HAINAN Airlines has seemingly shelved its plans for expansion into South Asia, with the termination of flights to Kolkata, Mumbai and Colombo effectively wiping out its regional footprint.

The airline halted its thrice-weekly Shenzhen-Kolkata services (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 9) in view of dismal forward bookings, after having operated only four flights.

The carrier’s twice-weekly Shanghai-Shenzhen-Mumbai service was cancelled less than a month before the intended September 20 launch, while its four-weekly Beijing–Bangkok–Colombo services using a B737-800 aircraft, scheduled for launch on October 18, have also been dropped.

Hainan Airlines’ general manager Colombo, David Yang, was bullish about the Beijing–Bangkok–Colombo route when it was first announced in June this year, having been given full traffic rights to ferry passengers between Bangkok and Colombo.

Yang speculated at the time that the larger Airbus A330, A340 or B787 Dreamliner aircraft might be deployed to handle the influx of travellers, and was even planning to provide Chinese language training to Sri Lankan tour guides to boost traffic further.

Hainan Airlines also had expectations of strong bookings from Indian travellers headed to Hong Kong via its Shanghai-Shenzhen-Mumbai service.

However, the need to clear Chinese customs on arrival in Shenzhen, Hong Kong customs at the border, and thereafter arrange one’s own transportation to downtown Hong Kong, has proven to be a major stumbling block.

THAILAND will continue with its international tourism marketing activities despite the current flood crisis in the country, but the launch of its Miracle Thailand campaign (TTG Asia e-Daily, September 6) has been postponed from this month to December.

Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) governor Suraphon Svetasreni said the country would continue to be represented at ITB Asia in Singapore next week, China International Travel Mart in Kunming from October to 27 to 30, and World Travel Market in London from November 5 to 7.

According to Suraphon, Loy Krathong Festival activities in 10 key locations nationwide, scheduled for November 10, would continue as planned.

By Sirima Eamtako

THE WESTIN brand is returning to Singapore with a planned opening in 2013.

The Westin Singapore Marina Bay will occupy the 32nd to 46th floors of Asia Square Tower 2, featuring 305 rooms and the highest hotel lobby in the citystate.

Westin was in Singapore until 2002, in the form of The Westin Stamford and The Westin Plaza at the Raffles City complex, now Swissotel the Stamford and Fairmont Singapore respectively.

THAI Airways International (THAI) is adding new services to Brussels, Copenhagen and Seoul, and will ramp up frequencies on existing routes for its upcoming winter programme.

Besides launching thrice-weekly Bangkok-Brussels flights on November 17 (TTG Asia e-Daily, June 28), THAI will start Phuket-Seoul (Incheon) and Bangkok-Copenhagen-Phuket flights – both thrice-weekly – on October 30 and November 11, respectively.

The flag carrier will also be converting its Bangkok-Phuket-Perth route to thrice-weekly Phuket-Perth, and its Bangkok-Narita-Phuket-Bangkok route to daily Bangkok-Narita.

Meanwhile, THAI is planning to boost frequencies on popular routes for the upcoming winter season, which starts on October 30.

Its five-weekly Bangkok-Oslo flights will be hiked to daily services, while Bangkok-Moscow and Bangkok-Perth will each be bumped up from three-weekly to four-weekly.

In Asia, Bangkok-Singapore will be boosted from 28 to 35 flights per week; Bangkok-Osaka from 14 to 17 flights a week; Bangkok-Chengdu from four-weekly to five-weekly; and Bangkok-Mumbai from five to six flights per week.

Bangkok-Nagoya, Bangkok-Xiamen and Bangkok-Beijing services will each be increased from three to four flights a week.

SINGAPORE and Taiwan signed an open skies agreement in February this year (TTG Asia e-Daily, February 18) which will be rolled out progressively in four phases till 2018.

“Beyond 2018, all flights between the two countries that are intercontinental and beyond – fifth freedom rights – will be liberalised,” said a source at Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA).

Under the current first phase, nine flights frequencies per week are allowed for flights between Singapore and Taiwan’s Taipei or Kaohsiung. The second phase, effective 2013, will raise the allocation to 14-weekly. This will be followed by increases to 21-weekly in 2016, and unlimited flights after 2018.

The CAA source confirmed that only one additional carrier, TransAsia Airways, had begun new services between Taiwan and Singapore (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 5) since the open skies deal was struck.

By Glenn Smith

FINNAIR is hoping to tap Indonesia’s growing outbound market through the appointment of AVS Indonesia as its GSA in the country.

Finnair sales director for Singapore and Southeast Asia, Petteri Kostermaa, said the timing was right for the flag carrier to promote travel from Indonesia to European destinations.

“We are interested in exploring the Indonesia market. With the country’s robust growth, more and more Indonesians are travelling to Europe for business and pleasure,” he said.

“Setting up a sales office is the first step in a process that may lead to Finnair opening a route to Indonesia.”

The airline is partnering Singapore Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, SilkAir and Value Air to connect passengers from Jakarta, Denpasar, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar and Palembang to Europe, via daily Singapore-Helsinki direct services launched in May (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 4).

“We are now looking at the market potential from Indonesia to Europe,” Kostermaa said. “Depending on the size of the market, we are targeting between two and six per cent (market share), comprising of leisure, corporate and MICE market segments.”

FOUR industry veterans have come together to launch what they say is the first “low-cost marketing” alliance for hotels, saying they could offer what current hotel marketing organisations do for a fraction of the cost.

Alwin Zecha, founder of Pacific Leisure Group Thailand, is chairman of Ideal. Its three directors are David Paulon, former head of Holiday Inn Asia/Pacific; Terry Francis, chairman of PATA Foundation and travel and tourism consultant; and Sanjeet, owner, Durga Das Publications India.

Zecha told TTG Asia e-Daily there was a gap in representing independent, mid-range hotels as the crop of umbrella marketing bodies largely looked at the upmarket segment and “charge an arm and leg” for their representation.

Ideal charges an annual fee of US$3,000 per property, which Zecha said was an “all-inclusive” fee to market the hotel via the website, newsletter and at key trade shows.

“The other representation companies charge a much higher fee to join and, on top of that, everything else is an extra cost,” he added.

The latest member to join Ideal is Gallery Hotel in Singapore.

– Full report in TTG Asia, October 14 issue

CHAN Brothers Travel signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chengdu Culture and Tourism Development Group yesterday, for the purpose of ‘promoting exchange and strengthening strategic cooperation in the development of tourism through destination marketing’.

The two-year MOU, which will cover joint product development, funding of cooperative marketing efforts in the Singapore market and collaboration on major promotional campaigns, is expected to be made more definitive within the next few months.

Chan Brothers sent a record 10,000 travellers to Chengdu last year, with inventory boosted by the chartering of four flights.

“This strategic collaboration provides an excellent fit for our strategy of developing China products suited not just for regular senior travellers to China, but also new-age travellers and PMEBs,” said Chan Guat Cheng, executive director of Chan Brothers Travel.

“We have a strong portfolio of Sichuan travel programmes and will continue to diversify our product range to suit varied palates, and in doing so, achieve a minimal 30 percent year-on-year growth in volume of outbound Singaporean travellers to Chengdu.”

Chan Brothers recently launched the 8/10 days Jiuzhai Valley Picturesque Tour under the Chan’s Premier Edition series, featuring accommodation at five-star hotels throughout, luxurious intra-province travel by domestic flights, and tour highlights, among others.

THE INDONESIA Ticketing Agents Association (ASTINDO) and non-IATA domestic airlines are seeking a better payment system to address cases of airline default.

The move is in response to agents losing deposits when airlines go bankrupt, like in the case of Adam Air in 2008 and Mandala Airlines earlier this year.

ASTINDO chairman, Elly Hutabarat, said: “We are currently working on using credit card deposit payment instead of cash deposit, which is actually an option suggested by an airline company. This way, it will not disrupt agent’s cash flow, while airlines get payment directly from the credit card company as soon as the sales are made. Agents will bear the merchant fee.

“There are still a couple of loopholes we need to fill, like what happens if the airline stops operations after tickets have been issued and paid. We will probably need insurance to cover this.”

Another proposed solution is the use of an escrow account at an appointed bank, agreed upon by both airlines and agents for the agency deposits, so that agents could get their money back in case of airline default.

Elly is expecting that both options would be implemented, giving agents and airlines a choice on what would work better for them.

KOSMOPOLITO Hotels International (KHI), a developer, owner and operator of 24 hotels in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and China, has appointed Winnie Chiu Wing Kwan as its president, effective November 1.

Currently serving as KHI’s executive director, Chiu will replace Bill Mok, who will become a non-executive director of the company.

KHI chairman, David Chiu, said: “Winnie has been an executive director of KHI since June 2010 and currently is the chief strategy officer. She is instrumental in (leading the) corporate development and branding strategy of the group.”

Set up in 2007 and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last year, KHI has 24 hotels under its portfolio, of which seven are under development. Their brands range from the Dorsett Regency to Cosmo and Silka.

By N. Nithiyananthan