EGYPT Air yesterday re-commenced operations to Kuala Lumpur after a six-month hiatus, offering a daily service between Cairo and the Malaysian capital via Bangkok.

Bashir Ahmad, managing director, Malaysia Airports, said: “Egypt Air’s return to Kuala Lumpur International Airport will further multiply the connectivity at KLIA, particularly to Middle East countries.”

Egypt Air’s return takes the number of Middle Eastern carriers serving KLIA to 12. The others are Emirates, Etihad Airways, Gulf Air, Iran Air, Kuwait Airways, Mahan Air, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Yemenia Yemen Airways.

Malaysia-based Asian Overland Services Travel & Tours director of sales, Andy Muniandy, said Egypt Air’s return would boost Middle East outbound numbers to Malaysia.

“We receive a lot of tour and incentive groups from Egypt,” he said. “With Malaysia Airlines pulling out from Cairo and then Egypt Air, it had become expensive to travel to Malaysia. With the return of Egypt Air, the numbers will definitely pick up.”

However, Muniandy does not foresee the rally to be an immediate one. “It depends on the political and economic situation in Egypt, and how fast it improves,” he said.

The routing of the flight through Bangkok was not an issue. “As it will only be in transit, passengers will not have to pay extra,” he said.

By N. Nithiyananthan

THAI AirAsia will increase the frequency of its four most popular domestic routes in Thailand, starting October.

The carrier will increase the frequency of its Bangkok-Phuket services from seven to nine-daily, its Bangkok-Krabi flights from twice to four-daily, its Bangkok-Hat Yai flights from four to six-daily, and its Bangkok-Udon Thani route from twice to thrice-daily.

Thai AirAsia CEO, Tassapon Bijleveld, said the four routes served as important connecting links for both locals and tourists.

THE FIRST regional travel agent conference will field hard-hitting topics such as ‘Can you handle the truth?’, ‘Can you handle online?’ and the satirical, ‘How to lose clients and win complaints’.

Aside a critical examination of what travel agents must do to remain relevant, it will be packed with practical How-Tos, in line with its aim of ensuring agents walk away with real learning points. These topics include ‘How to retail travel today’, ‘How to buy travel today’, ‘How to achieve customer service excellence’ and ‘How to customise travel’.

Speakers as of August 4 include keynoter Hans Lerch, CEO of Hotelplan Switzerland, who will paint a macro picture of the future of the travel agency business; Martin Symes, CEO of WEGO, who will guide agents on how they can make money from online; Hui-Wan Chua, senior regional director Asia, Travelport, who will show agents how to be effective in travel retailing; and Charee Guico, manager Travel Agent Distribution, South-east Asia, Expedia, who will explain how agents can buy travel more effectively in today\’s world of multi-channels.

Arthur Kiong, managing director hotel operations Asia-Pacific, and senior vice president group marketing services, Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, will show how customers are changing and the key areas agents need to reboot in order to service the more sophisticated, demanding and empowered clients of today.

Sheldon Hee, general manager, Tradewinds Tours & Travel Singapore, will look at conduct, ethics and professionalism, an essential component in customer relationship management. Yet another session will give agents insights into how new dream merchants, such as John Sutherland, CEO Dreamscape Journeys, who sells space travel, get their ideas for unique travel experiences and how they get the clients to buy these ideas.

Registration for the free conference will open on August 19 on a first-come-first-served basis to TTG Asia readers and ITB Asia delegates (travel agents get first priority). To register, please visit www.ttgasia.com and click on the button at the top of the page (Register: TTG Asia Travel Agent Conference), which will be up from August 19.

TTG Travel Agent Conference, a collaboration between TTG Asia Media and ITB Asia, will be held on October 21, 2011, from 9am-12pm, at Suntec Singapore Ballroom 1.

Make this your most productive three hours in October. Start registering on August 19.

PATA’S move to restructure and employ a better business model by end-2011 has seen John Koldowski, current head, Office of Strategy Management, move into a new out-sourced relationship with the organisation.

Besides Koldowski’s move, which he said would allow him to concentrate on bringing better information and business intelligence to the PATA membership, other changes to be implemented in the research area include fast tracking the introduction of PATA’s Travel Intelligence Graphic Architecture system, and creating a virtual worldwide research team from various business disciplines.

Bill Calderwood, PATA interim CEO, said the restructuring would involve increasing “outsourcing of some support services, and redeployment of resources to those areas where the organisation would increasingly concentrate its efforts to service members”.

He added that over the coming months this transition in the PATA business model would see changes to its overseas representation in Europe and North America.

“There will be a move to utilise external partners on an as-needs project basis, as well as increased focus and support for these regions by the head office team strengthened by recent appointments in the membership department,” he explained.

Overall, three internal positions will be abolished, and five PATA head office staff redeployed internally to add resources to membership services.

THE SRI Lankan government last week approved an ambitious tourism revamp including a new strategy, logo and tagline.

The new strategy revolves around a seven-point master plan that includes increasing overseas arrivals, attracting foreign investment for new hotels and resorts, and focusing on untapped markets like the Middle East, China and Russia.

Sri Lanka Tourism (SLT) chairman, Nalaka Godahewa, said the plan aims to more than triple current annual arrivals of over 700,000 by 2016 (TTG Asia e-Daily, May 31).

The new tourism logo and tagline, Refreshingly Sri Lanka: Wonder of Asia, will henceforth be used in all promotional material, replacing Sri Lanka Small Miracle, which was launched in June 2009 but discontinued a short while after.

Jetwing Hotels chairman, Hiran Cooray, said the new logo and tagline were uncomplicated and could be adapted to signify other Sri Lankan industries like garment, tea, rubber, gems and spice production. “The logo and tagline could be perceived for all stakeholders,” he said.

Meanwhile, Godahewa said SLT was in discussions with SriLankan Airlines, as well as the country’s Tea Board and Export Development Board, to jointly launch a promotional campaign combining all or part of their budgets, and using Sri Lankan foreign missions abroad.

PATA is anticipating that Indian and Chinese buyers will create a large amount of business at the upcoming PATA Travel Mart (PTM) in New Delhi.

Thirty Indian buyer organisations will be present, while China will send 40 travel buyers, including 20 from the independent China Travel Service, the biggest wholesale tour operator in China. The largest number of buyers at PTM will still be from the European market.

Of the 77 seller organisations from India, 31 will be first-time exhibitors.

Ten Indian states will be present at PTM, as well as nine Chinese representatives from Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hainan, Hebei, Henan, Kunming, Nanjing, Qinghai and Shenzhen. The China National Tourism Administration will also be attending.

PATA statistics show that the Indian and Chinese outbound markets are growing at around 12 per cent per year.

BANGKOK Airways is on course to achieving its 2011 target of 3.1 million passengers and 10.6 billion baht (US$356 million) in revenue.

The figures would represent a 17 per cent and 29 per cent increase, respectively over last year’s 2.6 million passengers and 8.3 billion baht in revenue.

Bangkok Airways president, Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth, said the airline operated at a load factor of 68.4 per cent in the first half of 2011, carrying 1.5 million passengers and earning 5.2 billion baht in revenue.

He added that the airline was expecting to run at an average load factor of 67.8 per cent for 2011.

So far, the airline’s most popular destinations this year have been Koh Samui, Phuket and Chiang Mai. The popular multi-daily Bangkok-Samui service has been running at a cabin factor of 80 per cent year-to-date. The six-daily Bangkok-Phuket service has been operating at a cabin factor of 80 per cent, and the five-daily Bangkok-Chiang Mai flights, at 70 per cent.

The carrier’s six-weekly Bangkok-Mumbai service, launched in March, has been operating at 70 per cent cabin factor, while its five-weekly Bangkok-Bangalore flights starting September 26 are expected to run at 60 per cent load factor (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 28).

Meanwhile, the airline yesterday kicked off a 50-million-baht My Love, My Traveller media campaign to boost the number of its Thai passengers by 17 per cent over last year’s 530,000, which would alter the Thai versus foreign passenger ratio from 20:80 to 30:70.

By Sirima Eamtako

THE INDONESIAN Ministry of Culture and Tourism is planning to lure the Singapore student market to secondary destinations such as Bandung and Jogjakarta.

Chrismiastuti, the ministry’s deputy director of promotion ASEAN region, said: “The Singapore market is quite different from the other markets to Jogjakarta and Bandung (such as Malaysia and Thailand, which are interested in factory outlet shopping and culinary tours).”

“We need to tap a different market segment and students have potential.”

According to Chrismiastuti, Bandung and its surrounding areas in West Java offer a number of locations suitable for teambuilding, such as along Citarik River, while tourism villages are the highlight in Jogjakarta.

“We will invite (Singapore) school teachers who are in charge of such programmes on familiarisation trips (to Bandung and Jogjakarta),” she said.

She added that the ministry would seek help from agents who conduct student tours to plan the relevant marketing and promotional initiatives.

Batavia Air recently launched thrice-weekly Bandung-Singapore flights, and agents in Bandung have been talking about SilkAir’s plan to launch a similar service in September.

At the moment, AirAsia connects Singapore with Bandung and Jogjakarta.

GENERAL Hotel Management (GHM), which saw its Malaysia portfolio wiped out – Seri Carcosa Negara and The Club at Saujana Resort in Kuala Lumpur are also now managed by Archipelago Hotels & Resorts (see story Datai: ‘business as usual’) – is charging ahead with new projects in Malaysia.

GHM president and CEO, Hans Jenni, said these include The Chedi Club & Residences, Kuala Lumpur (opening in 2014) – a 200-acre development comprising luxury residences, a hotel and a sports centre – as well as a project in Johor Bahru and another in Sabah.

The group is also going into Europe, India and China for the first time.

“The Chedi Andermatt (2013) will be unlike anything Switzerland has ever seen or experienced before; The Chedi Qutub in New Delhi (2014), with its location within a UNESCO World Heritage Site, will be quite the original; and The Chedi Suzhou in China (2012) will represent our very first truly urban hotel,” he said.

The pipeline also includes Chedis in Amman, Jordan (2013), Tamouda Bay, Morocco (2013), Thracian Cliffs, Cape Kaliakra, Bulgaria (2014) and Taiping Lake, Anhui, China (2014).

In the latest development, Jenni revealed that an MoU for the development of two hotels in Cuba had been signed.

– Read more in TTG Asia, August 5 issue