INDONESIA is stepping up its courtship of the Indian weddings market, with marketing efforts going beyond major cities and now extending to B2C.
“We have embarked on B2B initiatives during our sales missions, which will continue, but we will also introduce a B2C interface to garner a larger number of visitors from India,” said Iyunu Masruroh, deputy director of international tourism promotion for Asia, Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia.
Trade initiatives include taking roadshows beyond metropolises to Tier 1 cities, fam trips, and offering links to DMCs who can offer ground and logistic services for groups and weddings.
Iyunu said Indonesia is also working with Indian outbound tour group operators and wedding planners to that end.
Alok Teng, director of LH Travels Bali, commented: “Currently Indonesia hosts about 30 Indian weddings (mostly in Bali), but more than half originate from the Indian expatriate community residing in the Middle East, Hong Kong or the UK. We are looking at attracting more wedding groups from India.”
TTG Asia e-Daily understands that Indonesia will focus on promoting Bali for such destination weddings, as it is populated mostly by Hindus, making it a more suitable destination.
Indian arrivals grew 18.9 per cent year-on-year in 1H2014, according to the tourism ministry.
On the leisure front, Iyunu said: “We are trying to promote itineraries other than Bali, like Jakarta-Bandung and Bali-Jogjakarta-Solo for the Indian FIT.”
Mahesh K Saharia, honorary consul of the Republic of Indonesia, added: “It is imperative that Garuda Indonesia should start a flight to New Delhi in 2015, not only to promote tourism but also to encourage trade between the two countries.”
MINOR Hotel Group (MHG) announced yesterday a strategic tie-up with Sun International to own and operate eight properties across five African countries.
Under the terms of the new agreement, the Bangkok-based hotel operator is investing US$63.9 million to own a 50 per cent stake in two properties in Zambia – the 173-key Royal Livingstone Hotel and 212-key Zambezi Sun.
For that sum it will also hold stakes of between 37.5-80 per cent in six further properties: the 196-key Gaborone Sun in Botswana; the 158-key Lesotho Sun and 105-key Maseru Sun in Lesotho; the 149-key Royal Swazi and the 202-key Ezulwini Sun in Swaziland; and the 173-key Kalahari Sands in Namibia.
Seven of the eight properties will be rebranded to MHG’s upscale Avani brand, except the renown Royal Livingstone Hotel.
Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of Minor Hotel Group, said: “MHG is strategically expanding its hospitality business into many regions and Africa is a key focus where we have seen substantial growth potential. We are excited to be partnering with Sun International with their vast experience on the continent and this latest acquisition significantly strengthens MHG’s position in Africa.
“Starting with these existing African properties, it is the intention of this new partnership to explore together other hotel and gaming opportunities that may arise in Africa and Asia, where MHG would manage the hotel component and Sun International would manage the casino component”.
The collaboration with Sun dovetails with MHG’s ongoing strategy to increase its presence in Africa, where it has existing partnerships for the ownership of Elewana Collection, eight luxury safari lodges and resorts in Kenya and Tanzania, and for five hotels in Mozambique.
Sun International’s chief executive, Graeme Stephens, remarked: “With MHG now taking the bulk of management responsibility for these properties, this allows Sun International and its management team to increase their focus on the core casino assets that are driving its financial performance and strategy. In addition, Sun International will remain as 20-50 per cent shareholder in the partnership and will continue to benefit in the future growth of these properties.”
MHG operates over 100 hotels, resorts, and serviced suites across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, and Africa.
WORLD Bank Group member International Finance Corporation (IFC) has pumped US$21 million into India’s Samhi Hotels in its maiden investment in the country’s hotel sector.
The funds come in the form of convertible debentures and will enable Samhi to expand its portfolio in the mid-market segment through developing greenfield hotels and acquisitions in first- and second-tier cities.
Ashish Jakhanwala, managing director and CEO, Samhi Hotels, said: “This investment is an effort to strengthen the tourism infrastructure in India. Besides providing long-term financing, IFC will help us formulate environmental and social standards, and adopt green building design principles.”
Samhi is a privately owned hotel asset company specialising in the development, acquisition and ownership of branded hotels, having partnered with international hotel operators such as Marriott International, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Accor and Hyatt Hotels and Resorts.
It has seven operational hotels in Greater Noida, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune.
Last month, India’s Ministry of Tourism announced a tie-up with IFC to roll out a five-year strategy to rejuvenate the Buddhist heritage circuit across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 18, 2014).
India’s potential for the mid-market sector is well-known and, according to HVS’ 2013 Hotels in India Trends & Opportunities report, budget and mid-market hotels account for nearly half of all hotel rooms in the country.
AIR India’s restarting of direct flights between New Delhi and Moscow last month are expected to boost the Russian inbound market, even as the airline is understood to be considering flights to other Russian destinations.
The national carrier started flying four times a week to Moscow on Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on the heels of a meeting between prime minister Narendra Modi and Russian president Vladimir Putin at the BRICS Summit in Brazil. The service was initially scheduled for commencement in March.
Rohit Nandan, chairman and managing director of Air India, commented: “Presently, around 10,000 people travel between the two countries every month, and there are over 1,000 Indian students in Russia who will benefit from this service.”
Besides Air India, Aeroflot is the only airline connecting New Delhi and Moscow, a route which Air India had previously codeshared on.
SUNWAY International Hotels & Resorts has appointed Lucia Franziska as general manager of Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat Ipoh, effective immediately.
Reporting to Mandy Chew, CEO of Sunway International Hotels & Resorts, Franziska brings with her over 30 years of experience in a range of positions and institutions within the hospitality industry.
Franziska managed the Le Planteur Restaurant in Yangon alongside her Michelin-starred chef husband, Felix Eppisser, before her appointment to Banjaran.
Eppisser has been appointed culinary director at Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat Ipoh.
THE owning company of The Mira Hong Kong and Mira Moon Hotel, Miramar Group, is set to launch its third boutique hotel on January 1, 2015.
The 50-key Mira Cube is situated in the heart of Knutsford Terrace in Tsim Sha Tsui close to The Mira Hong Kong.
Gerhard Aicher, general manager of The Mira Hong Kong, who is tasked with running the group’s maiden Mira Cube, said: “Designed with well-travelled and tech-savvy individuals in mind, Mira Cube’s features and services are streamlined to the convenient minimum that defines 21st century urban lifestyle hotel experience.
“Mira Cube customers will also enjoy unique offerings and privileges at The Mira Hong Kong’s six award-winning outlets, the MiraSpa which includes our infinity pool and 24-hour gym, as well as access to a fleet of guest service specialists for meeting, catering and events facilities.”
For promotional opening rates at Mira Cube, visit www.miracubehote.com for more information.
Raini Hamdi visits The Chedi Andermatt and discovers a thrilling story of a real purpose behind an unreal world of jaw-dropping luxury
Every once in a while, an astonishing development comes along and makes a statement for a destination. The Guggenheim Museum did it for Bilbao in Spain, Marina Bay Sands for Singapore, The Burj Al Arab for Dubai. And now I dare say The Chedi Andermatt can be counted in this elite group, its opening last December not only reviving a forgotten valley but changing the style of resort vacationing in the Swiss Alps.
I did not expect it to be this significant. After all, how much would it take for an international, modern Chedi to create a difference in a conservative Swiss mountain village where flowers-laden, sun-blackened wooden hotels or others covered with shingles are the norm? So as my partner drove me to Andermatt, I was not filled with anticipation – the Chedi had done its job for Andermatt long before I arrived – but I was eager to see Andermatt itself while Kurt was already sentimental about revisiting the valley which helped form him as a man. Andermatt was the centre of the Swiss Army in the Alps and in his military days my Kurt was there as a chef in charge of cooking for a company of 150 men. Andermatt instilled in him a love for the mountains and taught him how to walk up and down them like a Gemse, come rain or snow.
Andermatt, the largest village in the Urseren Valley
An-der-matt. It is not Zermatt, St Moritz, Arosa or Gstaad, mountain resort destinations which need no introduction as playgrounds for the rich to hobnob with one another. Andermatt, on the other hand, requires quite some explanation and, even though it has riveting rags to riches stories to tell, no one had bothered to listen. Until now.
The largest settlement in the long and lusciously green Urseren Valley, Andermatt actually has a long history of hospitality. The opening of the Gotthard Road in 1830 brought a wave of travellers passing through the valley in summer and winter, and with it, the opening of the first hotel in Andermatt, Hotel St Gotthard, in 1854, and its first luxury property, Hotel Bellevue, in 1872. The health of the hotel industry became rosy; alas this lasted only a decade because the village was bypassed when the railway tunnel through the Gotthard opened in 1882. In the early 1900s, Andermatt took off again as a ski resort destination, catering to lots of British guests who pioneered winter holidays in the Alps. But the second World War decimated the image of Andermatt as a luxury destination and in the years that followed, it became synonymous as a military base, with the valley and its mountains being the grounds for army training until 1998.
Chedi’s Gemsstock Suite
Andermatt was in an economic black hole when the army moved out, as the military provided lots of jobs to the village. The knight in shining armour came in the form of an Egyptian entrepreneur, Samih Sawiris of the Orascom empire, whose main businesses are telecommunications and construction. He was welcomed with open arms by the local population who voted to let him build, over time, six hotels with some 3,000 beds, 42 apartment blocks, 20-30 villas, an indoor swimming pool, an 18-hole golf course and a new ski resort – the largest in central Switzerland – linking the Andermatt and Sedrun ski areas. The total investment is reportedly more than 1.8 billion Swiss francs (US$2 billion) if these projects all materialise.
The Chedi Andermatt, with 105 rooms and suites, along with the golf course, is the first of these to open, and if Sawiris had intended the hotel’s opening to strike awe among those who behold it, that aim is a bullseye. There is nothing like it in Swiss Alps and it is nothing like any Chedi I know, not even the grander ones in Oman or Vietnam. It is by no means a Frank Gehry or a Moshi Safdie eye-popping starscrapper; in fact, the building is rather nondescript. Like a Steinbock perched on a mountain, it stealthily blends into the village, its exterior reminding me of a church organ made of wood.
But what’s inside is magnificent – the lobby scales a height, width and length that feel monumental and every facility be it the pool or the suite looks larger than life, everything glitters although nothing is gold. It employs the best technology and the best quality at every turn. The design has Jean-Michel Gathy’s Chedi hallmarks of contemporary elegance and minimalist style but without doubt this is the ultimate Chedi.
This must be how it was when the Badrut Palace in Moritz, or the Tschuggen Grand Hotel in Arosa, opened years before, jaw-dropping pieces of their time that draw the rich and famous till today. Dining in the main restaurant of the Chedi, which twinkles with no fewer than 480 lightbulbs from a dozen modern chandeliers hanging on the ceiling, the young and old wealthy are here to see and to be seen.
Spa & fitness-hydrothermal area
Discombobulated by the scale of luxury, my mind went into defence mode with a barrage of questions: Does this thing fit in a small and modest community like Andermatt? Shouldn’t it have more Swiss ‘sense of place’? Is it a good idea to have a largely young, international crew who further perpetuates the absence of a homely, ‘Swiss-ly’ hospitality one would normally experience in the Alps?
But like all icons, I realised the Chedi sets its own rules. It tells you what luxury is and, before long, you will surrender, just as those before us had to at each of the grand hotels that had opened in the Alps throughout its long history of tourism.
Befittingly, the Chedi Andermatt sits on the site of the former Hotel Bellevue, setting the new foundation for the an old valley. I’m thrilled for the region. The Urseren Valley has lots to offer to international tourists. James Bond movie buffs could relive a scene from Goldfinger by driving through the bends on Furka Pass, while those who love to walk or hike will be spoilt by both gentle and more strenuous trails amid some of the most breathtaking mountain sceneries in Switzerland. And the Swiss Army left one gem of an attraction within reach of Andermatt, Sasso da Pigna, a mountain that hid men and artillery during World War II, which was kept a secret until 2001. Today, the public could walk its 2.5km tunnels, see the dormitories, the cannons and combat positions – now I not only have hiked up, down and on a mountain, but inside it. In just the few days I was in Andermatt, I left richer from the experience.
Andermatt is the new holiday address in Switzerland. For me it is everything Switzerland is: small – yet resilient, lucky and hard to be sidelined or forgotten.
HOSPITALITY investments rose to a five-year record high in 2013 for the Asia-Pacific region, according to global real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield. While China, Singapore and Japan led the charge, emerging markets will have a bigger role to play in the near future.
Cushman & Wakefield reported that hotel investments grew 30 per cent from 2012 for a total of US$12.8 billion.
China accounted for the largest share of total investment volume at 20.5 per cent or US$2.636 billion. Singapore took second place at US$2.63 billion, followed by Japan with US$2.61 billion, and Australia with US$2.27 billion.
Investment last year was spread over a wider range of countries including emerging and non-core markets such as Cambodia, Macau and the Maldives.
Akshay Kulkarni, regional director, hospitality services for South Asia and South-east Asia, Cushman & Wakefield, said: “Hospitality investment volume in 2013 more than doubled since 2008 and can be attributed to the excess liquidity, the low borrowing costs, and the region’s favourable tourism growth and outlook.”
Investment volumes for 1H2014 totalled US$5.2 billion, a 9.5 per cent year-on-year increase, though full-year figures are expected to come in at US$9-10.5 billion.
Asia-Pacific’s strongest hotel markets Japan, China, Singapore and Australia are still the most traded and make up 68.8 per cent of investment volume, but emerging markets like the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia have seen more action as compared to the same period last year.
China has seen investments of more than US$1.5 billion in 1H2014, but the Cushman & Wakefield report expects this to taper in the second half of the year.
On the other hand, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka stand to gain with major transactions to be closed. Myanmar and Cambodia have witnessed renewed interest in their hotel markets and “could become viable investment destinations”, said Kulkarni.
Kulkarni explained: “We expect the balance of 2014 to equal or come close last year’s level in terms of transactional activity. Japan has already seen significant investment volume and will undoubtedly improve further and lead the pack, due to strong corporate demand and greater investor optimism arising from (Japanese prime minister Shinzo) Abe’s economic reforms. Lower hotel transaction volume is expected for Singapore this year compared to last year, at least in the organised institutional side. However with the change in norms on the shophouses, those that have approved hotel licences will see high guest demand.”
VALADOO is bringing its e-commerce expertise and Burufly its social travel community into a merger that will take on the market of young Indonesian travellers.
The joint entity will retain the Valadoo brand while integrating Burufly’s social network that allows photo- and experience-sharing into the website.
Aimed at Indonesian travellers between 18 and 35 years old, the new Valadoo.com will include travel ideas and packages created by Indonesian travel experts and tailored to young travellers’ social and budget expectations; focus on Indonesian and international destinations popular with this demographic; and a Popular Events Calendar with travel packages created around key events, among others.
Pete Goldsworthy has been appointed chairman of Valadoo, while Jake Wiradisuria, CEO and co-founder of Valadoo, continues in the role of CEO of the merged company.
Said Goldsworthy: “The Valadoo and Burufly brands both resonate particularly strongly with younger, trend-setting, social-media savvy Indonesian travellers.
“Joining forces enables us to offer Valadoo’s superb range of travel and lifestyle e-commerce offerings across Burufly’s social traveller network and to allow travellers a channel to share their travel experiences with the community.”
Wiradisuria commented: “I’m particularly pleased by the depth of talent and complementary strengths of the Valadoo and Burufly teams who combined are really an Indonesian online travel dream team.
“With this team I’m looking forward to revolutionising the way young Indonesians learn about new destinations, shop for travel and then share their experiences online.”
INDIAN Railways last Friday introduced a stored value card, the Go-India card, as well as a number of IT-related improvements to encourage tourists to travel by rail.
The Go-India card is sold at all authorised agents and rail ticket sellers throughout India.
Meanwhile, other software platforms including a train enquiry and train-tracking mobile app were launched on www.irctc.co.in and www.indianrail.gov.in, with pilot testing now effective for Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata.
The new implements were developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems.
Jyoti Kapur, president of the Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India, said: “With one of the largest railway networks in the world and expensive flight tickets, seamless and user-friendly systems for railway passengers will help develop tourism to more remote destinations and increase footfalls to untapped geographies in India.”
“The imminent introduction to high-speed trains will be a boon,” he added.
