POSITIONED as Asia’s first sports hotel, Thanyapura Sports Hotel in Phuket officially opened in late March and is taking aim at professional athletes and active leisure tourists.

The 77-room property is part of the 23-hectare Thanyapura Sports & Leisure Club compound, which includes eight sports academies and facilities including a full-size International Rugby Board-standard pitch, FIFA-standard football pitch, 50m Olympic-standard swimming pool, 500m cushioned athletics track, six tennis courts and a 900m² fitness centre.

Thanyapura has customised its sales and marketing activities in order to tap the professional/specialist segment.

Said Robert Hauck, president, Thanyapura: “We’re not operating in a typical market so going through regular channels, such as travel consultants, isn’t really going to work on the whole.”

Instead, he shared that Thanyapura would work with strategic partners with strong contacts, such as a European swimming agent who is also the coach for the Dutch national team.

He said: “For rugby, we’re working with an All Blacks (team member) who will retire next season and move to Phuket. We’re also working with the Women’s Tennis Association.”

Sports clients now make up 80 per cent of the hotel’s guests, though the property is targeting a mix of 40 per cent FITs and 60 per cent sports travellers in the medium term.

Asia – namely Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Japan and India – is the largest source market contributing 30 per cent of guests, followed by Europe (UK, Germany, Switzerland and France) at 20 per cent, and Australia and New Zealand, US and Canada, and Thailand each accounting for 15 per cent.

Thanyapura is in preliminary discussions with companies from India, Madagascar and South Africa to develop sports hotel-like products for those markets, said Hauck.

INTERCONTINENTAL Hotels Group (IHG) has begun adding its entire global portfolio of 4,600 properties to China’s largest OTA, Ctrip.com.

Through DerbySoft technology, the XML-based connection between IHG and Ctrip went live this week, directly linking IHG’s central reservations system to Ctrip and allowing Ctrip users to view real time availability and receive instant booking confirmation.

IHG’s entire portfolio will become available for booking by Chinese travellers over the next several weeks as more properties are rolled out on the Chinese OTA, which on its own offers users over 250,000 hotels worldwide and serves 60 million registered users.

Currently, IHG has 160 properties operating and 30 per cent of its global pipeline in China.

According to PhocusWright, China’s online travel bookings are expected to hit close to US$14.4 billion this year.

AS PART of celebrations for Hilton Worldwide’s 25^th anniversary in China, the hotel company has raised the curtains on a new tour package, Flavors of China, offering travellers the option of pairing their stays with local attraction visits.

Available at 34 Hilton HHonors hotels across 20 cities in Greater China, guests can visit major tourist sites such as the Forbidden City, the Bund, Victoria Harbour, the Terracotta Warriors, Nanjing relics, the Jialing valleys and Zhouzhuang canals.

The package comes with one night’s accommodation, breakfast for two and a pair of tickets to a local attraction.

Guests must make their reservations between April 3 and December 31 for stays until January 1, 2014 at participating hotels.

Hilton has also rolled out an ambitious growth strategy for China, aiming to expand its portfolio from 32 properties with over 12,000 rooms to more than 150 properties with over 55,000 rooms.

Furthermore, 2013 will see the introduction of Hilton’s fifth brand in China – the midscale Hilton Garden Inn.

“Hilton Worldwide is focused on achieving sustainable growth in China. To accomplish this, we have developed a clear game plan to drive rapid, yet sustainable expansion. As China is Hilton Worldwide’s largest market outside the US, we are set to launch our fifth brand in China with the introduction of the Hilton Garden Inn and are on course to have a presence in 75 cities by 2015,” said Bruce McKenzie, senior vice president for operations in Greater China and Mongolia, Hilton Worldwide.

– TTG Asia editor Gracia Chiang talks about hotels expanding into tours on her blog.

TRAVEL providers hooked up to Amadeus systems can now allow customers to make a micro donation to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) when paying for travel online.

During the first stage of the programme, industry players such as airlines and OTAs can integrate a ‘check box’ on their online booking pages. Customers who choose to make a donation will receive a confirmation email.

The donation option will be a neutral standalone system, cross-channel merchant engine for participating travel brands. It will consist of a donation interface to collect donation data that is linked to an Amadeus payment gateway, which will process donations separately from travel purchases.

Amadeus senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, Tomás López Fernebrand, said the joint initiative represents “an innovative model to drive donations”.

Linda Scott, DP World Chair for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, added: “Addressing some of the major development and social challenges in today’s world requires increasing collaboration between the private and not-for-profit sector. Deploying some of the processes, technology and expertise present in the private sector can make a significant difference to organisations that rely on funding and donations.”