ANA today announced it has introduced new travel classes from Singapore, Bangkok and Jakarta to Tokyo in a bid to attract the routes’ high volume of business travellers and in response to rising demand from international passengers.
The airline’s First Class and Premium Economy service via NH802/801 – the latter already popular on flights to Europe and North America and introduced in Asia for the first time – were both launched on the Singapore-Tokyo (Narita) route yesterday.
The Premium Economy service will continue to be launched on Singapore-Narita on June 11 via NH846/845, Bangkok-Tokyo (Narita) on August 1 via NH808/807, and Jakarta-Tokyo (Haneda) also on August 1 via NH856/855.
ANA has also announced it would be operating more Singapore-Tokyo (Narita) and Bangkok-Tokyo (Narita) flights and would also change the type of aircraft used on flights to Singapore, Bangkok and Jakarta in respond to increasing demand.
AIRLINES in the Asia-Pacific region are mulling a change in rules that would require a second crew member to be present in the cockpit at all times, as carriers in other parts of the world implement it with immediate effect.
Some airlines that have already done so include easyJet, Air Canada, Air Berlin and Norway’s Air Shuttle, and Lufthansa has announced it will be joining the group.
The need to have a constant two-crew presence in the cockpit was underscored as investigations into last week’s Germanwings flight 4U 9525 crash revealed that the captain had been locked out of the cockpit after stepping out.
Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz is believed to have crashed the plane deliberately, resulting in the tragic loss of all 150 lives on board.
A Singapore Airlines (SIA) spokesperson told TTG Asia e-Daily that “We have strict procedures in place regarding the security of our cockpits. However as a matter of policy we do not comment publicly on security matters.”
However, local broadsheet The Straits Times reported that the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore is in talks with local carriers to implement such a rule, which is not mandatory. A timeline has not been set but would affect SIA, SilkAir, Jetstar Asia, Tigerair, Scoot and SIA Cargo.
A spokesperson for Japan Airlines (JAL) told TTG Asia e-Daily: “Currently there is no specific mandate by the related authorities, and JAL does not have a compulsory policy that requires two pilots in the cockpit all the time.
“Following the events related to Germanwings, JAL is now in close communications with the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau regarding this issue to determine if it is necessary to adjust our existing policy.”
News agencies reported that Air New Zealand’s aviation authority has already made the rule effective for all domestic and international flights.
Meanwhile, Qantas was quoted as saying it has a strict security system in place but would not reveal more. Australian authorities are likewise reviewing whether the regulation is necessary.
THE Indian Embassy in Indonesia is working hard to increase Indonesian arrivals, especially the youths, through the Festival of India in Indonesia campaign that runs up to June 21, despite the lack of direct flights between the two countries.
Speaking at a press conference during the Indian Travel Congress 2015 in Bali, ambassador of India to Indonesia and Timor Leste, Gurjit Singh, said 30 events “targeted at young people” have been lined up in 16 Indonesian cities, including Jakarta, Bandung, Medan, Surabaya and Semarang.
The events include folk dances such as bhangra and Gujarati Garba, masked dances and puppet shows, photo exhibitions, and literary and cross-cultural exchanges with Indonesian authors.
The congress was held in Bali to support the campaign, by giving the Indonesian exhibitors an opportunity to network with Indian travel consultants and to experience Indian culture and cuisine, said Sunil Kumar, president of the Travel Agents Association of India.
This was the first time the congress’s travel mart component also had exhibitors from India promoting inbound tourism to India.
Gurjit added: “We are also promoting education tourism to encourage young people to study in India, and inviting Indonesian bloggers with big followings on tours to India so they will blog about their experiences.”
Additionally, Gurjit said the embassy wants to ride on Indonesia’s current Bollywood craze and has proposed to India’s Ministry of Tourism to introduce tours of four circuits where Bollywood films were shot.
From 2012 to 2014, Indonesian arrivals to India doubled from 25,000 to 50,000, while arrivals from India to Indonesia also doubled from 125,000 to 250,000.
NEPAL’S multi-industrial, transnational CG Corp Global last week inked a strategic deal with Concept Hospitality, owner of the Fern brand in India.
Through the partnership, Concept Hospitality is now a part of CG Corp Global’s hospitality arm, CG Hotels And Resorts, which targets to grow to 200 hotels worldwide by 2020.
“Right now we cannot share details regarding the nature of the investment. We wanted CG Hotels & Resorts to have a much larger platform and there couldn’t be a better partner than Concept Hospitality. The partnership gives us a strong footprint in an important market like India,” said Binod Chaudhury, chairman, CG Corp Global.
CG Hotels And Resorts now has eight brands in its portfolio, including The Zinc, The Fern, Zinc Journey, The Fern Residency, Glow, Zinc City, Beacon and Zinc Living with 88 operational hotels in 11 countries.
“We were interested to have an investor on board who has a background in the hospitality sector. We are now drawing a plan for our expansion strategy,” said Param Kannampilly, managing director, Concept Hospitality.
“Africa is going to be one of the major thrust regions for CG Hotels And Resorts. To begin with, we are looking to open properties in around five countries in the African continent which we believe has a dearth of international hotel chains. The first property for which we have already acquired land will come up in Rwanda under The Zinc,” said Chaudhury.
CG Corp Global also has a joint venture with Indian Hotels Company to start Taj Safaris India and to operate the Taj Samudra Hotel in Sri Lanka and the Taj Exotica in Maldives, as well as a stake in Alila Hotels & Resorts, which has two resorts operating in Goa and Bengaluru.
HONG KONG trade players are objecting to levies that the Airport Authority (AA) is proposing to impose on passengers and airlines, saying that the entity is capable of raising funds through other means.
Following the Executive Council’s approval to buid a third runway at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), AA has suggested a HK$180 (US$23) levy on departing passengers while airlines will have to pay an additional 15 per cent in airport charges from next year. The third runway wiill be situated on 650ha of reclaimed land and is expected to take eight years for construction.
Strongly opposing the levy, Gray Line Tours managing director, Michael Wu, said: “We support the new runway but AA should explore all funding options, like issuing bonds, before charging passengers.
“As far as I know, it hasn’t even tried to approach the Legislative Council for funding so it seems to me that AA hasn’t any strong reason for such a decision.”
Airlines have also chimed in. Home-grown LCC HK Express deputy CEO, Andrew Cowen, is concerned that increased landing fees and the introduction of an airport construction fee will affect business. “If there are additional charges on top of existing fees, more and more of our guests will end up paying more to use the airport than they do to actually fly with us. This doesn’t sound quite right, or how it should be.”
Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific Airways in a statement said it believes AA is fully capable of financing the construction of the runway through its own means without the need to impose a additional financial burden on travellers.
DIFFERENTIATION through value-adds is the key for travel consultants to staying relevant and unscathed by competition from OTAs and product owners who sell direct to consumers, advised speakers at the 62nd Convention & Exhibition of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) last week.
Held in Bali from March 26 to 28, the theme of the convention was Reflections – Redefining Relevance, recommending tour operators to change approaches and embrace change. The conference attracted some 700 delegates.
One of the speakers, Dhananjay Saliankar, regional director, South Asia, Starwood Hotels & Resorts said travel consultants should view themselves as travel planners able to provide personalisation and unique experiences. He said: “They should ask themselves what they can do to be different from other consultants and to brush up their skills on being a ‘trusted advisor’ (to clients).
“They should be able to add-value for their customers such as providing solutions to complex trips which are not point-to-point journeys, and focus on customers with high value – those who have a lot of money but have little time.”
Niranjan Gupta, Founder & CEO of Trip 38, concurred, sharing that his company provides online solutions for travel consultants to upsell and engage with customers beyond airline ticket sales. It answers requests from customers who want complete information, from planning the holiday to experiences in the destination.
Sunil Kumar, TAAI president, told TTG Asia e-Daily that a substantial number of travel consultants across India are still dependent on ticketing. As such, the convention was TAAI’s first initiative to create opportunities for members about specialisations in the areas of MICE, destination management companies, luxury travel and destination weddings.
Portrait of Lee Kuan Yew, 23 November 2004, Photograph by Tara Sosrowardoyo, National Museum of Singapore Collection, http://www.news.gov.sg
The real icon of Singapore tourism is not the the SkyPark pillared by three towers, or the water-spouting Merlion before it, or the Vanda ‘Miss Joaquim’ much earlier.
The real tourism icon is Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who passed away peacefully on March 23 at the age of 91 years. While icons change with time, I suspect this one’s a Herculean feat to topple.
Mr Lee of course did not set out to make Singapore one of the most aspiring destinations in the world for tourists, which it is today. Or to be a tourism icon – in fact, he hated the idea of a monument in his honour, even though he is monumental. We are a by-product of his single-minded focus to transform a tiny third-world island with poor infrastructure and limited capital into – not just a city which should count itself lucky if it could get by – but a world-class metropolis of real standing and stature.
Singapore’s destinational appeal evolved as Mr Lee and his handpicked leaders went about knocking down a whole city and began rebuilding it. If you were in tourism, you would have felt it! In the 80s-90s, a large part of Singapore’s tourism product development plan was to save what’s left of historic districts such as Chinatown and Little India as a lot of old buildings had to make way for economic progress.
But tourism won big-time in the end not because of one restored area here or another new attraction there. Fundamentally it’s because there’s a country architect whose idea of what makes a good city is the basis for Singapore’s attractiveness today. In an interview with Dr Liu Thai-Ker, chairman of the Centre for Liveable Cities Singapore advisory board, published inThe Straits Times on February 16, 2013, Mr Lee spoke about the ingredients of a great city: safety, spaciousness (and greenery), mobility (transportation – the city must move, ie, no gridlocks), cleanliness, connectivity (aviation) and equity (home ownership, so people would fight for their city).
Fundamentally also, Mr Lee was pro-tourism, with the government spending real dollars in product development and marketing.
But the Singapore brand is what sells the country to tourists, investors, talents. No amount of NTO marketing will work if a country does not have the goods. Some countries are lucky they are born with natural spectacular attractions. Others build them. But how many cities in modern history can field the intangible, unique attraction Singapore has: that people want to visit it because they want to see for themselves its remarkable transformation as much as they want to enjoy the city? Mr Lee created Singapore and in doing so created tourism.
The Singapore brand is Mr Lee and when all is said and done, it is an age-old compelling story of the power of the human spirit to overcome huge obtacles and be outstanding. Except Mr Lee has a whole city to show for it.
As a Singaporean, I am desperate to say thank you.
A NEW Travel Smarts study by Agoda has found that hotels in Asia are the least well-equipped in the world when it comes to inclusiveness.
Surveying over 600,000 hotels on the Agoda.com platform, the US came out tops with 77 per cent of hotels being accessible to the disabled. The UAE, Ireland and Portugal stood at 55 per cent.
The study found that pilgrimage destinations such as Fatima in Portugal, Huelva in Spain, and Lourdes in France have more hotels with facilities for handicapped travellers, while the building boom has seen Abu Dhabi ensure 90 per cent of all hotels are easily accessed.
On the other end of the spectrum, only one per cent of hotels in Laos were disabled-friendly. Cambodia registered eight per cent, on a par with Thailand, and Nepal, while Vietnam stood at nine per cent.
Singapore came in 18th on the international list with 40 per cent of hotels on Agoda offering facilities for the handicapped, the highest ranked Asian city.
But another such survey in 10 years could see a very different Asia.
Tour operator Blue Horizons Travel and Tours in the Philippines has just launched tour packages tailored to the needs of persons with disability, the first of its kind in the Philippines and featuring transport and hotels that have been carefully assessed. The rise of such tours could prompt the development of more accessible hotels across Asia.
It is aiming to establish country chapters throughout Asia-Pacific to champion barrier-free travel for people with disabilities in the region, heightening awareness of the needs and potential of this demographic for tourism.
MELIÁ Hotels International is planting its flag on the up-and-coming holiday destinations of Phu Quoc in Vietnam, where it will open a Sol House resort.
Developed by local real estate development MIK and managed by Meliá, the four-star Sol House Phu Quoc will open in 2016 with 260 rooms and bungalows.
It will also feature a spa, two different dining spaces, a beach bar, a swimming pool and a beach sport centre.
Sol House Phu Quoc is Meliá’s third property in Vietnam. Phu Quoc island is 50km from the Vietnamese mainland and a 50-minute flight from Ho Chi Minh City.
THE scenic Huangshan is HK Express’ next landing pad as the LCC grows its network in China.
The twice-weekly service begins on March 29 and is the airline’s fifth Chinese destination.
On Mondays, flights depart Hong Kong at 09.20 to arrive at 11.15. The return leg will see HK Express leave at 11.55 and touch down in Hong Kong at 14.00.
HK Express will also fly this route on Fridays at an earlier time slot of 07.45 and reach Huangshan at 09.40. It leaves Huangshan at 10.25 and returns to Hong Kong at 12.35 on the same day.
“HK Express is unfolding the map of China and offering fresh wonders to our guests almost every month,” said Luke Lovegrove, commercial director, HK Express.
“Huangshan has always been popular with independent travellers and we are delighted to bring this great destination within easy low-fare reach of Hong Kong,” he added.
