slowing down (due to global economic slowdown), so do not (be quick in blaming) the government’s policy for that,” he said.
Kalla instead urged the hospitality industry to improve their services and increase promotions, in addition to diversifying their markets to limit their dependence on government meetings.
If anything, the kerfuffle surrounding the austerity drive and its impact on the meetings market should have been a wake-up call for hotels in Indonesia.
Sahid International Hotel Management & Consultant’s Vivi, has heeded the warning and the company is developing its e-commerce platform to reach out to broader market segments from overseas.
“We will participate in international tradeshows, such as PATA Travel Mart and ITB Asia, something which the company has not done for many years,” Vivi said.
She hopes that such a strategy will be a stepping stone to reintroducing Sahid brands to the international market.
This article was first published in TTG Asia, April 10, 2015 issue, on page 5. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe
LUXURY river cruise company Pandaw has announced for sailing next year a new seven-night river recce itinerary on the Upper Mekong River.
The new itinerary will offer eight departure dates from February 29 to April 18, 2016, sailing aboard the new Laos Pandaw from Thailand’s Chiang Saen to Burma, then on to Laos.
It will also, for the first time, cross the border into China sailing on the Mekong to China’s Jinghong city in Yunnan province.
Pandaw’s founder, Paul Strachan, said: “It has been a long-held ambition to sail the length of the navigable sections of the Upper Mekong River. With the construction of our new vessel (specifically built for sailing on the Upper Mekong) and working with our partners, this journey is now possible.
“Travellers need to be up for a real adventure as the daily itinerary might change, but with a flexible attitude they will have the trip of a lifetime.”
Additionally, Pandaw is offering pre- and post-cruise extensions with a private vehicle and guide visiting Kunming, Dali and Lijiang in Yunnan province and the hill tribes of Northern Thailand.
Cruise-only prices start from US$3,150 per person based on twin-share in a main deck stateroom, including a 10 per cent discount for early bookings made by April 30, 2015.
THE luxury Garcha Hotels will launch Hotel Vagabond in Singapore this September, the first Jacques Garcia-designed property in Asia.
Situated in Kampong Glam, between Little India and the Arab Quarter, the luxury boutique hotel is also the first of its kind with an Artist in Residence programme, featuring two spacious, light-filled Artist Atelier rooms designed specifically for hosting a range of local and international artists.
Housed in a traditional art deco building, the 41 guestrooms all boast classic Garcia touches through elegant side lamps and rich colour schemes.
The largest rooms will include a two-bedroom Suite Royale and two Artist Ateliers – each with a space-saving Murphy Bed to allow easy conversion into an artist’s studio.
ACCOR has launched its third property in Myanmar with the opening of the mid-scale Novotel Yangon Max.
Located close to the city’s commercial and cultural hub, and Yangon International Airport, the hotel’s 366 guestrooms include 123 executive rooms and suites.
It features seven F&B outlets, including an all-day-dining restaurant, a Cantonese cuisine restaurant and a pool bar. Recreational facilities include a fitness centre, spa, tennis court and an outdoor swimming pool.
For meetings and events, the hotel is equipped with two ballrooms, a conference room and six meeting rooms. The Yangon ballroom accommodates up to 700 guests while the Pyay conference room seats 400.
SINGAPORE’S Amara has now spread its wings to Thailand with the opening of the 250-key Amara Bangkok.
Located in the city’s CBD near shopping and nightlife district, it is also conveniently positioned between Chong Nonsi and Sala Daeng BTS stations.
Facilities include an all-day-dining restaurant, a rooftop infinity pool and bar, a 24-hour gym and a 24-hour minibar boutique that allows guests to buy items at convenience store rates instead of hotel prices.
Events and meetings can be held in the hotel’s grand ballroom and two function rooms.
The hotel also offers bespoke services through its Little Brown Book, an e-concierge service that recommends places of interests.
To celebrate its opening, the hotel is offering a special rate of 2,558++ baht (US$79) including breakfast, valid until April 30.
