SRILANKAN Airlines is ramping up its flight frequency to China as it seeks to capture a larger slice of the growing Chinese outbound market.

The state-owned carrier will hike its thrice-weekly Beijing flights and four-weekly Shanghai flights to daily services from July 15. It will also increase its Guangzhou operations from three to four times a week in July.

The airline will deploy A330 and A340 aircraft, each featuring 81 business class seats and 236-296 economy class seats. All three routes are flown from Colombo via Bangkok.

SriLankan Airlines chief marketing officer, G T Jayaseelan, said this was part of the carrier’s five-year plan to expand to Asia and rationalise its flight cutbacks to Europe. The focus is to tap the huge Chinese charter market to the Maldives, where the airline is a big player, through its Colombo base.

“In the long run we see many Chinese operators starting flights and we want to be there before this market expands,” he said, adding that the increased frequency will boost its Maldives operations.

Sri Lanka’s share of the Chinese outbound market is miniscule. In 2011, the country received 18,505 Chinese arrivals (including visitors from Hong Kong) – up from 11,660 in 2010 – of which more than half are workers in Chinese construction sites in Sri Lanka.

Chaminda Dias, executive director at Luxe Asia, a Colombo-based DMC, welcomed the move. “It is easier to schedule packages when there are daily flights compared to flights on different days of the week,” he said.

THE INTERCONTINENTAL Hotels Group’s (IHG) first South-east Asian Holiday Inn Express debuted in Bangkok today, with a dozen more properties to open their doors over the next two years across the region.

Located in the Thai capital’s downtown, the 300-room Holiday Inn Express Bangkok Siam focuses on well-designed rooms, streamlined operations and a core range of facilities such as complimentary Wi-Fi and breakfast while offering competitive prices.

In order to maintain a lean business model, various non-guest facing services such as laundry, housekeeping and IT support are outsourced to reliable partners with specialised capabilities. Hotel Inn Express’ employees are cross-trained and multi-skilled across all general duties, allowing for fewer staff to be hired.

Jan Smits, CEO of IHG Asia, Middle East and Africa, said: “We’ve seen Holiday Inn Express grow exponentially over the last two decades into a well-established brand in international markets. This points to strong demand for the brand from both our guests and investors.”

Another 12 Holiday Inn Express properties are set to open in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. The brand will also expand across Asia-Pacific, including Greater China, India and Australia.

THOMAS Stirnimann will succeed Hans Lerch as the new CEO of Switzerland-based Hotelplan Group, effective November 1.

Simon Lehmann, CEO Interhome, has been named his deputy.

The group, which is owned by Migros, comprises Hotelplan Suisse, Hotelplan Italia, Hotelplan UK, Ascent Travel Russia, Interhome (Europe’s leading vacation home rental agency) and Travelwindow. Its travel brands such as Hotelplan and Travelhouse send thousands of passengers to Asia.

Lerch will remain as vice chairman of the Hotelplan board and advise the management on strategic issues.

Lerch’s involvement with London-based Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) Group has been rising over the past year. He is now the executive director of the board and chairs A&K companies in Asia and Africa. He told TTG Asia e-Daily that his role at A&K would be expanded from November.

Stirnimann, 50, was promoted as Lerch’s deputy in 2010, and had his hands full reorganising Hotelplan Switzerland while Lerch tried to combat the group’s dismal figures.

The group’s turnover for 2010/2011 declined 6.6 per cent to CHF1.39 billion (US$1.47 billion) despite a 3.6 per cent increase in total customer volume to 1.3 million passengers.

Political upheavals in North Africa that virtually halted the high turnover business to Egypt and Tunisia, currency movements and natural disasters in Asia, all had a major influence on the group’s 2010/2011 business year ending October 31, 2011.

But the bigger issue remains the impact of the Internet on traditional tour operators.

In the group’s annual report 2010/2011, Lerch said: “We will also see in the next 18 months whether the traditional tour operators will be able to meet and master the new online world and the structural challenges it poses.”

The group has made substantial investments in the Player & Hub technology, which enables operators to flexibly bundle their products and supplement these with additional services.

CLOSE to a year after it acquired the US luxury brand Rosewood Hotels & Resorts for US$229.5 million (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 21, 2011), New World Hospitality (NWH) has finally announced the first Rosewood in Asia – a property in Beijing owned by its parent, New World Group.

NWH chairman Sonia Cheng, in an email interview with TTG Asia e-Daily, said Rosewood Beijing would “point the way forward for Rosewood”.

While Rosewood Beijing will exemplify the brand’s trademark of ‘A Sense of Place’, it would also introduce “a design direction and operational philosophy that we feel expresses an evolved and enhanced understanding of contemporary travellers’ tastes”, according to Cheng.

“Rosewood Beijing will point the way forward for Rosewood and it’s fair to say that it represents an evolved direction for the brand and is key to its expansion plans. This is the first ‘new direction’ Rosewood hotel, in one of the most sophisticated and competitive markets in the world. This hotel will act as a shop window to introduce the Rosewood brand to a very discriminating market, including potential guests for ultra-luxury Rosewood hotels internationally and also for our future Asia properties,” Cheng said.

The 279-room property will open in summer 2013 in the Chaoyang District opposite the CCTV Tower. It is designed by Melbourne-based Bar Studio. Swiss Marc Brugger has been appointed as its managing director.

There are 18 Rosewood hotels in operation in the US, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic and the Middle East. Several, such as The Carlyle in New York, The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas and Las Ventanas in Mexico, are icons of the destinations they are in. New projects announced had until now been outside Asia in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the Bahamas.

Cheng’s target is for 10 Rosewood hotels in operation or pipeline in Asia by 2017, but to also expand Rosewood in new international markets, doubling its current portfolio within the same timeframe.

“We intend to grow both through managing hotels owned by our parent company and managing hotels by independent owners. The former approach allows us to control our destiny, build a strong and identifiable brand, and quickly capitalise on opportunities and evolving customer needs. Management contracts allow us to penetrate more markets, more quickly,” she said.

BEST Western International (BWI) is continuing its rapid expansion in Asia Pacific with the launch of its inaugural hotel in Nepal.

Scheduled to open its doors in 1Q2013, the 60-room Monty’s hotel signed into Best Western hotel chain will be a brand new midscale property located on Thamel Road in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

“Nepal’s travel industry is booming, and Best Western is proud to offer a brand new hotel catering to the growing number of tourists wanting to experience this (destination),” said Glenn de Souza, BWI vice president International Operations – Asia & the Middle East.

According to BWI, Nepal has witnessed a surge in tourist arrivals in recent years. In 2011, which was designated ‘Visit Nepal Year’ by the country’s Ministry of Tourism, more than 544,000 tourists entered the country through Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport – 21 per cent more than in 2010.

This trend has continued in 2012, with arrivals increasing 23 per cent in the first four months of this year, to almost 208,000.

Meanwhile, air access to Nepal has also been on the uptrend, with an increasing number of direct connections to Kathmandu – including the recent launch of new low-cost services by flydubai, Air Arabia, SpiceJet and IndiGo.

PACIFIC Royale Airways, a new Indonesian full-service carrier, began domestic operations on June 11, 2012.

Operating a fleet of two Fokker 50 aircraft, the airline’s domestic schedule includes daily flights linking Semarang to Bandung, Pekanbaru and Surabaya. The routes linking Kerinci to Jambi and Padang are each served four times weekly.

Out of Batam, Pacific Royale operates daily flights to Pekanbaru and thrice weekly to Jambi.

Pacific Royale Airways has been licensed by Indonesian civil aviation authorities to operate a total of 62 domestic and 11 international routes (including to India and China) from bases in Batam, Jakarta, Medan and Surabaya.

Meanwhile, the airline is expected to add three more F50s, four Airbus A320s and one A330-300 to its fleet. Though no time frame has been set for the delivery of these aircraft, Indonesian law requires start-up airlines to quickly establish a minimum fleet size of 10 planes.

Pacific Royale Airways is owned by an Indonesian businesswoman, Gunami Gunawan (51 per cent), and an Indian investor, Tarun Trikha (49 per cent) – who has been appointed its chairman. An initial US$60 million has been invested in the joint venture.

Samudra Sukardi has been appointed as the airline’s president & CEO.

OUTBOUND travel experts in Malaysia are expecting Airphil Express’ introduction of thrice-weekly Manila-Kuala Lumpur services, effective today, to reduce the seat crunch during the peak year-end travel period.

Utilising the Airbus A320 aircraft, the budget arm of Philippine Airlines will mount an additional 540 seats weekly between the two capitals, with flights departing every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Prince Mahmud Doel, manager of SAF Maju Travel & Tours Kuala Lumpur, said the thrice-weekly services would provide much needed relief for his Manila-bound customers. “In the past, we had to send passengers (to the Philippines) through Singapore, as it was impossible to get seats out of Kuala Lumpur,” he said.

John Chan, senior manager, sales, distribution & global support, PYO Travel Kuala Lumpur, said the new flight would boost traffic between Malaysia and the Philippines, and further develop their respective tourism markets.

The extra seat capacity has prompted his company to intensify its marketing and promotional efforts in the Philippines, and to develop more comprehensive short-term packages to Clark and Manila, Chan added.

Other airlines flying on the Manila-Kuala Lumpur route include Cebu Pacific Air and Malaysia Airlines, which together provide 7,513 seats weekly.

Meanwhile, Airphil Express is offering promotional airfares from RM49 (US$15) – one way on the new Manila-KL route, excluding tax and fuel surcharge – for bookings made by July 15 and for travel till September 30, 2012.