BEST Western International yesterday announced the expansion of its regional operations offices in Thailand and Turkey.

The brand already has strategic alliances with partners in the key markets of China, India and South Korea, and is now looking to establish additional offices to oversee its development in other markets in Asia.

Under a new operational and development support strategy, the company’s office in Turkey will now oversee its expanding portfolio in the Middle East, while its Bangkok office will continue to supervise growth in Thailand and ASEAN countries.

Ron Pohl, the company’s senior vice president, brand management and member services, said while the Bangkok office will have a “smaller footprint” in terms of geographical coverage, staffing levels will remain the same or even be increased, as the office provides additional sales and marketing support for member hotels.

A new managing director for the Bangkok office, established in 2001, is expected to be announced this month, he added.

Best Western currently has about 180 hotels operating or in the pipeline across Asia, plus a further 15 in the Middle East. It will also unveil three new brands for the Asian market at a press conference on March 18, including new luxury, lifestyle and extended-stay concepts.

THE Union Budget 2015-2016 unveiled two days ago, lauded as a sensible, pro-business one by economists, has drew a mixed response from the Indian travel industry.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley announced that the government will be extending e-visas to 150 countries in phases, up from the current 43, and restore tourist facilities at 25 of India’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including landscaping, signage, parking, toilets and access for people with mobility challenges, among other amenities.

TTG Asia e-Daily understands that China, Malaysia, the UK, Spain, France and Italy are likely to be some of beneficiaries.

Welcoming the visa programme extension, Rajesh Magow, co-founder and CEO-India, MakeMyTrip, commented: “This would definitely boost tourism for the country and will give a competitive advantage to India against other destinations in South Asia and the Middle East.”

Madhavan Menon, managing director, Thomas Cook India, said: “The focus on developing UNESCO World Heritage Sites is of huge value, given that many are in a bad shape and have received scant attention in the past.”

However, the industry expressed frustration at the increase in service tax from 12.4 per cent to 14 per cent.

“We have pleaded with the government to extend exemption of service tax to tour operators based on their foreign exchange earnings. Instead of doing so, the government has put additional burden (on tour operators) by increasing service tax, which will make our packages costlier,” said Subhash Goyal, president, Indian Association of Tour Operators.

Also expressing disappointment by the lack of improvement on the aviation front, Rohit Kapur, president, Business Aircraft Operators Association, said: “Regional and remote connectivity cannot take off in India unless the larger issues are addressed. Aviation turbine fuel costs in India are highest in the world and 90 per cent of Indian aircraft are being maintained overseas due to high duties and costs.”

A NEW method that improves aircraft tracking over oceans has gone into testing in Australia, and will eventually reach Malaysia and Indonesia for trials.

According to AFP, Australia said over the weekend that the system tracks aircraft more closely than before, with the minimum tracking rate going from 30- and 40-minute intervals to 15 minutes.

In the event that an aircraft veers off-track by over 200 feet from assigned level or two nautical miles from its flight path, the system increases the frequency of tracking to every five minutes, or continuously.

A point to note is that the system uses automatic dependent surveillance contract (ADSC) technology, which is already employed by longhaul jets such as Boeing’s 380, 777, 330, 340 and 350 models.

Australian deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, was quoted by AFP as saying that 90 per cent of longhaul passenger aircraft in the world use ADSC and the new method would allow air traffic control to react more quickly in the event of abnormal circumstances.

Trials will begin at Brisbane’s air traffic services centre, and eventually extend to Melbourne, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The news comes almost one year after Malaysia Airlines’ flight MH370 bound for Beijing disappeared, with no trace of the vanished aircraft since. Reuters today reported that the massive ongoing search for the downed aircraft, conducted by Australia, China and Malaysia, may be called off soon.

In the aftermath of MH370 and a host of other aviation disasters in 2014, international aviation bodies like ICAO and IATA have called for better systems of aircraft tracking and improved information sharing frameworks. A system that allows minute-by-minute tracking in emergency circumstances could become the norm by 2016, according to media reports.

THE Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is promoting secondary destinations and multi-country itineraries along key themes as part of its new marketing strategy and action plan.

Unveiled at a workshop held by the Thailand Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Asian Development Bank last week, the plan focuses special-interest itineraries themed on ecotourism, local cuisine and cultural appreciation that will take travellers beyond main cities into lesser-visited destinations.

The Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office executive director, Jens Thraenhart, commented: “We encourage tourists to spread their spending beyond established locations such as Angkor Wat, the Grand Palace in Bangkok and Yangon in Myanmar.”

The plan, which will span 2015-2020, drew the participation of tourism leaders from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Besides the renewed marketing focus, the plan also offers collaborative marketing tools such as the MekongTourism.org digital platform. A free online knowledge centre and tourism e-library on the GMS will be hosted on the site.

Speaking at the workshop in Bangkok, Thraenhart said that the subregion has been growing at 17 per cent a year, faster than ASEAN’s 11 per cent.

Thraenhart was confident that the plan could help raise the profile of the GMS on the world tourism stage as accessibility, product and visa policies improve.

He added: “The plan has the additional goals of marketing tourism products and services that help fight poverty and empower women.”

ONYX Hospitality Group is making its foray into the Indian market with plans to build 10 properties within the next seven years.

The Thai company has signed an exclusive agreement with Kingsbridge Hospitality, the master franchise-holder for World Trade Center in India, in a US$100 million venture for the 10 properties, the first of which is due to open in 2018, said Kashyap Vora, vice president development at Onyx.

“Our focus will be on large cities and business centres, with the exception of Goa, which is a leisure destination with very fixed occupancy rates,” he said. “This (expansion into India) will enhance our presence in the South Asian and South-east Asian markets, where we already have 38 hotels and resorts with another 16 in development.”

The decision to break ground in the world’s second most populous nation was partly driven by the country’s burgeoning economy and the Modi administration’s focus on tourism as a key growth engine, but also because of Amari’s brand recognition within India.

Currently, Indians account for eight per cent of Onyx’s guests, the second largest source market after China. “Last year we received 99,829 Indian guests across the group, a 16 per cent year-on-year increase,” commented Vora.

The country’s inbound tourism market is also expected to benefit from the new e-visa system, with domestic tourism and internal business travel targeted as key revenue sources for the planned properties, he said.

The 120-room Amari Residences GIFT City in Ahmedabad will open in 2018, followed the next year by Amari Noida, a 120-room property with 30 branded residences and part of the World Trade Centre complex.

The group will also weigh up other opportunities on an ad hoc basis. Said Vora: “We’ll look at acquisitions in both greenfield and brownfield locations as they arise.”

The foray into India is part of Onyx’s aim to generate more than two-thirds of management revenue from properties outside of Thailand within the next two years.

A HOLISTIC report on the Singapore tourism sector will be launched this June to provide insights on consolidated and aggregated industry booking data. NATAS is the latest tourism stakeholder to join hands with marketing insights company GfK, having signed an agreement last week to provide the latter with live booking data on a weekly basis.

“We are very pleased to collaborate with NATAS in this, as it will indeed bring value to all its members, while at the same time also supporting GfK’s mission to provide accurate, reliable and updated market data for the travel and hospitality industry,” said Laurens Van Den Oever, global industry lead for travel & hospitality, GfK in a statement.

Insights provided by NATAS will be combined with those from 10 other major players, with whom partnerships were secured last year, for the GfK Travelscan report.

Other companies starting to provide input on forward booking transactions include Scoot, Expedia and Flight Centre, among others.

“Market data in the travel industry is often very fragmented with no real comparative way of measurement,” said Ang Eu Khoon, chairman for information technology of NATAS.

“This collaboration with GfK to convert the massive amount of available booking data into relevant market insights that are easy to understand will definitely help our members understand the travel industry better and help advance it to the next level in a rapidly changing business environment,” he said.

The first integrated travel report for Singapore is anticipated to be ready by end-June 2015.

STARWOOD Hotels & Resorts Worldwide will launch its first Luxury Collection brand property in Japan with the opening of Suiran in Kyoto on March 23.

Set alongside a river in the historic Arashiyama district to the west of the ancient capital of Japan, Suiran, A Luxury Collection Hotel, Kyoto will have 39 rooms starting at 70,000 yen (US$585) per night.

The idyllic setting and intimate scale of the property are designed to “further strengthen Starwood’s luxury portfolio in Japan”, Kenji Fukunaga, Starwood’s area general manager for Japan and Guam, told TTG Asia e-Daily.

“Japan has a well-established hospitality industry with limited supply and few new developments at the high end of the market, especially in Kyoto, one of the most popular destinations in (the country),” said Fukunaga.

Starwood expects the blend of traditional Japanese hospitality and standards of service with the luxury brand’s “captivating proposition” to attract guests from both Japan and overseas.

Fukunaga indicated that the company has further ambitions for the Japanese market, where it already operates 14 properties bearing the Sheraton, Westin and St Regis brand names.

“Starwood is working closely with hotel owners and developers for further development opportunities in Japan,” he said, adding that Japan is a key market for the company.