TTG ASIA’s ongoing Facebook competition has found its January 2012 winner in Sidney Chua, a travel consultant with Mines Global Holidays in Malaysia.

Chua won a three-night stay in a deluxe harbour view room in the Tower Wing of The Royal Pacific Hotel & Towers in Hong Kong, after ‘liking’ the TTG Asia Facebook page and subscribing to the travel trade magazine.

The prize up for grabs this month is a four-day three-night stay at Fairmont Singapore.

Members of the travel trade industry 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

THE NEWLY-established Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group brings together a consolidated footprint it will jointly market, clinching it the ninth position among the largest hotel companies worldwide. It will also see global alignment and management of its brands, and collaboration on revenue generation engines, purchasing opportunities and staff development.

According to 2010 room count ranking results published by Hotels Magazine last September, Rezidor was 13th while Carlson was 19th. With its latest move, Carlson Rezidor leapfrogs over companies such as Hyatt Hotels Corp and Westmont Hospitality Group.

However, there is no change in the legal status or ownership structure of both companies, and Carlson continues to be the majority shareholder in Rezidor with a 50.03 per cent ownership on a fully-diluted basis.

Carlson Rezidor has 1,319 hotels operating and contracted pipeline hotels worldwide, with 154 in Asia-Pacific. Rezidor oversees the bulk of the group’s portfolio in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In an e-mail interview with TTG Asia e-Daily, Carlson’s president and CEO, Hubert Joly, said the group saw a “strong growth momentum” in Asia-Pacific last year, with 20 openings and a record 29 signings.

Joly added that 18 hotels were scheduled to open in the region in 2012, even as it planned for “some big news around the Park Inn by Radisson brand”.

“The partnership facilitates developing global relationships with key travel intermediaries…The main change for travel (consultants) is that we will be better able to represent the entire brand portfolio globally,” he explained.

Joly reiterated that the Carlson Rezidor’s development priorities continue to be those laid out in its Ambition 2015 strategy.

“On a global basis, this means the growth of Radisson Blu and Radisson as global first-class brands, the roll-out of Park Inn by Radisson in key markets around the world, the continued growth of Country Inns & Suites primarily in the US and India, and generally speaking, an increasing focus on key emerging markets where we have 70 per cent of our contracted pipeline,” he said.

VIETJET Air, which made its debut last December with four-daily flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi  (TTG Asia e-Daily, December 16), is thinking of spreading its wings beyond Vietnam.

“Response on the inaugural domestic Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City route has been quite incredible so far,” said VietJet Air’s managing director, Luu Duc Khanh.

“We’ve had load factors of over 90 per cent, and we hope to be able to repeat this performance on international routes.”

Luu told TTG Asia e-Daily that a feasibility study was currently underway, with regional destinations in China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia under consideration.

The airline intends to start international flights by the end of the year, he added.

SIX of the world’s leading hotel chains have ganged up to launch Roomkey.com – a move seen as an arrow at powerful OTAs – but skepticism is high whether the venture will work.

The founding partners – Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corp, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International and Wyndham Hotel Group – have now been joined by Best Western International as commercial partner.

Roomkey.com, which functions as an online hotel search engine – with bookings going directly back to hotels, is expected to have 80,000 rooms in the inventory by mid-2012. It will initially focus on serving US travellers, followed shortly after by expansion to other English-speaking regions, according to a statement.

This is not the first time chains have attempted to regain control of their inventory, and to lower distribution costs – and they are expected to fail yet again.

Both Expedia and Agoda (naturally) do not believe Room Key will work, but even hotel chiefs interviewed think it won’t.

Agoda’s CFO, Bryan Lewis, said: “People underestimate how difficult it is to get traffic to your website. It’s relatively easy to create a website that sells hotels, or takes a GDS fee; the difficult part is to drive customers and make customers aware of it, and that’s what OTAs are good at.

“I think hotel chains combined with competing objectives are unlikely to be successful.”

Mark van Ogtrop, managing director of Golden Tulip South-east Asia, said: “What makes the Agodas and Expedias powerful is they offer a complete range of hotels, while Room Key will only provide the big brands. What we need is more competition in the OTA (sector); there’s just the handful that dominate the market.”

Ricco M DeBlank, CEO – Hotel Division of Sun Hung Kai Properties, which owns the Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons in Hong Kong, said: “I don’t think it’ll work because Room Key is not a technology company, and hotel companies are too bureaucratic to make changes fast enough and compete with OTAs. I don’t think the remuneration and leadership at Room Key are able to attract the most innovative people in the industry the way technology companies do.”

“From an owner’s perspective, I do want them to succeed,” he added. “And, OTA commissions need to be regulated. We should not have hotels that are in dire need of filling rooms be willing to pay up to 35 per cent commissions to the OTA.”

– A look at Room Key and what’s really behind it, TTG Asia, February 24 issue

AIRASIA and Expedia are scheduled to combine their inventories by end of this month, some 11 months after coming together in a 50:50 joint venture (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 29, 2011), but have so far failed to convince the rest of the travel trade community of the viability of their partnership.

Dan Lynn, CEO of AAE Travel, the subsidiary formed as part of the joint venture, said: “So far, the joint venture has brought a lot of synergy. We’ve learnt tonnes by bringing together our experiences. It is a symbiotic relationship that has brought incremental value to both our brands. It has made both companies far nimbler.”

However, tourism players whom TTG Asia e-Daily spoke to begged to differ.

Dennis van Noord, area manager distribution Asia, Booking.com, said: “Expedia probably stands to gain more from the joint venture rather than AirAsia in the long run. Expedia has been able to piggyback on AirAsia’s strong branding in Asia. AirAsia has on the other hand, by tying itself exclusively to Expedia as a third party distributor, actually restricted its inventory to a certain degree.”

Franz Nitz, director partner development, Agoda.com, added: “Both Expedia and AirAsia should focus on what each of them do best. I do not see the logic in the joint venture and I have no idea where it is going.”

Steven Greenway, head of commercial, Scoot, explained that airlines were wary about having any business dealings with AAE Travel since it might put sensitive customer data into AirAsia’s hands.

“This certainly puts Expedia at a disadvantage, as it would be more difficult to convince airlines to have tie-ups with them – which I believe forms a core part of their expansion strategy,” he said.

Mark van Ogtrop, managing director, Golden Tulip South-east Asia, agreed. “There is certainly a conflict of interest between the two, especially since Expedia also sells other airline products,” he said.

Scoot’s Greenway summed up the general sentiment: “The jury is still out, but a lot of equity is involved, and it would be difficult to turn back now.”

MALAYSIA Airlines (MAS) took one step closer to becoming a full member of the oneworldairline alliance (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 6, 2011) with the inclusion last week of its international flight schedule in Global Explorer, which covers all routes offered by the alliance’s member airlines.

The Malaysia flag carrier’s network of around 60 destinations will be added to the Global Explorer round-the-world product offered by alliance members and other selected airlines, said oneworld and MAS in a joint statement.

Through this inclusion, almost 20 cities within MAS’ network in South-east Asia, and two more countries – Brunei and Myanmar – will be added to Global Explorer’s portfolio, which will extend its reach to more than 900 destinations in nearly 150 countries.

Apple Vacations & Conventions managing director, Koh Yock Heng, said: “This is a good development for MAS as it will lower its operating and marketing costs. It also provides more options for our customers who prefer to fly out from Malaysia on MAS because it is their home carrier.”

Once MAS syncs fully with oneworld by end-2012, it will be able to participate in the full range of oneworld’s fares and offer other services and benefits of the alliance to its customers.

By N. Nithiyananthan

SATTE 2012 will be the first time that new owners UBM Asia will be organising the annual B2B travel trade show, after having bought over the event from Cross Section Publications last April (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 31, 2011).

Held annually in New Delhi, the show aims to link international and domestic buyers to opportunities in India’s inbound, outbound and domestic tourism markets, and acts as a networking platform for travel trade and tourism policymakers to discuss initiatives on tourism development.

This year’s show at Pragati Maidan has been extended to three days, February 10-12, up from two during previous editions. It will also be the first time that the Travel Agents Federation of India, Travel Agents Association of India and Association of Domestic Tour Operators in India have officially endorsed the event.

Israel, Argentina, Japan, The Dominican Republic and Macau will be making their debuts at SATTE 2012, which will feature an offshoot event – SATTE Mumbai West – at The Leela Kempinski, Mumbai from February 15-16.