TRAVELPORT will roll out its latest product, Travelport Universal Desktop (TUD) in Asia in 2012.

Functioning as a GDS, TUD provides travel experts with a multitude of content options when searching for flights, including hotel and (where appropriate) rail offerings, with the aim of providing extra opportunities for earning revenue.

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily during a Travelport media event in Atlanta, Georgia last week, Travelport CMO Gillian Gibson said: “Asia, which is huge and growing, is our biggest focus for marketing and advertising campaigns for TUD this coming year.”

Travelport will kick-off in February its TUD promotional campaign in Asia, starting with an engagement activity in Vietnam for about 20 customers from different markets.

“This is to obtain feedback on what we have developed and (TUD’s) suitability for particular markets, including the need to adapt,” explained Gibson. “At the end of June, we will have a session for about 200 customers in Asia.”

An upcoming development will be the integration of Travelport Rooms and More into TUD by mid-2012. “Following this incorporation, travel experts will have access to information on 85,000 GDS-listed hotels as well as another 600,000 non-GDS listed hotels,” said Travelport CIO, Mark Ryan.

Launched in 2011, TUD has so far been introduced in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Reporting by N. Nithiyananthan

THE INTERNATIONAL Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE) has entered into a reciprocity agreement with the Shanghai Convention & Exhibition Industries Association (SCEIA).

The agreement is targeted at boosting cooperation on education and networking events, recognition of the respective professional designations offered, sharing of research, data, news and information, the creation of co-sponsored initiatives to facilitate member interaction, and providing opportunities for association leaders to participate in reciprocal events.

IAEE president Steven Hacker said: “The objective of the reciprocity agreement is to allow the members of each organisation to secure information and data from the partner organisation, to attend any events at preferred member rates, and to utilise the partner associations to help answer queries.”

“The first step will be for both organisations to exchange information about one other and our current programmes of work. This will enable us to determine what specific initiatives might be worthwhile to undertake on behalf of our respective memberships.”

SCEIA chairman Wu Cheng Lin said: “We are very excited about this agreement with IAEE and the opportunities that will now exist for our members. We look forward to working together to provide benefits to exhibitions and events industry professionals globally.”

Reporting by Patricia Wee

STARWOOD Hotels & Resorts Worldwide’s China portfolio will get a major boost when the Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central opens on September 15.

The hotel, the largest in Macau and Starwood’s largest globally, will add nearly 4,000 guestrooms and suites to Macau’s Cotai Strip.

Located in central Cotai with convenient access to shops, dining and entertainment facilities, the Sheraton Macao’s twin towers will feature seven restaurants and bars, including an all-day dining restaurant and outlets serving Pan-Asian and Italian cuisine.

The lobby will feature a dramatic four-storey atrium, complete with palm trees and a waterfall.

Facilities will include a Sheraton Club, a fitness centre, a spa, three outdoor swimming pools and over 5,000m2 of meeting and event space, including one of the largest ballrooms in Asia—able to cater for a sit-down dinner for up to 4,000 guests.

Josef Dolp, managing director Sheraton Macao told TTG Asia e-Daily: “Macau is poised to become a major contender as a MICE destination within Asia, and Sheraton Macao is prepared to meet the needs of all these travellers.”

Reporting by Deborah Cornfield

INTERCONTINENTAL Hotels Group (IHG) will launch the first-ever Crowne Plaza hotel in Central Java on January 22.

Owned by the Golden Flower Group and managed by IHG, the Crowne Plaza Semarang, located within the city’s central business district, will offer 270 keys – including one presidential, four junior and 20 executive suites.

Ian Reid, general manager, Crowne Plaza Semarang, said: “Being the first Crowne Plaza-branded hotel in Central Java – and the second in Indonesia following Jakarta – Crowne Plaza Semarang will add to the thriving tourism and economic activities in this part of the region.”

Facilities will include restaurants offering local and international cuisine, a business centre, a health club, an outdoor pool, and a sauna. The hotel will also feature the largest pillar-less hotel ballroom in Central Java, complete with a wedding chapel and gallery, and able to accommodate more than 2,000 pax.

“The opening of Crowne Plaza Semarang underscores IHG’s strong expansion in South-east Asia,” said Alan Watts, vice president of operations, South-east Asia at IHG.

Crowne Plaza Semarang will be IHG’s seventh property in Indonesia; two of which are under the Crowne Plaza brand. The group currently has a pipeline of 32 hotels and resorts under various brands across the region.

The first quarter of the year will see four other openings in South-east Asia – Holiday Inn Express Bangkok Siam, InterContinental Samui Baan Taling Ngam Resort, InterContinental Danang Resort, and Holiday Inn Bangkok Sukhumvit 22.

LA RESIDENCE Hotel and Spa in Hue, a member of Accor’s MGallery collection, has opened a new representative sales office in Ho Chi Minh City.

In addition, Nguyen The Tap has been appointed as assistant director of sales for the property, based in Ho Chi Minh City.

Nguyen, who currently performs a sales role for Emeraude Classic Cruises on Halong Bay, will join forces with La Residence’s director of sales, Dang Phuoc, to manage sales efforts for the five-star resort.

MYANMAR’s tourism stakeholders have expressed concern over the lack of hotel and transport capacity in the country, even as the government has revealed it is considering the implementation of tourist-friendly policies in the areas of hotel development, air access and visas (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 13, 2012).

Figures provided by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism show arrival numbers jumped more than 26 per cent in the first 11 months of 2011, following a record-breaking 2010. More than 343,000 tourists visited Myanmar between January 1 and November 30 last year, up from 271,547 during the same period in 2010.

A source from the Union of Myanmar Travel Association (UMTA) confirmed that the country was enjoying “solid increases” in tourist numbers, with all major hotels in Yangon and other key destinations being consistently booked out. An arrivals increase of at least 20-25 per cent is targeted for the 2011/2012 fiscal year, which ends in March.

While growth in 2011 was driven by inbound from Asia, a shift in clientele is expected next year, with more bookings from the US, Australia and the UK, which in the past mostly adhered to tourism boycott policies.

Daw May Myat Mon Win, assistant general manager for marketing and operations at Yangon’s Chatrium Hotel, said: “There will be a significant increase in leisure travellers from the UK, Scandinavia, the US and Australia from 2012 onwards.”

She said the number of business travellers would also increase with the opening up of the economy. Key leisure destinations such as Bagan, Inle and Ngapali would attract the high-end of the leisure market, while Yangon, as the key commercial hub, would see more of the corporate market.

“I feel the increase (in arrivals) will not be lower than 25 per cent,” she said. “That means the rates will definitely go up to cater for increased demand.”

JETSTAR will launch a new four-weekly Osaka-Singapore Airbus A320 service (via Manila) on March 25, which will add about 1,400 seats per week in and out of Japan.

The route expansion follows a doubling of capacity on Jetstar Asia’s Osaka-Taipei-Singapore route, and the recent announcement of a new Jetstar Airways Tokyo-Manila-Darwin service.

CEO of the Jetstar Group, Bruce Buchanan, said the extra capacity would give Japanese travellers more choice, as well as heighten potential for increased inbound numbers from Singapore and the Philippines.

“Since the start of this year, we’ve announced a total of more than 5,000 additional seats per week in-and-out of Japan,” he said.

Jetstar’s international network will link with a domestic platform when Jetstar Japan begins operations before year-end. The fledgling carrier recently submitted its Air Operators Certificate application to Japanese authorities.

THE VICTORIAN state capital, which is gearing up to host Amway India this December (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 10, 2011), is hungry for more Indian meetings and is devising “smarter” ways to get them.

One of these strategies is a new partnership the Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau (MCVB) is exploring to ink with nine-month-old Hyderabad Convention Visitors Bureau (HCVB) – a toddler in the game but the only regional CVB in India.

MCVB director-International Meetings, Edwina San, envisioned “cyber cities” such as Hyderabad and partners like HCVB as door-openers to a bigger database of India corporate planners. “They, in turn, are hungry to learn from us. There are also bid opportunities and sharing of association meeting leads,” she said.

The Amway India Leadership Seminar in December will also provide new learning points for MCVB. It will be the largest group, 4,400 pax, in one wave to descend on Melbourne, posing its own set of logistical and security challenges that the city is preparing to tackle head-on, said San.

Melbourne hosted a bigger, 7,500-pax Amway China in 2008, but that group came in four waves.

– Full report in TTGmice, February 2012 issue

MACAU’s inbound visitor numbers hit a new high in 2011, according to the country’s Statistics and Census Service department.

Arrivals during the period January–November 2011 increased by 12.2 per cent year-on-year to nearly 25.4 million, eclipsing the 24.9 million recorded for the whole of 2010.

Mainland Chinese visitors (14.6 million) accounted for more than half the total, a 22 per cent jump over the same period last year. Also on the rise were arrivals from Hong Kong (6.9 million) and South Korea (360,000), up by 1.9 per cent and 20.9 per cent respectively.

In contrast, visitors from Taiwan (1.1 million) and Japan (355,000) decreased by 4.8 per cent and 5.8 per cent, respectively.

The number of arrivals by land via the Border Gate with Zhuhai in Guangdong province registered an increase of 16.9 per cent to 13.9 million arrivals.

There was also a 10.7 per cent increase in arrivals through the Macao Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal to more than 6 million. However, arrivals through the Taipa Ferry terminal decreased by 0.9 per cent to 3.1 million.

About 1.5 million visitors arrived by air at Macau International Airport, an increase of three per cent over the same period in 2010.

Reporting by Deborah Cornfield