EXPEDIA has launched its Travel Agent Affiliate Program (TAAP) in Malaysia, and is offering a 300 ringgit (US$96) bonus on top of commissions for the first 3,000 ringgit worth of bookings for new partners.

Travel experts who sign up with TAAP will gain access to Expedia’s global inventory of 145,000 hotels, be able to check availability of hotel rooms, activities and flights, and make bookings in real time.

Commission levels for TAAP are up to 10 per cent on hotels and activities, and 1.5 per cent on flights when booked as part of a package.

“Our Travel Agent Affiliate Program has been extremely successful in Europe, America, and Asia-Pacific, and we are very excited to bring it to the travel agent community in Malaysia,” said Charee Guico, travel agent distribution manager Southeast Asia, Expedia.

“We recognize that offline agents are a critical part of the travel landscape, and TAAP provides the perfect way for Expedia to work with this community,” she added.

TAAP was first launched in Italy in 2002 and has since expanded to the rest of Europe, America and Asia-Pacific. In South-east Asia, TAAP was introduced in Singapore in June (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 8), and currently has 3,000 partners in Asia-Pacific.

For more information, visit access.expedia.com.my or call (603) 2715-5015.

A VISITBRITAIN entourage consisting of 32 UK-based organisations and 75 travel experts embarked last week on a series of B2B appointments in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The representatives were drawn together to share the latest updates and product offerings from the UK, with the aim of capturing business from China’s growing middle class.

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily, VisitBritain strategy & communications director, Patricia Yates, said: “What makes this mission different is more retail organizations are taking part, such as department stores Selfridges, Harrods, Westfield London and Bicester Village.

“It’s because the domestic (UK) market has softened for shopping that they are targeting the Chinese market who are traditionally high spenders.”

According to Yates, the Chinese market to the UK has matured quickly and is moving towards exploring outside of London.

“When courting the China market, the travel trade is vital,” she added. “We therefore work closely with them through things such as the incentive scheme with British Airways, which is set to launch next year. For FITs, we link up with the English Premier (football) League to tour Chinese within Britain.”

Statistics provided by VisitBritain indicate strong growth in mainland Chinese traffic to the UK—109,000 visitors in 2010, a 23 per cent hike over 2009. During the first nine months of 2011, the numbers jumped by a further 23 per cent.

Yates is anticipating even more Chinese visitors in 2012, with a whole year of celebrations highlighted by the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“It’s a good time to see real buzz in London,” she said. “Moreover, weak currency (the pound compared to the Chinese yuan) benefits tourism and I am surprised it has taken so long to get the message across to the Chinese market.”

She added: “We also have a British Airways and VisitBritian joint promotion campaign launched in October, with special fare promotions in Hong Kong and China in phase one, and more trade promotions to be launched early next year.”

QANTAS CEO Alan Joyce has sought to address the uncertainty surrounding the carrier’s efforts to set up a full service Asian airline (TTG Asia e-Daily, November 28).

Recent media reports had suggested that Qantas’ plans to establish a premium carrier in Asia would be put on hold, as the Eurozone debt crisis affecting the global economy shows no sign of waning.

Joyce insisted it was vital for the Australian flag carrier to stick to its game plan and move quickly to set up the new subsidiary, possibly named RedQ, targeted at executives travelling in Asia.

”Nothing has changed about our preparedness to turn around our international business,” he was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald as saying.

”If anything, it means we have to accelerate and keep on going with our plans to turn it around, because the high fuel prices and the economic conditions mean that the turnaround plan is critical.”

Meanwhile, airline alliances will reportedly play a key role in Qantas’ Asian expansion strategy.

According to a report in Australia’s The Age, Qantas has held “productive” discussions with future oneworld alliance member Malaysia Airlines about its plan to set up the new carrier, which would potentially be based out of Kuala Lumpur as opposed to Singapore.

QATAR Airways is contemplating deploying the larger Airbus A330 or Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on its Doha-Kolkata-Doha service, less than four months after the launch of Airbus A320 flights to the eastern Indian metropolis.

The flag carrier has been encouraged by the consistently high demand on the route despite the global economic slowdown, with the load factor on the daily flight averaging above 90 per cent.

“Qatar Airways is now confident to increase capacity”, said Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker. “We are very careful when launching new sectors and do not believe in de-stabilising the market by flooding supply or cutting prices.”

Anil Punjabi, chairman-east, Travel Agents Federation of India, said: “Qatar Airways is offering the shortest connection to European destinations and this is creating increasing demand with frequent fliers”.

K. Goswami, manager tours of Kolkata-based Travelcorp, said: “Easy connections to growing outbound destinations like Spain, Italy and Canada make it easy for us to offer these routes to our leisure clients.”

PULLMAN Bangkok King Power has spent about US$900,000 on transforming an entire guestroom floor into meeting space to serve the increasing demand for small- to medium-sized venues.

Replacing the 20 guestrooms on the property’s sixth floor is a new 800m2 site, which comprises five meeting rooms that can each cater for about 50-70 guests, as well as lobby areas for coffee breaks.

The hotel’s general manager, Marc Bagassat, said the addition of the new meeting space provides some welcome respite from the floods in Thailand, which severely affected the local hotel industry last month.

“We went ahead with the investment (despite the floods), as in business, if you wait until things settle down, you would not be able to move on,” he said.

The new meeting space is scheduled to welcome next week its inaugural customer: a 12-pax residential meeting which runs over two days.

According to Bagassat, the venue is expected to run at about 30 to 40 per cent occupancy in its first year of operations, and will be priced about 15 per cent higher than the nine existing meeting spaces on the hotel’s lower levels.

Meanwhile, in a bid to stimulate bookings, the hotel is offering a 10+1 package on both meeting spaces and guestrooms from now till March 31 next year.

By Sirima Eamtako

JAPANESE hospitality group Fujita Kanko Inc. has set its sights on growing its MICE business. The company’s function space has so far largely been devoted to smaller events and the local weddings market.

Sales manager of Fujita Kanko’s newly-established convention sales division, Foo Ming Sheng, said the firm was now focusing on MICE as a new market, and had identified four products capable of hosting large groups.

The products are: Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Chinzan-so, Hakone Hotel Kowakien, Chinzan-so and Taiko-en, the latter two comprising restaurants and meeting facilities in lush garden settings. Chizan-so’s largest banquet room, Orion, for instance, can accommodate up to 2,000 people.

“Chinzan-so is actually famous for bridals. We have around 2,000 couples getting married yearly in its three chapels and two Japanese shrines. But the population in Japan is shrinking, so the market for bridals is shrinking as well,” he said.

Foo explained that while Fujita Kanko’s venues were popular with smaller meetings and incentive groups, the group was “not yet strong in exhibitions and conferences”. A big convention due to be held in March this year had also been cancelled because of the earthquake.

“We’re still working on our strategy, but currently, we’re collaborating with bureaus like TCVB (Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau) to pull in more international conventions. We’re also promoting MICE when we participate in travel marts,” he said.

“Our theme is MICE in Green. Green as in gardens, and green as in environment-friendly. For example, we’ve started changing to LED lighting, even in Washington Hotels (the business hotel chain operated by the group).”

SOME S$32 million (US$24.9 million) has been invested in an extreme makeover for Singapore Marriott Hotel, which is said to be the largest-ever refurbishment in the property’s 16-year history.

The hotel’s general manager, Antony Page, said the makeover would see all 372 guestrooms being “stripped bare” and rebuilt, Crossroads Cafe and Marriot Cafe being refreshed, the addition of a new F&B outlet, and the lobby being transformed into an open space, complete with a more prominently positioned front desk.

Phase one, which comprises the lobby’s remodelling, has been concluded, while phase two, which includes a major overhaul of Marriott Cafe, Crossroads Cafe and all guestrooms, is now underway and scheduled for completion by April next year.

Phase three will involve technology upgrades and some cosmetic enhancements of the hotel’s meeting facilities. Improvement works on the ballroom will be completed by 2013.

Page said the makeover was necessary to maintain the hotel’s competitiveness in Singapore.

“Singapore Marriott Hotel is the crown jewel of Tang Holdings and its owners are committed to maintaining its competitive edge. To cater to increased traffic and ensure five-star standards of service, it was deemed the right time to conduct a major overhaul of the property,” he explained.

When asked if room rates would be adjusted upwards as a consequence of the upgraded hardware, Page said the hotel would “remain competitively priced”.

“We welcomed more than 170,000 guests last year, and even though we do not see such figures this year due to reduced room inventory during the refurbishment, we did see a 12 per cent increase in group business,” he added.

INDIA’s tourism minister Subodh Kant Sahai revealed last week that an outlay of 10 billion rupees (US$200 million) would be allocated for building 20 tourism parks across the country.

Envisaged along the lines of Singapore’s Sentosa island and Cancun in Mexico, each tourism park, built on 50 acres (20 hectares) of land, would comprise of entertainment and sports facilities, F&B outlets, hotels, restaurants and venues for cultural festivals.

The parks are expected to be joint partnerships between private investors and the government, whose role will be to facilitate connectivity and infrastructure.

An initial investment of US$10 million per park will be allocated by the central government, with the rest of the startup funding sourced from the respective state governments and private sector partners.

“Indian tourism is looking bullish”, said Vijay Thakur, president, Indian Association of Tour Operators. “In order to attract more foreign tourists, we need to evolve, constantly upgrade existing facilities, offer new products and develop infrastructure.”

INDONESIA’s Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Mari Elka Pangestu, is optimistic that the country will achieve its target of 7.7 million overseas arrivals this year, despite the economic turmoil in Europe and the US.

Pangestu was quoted by Antara News during a recent visit to the Benoa Marina project as saying that some promotional efforts would be diverted to more promising source markets.

“We are putting more focus on countries with positive economic growth, and offering interesting products such as cruising,” she said.

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily on a separate occasion, Pangestu said ASEAN member countries, China and India were some of the markets that Indonesia could still rely on for growth.

“We should not forget to also focus on the domestic market, encouraging Indonesians to visit other provinces in the county,” she added.

Meanwhile, Pangetsu’s office has set aside an annual budget of between two (US$220,000) to four billion rupiah to promote the country’s cruise potential. Current marketing efforts include participating at overseas shows such as The Diving Equipment & Marketing Association show in Miami.

SHERATON Hangzhou Wetland Park Resort, which opened last month in Xixi National Wetland Park (TTG Asia e-Daily, November 25), is gearing itself for MICE business.

MICE faclities at the 380-key property include an independent 1,946m2 conference centre, nine meeting rooms, a pillarless ballroom for a 600-pax banquet, and an outdoor pre-function area for 1,000 pax.

The hotel is located within Westbrook Resort, an integrated complex which features various restaurants and bars, more than 160 retail and commercial outlets, a theatre and a museum, as well as five other hotels including Banyan Tree Hangzhou.

General manager Colin Vickers said: “We are the only resort in Hangzhou featuring a large outdoor venue, which is the perfect place for a pre-event cocktail.”

“With our outdoor venues, the guest experience combines well with the extension of the Xixi Wetlands right up to the hotel itself. The option of having a tranquil location after a busy day aids our guests’ overall relaxation.”

According to Vickers, global and local companies have already booked meeting space at the hotel, and business is looking strong from December through the first quarter of 2012.

Meanwhile, Sheraton Hangzhou Wetland Park Resort is offering introductory rates valid till February 29, 2012. Full-day meeting packages start from RMB550 (US$86.5) per person and half-day packages start from RMB450 per person. Accommodation rates start from RMB1,000 per room per night.

By Patricia Wee