THE Sri Lanka Army recently debuted its new brand, Laya – which means ‘tranquility’ in Sanskrit – and announced three resorts bearing the name.

The 35-room Wadduwa Holiday Resort on the south coast has been rebranded Laya Beach and the 64-chalet Kukuleganga Holiday Resort in the south-east as Laya Leisure, while a new jungle-cum-beach resort at Yala, near southern Hambantota, will soon open as Laya Safari, according to Sri Lanka Army spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya.

Laya Safari is still under construction by the army’s Engineer Service Regiment, but will comprise 20 luxury cabanas when completed.

All three resorts will feature function halls, swimming pools, sports facilities and restaurants.

Wanigasooriya said while Laya Beach will be positioned as a three-star, the other two properties have yet to be classified. The resorts are manned by army officers and opened to local and foreign tourists.

The army has plans for two more hotels at Pasikuda and Nilaweli on the east coast, said Sri Lanka Army commander Jagath Jayasuriya, who presided over the launch event in Colombo on November 8.

Jayasuriya said the army felt obliged to align its resources in the leisure sector to contribute towards Sri Lanka’s tourism and post-conflict development.

Since Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict ended in May 2009, its armed forces have ventured into tourism through hotels (army), domestic air taxi services (air force), and dolphin and whale watching (navy). The army and air force also run commercial travel consultancy offices for outbound travel.

TRAVEL consultants in China are anticipating the increase in competition for airfare distribution, while GDSs are gearing up for a share of the market.

Effective October 1, foreign airlines will be able to use GDSs for fare distribution for the first time. However, the regulation is currently not applicable to domestic airlines. All airlines with domestic and international bookings in and out of China currently have to operate via TravelSky.

“We are still considering which GDS to use, but I think (the use of foreign GDS) is going to slowly increase and will force TravelSky to be more competitive,” said Hong Kong Four Seas Travel, general manager – Greater China business travel, Jonathan Kao, who is based in Shanghai.

Creamy Chen, general manager, Century Holiday International Travel Service Guangzhou, said: “From a consumer’s point of view, this new policy means more choice of airlines and transparent pricing.” She added that her company had not been approached by any foreign GDSs yet.

Amadeus China managing director, Bart Tompkins, said the GDS was assisting airlines in sending in individual nominations for their travel agency partners.

He added: “We are targeting all levels of travel consultants in key cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, as well as growing second-tier cities.”

Tompkins expects actual bookings to start by the second half of next year.

However, Brett Henry, vice-president, commercial and marketing, Abacus International, pointed out that kinks remained. “One of the limitations is that all bookings by Chinese agencies via a foreign GDS are still subject to the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s approval,” he said.

“The deregulation also only applies to flights on international carriers, which means that local flight ticketing is still not open to foreign GDSs, which may ultimately lose out on the biggest chunk of the travel industry, with 80 per cent of air seats (belonging to) domestic flights.”

ACCOR celebrates 30 years in Asia-Pacific today by announcing 100 contracts signed this year and 700 hotels in operation in the region by 2015, but chairman and CEO Denis Hennequin said it was not a numbers game.

“It is not chasing numbers for the financial community but to answer to increased demand as a result of the booming economy here and in other parts of the world,” said Hennequin, when asked if the chain’s first priority was to increase shareholder value by opening hotels as fast as McDonald’s could open restaurants.

“We have a pipeline of 110,000 rooms within the next three years. Fifty per cent is in Asia-Pacific because Asia-Pacific is the vibrant part of the world today,” said Hennequin, who rose to fame for his feat in expanding McDonald’s in gourmet haven France and in Europe before joining Accor as CEO in January 2011.

Hennequin also refutes that Accor was stretching its brand elasticity as a means to get more contracts. The Ibis brand, for example, has been segmented into Ibis, Ibis Styles and Ibis Budget, while there is also now a Suite Novotel sub-brand.

“We’re bringing clarity to our offers. In the economy segment, you’ve got the budget segment and the upscale version of the budget segment, just like airlines with their low-cost and economy. Ibis Budget is the budget segment of our economy offer, while Ibis Styles is a freestyle exercise around economy. There are lots of independent, good economy hotels but they are not exactly the room size or design of a traditional Ibis. So with Ibis Styles, we can bring them into the family. They keep to their own style and identity but the fundamentals of economy are the same – price predictability, comfort, quality and distribution.”

He said if owners were not satisfied with what Accor brought to the party as operator, its pipeline would vanish. “On the contrary, it is accelerating,” he said, in an interview this morning with TTG Asia.

Accor’s growth in the region, particularly in the last five years, has been nothing short of spectacular. From one hotel in Asia-Pacific in 1982, it grew to 13 hotels in 1990, 180 in 2000 and 422 in 2010. This year, a record 110 openings brings the number of Accor hotels in Asia-Pacific to 550.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts will have 320 hotels in Asia by 2014 (as of September 20, 2012), while Marriott International is aiming for at least 265 hotels by 2016 (as of October 31, 2012), to name two comparisons.

Accor’s critics question how 110 hotels could be opened in a year without owners’ ROI, brand integrity and operation fraying around the edges, particularly when the industry is facing a critical shortage of staff. Accor Asia-Pacific chairman and CEO, Michael Issenberg, said: “It is challenging, but it is what we do.

“Over the years, we’ve developed the systems and the capability to do large-scale growth. Take our academies for instance – there was only one academy for Asia-Pacific, then one Pacific, one Asia. Now, we have academies in China, Thailand, Indonesia and India.”

Issenberg does not expect Accor’s growth in Asia-Pacific to taper off. The 100 hotels signed this year include 48 hotels in Australia/New Zealand from Accor’s acquisition of Mirvac, a hotel management company. The 100th contract was Novotel Goa Shrem Resort.

“I’d be disappointed if we won’t be able to replicate this year and sign 60-70 hotels next year,” he said.

Hennequin said Asia-Pacific now contributed 12 per cent to Accor’s revenues (80 per cent is management/franchise fees).

“That’s coming from just three per cent in 2008. There’s potential to double that in the next four years,” he said.

– Read the full interview in TTG Asia, January 11, 2013

JAPAN’S tourism is well on the recovery path following last year’s tsunami, with the number of arrivals from January to October 2012 estimated to reach seven million, just four per cent lower than the 7.4 million arrivals recorded during the same period in 2010, according to Japan National Tourist Organization data.

Arrivals to Japan declined sharply from 8.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2011 as a result of the natural disaster.

To ensure a speedy recovery, JTA is putting several strategies in place. Apart from boosting arrivals from South-east Asia, the agency is also moving to secure its two biggest markets, China and South Korea.

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) commissioner, Norifumi Idee, said: “The number of arrivals from (South) Korea plummeted after the earthquake. We have entered into an agreement with the (South) Korean government to foster people-to-people exchange by promoting non-metropolitan destinations (in Japan).

“While total arrivals from China reached a record high before September, the (month-on-month) figure was down in the last couple of months due to the political issue. However, I’m optimistic this will not last long and we will continue to do our promotions in the country,” he added.

Arrivals from Hong Kong and Taiwan are rising amid strong repeat visitations to Japan, while Idee expects a growing FIT segment from Taiwan next year too.

Meanwhile, Indonesian outbound travel consultants have observed the rapid recovery of Japan as a destination. Japan is now the second biggest market for Panorama Tours Indonesia, remarked vice president operations leisure travel management, Rery Sankyo.

Singapore, on the other hand, has not bounced back as well. JNTO’s marketing & promotion department’s executive director, Mamoru Kobori, said: “Singaporeans have a lot of destinations to choose from, so I’m confident that Singaporean arrivals will be up again once they are confident that Japan is safe to travel to.”

JAPANESE hospitality group Fujita Kanko will set up shop in Taipei next month and Singapore in 2013 to reach out to more markets and strengthen support for its existing overseas offices.

Its Shanghai and Seoul offices opened in 2010 and August 2012 respectively, with the aim of building the group’s Asian business base.

Fujita will also be launching two properties under its Washington Hotel high-grade budget brand next year, one in Hiroshima and the other in Sendai, the latter the first hotel to open in the area since the tsunami disaster last year. A third Washington Hotel will open in 2015 in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

The group has also taken over the management of the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo, which will be rebranded as Hotel Tokyo Chinzanso and reopened in January 2013, after the contract with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is finalised.

Fujita Kanko assistant manager global business group, Lee Liwei, said: “By managing our own property, we would like to place an emphasis on Japanese hospitality, which is our strength in competing with other hotels (of the upmarket segment).”

The hotel’s tagline Bringing Japanese Hospitality to the World has been chosen to underscore the principle behind service at the newly rebranded hotel. This new focus will include introducing cultural activities such as tea ceremony, kimono wearing and serving a wider range Japanese cuisine, as well as a garden for parties and wedding functions.