CENTARA Hotels & Resorts has signed a management contract with Sweet Water Point Company to operate Centara Grand Modus Resort & Spa Pattaya, due to open in the third quarter of 2013.

Located on Wong Amat Beach at Naklua, Centara’s sixth hotel in Pattaya will have its own private beachfront, and is said to be one of the few in the city to be sited directly on the beach.

Offering a total of 215 rooms in the standard, superior, family, club, suites and two-bedroom suites categories, over half the rooms have an ocean view, while direct pool access is available to several room categories. For families, the resort offers a number of interconnecting rooms as well as rooms with two double beds.

Facilities include a spa, a fitness centre, a Kids’ Club, three swimming pools with a pool bar, a beach club, meeting and function rooms, and two restaurants.

The development also includes 300 condominium units, which can be managed by Centara upon owners’ requests.

The other Centara Grand-branded hotels are located in North Pattaya, South Pattaya and Jomtien.

INDIA’S tourism business has taken a 25 per cent hit over the last three months, while the number of female foreign visitors is estimated to have dropped by 35 per cent due to the perception of deteriorating safety levels and ongoing global economic woes.

According to a poll by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) of 1,200 tour operators from different Indian cities, travel has fallen by as much as 25 per cent.

Travel advisories issued by the West have also impacted tourist numbers (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 22, 2013) following a spate of high-profile rape cases. Some 72 per cent of tour operators said cancellations by women tourists in the last three months came mostly from the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

While the Delhi NCR region has taken the brunt of the blow, tier two and tier three cities such as Goa, Agra and Jaipur have also not been spared as tourists turned to other Asian destinations such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam, according to ASSOCHAM’s press release.

ASSOCHAM secretary general, D S Rawat, said the rash of attacks on women “has raised concerns about the safety of female travellers to the country.” He also added inbound tourism could be affected in the long run, and urged stronger security in tourist areas, as well as a programme to educate locals on the importance of tourism and encourage respect for tourists.

However, ASSOCHAM’s findings are at odds with the tourism ministry’s monthly estimates, which reported February arrivals to be 1.6 per cent higher year-on-year. This is nevertheless a far cry from the 7.9 per cent growth posted in February last year.

About 6.6 million international tourists visited India last year, spending US$17.7 billion. The country’s tourism authority aims to grow foreign tourist arrivals by 12 per cent a year to double foreign exchange earnings by 2016.

WORK has begun on the National Museum of Natural History, which will come up in the neo-colonial Department of Tourism building in old Manila at Rizal Park.

Slated for a soft opening in October 2014, the new museum will feature national science collections and be home to permanent research programmes of the National Museum of the Philippines in the area of natural history.

Exhibitions include a gallery dedicated to the Puerto Princesa Underground River, a UNESCO World Heritage site, as well as a 13.7m-long skeleton of a sperm whale recovered from Marinduque.

The National Museum of Natural history is the last part of the National Museum Complex comprising the National Museum of the Filipino People, the National Planetarium and the National Art Gallery, which was opened last year.

Ana Labrador, assistant director of the National Museum of the Philippines, the group that manages and develops the complex, said the natural history museum had been part of plans for the complex since 1998 but was not “aggressively pursued” until now.

Travel trade players such as Sharp Travel Services’ inbound tour supervisor, Marilyn Tungia, welcomed the new attraction, saying it would help boost tourism in the Philippine capital and beyond, since it is also meant to be “a hub and springboard for ecotourism around the country”.

“As Manila has limited attractions, the museum will have a big impact in attracting more tourists. Cruise passengers, especially the Europeans, prefer historical attractions. It will also be good for educational tours and for domestic tourists, especially for today’s youth who don’t know much about our history,” she said.

Earlier this year, it was reported that a project was underway to redevelop and conserve Manila’s historical walled city of Intramuros, which would also see the development of museums (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 30, 2013). However, plans are for these museums to focus on religious and American colonial period history.

THE Indian state of Gujarat will dedicate a war chest of US$100 million to tourism infrastructure development and promotion this year, a marked increase since its budget of US$6 million in 2006.

Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, said: “Gujarat has numerous natural advantages that will now be packaged, and we will offer a new product for every different tourist preference.”

With the enhanced budget, plans are afoot to promote Gujarat’s 2,575km coastline. New beaches have been identified for development, while the construction of a cruise terminal and dolphin-sighting trips are on the anvil.

Vipul Mittra, principal secretary – tourism, Gujarat, said: “We will target children with a new campaign, educating them about our attractions and creating destinations and activities that are exciting for them.”

Previous promotions by the state have included signing Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan as a brand ambassador in 2010, whose 16 commercial films have featured attractions in Gujarat as part of the deal, as well as efforts to push the state’s religious, cultural, medical and nature tourism.

In 2012, Gujarat’s number of domestic and international arrivals leapt 5.4 million to 22 million, a 16 per cent year-on-year increase.

TO TAP the burgeoning hotel market in Asia, international real estate management firm Savills has set up Savills Hotels Asia Pacific, specialising in hotel sales and investments, consultancy, asset management and valuation.

Savills Hotels established its Singapore headquarters last September, followed by Japan and Australia offices.

Explaining why these three countries were chosen, Nathalia Wilson, associate director, Savills Hotels Asia Pacific, said: “We have been actively receiving the most interest and leads from operational hotel assets in these three established markets.”

Since then, Savills Hotels has been responding to a growing number of enquiries from the region, which includes countries like Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea.

Wilson highlighted consulting and asset management as one of their key business lines. “Our goal is to provide our clients with professional and high-quality personalised service to maximise value of their hotel assets throughout their investment cycle from development, acquisition and holding period to disposition.”

Savills’ portfolio comprises commercial, residential, service apartments, mixed-use developments, with over 500 offices and associates around the world today, of which 46 are in Asia-Pacific.

Wilson said: “Our hotel team may be formed overnight, but we can leverage the existing robust Savills platform, knowledge and experience to service our clients’ different investment strategies and needs.”

She added that her team of six had diverse skill sets ranging from hotel operations to investment, which would help the company come up against competitors such as Jones Lang LaSalle, CBRE and Horwath HTL.

Savills already has hotel teams in the UK and US, overseeing the two regions.

TAUZIA Hotel Management has officially opened Harris Hotel and Conventions Malang, the second-largest city in East Java after Surabaya.

The 229-room midscale hotel is located within Riverside residential complex, 15 minutes from the city centre, 20 minutes from the Abdul Rahman Saleh Airport and 30 minutes from tourist spot Batu.

Said to be one of the biggest hotels in Malang, the property offers three swimming pools, a kids club, a wedding chapel, a fitness centre with a sauna and a 1,500-pax ballroom.

Tauzia currently has 12 Harris Hotels in Indonesia, with 26 more to open by end-2015.

LOW-cost carrier Golden Myanmar Airlines will launch its first international route on April 5, connecting Singapore to Yangon and Mandalay with daily flights. It is also eyeing Bangkok, New Delhi and Hong Kong.

“Currently we have only one Airbus A320 aircraft, but we will add one more aircraft very soon before launching the Singapore route. We will also fly to Bangkok at the end of April. As originally planned, we will add more aircraft very soon and will fly to New Delhi and Hong Kong in the near future,” revealed U Aung Gyi, managing director, Golden Myanmar Airlines.

Golden Myanmar started operations in January with flights between Yangon and Mandalay (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 4, 2013), and the new Singapore flights will be Mandalay’s first connection with the city-state.

While Yangon accounted for nearly all of the country’s international passengers in 2012, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation reported growing interest in Mandalay, Myanmar’s last royal capital, and predicted the trend would continue.

It is a dramatic turnaround for a city that had only one international route, a China Eastern Airlines service to Kunming in China, prior to Thai AirAsia launching Bangkok-Mandalay flights in October 2012 (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 15, 2012).

TTG Asia e-Daily understands that Golden Myanmar Airlines is launching the route with promotion fares of US$45 one-way for April 5-8. Regular fares are priced US$100 one-way, or about half of what other carriers on the route charge, according to Golden Myanmar.