JUST ahead of International Luxury Travel Market Asia Shanghai 2015, Switzerland has declared its intentions to woo China’s luxury, free-and-easy travellers.

A Swiss delegation comprised of 10 members met travel trade players and media in Hong Kong and China to share what they have in store for Chinese travellers, before heading off for the luxury tradeshow.

Swiss Deluxe Hotels, a collection of five-star hotels, has just launched a single booking platform for its 39 properties, available in Chinese. Managing director Siro Barino said: “Efforts have been made to woo Chinese visitors, eg recruiting Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking staff, and adding congee to our menus.”

Member property Hotel Guarda Golf has just published its first bilingual brochure in English and Mandarin, and rolled out a new wellness package for Chinese guests, said general manager Simon Schenk.

While Asia generates five per cent of Swiss Deluxe Hotel’s total room nights, the number of Chinese guests is growing at between 19 and 25 per cent annually.

“Compared to a decade ago, we’ve four times more Chinese traffic (now) and we target high-end FITs who can afford our rates of US$400-$3,400 per night,” said Barino.

Switzerland Tourism is also ramping up its marketing in China with the launch of the Grand Tour campaign in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, promoting self-drive journeys in the country.

Batiste Pilet, district manager Beijing, North China and Taiwan, said the NTO is working with four travel agencies specialising in high-end travel.

“Chinese people are more confident in organising their own travel. Moreover, the weaker euro is spurring more traffic from China to Europe,” he commented.

TRAVEL consultants can now sell theatre, attraction and sightseeing products as part of their programmes thanks to a new plugin accessible via the Travelport Smartpoint platform.

The Ingresso Entertainment Tickets plugin, free to download from the Travelport Marketplace, allows travel consultants to find and sell tickets to their customers, representing a new channel of revenue for travel consultants who are on the Travelport platform.

Furthermore, the plugin allows travel consultants to set their own pricing and commission levels with no invoicing required, choose from best ticket prices across a range of international events, search by airport code or general terms like “New York tours”, and fully integrate purchased tickets into passenger name records and back-office systems. Immediate email confirmation is also guaranteed.

Pieter van der Voort, director partnership and alliances, Travelport, said: “The plugin offers a real cross-sell opportunity and travel consultants can set the price and choose the commission they charge in order to boost revenue. This latest announcement is part of Travelport’s strategy to invest in developing new technologies and ideas, all on an open platform that delivers expansive content and improves customer service.”

THAI travel businesses have embraced mobile channels faster than their regional counterparts with 71 per cent of companies saying they have a mobile presence, reveals new research from PayPal.

The figure compares with 54 per cent of travel companies in Malaysia and 50 per cent in Singapore, according to PayPal Insights: The Digital Future of Travel 2014, which was published in March.

Travel companies can further maximise their mobile and online channels by pricing products and services in the currencies of their target markets, said Rahul Shinghal, country manager at PayPal South-east Asia, speaking yesterday at the PayPal — The Travel Edition South-east Asia seminar in Bangkok yesterday.

“Listing in the buyer’s currency is essential,” he said. “There’s a 12 per cent conversion drop for not doing this. Many online buyers still fear hidden costs from forex conversions online.”

Key concerns preventing 29 per cent of Thai travel companies surveyed from not developing a mobile presence are: no time or resources (44 per cent), did not find good mobile reception (41 per cent) and worried about additional investment required (37 per cent).

Hotels form the majority of travel businesses using PayPal. Shinghal said the payment solutions company was predominantly focused on consumers and was not likely to be adopted by traditional travel businesses, such as DMCs, in the near term.

However, hotels selling rooms through a number of OTAs could use the service to manage online payments more efficiently. “They can use PayPal to receive all of their payments from OTAs which means they can significantly reduce transactional costs.”

BRITISH Airways’ (BA) daily direct Kuala Lumpur-London service that began yesterday has been well received both by passengers and the travel trade.

Flights today and yesterday were almost full, with only two spare seats available, Jamie Cassidy, BA’s area general manager, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, told TTG Asia e-Daily.

Malaysian travel consultants have welcomed the new flights, which offer more capacity and better flight timings on a route once monopolised by national carrier Malaysia Airlines (MAS).

Jill Sin, senior manager MICE, Panorama Tours Malaysia, said: “For MICE groups travelling to the UK, the new services, coupled with MAS’ twice-daily flights on this route using the Airbus A380, will allow group sizes of up to 350 to travel on the same day. Before, such groups had to be split and moved in batches.

“Although the ringgit has depreciated against major currencies such as the pound and the euro, multi-level marketing companies and insurance companies are still incentivising their top-tier achievers with reward trips to the UK and US. This has not slowed down.”

Inbound travel consultant, Arokia Das, senior manager at Luxury Tours Malaysia, also said: “The new service is good for our travel consultant partners in the UK as it makes it easier for them to communicate with the airline and negotiate for better rates.

“We have a group of 50 leisure tourists from the UK coming to Malaysia on BA in the third week of December.”

When asked if BA intends to increase the frequency on this route in future, Robert Williams, British Airways regional commercial manager, South-east Asia, sidestepped the question: “We’re happy with our offering, double overnight services that allows our passengers from Kuala Lumpur to get a good night’s rest and arrive in London fresh in the morning. We offer passengers a choice of four cabins.”

On the other hand, BA is upgrading its thrice-weekly, A380 London-Singapore service to daily from December 1, said Cassidy.

AUSTRALIA-BASED StayWell Hospitality Group is set to open its maiden Park Regis property in the pink city of Jaipur.

The 72-room Park Regis Jaipur, which is currently known as Holiday Inn Jaipur, is scheduled to begin operations with its new identity on July 2, following a refurbishment.

The hotel group signed a long-term franchise agreement with Craft Palace Hotels, which owns the property, to introduce its second brand in India.

Park Regis Jaipur is the first of 11 hotels StayWell is looking to open in India by early 2016. “The mid-market is growing much quicker than the luxury segment in India, so a lot of our future new openings will be under the Leisure Inn brand,” said Rohit Vig, managing director of StayWell Hospitality Group in India.

StayWell presently has two hotels bearing the Leisure Inn name.

It is also in talks to acquire a hotel group, which will make it the third-largest hotel group in India, but details are still under wraps.

Separately, StayWell is also introducing a new boutique brand along the lines of Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ W, with its first property scheduled to open in London next year.

Vig revealed that the group will probably bring the new brand to India by end-2016.

THE MICE hub of the Visayas will get its first major convention centre in the SMX Convention Centre Cebu when the new facility opens its doors in 2017.

Revealing the news to this publication at the Asia Premium Travel Mart was Dexter Deyto, vice president and general manager of SMX Convention Specialists, that will start construction on the convention centre this August.

SMX Convention Centre will be part of a development built on a piece of reclaimed land in Cebu city and modelled on Manila’s Mall of Asia to come with a hotel and indoor arena for sports, concert and other events.

The size and capacity of the convention centre in Cebu is still being determined.

Meanwhile, the group’s existing trade halls within SM Department Store in Cebu City will likely be maintained, said Deyto.

He observed that while Cebu is the MICE hub in Visayas, the city does not have a convention centre. The opening of SMX Convention Centre Cebu will therefore help fill up hotel rooms in the city.

The Cebu property is SMX’s fifth, joining its other convention centres in Manila, Bonifacio Global City, Davao and Bacolod.

INDIAN flag carrier Air India is launching new daily service linking capitals New Delhi and Colombo, starting from June 15.

According to Thanuja Lankatilaka, general manager at Indu Sky Aviation, Air India’s GSA in Colombo, an Airbus A321 will be deployed on this route with 170 economy seats and 12 business class seats. Flights depart Colombo at 08.20 while return journeys depart New Delhi at 12.05 daily.

News of the new service first broke in March this year when Indian prime minister Narendra Modi came to Sri Lanka, announcing a new Air India flight from New Delhi to Colombo and visas on arrival for Sri Lankan nationals, said Lankatilaka.

The service is Air India’s second Sri Lankan flight, as it currently flies daily between Colombo and Chennai.

SriLankan Airlines and India’s Jet Airways and SpiceJet also offer flights between the two neighbouring countries.