KIDZANIA, an indoor family education and entertainment centre offering job role-playing opportunities for children aged four to 14, has confirmed the launch of its Singapore version for 2H2015.

According to owner and developer Themed Attractions and Resorts, 23 local industry partners have been secured at press time, such as SPH Radio’s Kiss92, 7-Eleven and Abbott. The company aims to have at least 30 industry partners by the attraction’s opening.

The 7,600m² KidZania Singapore on Palawan Beach in Sentosa will be the brand’s first free stand-alone KidZania building and will be able to accomodate up to 1,500 visitors, with a 500,000 visitor population base expected annually.

When asked about Kidzania’s collaboration with tour operators, Leong Yue Weng, mayor of KidZania Singapore, said: “We are already working with WTS Travel, one of our local industry partners, offering role-playing opportunities for children.

“We are in the process of seeking partnership with inbound travel agencies for packages by which we can reach out to regional countries.”

Pricing has so far not been confirmed as TTG Asia e-Daily understands, but family and birthday party packages are already in the pipeline. Collaboration with local schools is also being discussed with a separate package in the making.

Including Singapore, KidZania facilities are under development at eight locations in London, Moscow, Manila, Doha, Busan, the US and New Delhi.

MELCO Crown Entertainment is set to open its US$3.2 billion cinematically themed gaming, entertainment and leisure destination resort, Studio City, in Macau the middle of this year.

Entertainment options include the DC Comics’ Batman Dark Flight offering digital rides with a virtual reality Batman experience, the Golden Eye boasting a 130m ferris wheel; and a 5,000-seat multi-purpose entertainment centre with live magic shows at the House of Magic.

Other offerings include a 1,600-room hotel, a 300-seat live-audience TV broadcast studio, Pacha Nightclub, as well as retail and F&B outlets.

Located next to the 24-hour Lotus Bridge immigration point connecting Hengqin of Zhuhai, Studio City expects to attract customers through this easy entry point.

Melco Crown Entertainment co-chairman and CEO, Lawrence Ho, said: “Our move is in line with Macau’s tourism development and diversification. As our second IR in town, the Studio City will even feature more non-gaming elements than City of Dreams.

“Taking advantage of the location, we’ll expect people to walk cross the Lotus bridge to our premises. Still, our products are more premium than many of the resorts in Cotai right now; we have strong premium components with a mass focus.”

According to Macau Government Tourist Office director, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, the city is preparing for a second wave of new themed mega-complexes in the coming years to boost its allure as a tourist destination.

“These new complexes, coupled with other ongoing developments in the city such as major transport infrastructure construction, renovation of new heritage sites, and initiatives to reinforce our already-rich calendar of events, will continue to transform Macau into a world centre of tourism and leisure, providing visitors from around the globe more reasons to come and stay longer.”

CITS (Macau) manager of international department, Cooper Zhang, welcomed this new IR as a reinforcement to the city’s non-gaming elements to draw diversified arrivals.

VETERAN hotelier Hans Jörg Meier, senior vice president of GHM Hotels, has left the company to join Como Hotels and Resorts as COO, effective January 19.

He takes up the mantle from Kuno Fasel, Como’s founding COO of 15 years, who will remain consultant to the company.

Meier will be in charge of all executive, management and operational responsibilities for Como Hotels and Resorts, which last year opened three hotels – the Metropolitan by Como in Miami, Point Yamu by Como in Phuket and Maalifushi by Como in the Maldives – and is expanding further. The chain is expected to announce a new property acquisition soon.

It also recently streamlined its branding, with all properties in the portfolio now wearing the ‘by Como’ tag at the end, including the three Uma by Como resorts in Bali and Bhutan.

Christina Ong, founder of Como Hotels and Resorts, said: “We have much to benefit from Meier’s experience in both resort and urban hotels, in developed and developing countries. I have every confidence he will build on Fasel’s good work to steer Como Hotels and Resorts into the future, building strong teams and delivering memorable experiences for guests.”

TOURISM Malaysia will step up efforts in new markets and expand its traditional markets through its three-year integrated promotional plan that runs up to 2017.

New markets on the agenda includes North Africa, Russia, CIS countries, Argentina and Brazil.

The NTO will also continue to expand its presence in traditional markets such as ASEAN, North Asia and South Asia, including second- and third-tier cities in China and India.

While tourist arrivals from January to August 2014 grew 10.3 per cent year-on-year, the minister of tourism and culture Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz is not confident Malaysia that would meet its 2014 target, citing that arrivals might be short by 600,000.

Tourist receipts might also be less than the targeted RM76 billion (US$23.4 billion), “but they would be better than 2013”, he said, adding that the air tragedies last year and the kidnappings in Sabah certainly impacted visitor arrivals to Malaysia.

Meanwhile, he said details of the visa fee waiver for Chinese tourists would be released following confirmation of the Cabinet’s minutes of meeting, hopefully in time to leverage the Chinese New Year holidays.

“Last year, we lost 540,000 tourists from China last year – otherwise we could have reached our target of 28 million tourists easily.”

TRAVELPORT and Vistara today jointly announced a new distribution and merchandising agreement which will see the new Indian carrier distribute all its fares and offerings through Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform.

As part of the agreement, Vistara will participate in Travelport’s suite of airline merchandising solutions via its Travelport Merchandising Platform, and will become the 85^th carrier to leverage Travelport’s Rich Content and Branding technology to establish and increase its brand presence across the globe.

Vistara CCO, Giam Ming Toh, said: “Travelport’s flexible approach to distributing content means that we will be able to customise the way we communicate our unique offering to travel consultants worldwide, enabling the seamless servicing of Vistara customers.”

Travelport vice president for global distribution sales and services Asia-Pacific, Damian Hickey, said: “Vistara will undoubtedly become one of the key carriers in the India region; we look forward to assisting them showcase their brand and products to our 67,000 travel agency subscribers worldwide, growing their bookings on a global scale.”

NEW hotels are opening in China at breakneck speed but the development of human resources has not kept pace, found the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Education and Research, a division of the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Florida International University, in a new white paper that details the labour situation in China’s hospitality scene.

Titled Managing Growing Pains of China’s Relentless Hotel Development Pipeline, the white paper acknowledged the shortage of skilled talent in China’s vast labour pool, the perception of work within the service industry as a menial job among the Chinese, and that Chinese hotel owners do not necessarily make enough investments in talent acquisition and development.

Firstly, the paper recommended that a different approach be taken towards education and training through the implementation of mentoring and coaching programmes.

Mentoring would ensure future leaders receive enough training to ensure they move up the organisation, while coaching programmes would teach them how to handle conflicts and develop coping skills.

Next, public perception of a hospitality career could be improved by building a good reputation and industry image for prospective students, college applicants and their parents, and college recruiters.

This could be done by highlighting possible career paths for front and back of house tracks, and putting in place incentive plans and showing potential hires pay scale increments for skill enhancements.

Another key element, as hotel chains continue to expand in China, is the relationship between general managers and hotel owners.

The paper stated that the average hotel owner in China is a first-timer to the hotel business who gains knowledge and values through direct involvement in the businesses. Hence, owners could be educated on all operational issues through a certification process in company philosophy, systems and procedures, and related concepts. This would also improve communications with general managers.

TOUR operators expecting rates to come down in Singapore this year may have that dream dashed following Cushman & Wakefield’s assessment of an optimistic outlook despite a challenging 2014 and a stream of 2,100 new rooms opening in 2015.

Cushman & Wakefield expects Singapore hotels to close 2014 at 84.3 per cent occupancy, down from 86 per cent in 2013, due to more rooms coming on line and a decline in tourist arrivals spurred by massively fewer Chinese visitors. Despite this, the ADR held steady, at S$260 (US$195), compared with S$258 in 2013.

Said Cushman & Wakefield’s regional director, Akshay Kulkarni: “Let us not forget that the current drop seems to be only driven by increased supply and not so much a drop in arrivals. It is estimated that (2015) marketwide occupancy and ARR will be marginally, say three to five per cent, higher than 2014 figures.”

In his opinion, recovery for Singapore’s hotel industry will come in the 2H “due to higher inbound traffic from an overall settling of economies around the region and an increase in the number of attractions and events in Singapore”.

Asked if a stream of 6,400 rooms expected to enter the market between 2015 and 2018 would derail recovery, he pointed out that, of this, just over 2,100 new rooms are planned to open over the course of 2015 and can be filled with the forecasted increase in inbound arrivals.

However, he warned that continued focus on establishing Singapore as a corporate hub, leisure destination and MICE centre is necessary to propel growth.

INTERNATIONAL tourism hit a new record end-2014 with over 1.1 billion international tourists in a single year, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer.

From January to October 2014, the number of overnight international tourists grew about five per cent, reaching 978 million – 45 million more than in the same period of 2013 – and well above the long-term trend projected by UNWTO for the period 2010-2020 (3.8 per cent).

As such, 2014 is set to post a record number of over 1.1 million international tourists.

By region, the strongest growth was registered in the Americas (eight per cent), followed by Asia-Pacific (five per cent) and Europe (four per cent).

By subregion, North America (nine per cent) and South Asia (eight per cent, led by India at seven per cent) were the star performers, as well as Southern and Mediterranean Europe, North-East Asia and Northern Europe (all seven per cent).

Said UNWTO secretary-general, Taleb Rifai: “These are remarkable results considering that different parts of the world continue to face significant geopolitical and health challenges, while the global economic recovery remains rather fragile and uneven.

“More importantly, we see a growing political commitment to the tourism sector in many countries. This is encouraging, not in the least because tourism is one of the sectors that is best able to deliver on employment at a moment when job creation needs to be a priority to all.”

UNWTO will release the preliminary 2014 full-year results by January 27.