CARLSON Rezidor Hotel Group has signed management contracts for three new hotels in China – Radisson Blu Plaza Wuxi, Radisson Blu Chengdu East and Radisson Blu Wuhan ETD Zone.

“We currently have a presence in the gateway cities of Beijing and Shanghai, and are now venturing into high-potential secondary cities such as Wuhan, Wuxi and Chengdu,” said Simon Barlow, president, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, Asia Pacific.

“These emerging cities are integral to our expansion strategy, as they are growing rapidly to become China’s top cities that attract significant foreign investments and tourism receipts.”

Located in Xishan district in Wuxi, the 300-key Radisson Blu Plaza Wuxi will be Carlson Rezidor’s second hotel in the city when it opens in 3Q2014.

Meanwhile, the 242-room Radisson Blu Chengdu East will be the first Carlson Rezidor hotel in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. Located in Media Plaza, a mixed-use development, the hotel is expected to open in April 2014.

The last hotel, Radisson Blu Wuhan ETD Zone, will be situated in the Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone in Wuhan. Offering 325 rooms and 23 suites when it opens in June 2014, the property will be the first Carlson Rezidor hotel in Hubei’s capital city.

Since launching operations in China in 2007, Carlson Rezidor had grown its local portfolio to 33 hotels in operation and under development.

Carlson Rezidor recently invested in boosting its operational capability in China. As well as introducing a dedicated Chinese website, the hotel chain opened a call centre, expanded its Shanghai regional office, and established sales offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong.

THE SONEVA Group, the new company formed following the divestment of the Six Senses and Evason brands by Six Senses Resorts & Spas in April, intends to focus on developing resorts with private residences in the future.

The move will see Soneva relinquish management of Soneva Gili in the Maldives, which is being sold by majority shareholders Capital Holdings and HBOS, to a new owner.

Sonu Shivdasani, chairman & CEO of The Soneva Group, said: “This is in keeping with our decision to focus on developing private residences at Soneva branded resorts. Soneva Gili did not offer that potential.”

“We will also focus on developing further Soneva resorts that will include a significant number of residential options,” he added.

Moving forward, Soneva will focus on developing the private residence portfolio at its Soneva Fushi and Soneva Kiri properties in Thailand, as well as launch new privately owned resorts in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Greece.

In keeping with the new strategy, Soneva is also looking at other remote but accessible islands in the Maldives, to re-create an additional resort with the potential to sell overwater private residences.

GENERAL Hotel Management (GHM), which recently entered into a joint venture with Beijing Tourism Group to introduce Ahn Luh, an upscale hotel brand targeting Chinese luxury travellers, will make its inaugural foray into China through the launch of two new Chedi properties in Suzhou and Huangshan.

The Chedi Club Suzhou, China will open in 1Q2013 at The Global 188 mixed-use development in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The boutique hotel, which will be the group’s “very first truly urban hotel”, according to GHM president & CEO, Hans Jenni, will offer 36 rooms, as well as private apartments. The hotel will also feature a rooftop restaurant, a spa, a pool, a health centre, and event facilities.

The Chedi Taiping Lake, China will open in 2015 at Mount Huangshan, Anhui Province. Offering 52 rooms, 45 club villas and eight residences with private courtyards and balconies, the hotel will also feature a hot spring spa, a health club, four dining outlets, a Gary Player-designed golf course, and a golf academy.

Clement Koh, GHM vice president, sales & marketing, said: “Demand (for GHM properties) is still coming mainly from first-tier cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. As we plan on expanding our sales representation presence in China beyond Shanghai next year – to Beijing and possibly Guangzhou, I am confident that our mix of business will change accordingly to include some of the secondary cities.”

Meanwhile, GHM plans to roll out a Chinese version of its corporate website in 2013, which will be unveiled in conjunction with the soft opening of The Chedi Club Suzhou.

Reporting by Patricia Wee

HNA Hotel Group is pushing ahead with its expansion plans for Tangla Hotels & Resorts, which debuted its first property in Beijing in 2009 under the flagship Tangla label.

Tangla Hotels & Resorts’ second property in China, Tangla Tianjin, will open in mid-July. Elsewhere in the country, Tangla Sanya is due to open by the end of the year, while another Tangla is scheduled to soft open in Shenzhen in July-August.

According to Judith Los Banos, director of marketing, HNA Hotel Group, Tangla Tianjin will come under the chain’s Tangla Luxury Collection label. The hotel will offer about 115 rooms, with room sizes starting from 70m2, and will cater mostly to the domestic business travel market.

“Tangla Tianjin will feature a differentiated service concept. Highlights include Tangla brand ambassadors, who will offer dedicated personalised services to guests,” she said.

Outside of China, Tangla Hotels & Resorts’ overseas network is already taking shape.

A Tangla in New York’s Times Square has already soft-opened, while another Tangla in Brussels, Belgium is due to open in 2013/2014. These hotels cater to Chinese travellers heading overseas, as well as other guests looking for an authentic Asian hospitality experience, said Los Banos.

Tangla Hotels & Resorts has three other brands within its portfolio – ultra-luxe Tangla Grand Place, boutique-style Tang Hotel and business-class Gardenlane Select, but the chain has decided to focus its growth on Tangla properties to boost brand recognition.

Meanwhile, besides tying up with Worldhotels to increase overseas distribution capabilities, Tangla Hotels & Resorts has been busy developing its own property management and central reservation system.

The chain is also looking to acquire new and under-construction properties in South China to further boost its portfolio.

PHILIPPINES’ AirAsia will launch daily flights from Clark to Hong Kong and Macau starting July 19, backtracking on its earlier announcement to scrap the Clark-Macau route.

The Clark-Hong Kong route will operate on a morning schedule, while the Clark-Macau flight will take off in the evening.

Marianne Hontiveros, Philippines’ AirAsia CEO, told TTG Asia e-Daily: “Thai AirAsia and Malaysia AirAsia have been operating flights to Macau since 2004 and will support our marketing efforts to attract tourists from Macau and Hong Kong to fly with us to Clark – and onwards to Kalibo, Puerto Princesa and Davao.”

Increased connectivity between these two cities will enable overseas Filipinos to “reconnect” more easily with their families in central and northern Luzon, said Hontiveros.

Meanwhile, Philippine Airlines (PAL) said it had only “postponed” its Kalibo-Hong Kong service, which is scheduled to start twice-weekly operations from June 29, while flights from Manila to Xiamen, Beijing and Shanghai remain unchanged.

PAL’s announcement parallels Zest Air’s plans to delay the launch of its Manila-Shanghai route to July 25 and the indefinite suspension of its Kalibo-Shanghai route.

HONG Kong Disneyland is ramping up efforts to grow Indonesian arrivals to the resort by appointing liaison representatives in Indonesia, as well as launching a website and promotional brochures in Bahasa Indonesia.

Speaking at its inaugural trade and media business event in Jakarta yesterday, Hong Kong Disneyland vice president of sales and distribution marketing, Terruce Wang, said: “In the 2011 fiscal year, the resort experienced a 15 per cent increase in guests from Indonesia over the previous year, with over 70 per cent indicating an intention to revisit the park in the future.”

The resort recently appointed World Discovery Travel Network and its associated partner AVS Indonesia as its liaison representatives in Indonesia to tap business opportunities and enhance support for local trade partners, he said.

With the opening of Toy Story Land last year and the upcoming launch of Grizzly Gulch on July 14 and Mystic Point next year, Wang commented that the time was ripe for the park to establish a presence in Indonesia and boost the market.

“We have also opened our Halal-certified kitchen at the Tahitian Terrace in March to cater to Muslim travellers’ needs,” Wang added.

AIRASIA is establishing a strategic planning centre in Jakarta, called AirAsia Asean, and restructuring its management to focus on regional growth as the budget carrier enters its second decade.

Tony Fernandes, AirAsia Group CEO, said the AirAsia Asean office in Jakarta would serve as the “nerve centre” of the company’s regional expansion.

A Jakarta base would enable the company to engage more closely with the ASEAN Secretariat headquartered in the Indonesian capital, as well as to raise the profile and branding of AirAsia Indonesia, which was scheduled for listing on the Jakarta Stock Exchange by end-2012, Fernandes explained.

“AirAsia Asean will also help us to ensure that our voice, concerns and appeals are heard much more clearly in the corridors of power within ASEAN.”

“While others focus largely on trying to gain market share in domestic markets, we seek to expand our footprint throughout the region. After all, no single domestic market in ASEAN, not even Indonesia, can match the potential of a regional market of 600 million people and a combined East Asian market of two billion,” he added.

The group headquarters will remain in Malaysia.

SABRE Holdings has entered into a new hotel agreement with TravelSky, a China-based air travel and tourism IT solutions provider.

“Our agreement gives our hotel partners a unique and extremely valuable channel to tap into the burgeoning Chinese marketplace, and provides our agency customers with significantly more choice and efficient access to Chinese hotel properties. TravelSky is a key player in China, and our alliance is an important step towards meeting the needs of travellers from the East and West,” said Hans Belle, vice president and general manager, Asia-Pacific, Sabre Travel Network.

The partnership will enable Sabre’s 350,000 global agents access to TravelSky’s 30,000 Chinese hotel properties, while TravelSky will provide its 7,000 agencies in China with access to more than 100,000 hotel properties on Sabre’s GDS.

Hotels who use Sabre’s SynXis Central Reservations System will be able to work directly with TravelSky travel agencies and leisure travellers in China.

“This is an important alliance for us as this hotel content was previously not available to our travel agencies or travellers in China,” said Xue Qiang, vice-president tour and transportation solutions, TravelSky Technology. “This agreement gives our agencies and travellers efficient access to an extensive range of Western properties, and helps both our companies meet our mutual objectives to deliver greater value to customers.”

A similar deal was also struck between Sabre’s Asia-Pacific subsidiary Abacus, and TravelSky to share hotel content with its agencies.