BERT Lambrichs passed away on February 1 from a heart attack while on a business trip to Luang Prabang, Laos, on behalf of his employer, Burasari Hotel Group.

He was 47 years old.

Lambrichs was the company’s sales and marketing vice president and had previously worked for Diethelm Travel Thailand.

Said Andrew Wood, special advisor to the chairman of Chaophya Park Hotel and immediate past president of Skal International Bangkok: “It was my pleasure and honour to have known Bert – the consummate gentleman, a friend, a good guy and a Skålleague.

“I also remember visiting Bert at his then Diethelm office for a business discussion. Courteous and polite, I was struck by his warm demeanor and kindness. My condolences go out to his family and Bert’s many friends.

“He left us much too young.”

THE SOUTH Korean capital will welcome a number of high profile congresses in 2012, with the Nuclear Security Summit in March being the year’s heavyweight event.

The Nuclear Security Summit will see the gathering of 55 heads of states and international organisations and other summit-related visitors at Seoul’s Coex Convention and Exhibition Center, where the G-20 Seoul Summit was held in 2010.

In a press statement, the Seoul Convention Bureau said the success of the Nuclear Security Summit was “expected to showcase the city’s meetings infrastructure to the world and bolster the city’s reputation as the world’s number five convention destination (as ranked by UIA in 2010)”.

The statement said Seoul’s successful hosting of the G-20 Seoul Summit and subsequent launch of “top hotels such as The Sheraton Seoul D Cube City Hotel and the Conrad Seoul” placed the city “in a strong position for the influx of visitors expected for the Nuclear Security Summit, which is expected to exceed the figures for the G-20 Seoul Summit”.

The week-long G-20 Seoul Summit had over 20,000 summit-related visitors.

Other mega events on Seoul’s events line-up include the 73rd Skal International Congress (1,000 participants), the 12th International Congress on Mathematics Education (5,000 participants), the 16th International Congress of Oriental Medicine (16,000 participants) and the 43rd World Intellectual Property Congress (4,000 participants).

THAILAND’s Onyx Hospitality Group, which is also behind Amari Hotels & Resorts, will debut its first Ozo branded property in Hong Kong.

The inaugural Ozo hotel will occupy The Wesley Hotel in Wanchai commercial district, which will undergo extensive renovations before it is relaunched late this year as the Ozo Wesley Hong Kong.

The 251-room Ozo Wesley Hong Kong will offer rooms and suites and feature facilities such as a Chinese restaurant, a breakfast lounge with adjacent meeting space, a fitness room and a multi-functional hub for tech-savvy guests. It is a five-minute walk from Admiralty MTR station.

Kenneth Sorensen, general manager, Ozo Wesley Hong Kong and vice president, operations, Onyx North Asia, described the new brand as a “select service offering a five-star sleeping experience”.

He believed that the Ozo Wesley Hong Kong’s “superb location” and brand positioning would make the hotel “an appealing alternative to the current accommodation offerings in the area around Admiralty and Pacific Place”.

WELCOME to Yorkshire, the official destination management organisation for Yorkshire county in the UK, is looking to boost relations with the travel trade in Asia through a series of annual trade missions held in conjunction with VisitBritain.

This year’s edition will see Welcome to Yorkshire embark on a trip to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing in the third quarter, to meet up with top local buyers and tourism officials to discuss the possibility of creating packages to Yorkshire.

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily on the sidelines of the Singapore leg of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, in which Welcome to Yorkshire is participating as a yacht sponsor for an entire year, the organisation’s CEO, Gary Verity, said about 12 representatives consisitng of key suppliers from attractions, museums, art galleries and transport providers in Yorkshire would be attending the mission.

“We want to debunk the myth that Yorkshire – which includes the cities of Leeds, Bradford, Ripon, York, Hull, Sheffield and Wakefield – is a faraway destination,” he said. “There are about 220 trains a day between London and Yorkshire, with each journey taking less than two hours, while a train ride from Manchester (Airport) only takes about 30 minutes.”

“Most of our longhaul traffic comes through Manchester or London airports, with connections by train or rail. Some come through Leeds Bradford International Airport via Amsterdam on Royal Dutch KLM flights,” he added.

According to Verity, Yorkshire’s top markets in Asia include China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The county’s international visitor profile consists mostly of leisure travellers, some business travellers, as well as families visiting international students studying in one of the nine universities in the area.

Yorkshire saw a 22 per cent increase in international visitor numbers in 2011 compared to 2010, with a significant portion of growth coming from Asia, said Verity. Overseas visitors contributed 3.2 million arrivals and £637 million (US$1 billion) in tourism receipts.

PALACE Hotel Tokyo, located right next to the city’s Imperial Palace, is scheduled to open on May 17 following a 90-billion Japanese yen (US$1.2 billion) investment in the mixed-used development.

The new-built 23-storey property succeeds two previous hotels, the Hotel Teito and Palace Hotel that occupied the same site from 1947 and 1961, respectively.

“This hotel is Japanese through and through, from its ownership and management, to its service protocols and its location by the Imperial Palace gardens and moats,” said Palace Hotel Tokyo president, Takashi Kobayashi.

The hotel’s 290 rooms will include 12 suites and six categories of guest rooms, the smallest of which will be 45m2. The uppermost of four basement levels will feature 17 retail outlets, and there will also be an evian SPA, only the second outside of France.

Beyond the four destination restaurants covering French, Japanese and Chinese cuisine, an additional six restaurants and bars round out the hotel’s F&B options.

In preparation for its grand opening, Palace Hotel Tokyo has secured a spot in the Leading Hotels of the World portfolio.

AIRASIA X will hike the frequency on its Kuala Lumpur-Tokyo Haneda route from three flights weekly to six weekly, effective March 23. The carrier will up the services to a daily starting June 22.

The frequency hike is part of AirAsia X’s realignment strategy, which will focus on increasing services to its core markets in Australasia, China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 13, 2012), the airline said in a statement.

AirAsia X CEO, Azran Osman-Rani, said: “The increase in flights to and from Tokyo is in response to the growing demand for the sector, which continues to see steady increase in passenger traffic and yields.”

The move to boost Japan services follows AirAsia X’s recent announcement of Sydney flights starting April 1 (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 30, 2012). The carrier also operates four-weekly to Osaka (Kansai).

MYANMAR’s Ministry of Hotels and Tourism intends to implement a star rating system for hotels in the country.

The rating system is designed to “improve and maintain the service at hotels” targeting mostly foreign visitors, according to a ministry spokesperson.

“As the number of (international) tourists visiting Myanmar is increasing, we need to offer better hotel facilities and services to guests,” the spokesperson explained.

So far, 13 three-star, seven two-star and one one-star hotel have been rated in Nay Pyi Taw; in addition to 11 three-star, seven two-star and four one-star hotels in Bagan-Nyaung U; and 10 three-star, eight two-star and 13 one-star hotels in Taunggyi-Inle.

“We will continue monitoring the services of these hotels and the star status may upgrade or degrade in the future due to their facilities and services,” the spokesperson said, adding that the ministry would soon be installing bronze star symbols at the properties based on their ratings.

Hotels in Yangon, Mandalay and other key destinations in Myanmar are also due to be rated.

Lwin Mar Aung, communications manager of Traders Hotel Yangon, welcomes the official star rating system.

“The (proposed) system is fair and accurate…and will end some problems among the hoteliers. Before, many hotels were rating their own properties as three- or four-star,” she said. “It will also help visitors when they choose a hotel.”

Ministry of Hotels and Tourism figures show Myanmar has 691 licensed hotels, offering more than 23,454 rooms.

Earlier this year, the ministry announced plans to increase the number of hotel zones in Myanmar (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 13, 2012). So far, 11 zones have been created in popular tourist regions, while over 50 hotels are expected to open across the country over the next two years.

AMADEUS has acquired Frankfurt-based Airconomy, an international strategy consultancy that supplies data on air passenger demand, a move that will see the latter developing new market intelligence products which Amadeus will market.

Amadeus’ acquisition comes on the heels of its partnership with Airconomy last year, which led to the joint introduction of Total Demand, a business intelligence tool which delivers detailed key performance indicators on passenger demand to help benchmark network strengths and weaknesses.

David Doctor, director distribution marketing, Amadeus, said: “Increasingly, companies are relying on hard data to make business decisions but in the travel industry, the proliferation of travel booking channels makes it ever more difficult to get a consolidated view of a seemingly simple question: how many people want to fly between A and B and how much will they spend? This is the question which Airconomy will help us answer.”

Based on advanced computational intelligence, sources for Airconomy’s calculations include low-cost carriers, airline direct online sales as well as the GDS distribution channel.

Airconomy will continue to run independently after the acquisition.