ACCOR has opened its fifth Ibis property in South Korea with the launch of Ibis Ambassador Seoul Insadong last week.

The new-build economy hotel is located in the city’s renowned cultural district of Insadong and within an hour’s drive to Incheon and Gimpo airports.

Ibis Ambassador Seoul Insadong offers 363 guestrooms, each equipped with LED TV, free Wi-Fi internet access, a working desk, and other in-room amenities.

F&B options available include the signature Taste Restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch between 06.30 to 12.00, and Le Bar where guests can kick back and relax with a light meal beverages throughout the day and evening.

Other facilities available are the hotel’s three meeting rooms that can accommodate up to 70 guests with audiovisual equipment; a rooftop garden featuring panoramic views of the city during receptions and events; a gym; and a sauna.

PATA and MyTravelResearch.com have inked a two-year agreement for the latter to provide PATA members with industry-related intelligence to boost their competitiveness.

The preferred partnership pact will enable MyTravelResearch.com and PATA to collaborate on the development of insights about the visitor economy in Asia-Pacific and beyond, supporting the association’s strategic focus to provide valuable insights, forecasts and analyses.

PATA’s CEO, Martin Craigs, said: “The partnership with MyTravelResearch.com provides vital support to the PATA Strategic Intelligence Centre. It helps us to extend the reach and effectiveness of our insights delivery – a key pillar of PATA’s mission.”

Carolyn Childs, director of MyTravelResearch.com, said: “MyTravelResearch.com has long shared PATA’s vision of building better businesses across the visitor economy in our region. The preferred partnership agreement is the tangible expression of that vision, enabling us to support PATA in making a difference.”

THE Indonesian government will open Jakarta’s second airport to scheduled passenger flights and relocate a number of commercial operations there in a bid to ease congestion at the city’s main airport.

Minister of transportation, Evert Ernest Mangindaan, said a number of airlines, such as Garuda Indonesia, Citilink, Mandala, Lion Air, Batik Air and Indonesia AirAsia, have submitted requests to run services from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta.

He said: “With 74 flights (movements) per hour, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport is overcrowded at the moment. This means (an average of) one flight per 40 seconds although normal operations would see between 35 flight to 40 flights per hour.

“We therefore plan to open Halim Perdanakusuma Airport and move a number of flights there probably in early 2014.”

Halim Perdanakusuma currently serves military, presidential and private or chartered airlines.

Mangindaan also explained that moving flights to the second airport would enable airport operator Angkasa Pura II to speed up the ongoing apron and runway development at Soekarno-Hatta’s Terminal 3, which is scheduled to open between April and May next year.

In the meantime, minister of state-owned enterprise, Dahlan Iskan, who oversees Indonesian airport authorities, said Angkasa Pura I and II would be extending operating hours of airports outside Jakarta to 24 hours.

INDIA’S Jet Airways and Garuda Indonesia yesterday concluded a codeshare agreement and launched a reciprocal frequent flyer programme.

Under the terms of the agreement, Jet Airways will place its code on Garuda-operated services between Singapore and Jakarta, while Garuda will do the same on Jet Airways’ flights linking Singapore to Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

The new frequent flyer programme will allow members to accumulate and redeem miles on all flights within the partner airline’s network.

Gaurang Shetty, senior vice president – commercial, Jet Airways, said: “Indonesia is a popular tourist destination for Indian travellers and a strategic trade and investment partner for India. With the seamless connections offered by this arrangement, we are confident that this codeshare will see a further increase in demand for business and leisure travel between India and Indonesia.”

Jet Airways is also preparing to enter further codeshare agreements with Malaysia Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, American Airlines and Kenya Airways (TTG Asia e-Daily, September 11, 2013) .

THE Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company will open a hotel in the former Chinese capital of Nanjing in 1Q2015 through an agreement with Nanjing New Universe Real Estate Development.

The Ritz-Carlton Nanjing will be located in the heart of designated central business district Xiejiekou, 30 minutes from the airport.

Featuring 297 rooms and 32 suites, the property will offer four restaurants and bars including a Chinese restaurant serving Nanjing cuisine, a luxury Spa by Espa, fitness centre and an indoor pool.

Meeting spaces at the hotel encompass a ballroom and seven function rooms.

BACKED by an extra NZ$30 million (US$25 million) annually over the next four years, Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) is stepping up its game in Asia, with a new interest in high net worth individuals and the MICE market.

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily, Tourism New Zealand chief executive, Kevin Bowler, said the NTO is not cutting back on its leisure programme, but “branching out” from it, which will be supported by additional hires across the region.

“We have a very good high-end product with our luxury lodges, and increasingly very good activity providers offering everything from helicopter fishing and skiing to picnics on top of mountains,” he pointed out.

Conventions and incentives will be targeted by an expanded business events team that has grown from two to 14 people over the last few months (TTG Asia e-Daily, October 2, 2013).

Besides opening an office in Indonesia last month (TTG Asia e-Daily, October 30, 2013), TNZ has this year increased its investment in India, China and Japan. The latter, for example, has become a “70+ market”, said Bowler, with mostly senior travellers visiting New Zealand. The goal is thus to re-establish a foothold among youths by drawing attention to the destination’s “fun activities instead of just scenery”.

Film tourism also continues to be important for New Zealand, which will soon launch a PR campaign around the second Hobbit movie, premiering in December.

While TNZ is supporting more direct-to-consumer initiatives, Bowler said that travel agencies still play a vital role as New Zealand is “a touring, not flop and drop” destination.

The NTO is undertaking its first mega fam for the South and South-east Asian market next March, bringing 50 travel agencies to New Zealand, and has relaunched its online training programme earlier this year, which features new interactive modules (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 6, 2013) .

As the fastest-growing region for New Zealand, Asia contributed around 21 per cent of overall arrivals in 2012, up from 17.6 per cent in 2011. The UK, which used to be the second largest market after Australia, has been overtaken by China.

When asked how the country intended to compete with other countries that were also gunning for more Asian footfalls, Bowler said: “We attract a pretty small number of visitors, so we offer something different. Being less discovered is an advantage.”

ASIA is set to welcome another new budget carrier by end-2013 when Taiwan-based China Airlines launches its low-cost subsidiary.

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily on the sidelines of the AAPA 57^th Assembly of Presidents in Hong Kong, CAL chairman, Sun Huang-Hsiang, said: “We are coming up with an LCC which will be launched soon, very likely by the end of this year. The mode of the company has not been totally decided, but we are definitely setting up a subsidiary.

“We will look at launching routes in both North-east and South-east Asia that are within four to five hours’ range,” he added, but declined to reveal further details of the new airline.

The Taiwanese carrier’s budget offshoot will benefit from the scrapping of a floor price on airfares – a move widely seen as conducive to the development of LCCs in China – and the development of a budget terminal in Beijing, as recently announced by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Similarly, the opening of cross-straits flights has spurred CAL’s development. Said Sun: “Direct service (to China) started from 2009 and we have grown quite rapidly. We are now flying to 28 cities in China, expanding from zero in the period of four years.

“Before the (open skies agreement with Japan), we had only eight cities and about 95 weekly flights to Japan. Now we fly to 12 cities and have 128 flights a week to Japan,” he added.

The airline will introduce more services to South Korea and secondary cities in South-east Asia, having commenced six flights a week to Busan in September and stepped up its frequencies to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, CAL – Taiwan’s largest carrier by fleet size – will roll out a renewal of its narrow-body fleet starting next year, in addition to an order of 10 Boeing 777s and 14 Airbus A350s, he revealed.

Earlier this month, Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines said it was also looking to set up an LCC in Guangzhou (TTG Asia e-Daily, November 6, 2013), tentatively named Jiuyuan Airlines, or ‘nine-yuan’ Airlines.

ROSEWOOD Hotels & Resorts has secured its seventh management agreement in Asia for the Rosewood Phnom Penh, scheduled to open in 2015.

The agreement with Cambodia-based property developer Vattanac Properties will see Rosewood Phnom Penh occupy the top 14 floors of Vattanac Capital Tower One, the tallest building in the Cambodian capital.

Situated in the city’s central business district along Preah Monivong Boulevard, the hotel will feature 148 rooms and suites, as well as an additional 27 luxury serviced residences.

Dining options at the hotel include a 120-seat bistro, a 60-seat lobby lounge, two specialty restaurants and a sky bar.

Other facilities such as Rosewood’s signature Sense spa and five treatment rooms, a swimming pool and fitness centre will also be available for guests.

Meeting planners can make use of Rosewood Phnom Penh’s The Pavilion residential-style meeting and function space and multi-purpose meeting rooms.

Rosewood Hotels & Resorts rolled out its new brand identity in September (TTG Asia e-Daily, September 25, 2013) and more recently bagged a management agreement for the Rosewood Bangkok, slated to launch in 2017 (TTG Asia e-Daily, October 16, 2013).

GARUDA Indonesia Holidays (GIH) is shifting towards consumers from its initial wholesaler model, reaching out to travellers in Indonesia and overseas through its new website.

Widjaya Hadinukerto, COO of GIH, said: “GIH was established as a wholesaler of tour products serving all Garuda Indonesia’s destinations, but with technology (like our website), we are trying to reach out (directly) to the customers.”

He said the rise of Indonesia’s middle class is taking place not only in major cities. “The website is a means to reach out to travellers who live in secondary and tertiary destinations. They can enjoy special and last-minute offers through the website,” Widjaya explained.

Asked if GIH’s new online approach would pit it against retail agencies it works with, he said: “The retail prices are higher than wholesale prices.”

He added that travellers usually buy simple products online, such as fly-and-stay or hotel-only products, and would therefore still need to go to travel consultants for a full package.

GIH currently partners 12 major hotel wholesalers for its hotel inventory. It works with BCA bank for payment, but more partnerships with other banks are in progress.

A joint venture company between Garuda Indonesia and Smailing Tours, GIH was set up to sell outbound and domestic travel products wholesale.