SINGAPORE-BASED LCC Jetstar Asia has announced a slew of increments to flight frequencies for a total of 18 more flights or 17,200 additional seats effective from the start of the northern winter operating season.

For flights out of Singapore beginning October 27, Jetstar Asia will add two more weekly Bali flights to make it a daily service while breaking up its Singapore-Siem Reap-Phnom Penh flights for daily direct service to Phnom Penh and thrice-weekly Siem Reap flights.

The LCC will pump up the Jakarta and Medan routes with four more weekly flights each for 25 and 10 weekly runs respectively.

One more Shantou flight will be added to up the frequency to four flights weekly, while from November 18 onwards, Hangzhou will also receive one more weekly flight for a five-times-weekly service.

Bara Pasupathi, CEO, Jetstar Asia, said the capacity upgrade was the result of the carrier’s acquisition of two new Sharket-equipped Airbus A320s to its fleet.

“Our focus on expanding our South-east Asia network and schedule gives our customers as well as our codeshare and interline passengers, greater choice and access to some of Asia’s most exciting holiday destinations,” he said.

“I’m delighted that Bali and Phnom Penh will now have daily flights operating out of Singapore from the end of October…Previously, passengers travelling to Phnom Penh would need to transit in Siem Reap. With direct flights to Phnom Penh, there will be more seats available from Singapore and travellers will now be able to enjoy more time exploring the destination.”

THAILAND’S first tourist court opens today in popular tourist destination Pattaya, where visitors will be able to lodge complaints and seek hasty resolutions for unfair services and security concerns.

According to Thai news agency The Nation, the court is expected to deal mostly with consumer protection cases while serious cases will be passed along to Thailand’s regular courts.

Tourists can register their grievances within the operating hours from 16.30 to 20.30. Officials conversant in foreign languages will also be present to render assistance.

Wirat Chinwinigkul, secretary general of the Judiciary, was quoted as saying that the tourist court would encourage parties to solve disputes through negotiation so that cases can be solved in a day instead of the usual six months taken in regular courts.

Pattaya’s tourist court will tackle the issue of speedboat services that has tarnished the country’s reputation, said the news report. It would also scrutinise the role of tourism operators in providing fair service.

Six more night courts are currently planned, with one each in Krabi, Samui, Chiang Mai, Phuket, and Bangkok’s Pathum Wan district in Silom and Dusit district in Khao San.

FOLLOWING a languid start at the beginning of the year, inbound arrivals to Vietnam have picked up pace from the second quarter.

Total international arrivals to Vietnam rose 7.9 per cent year-on-year and numbered close to 4.9 million in the first eight months of 2013, according to statistics from Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.

This is a marked contrast from the lacklustre performance in 1Q2013, which saw international arrivals decline 6.2 per cent year-on-year to 1.8 million.

Although not the biggest source market, Russia delivered the sharpest increase of 63.1 per cent in visitor numbers to hit 189,317 arrivals from January to August 2013.

Indonesia remains an emerging market for Vietnam with a consistent year-on-year climb of over 20 per cent this year – a likely positive effect of the inaugural Jakarta-Ho Chi Minh City flights launched by Vietnam Airlines late last year (TTG Asia e-Daily, December 14, 2012). For the first eight months of 2013, Vietnam welcomed 48,920 Indonesian arrivals, a 25.6 per cent year-on-year surge.

At the same time, the growth in arrivals to Vietnam has helped to ease the room boom across the country.

Based on statistics from STR Global, average occupancy rate of hotels in Vietnam grew 5.2 percentage points year-on-year to 63.9 per cent in the first seven months of the year. During the same period, ADR rose 3.2 per cent year-on-year to 2.7 million Vietnamese dong (US$128) and RevPAR increased 8.6 per cent to 1.7 million Vietnamese dong.

On the supply side, the Vietnamese capital is expected to see an addition of 1,300 rooms within this year, according to Savills, with the opening of the 86-key Hilton Garden Inn Hanoi earlier this year, plus the upcoming debuts of the 450-key JW Marriott Hotel Hanoi and the 359-key InterContinental Hanoi Landmark 72 in 2H2013.

THE Philippine Tour Operators Association (Philtoa) will launch the Philtoa Tourism Academy this month so as to contribute towards the creation of trained workers for the hospitality and travel services industry.

Philtoa president, Cesar Cruz, said that the academy’s curriculum is still being developed but that it would offer entry-level courses to meet industry requirements in areas of hotel services such as housekeeping, F&B and front desk services. It would also eventually extend courses to cover travel services including passenger handling, community guiding, etc.

He shared: “We will inventory the requirements of the industry.”

Modules and courses at the academy will help train “graduating students who cannot find work because their skills are not compatible with the requirements of the industry”, said Cruz.

Local government units that have small tourism establishments and cannot afford to hire consultants or trainers for their entry-level workforce can also benefit from the academy’s non-regular courses.

The non-profit institution will be backed by accreditation from the Philippine’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. A 140m² space in Philtoa’s Makati City office, currently under construction, is to play home to the facility.

Cruz observed that many Filipino tourism professionals were recruited to work abroad after being trained and gaining experience locally.

“Our worry is that with the free flow of tourism professionals in ASEAN when regional integration takes place in 2015, more Filipino professionals will work in neighbouring countries (rather than remaining in the country). What will happen to travel agencies? We will lose a lot of good people.”

SINGAPORE Tourism Board (STB) has named Knack Marketing the NTO’s marketing representative in South India.

The travel specialist took over STB’s operations in Chennai and Bengaluru from September 1 and has been charged with further developing STB’s relationships with leisure and MICE travel trade partners in the area.

Chee Pey Chang, executive director, South Asia Middle East and Africa, STB, said: “South India is a major source market for leisure, MICE, overseas school trips and cruise travel to Singapore. STB has been very active in the market for more than a decade now and will continue to work closely with our partners to bring travellers to Singapore.”

HILTON Hotels & Resorts launched its ninth property in Thailand yesterday when Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok officially opened its doors.

The 280-room five-star property located in downtown Bangkok will target business and leisure travellers from within the region, especially Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Malaysia and South Korea.

General manager Chris Ehmann said he is focusing on the hotel’s F&B outlets – Scalini, an 1920s-style Italian-American restaurant and Mondo, which serves Mediterranean and Asian tapas – to build the hotel’s reputation within Bangkok.

“I really want people to say they’re going to Scalini, rather than just telling friends they’re eating at the Hilton,” he said. “We have something unique with both restaurants. They have strong identities, excellent food and they’re quite informal. So we’ll really be focusing on building their exposure to drive business.”

Ehmann said leveraging the strong identity of the property, which features a 1920s to 1930s US Prohibition-era aesthetic throughout its restaurants, bars, public areas and meetings spaces, would be key in making it stand out in the city’s increasingly competitive market.

The property is designed to maximise the use of natural light, especially at the Summit meeting facilities on the 25^th floor. Given its relatively limited space, the hotel will be targeting executive-level groups for its MICE business, said Ehmann.

“We’re looking at small-to-medium size groups for MICE,” he said. “The boardroom at The Summit can fit 14 people, so it’s ideal for quarterly meetings. The other two rooms are larger and can hold 20 to 50 people. We’re promoting The Summit as a destination rather than a meeting room. In life most business is conducted outside of a meeting room, which is why we have the kitchen and study as less formal breakout spaces.”

The hotel has seven meeting spaces of which the 250-pax ballroom is the largest.

A FOCUS on roadshows over tradeshows and spending an average of US$5-$6 per arrival for promotions and marketing are some of the key features of the Maldives’ new tourism master plan, set to be unveiled later this month.

The country’s fourth five-year tourism master plan for 2013-2017 will be launched on September 27 to coincide with this year’s World Tourism Day, said Ahmed Salih, secretary at the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture.

According to a draft of the report obtained by TTG Asia e-Daily, the new master plan, unlike previous ones, will articulate a five-year strategic agenda and action plan agreed on by both public and private industry players.

Sim Ibrahim Mohamed, former secretary general of the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry, said the spotlight is on infrastructure development this time.

Other points in the plan include increasing the local staff ratio from 45 to 50 per cent to address demand for more Maldivians in mid- and upper-management levels, as well as scaling down on participation at trade fairs and concentrating on roadshows in order to maximise marketing dollars and target key producers of tourists.

The Maldives also aims to maintain 10 per cent annual growth in arrivals. To do this, the country hopes to grow arrivals from one million to 1.6 million visitors by 2017; increase average stay from 6.8 days to 7.2 days; up operational tourist bed capacity from 25,000 to 35,500; nurture average occupancy rate from 73 to 85 per cent; and double bed nights from 6.5 million to 12 million.

However, Sim pointed out: “There are also other dimensions of tourism that are not in the plan, like the proposal by former president Mohamed Nasheed for a minimum wage in the industry.”

He added that another point of contention is whether the government should allow more large, foreign-managed resorts on Maldivian shores versus creating guesthouses that would allow the economic benefits of tourism to trickle down to the locals.

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) will increase capacity on its Singapore-Shanghai route from October 27, the beginning of its northern winter operating season.

The airline will replace Boeing 777 aircraft currently being used on the route with the larger Airbus A380 on five weekly flights, thus raising overall seat capacity by 12 per cent.

SIA is running 35 weekly flights to Shanghai Pudong International Airport in the northern summer season and will operate 28 flights during the northern winter season.

The airline and its regional arm, SilkAir, currently operate 116 weekly flights to 10 destinations in China collectively ­– Beijing, Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Kunming, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Xiamen.

SIX Senses Hotels Resorts Spas will continue to operate the Six Senses Laamu even after the property’s acquisition by new owners.

Singapore-based HPL Hotels & Resorts purchased the resort located in the southern Maldives’ Laamu atoll through its subsidiary Leisure Frontiers, and plans to enhance the 97-villa property in the future.

Stephen Lau, chairman, HPL Hotels & Resorts, commented: “As the new owners, we are extremely pleased that Six Senses will continue operating the property, which incorporates all the creativity and personal attention to detail for which Six Senses is renowned. The group’s pioneering position in the Maldives gives it a unique insight into target markets and into operating in the destination.”

In a press release issued by Six Senses, the hotel management company assured the acquisition would be “a seamless transition for trade and consumer sectors, with all programmes and commitments ongoing”.

GAZETTED national monument Lau Pa Sat has shut for a facelift, as part of plans to rejuvenate the 119-year-old food centre’s physical structure and offerings.

Singapore’s The Sunday Times reported that the S$4 million (US$3.1 million) makeover will result in better ventilation, a new internal walkway, a stage for live performances, a repaired clock tower, while leaving Lau Pa Sat’s Victorian-era cast-iron structure intact. It will reopen in November.

The shakeup also extends to the food centre’s tenant mix and numbers. New restaurants will make their debut and offer diners more al fresco seating, while the total number of tenants will be reduced to create more space.

However, Boon Tat Street’s seafood restaurants and satay street’s hawkers will remain.

Alden Tan, managing director of Kopitiam, which owns Lau Pa Sat, was reported as saying that local food would continue to account for 80 per cent of the fare served there.

The company is also looking into having more pushcarts to hawk a greater variety of street food.