THE UK this week announced a number of measures to simplify visa application processes for China visitors, an increasingly lucrative source market that contributed 262 million pounds (US$418.4 million) in the London Luxury Quarter last year.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne arrived in Beijing on Sunday for a five-day trade mission, where he unveiled a new pilot scheme that will allow selected Chinese travel consultants to apply for UK visas by submitting the EU’s Schengen visa form.

Currently, Chinese travellers can apply for a single visa for passage to most of Europe, but travel to the UK requires a separate application. The new move will spare travel consultants taking tourists to the UK and other parts of Europe the hassle of submitting two forms.

The UK government will also introduce a new 24-hour “super priority” visa service next summer, and is mulling the expansion of its VIP mobile visa service that is available only in Shanghai and Beijing at the moment. As part of this service, visa teams go to applicants to collect completed forms and biometric data, with the whole process taking less than five minutes in total.

According to the British government, 210,000 visas were issued to visiting Chinese nationals last year.

Mark Henderson, vice-chairman, UK China Visa Alliance, commented: “Chinese tourism is vital to ‘Brand Britain’ across luxury, retail and hospitality sectors and if the visa process were streamlined, could boost the economy annually by 1.2 billion pounds per year. With these high-spending travellers keen to not only come to holiday but also forge long-term relationships through business investments and acquiring property, it is now more important than ever to help make it as easy as possible for Chinese tourists to visit the UK.”

Figures from London Luxury Quarter, which encompasses 42 luxury streets across Mayfair, Piccadilly and St James, show that Chinese travellers spend 1,656 pounds per transaction on average. This makes the Chinese traveller the second highest spending nationality after Qataris, who ring up 1,788 pounds per transaction.

INDIA’S Ministry of Finance now includes hotel projects under its harmonised master list of infrastructure sub sectors, allowing large capital-intensive hotel projects access to loans with longer repayment periods.

According to the October 7 notification from the ministry, the change is for hotel projects costing more than Rs2 billion (US$32.3 million) and convention centres of over Rs3 billion in any part of India.

Such projects will be entitled to long-term loans with repayment tenures of 15 years at lower rates of interest, higher debt-to-equity ratio, access to more funds through low-cost external commercial loans and financial assistance including takeout financing from specialised agencies such as IDFC, India Infrastructure Finance Company and the new Infrastructure Debt Funds.

The Reserve Bank of India last year also began including three-star or higher categories of hotels located outside cities with populations bigger than one million to its infrastructure lending list.

Applauding the move, Vivek Nair, honorary secretary of the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India, said in an email to TTG Asia e-Daily: “In the present environment of high interest rates where the industry is also witnessing a temporary demand-supply mismatch on account of the economic slowdown, we have been persistently articulating that proactive policy action was imperative to insulate the requisite long-term investment in the sector from cyclical macroeconomic volatility.”

Indian hotels are expected to require investment of Rs1.3 trillion for the 180,000 classified guest rooms predicted to be built by 2017.

However, Crowne Plaza New Delhi Okhla’s general manager, Barun Jolly, commented: “It is a good move, but we really have to see how well it is implemented and how easy is the process of disbursement. If executed well, it will lead to growth of a lot of hotels in Tier Two and Tier Three cities. Development of hotels in these cities will greatly augment domestic travel too.”

MILLENNIAL travellers are big on loyalty and mobile technology when it comes to leisure and business travel.

According to Expedia.com and Egencia’s Future of Travel report, half of millennials (defined as those between 18 and 30 years of age) say loyalty programmes are important when booking flights (48 per cent) or hotels (51 per cent). Conversely, only three out of 10 travellers in the 46- to 65-year-old bracket found loyalty programmes important for flights (31 per cent) and hotels (30 per cent).

When it comes to booking business travel, 32 per cent of those 30 and under report using a smartphone and 20 per cent use a tablet, compared to just 12 per cent for smartphone and nine per cent for tablet for those over 45.

The importance of online reviews for all travel-related services was also underscored. Millennials on business were most likely to post a negative review online though only 33 per cent have done so. Nevertheless, 77 per cent and 82 per cent of millennials on business and leisure trips considered reviews “very important” or “somewhat important”.

Results also showed that millennials travel the most – 4.7 times per year on business and 4.2 times for leisure compared to 3.6 and 2.9 for 30- to 45-year-olds and 4.2 and 3.2 for 46- to 65-year-olds.

Millennials were found to be more comfortable mixing business and pleasure, with 62 per cent having extended a business trip for a personal holiday compared to 51 per cent of 31- to 45-year-olds and 37 per cent for 46- to 65-year-olds.

They are also freer with their company’s money when travelling – 42 per cent said they would spend more of their company’s money on high-end meals, while only 26 per cent of those aged 46 to 65 would.

The global study drew its conclusions from the responses of 8,535 employed adults in 24 countries between August 20 and September 12.

ROSEWOOD Hotels & Resorts has been appointed to manage the ultra-luxury Rosewood Bangkok, scheduled to open in 2017. The agreement with Thailand-based hospitality investment company Rende is Rosewood’s fourth in the Asia-Pacific region this year.

The 146-room property will be located in Bangkok’s central business district along Ploenchit Road, adjacent to Ploenchit Skytrain Station, part of a luxury enclave encompassing several embassies and new residential towers, offices and upscale retail outlets. Room categories include the 64m² Pool Sky Villas with large terraces and private plunge pools.

New York-based architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates will reflect Thai culture in its design, with Rosewood Bangkok comprising two connecting high-rise structures inspired by the wai, the Thai gesture of greeting.

The hotel will also feature two restaurants and bars, the signature Sense spa, a swimming pool and a fitness centre.

Meeting facilities at the hotel include The Pavilion, a residential-style meeting and function space, and the top-floor Sky Villa event venue offering panoramic views of Bangkok.

Said Sonia Cheng, CEO of Rosewood Hotel Group: “As one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, Bangkok is a key strategic location for Rosewood to further strengthen its foothold in Asia.”

ABU Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) has embarked on a promotions drive to draw even more arrivals from China and South Korea after witnessing strong traffic from North Asia in 2013.

Between January and August 2013, the number of Asian travellers staying at the emirate’s 146 hotels and hotel apartments rose 26 per cent year-on-year for a total of 313,221 visitors. This growth was buoyed by a 40 per cent surge in Chinese arrivals.

China accounted for 27,378 visitors and 50,246 guest nights, a 43 per cent year-on-year increase, while 9,879 South Koreans visited Abu Dhabi, a 27 per cent year-on-year increase for 25,712 room nights.

Mubarak Al Nuaimi, director promotions & overseas offices, TCA Abu Dhabi, said: “We have a particular challenge with the length of stay of Chinese guests – which is currently less than two nights – and we are working closely with our stakeholders to provide specific tailored products for these guests.

“South Koreans stay longer; they’re particularly fond of our expansive and diverse golf offering. Golf is proving productive for us with figures revealing that our trio of world-class, championship-ready golf courses hosted a record number of overseas rounds in Q1 this year.”

To tap this segment, TCA Abu Dhabi has launched the Golf in Abu Dhabi initiative to attract customers from markets including the UK, Germany, China, South Korea and Japan.

Meanwhile, to drive the city’s ambition of becoming a top 50 destination for association meetings within the next five years, the Abu Dhabi Convention Bureau was formed earlier this year.

Al Nuaimi elaborated: “We have had some successes from Asia and are now focusing on promoting our Quick Win Advantage Abu Dhabi programme for corporate meetings and incentives. We are receiving a number of enquiries from Asia, mainly from the IT and pharmaceutical sectors in India, Pakistan and Singapore.”

TCA Abu Dhabi will also lead a delegation to ITB Asia in Singapore this year, comprising Yas Island – Abu Dhabi’s entertainment district and home to the Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – The Ritz Carlton Abu Dhabi Grand Canal, Etihad Airways, the Grand Continental Flamingo Hotel, the City Season Al Hamra Hotel and Park Hyatt Saadiyat Island.

The NTO also plans to roll out a Korean language version of its online destination resource www.visitabudhabi.ae.

Said Al Nuaimi: “This is in the planning pipeline for early next year…The site is currently in Japanese and Mandarin, and Korean would be our 10^th language version.”

CORNELL University and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have joined hands for the region’s first hospitality management programme for senior professionals.

The Cornell-Nanyang Advanced Management Programme, open to senior industry executives with more than seven years of managerial experience, will advance students’ knowledge of hospitality management in a multinational setting by combining industry best practices with cutting-edge hospitality management theory.

Lasting four weeks, the programme is taught by faculty from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration and NTU’s Nanyang Business School in two locations: Cornell’s Ithaca campus in New York and NTU’s Yunnan campus in Singapore.

Associate professor Nilanjan Sen, associate dean of Nanyang executive education at Nanyang Business School, commented: “As Asia’s hospitality industry grows rapidly, demand for senior hospitality leaders with exceptional skills in developing and managing change is on the rise.

“The Cornell-Nanyang Advanced Management Programme will leverage upon participants’ industry experience and equip them for higher responsibilities, putting them at the forefront of innovation amid Asia’s ever-changing business landscape.”

The first intake will be admitted in March 2014 and applications are now open.

Separately, Singapore’s Workforce Development Agency (WDA) is stepping up education efforts for the industry, having tripled the number of training places for tourism and F&B workers from 3,700 in 2011 to 11,400 now.

Training places for professionals, managers and executives in particular are expected to leap from 350 in 2011 to 3,350 in the next two years, with new courses to cover areas such as sports management, MICE and events.

New courses catering to SMEs in tourism and F&B will also be introduced.

These training places will be offered at WDA’s 10 training centres including five newly appointed institutes ­– Box Hill Institute Singapore, Eduquest International Institute, iFi Academy, Project Dignity and SHATEC.

Janice Foo, director, tourism division, WDA said: “To meet the changing landscape of the tourism and F&B industries, it is timely for WDA to boost the capabilities of the workforce and ensure that their skills are relevant and up-to-date. The appointment of the five CET centres will contribute towards developing a pool of productive local workforce to support the continued growth and effervescent developments in the tourism and F&B industries.”