EXOTISSIMO Travel has assumed full product management responsibility in Thailand for Adventure World, a major travel wholesaler based in Australia and New Zealand.

This follows the termination of Adventure World’s wholesale agreement with Thai Airways International’s Royal Orchid Holidays last month.

With immediate effect, all Thailand-associated bookings from Adventure World will be handled by Exotissimo Travel Thailand. This includes all ground operations and tours, hotel bookings and logistics.

Exotissimo Thailand general manager, Michael Lynden-Bell, said: “Thailand has become a mature, mainstream destination for Australian travellers, and Adventure World is one of the (market’s) major wholesalers dealing with travellers to Thailand.”

“We will be working closely with preferred hotel partners to ensure that Adventure World can continue to expand their business here,” he added.

CONSTRUCTION on Bintan Resorts International Airport kicked off yesterday, with the official groundbreaking ceremony taking place in Busung, Kuala Lobam.

Scheduled to open in mid-2015, the US$79 million facility is being funded by Gallant Venture, the parent company of Bintan Resorts International.

Chin Chow Yoon, executive chairman, Bintan Resorts International, said: “With greater accessibility to the resort destination, this airport project will serve to enhance the value of the many investments already made (in Bintan), and to attract more investments in new resorts, holiday homes, F&B, retail and attractions, especially at the newly master planned Lagoi Bay Development.”

Featuring one terminal and a 2.5-km runway in the beginning, Bintan Resorts International Airport will accommodate aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320, which have an operational radius of about five hours. This would place much of ASEAN as well as southern China and South India within reach.

The airport will serve mainly domestic routes, chartered flights from regional cities, as well as private planes. The next phase of development will see the airport expanded to handle aircraft with an operational radius of seven hours or more.

Bintan Island is currently served by Raja Haji Fisabilillah International Airport, which is located in Tanjung Pinang, the capital city of the Riau Islands. At the moment, the bulk of visitors to Bintan arrive from Singapore via a 45-min ferry connection.

Visitor arrivals to Bintan Resorts reached a new high of 470,470 in 2011. This figure is expected to climb to over one million visitors by 2015.

ROYAL Caribbean International’s Legend of the Seas made its inaugural call at Yeosu, South Korea yesterday. The visit coincides with the opening week of World Expo 2012 in the city.

Kelvin Tan, Royal Caribbean’s regional director Asia Pacific, said: “Legend of the Seas’ call at Yeosu is the highlight of this cruise. We have been specially planning for this for over a year – for our ship to arrive at the Expo right in the middle of the festivities.”

Currently en route an eight-night sailing from Yokohama to Jeju and Shanghai, Legend of the Seas’ ongoing North Asian season also features several six- to 10-night cruises to South Korea, Japan and China, with the trips originating from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin and Yokohama.

Yeosu is the newest South Korean destination for Royal Caribbean International, after Seoul, Busan and Jeju.

Located in the heart of the Expo site, Yeosu’s brand new cruise facilities are expected to give the destination an edge in courting international cruise operators such as Royal Caribbean.

SINGAPORE is transforming into a hotbed for mobile transactions, but travel companies have so far been slow on the uptake of technology to penetrate this fast-emerging market, according to PayPal.

Rahul Shinghal, director, mobile, PayPal Asia Pacific said: “Travel merchants really stand to lose out if they don’t adopt mobile commerce (m-commerce). We’ve seen consumers making sizeable purchases on travel sites that have not even been optimised for mobile purchases. The demand is certainly there, but (travel) suppliers have been relatively slow to react.”

According to a joint study by Nielsen and PayPal, m-commerce expenditure among Singaporeans is forecast to grow tenfold to US$2.5 billion by 2015, as Internet-enabled mobile devices become more prevalent in their day-to-day lives.

The study also revealed that 11 per cent of smartphone users were willing to purchase airline tickets via mobile apps, with another six per cent open to buying travel packages. Comparatively, the proportion of tablet users willing to make airline bookings with mobile apps was higher (15 per cent), while for travel packages it was nine per cent.

Elias Ghanem, Paypal’s managing director for South-east Asia & India, said: “We will be marketing aggressively to the travel trade, and are optimistic about our chances in gaining more business from this sector.”

Dickson Seow, director, corporate communications, PayPal Asia Pacific said even though OTAs and hotels acknowledged the importance of gearing up for m-commerce, some were only just beginning to optimise their mobile presence and source for appropriate payment solutions.

Seow added: “Airlines remain averse to adopting mobile technology, as they are less certain about how it can be utilised to capture impulse spend, and what is needed to set it up successfully.”

AIR India’s (AI) curtailing of international services to stem operational losses has seen airfares from India to Europe and the US rise by about 20 per cent during the current peak travel season.

Since identifying that 80-90 per cent of its losses originate from international operations, the flag carrier has halted several routes to Europe and North America, including Amritsar-Delhi-Toronto and Delhi-London (Heathrow).

In all, AI intends to scale back its 34 daily connections to Europe and North America to 14 flights per day.

Exacerbated by the ongoing pilots’ strike, this cutback in international connections has seen airfares to Europe and the US rise by about 20 per cent. For example, Mumbai-London now costs Rs55,000 (US$1,008) for a two-way journey, up from Rs44,000 previously.

Anil Punjabi, chairman-east, Travel Agents Federation of India, said: “The demand for international travel is growing, so an airline making losses has only itself to blame. If AI cannot redeem itself, it should sell off its stake to other investors who can turn the airline around.”

“AI has low credibility and most passengers wouldn’t want to fly them even if they offer lower fares,” he added.

CHINA Southern Airlines is planning to suspend some flights to the Philippines in anticipation of an expected drop in cross-straits traffic, due to the ongoing territorial standoff between Beijing and Manila.

The Chinese carrier will halve its twice-daily Guangzhou-Manila services to a daily flight on certain days, during the period May 26 – June 30, according to a report by Xinhua News Agency.

The two countries have been locked in a tense standoff at Scarborough Shoal since April 10, when Philippine authorities attempted to curb Chinese fishing activities in the area.

AIRASIA has embarked on a US$5 million rebranding exercise that will see the carrier adopt an updated corporate identity in line with its ‘10 Awesome Years’ campaign launched last December.

Kathleen Tan, AirAsia’s regional head of commercial, said: “At AirAsia, we take branding very seriously. We felt it was time to give our brand a fresh and rejuvenated look, to stay relevant with the times. We are excited to give our look, feel and plane livery a little contemporary facelift.”

As part of the makeover, AirAsia’s advertisements, check-in counters and aircraft will be updated to reflect the new branding, while its flight attendants will now don a special outfit on weekends. The carrier will also launch a new television commercial featuring the AirAsia Allstars.

According to Bernama, AirAsia will first concentrate on rebranding its main hubs at Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Jakarta. Subsequently, the carrier will shift its focus to secondary hubs and the rest of its global network.

THE MALAYSIAN Association of Tour & Travel Agents (MATTA), which owns the organising rights to the World Islamic Travel Mart (WITM), is considering holding future editions of the annual event outside of Malaysia.

The inaugural WITM is scheduled to take place at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur from May 31 to June 2. As things stand, MATTA has secured this year’s venue for the next five editions of WITM.

“As this event is titled World Islamic Travel Mart and not ‘Malaysian International Travel Mart’, MATTA can host it in other parts of the world such as Dubai or Doha, should we decide to,” said MATTA president, Mohd Khalid Harun.

According to Khalid, the Malaysian tourism ministry’s decision to organise its first-ever Malaysian International Travel Exchange from May 31 to June 3, around the same time as WITM 2012, had not resulted in dampened demand for the latter.

“We announced our event (WITM) first. Both events also complement one other,” insisted Khalid.

“In any case, the more events you have, the more people will come (to the destination),” he added. “In fact, we will be providing a shuttle service between the two (event) venues at the request of the ministry.”

Reporting by N. Nithiyananthan