A CRIPPLED Costa cruise ship with more than 1,000 people on board finally arrived in the capital of Seychelles yesterday, after floundering without power in the middle of the Indian Ocean for the past three days.

A French fishing vessel managed to tow the Costa Allegra, which suffered a fire that knocked out its power generator and engines on Monday, to the port in Victoria, where medical personnel were waiting to tend to passengers.

The 636 passengers and 413 crew from 25 countries on board were reportedly in good health, according to Costa Cruises.

Representatives of the cruise line’s parent company Carnival Corporation had boarded the ship on Wednesday to make arrangements for onward flights and accommodation for guests.

This is the second major mishap for Costa since the start of the year, and a setback to its efforts to regain consumer confidence following the partial sinking of the Costa Concordia off the Italian coast on January 13, an incident which claimed 32 lives.

After the Seychelles, the Costa Allegra had been scheduled to sail along the Red Sea towards the Mediterranean.

AIR FRANCE-KLM has sold half its stake in Amadeus for 467 million euros (US$621 million), and is expected to channel the proceeds towards repaying some of its 6.5-billion euro debt, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Air France-KLM launched the sale of a block of shares representing 7.5 percent of (Amadeus) capital,” a spokesperson from the airline was quoted by AFP as saying.

The joint venture unveiled in January a restructuring plan to bolster its balance sheet within the next two years, which would involve various cost-cutting measures, restructuring of short- and mediumhaul routes, as well as debt reduction.

Meanwhile, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has reported that service capacity to Asia during the upcoming summer season (March 25 – October 28) will be similar to last year. On the other hand, Air France will ramp up its Asia capacity by 6.3 per cent during the period.

Besides maintaining services to destinations introduced over the past two years (Chengdu, Hangzhou and Xiamen), KLM will introduce a direct daily flight to Taipei, with an onward connection to Manila. During the high season (June-September), Hangzhou will be served four-weekly.

In South-East Asia, KLM will operate daily, non-stop flights to Bangkok, which was previously served en route to Taipei. Its services to Denpasar will increase from four-weekly to daily, with a stopover in Singapore.

As for Air France, the carrier will resume its daily Airbus A380 flights to Tokyo (Narita), in addition to a daily Boeing B777-300 service. Capacity to Shanghai will increase through the deployment of the A380 on three of 14 weekly frequencies.

However, Air France will reduce capacity to Hong Kong (12 weekly frequencies), as well as New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai (six weekly frequencies each).

TTG ASIA’s ongoing Facebook Contest finds its lucky February winner in Angela Koh, a travel consultant with Gullivers Travel Associates in Singapore.

Koh won a four-day, three-night stay in a Deluxe Room at Fairmont Singapore, after ‘liking’ the TTG Asia Facebook page and subscribing to the travel trade magazine.

Next month’s prize is a four-day, three-night stay in a one-bedroom suite at Courtyard by Marriott Phuket at Kamala Beach.

Members of the travel trade stand to win prizes every month by ‘liking’ the TTG Asia Facebook page, and increase their chances by subscribing to the magazine.

For more details, visit www.facebook.com/ttgasia

CIPUTRA Property, the real estate development arm of Indonesia’s Ciputra Group, is making moves to tap the domestic budget travel segment by opening 50 economy hotels across the country over the next few years.

According to Ciputra Property director Artadinata Djangkar, the company decided to enter the economy hotel segment in order to capture a slice of the fast-growing domestic travel pie.

Local media quoted Djangkar as saying that Ciputra would be setting aside a budget of 115 billion rupiah (US$16.5 million) to develop six economy hotels in Bandung, Semarang and Jogjakarta this year.

Other openings are targeted in Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Ciputra already owns a number of properties managed by Swiss-Belhotel International, and is also constructing a top-tier hotel as part of the Ciputra World Jakarta 2 mixed-use development on Jalan Dr Satrio, which will reportedly operate under Starwood Hotels and Resorts’ W Hotel banner.

AMERICAN Express (AMEX) Meetings & Events has launched its Meetings Expert service in Asia-Pacific, which aims to help event planners cut down on excessive spending.

The new service focuses on the sourcing portion of meeting planning. By leveraging on tools and best practices of its launch in North America, Meetings Expert will assist planners in securing the best terms from hotels and venues.

AMEX director for Japan, Asia-Pacific and Australia, Danielle Puceta said: “Based on our pilot, we have seen all types of industries find this service valuable as it saves time for meeting planners or executive assistants.”

The service connects companies with recommended experts who provide advice on negotiating all aspects of a meeting contract, including securing of conference venues, accommodation, F&B and ancillary spending for events with a minimum of 10 rooms per night. It also helps to track meetings sourced and provides standardised reporting.

“The basic reporting can also provide companies with savings and more control over meetings sourcing, a category which can often be completely unmanaged. This is an attractive option to many industries,” said Puceta.

According to AMEX, existing clients have achieved an average savings of 28 per cent per meeting with this new tool.

Reporting by Patricia Wee

GLOBAL leisure travel specialist Flight Centre has opened its first retail store in Hong Kong, with a focus on servicing the local expatriate market.

“This new store will bring a more sophisticated retail travel offering to Hong Kong and will be the only local travel (consultancy) with a focus on servicing expatriate clients,” said general manager for Flight Centre Greater China, David Fraser.

“The expatriate and returned overseas Chinese markets have been underserviced in Hong Kong in the past, so Flight Centre has positioned itself to pursue this opportunity and target these markets more aggressively,” he added.

The outlet features two teams of local and expatriate travel consultants offering native English and bilingual services, offering short- and longhaul international flight bookings, accommodation, tours packages, as well as processing of visas and other travel documents.

Located at 49 Caine Road in Central, the new retail facility is the third Flight Centre-branded shop in Asia and the first outside of Singapore.

DYNASTY Travel launched Singapore’s first-ever holiday booking app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users during the bi-annual NATAS fair last weekend.

iDynasty, available as a free download from Apple’s App Store, allows users to search for holiday destinations, view travel itineraries including departure dates, prices and trip highlights, as well as book their desired packages from within the interface.

At the moment, the app only offers group packages, but plans are in the pipeline to introduce flight and hotel booking features in the third or fourth quarter.

According to Dynasty Travel’s managing director, Clifford Neo, iDynasty plays a critical role in the company’s strategy to grow its online business.

Some 3,000 downloads of the app were made during the three-day NATAS fair, although this has so far only translated into 15 bookings. Dynasty Travel’s website generates approximately three to four per cent of the company’s overall group package sales, according to Neo.

“Ultimately, we hope that half of our business will stem from our online interests, including our website and the app,” he said.

An Android version of iDynasty is due to be released in the second half of the year, while a version for the Malaysia market is set to launch within the next two months.