TRAVEL companies are cancelling tours and scrambling to keep tourists comfortable in the wake of yesterday’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake.

The earthquake, which struck 2km south-east of Carmen town in Bohol at 08.12, temporarily disrupted operations at Mactan-Cebu International Airport and Tagbilaran Airport in Bohol as well as ferry services to Tagbilaran port. It also dealt heavy damage to Bohol’s road network, collapsing four bridges and leaving cracks in major roads.

Jun de los Reyers, marketing manager of Travel Village, said upcoming tours (inbound refers to only foreign incoming) for domestic, South Korean and Chinese clients were cancelled for the foreseeable future while the company assessed the situation. “We have to ask (our clients) to defer their programmes, probably to November.”

Guests housed at Bohol Tropics Resort in Tagbilaran, where Travel Village is based, are staying in tents and getting electricity through generators, while Travel Village consultants run makeshift operations nearby for safety reasons, he added.

Aileen Domingo, vice president of CCT.168 Travel & Tours, said the agency was discouraging tours within Bohol and telling travellers to remain within their resorts as heavy aftershocks continue today. “Some tourists were insisting on city tours (to Tagbilaran) and the countryside tour, which we couldn’t allow,” she said.

The majority of Panglao resorts sustained minor damage in the earthquake, according to the chairman of the provincial tourism council of Bohol, Lucas Nunag. Power in Tagbilaran has been restored, but not for all Panglao resorts, though most properties have their own generators, he said.

Over in Cebu, tours were cancelled yesterday but were resumed immediately afterward, according to Jun Barretto, president of Cebu Trip Tours. “Malls in Cebu were closed, as well as some shops and other establishments.”

Tourist attractions also took a beating, with Chocolate Hills, Baclayon Church, Loboc river and Loboc church – the last completely flattened by the quake – still off limits. At least 10 Spanish-era churches were damaged or destroyed in Bohol, while the belfry of Sto Nino Shrine in Cebu fell apart during the quake.

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.”