THE TRAVEL Corporation will absorb the cost of a hotel tax recently started in Florence, as well as a soon-to-be-introduced hotel tax in Venice.

All travellers who have confirmed or are planning to book a holiday, including a Florence or Venice hotel stay this year with Trafalgar, Insight Vacations or Contiki Holidays, will be exempted from paying the levy.

This is an extension of the group’s pledge to absorb the cost of a similar hotel tax introduced in Rome at the start of the year.

The tax, which will commence in Venice from August 23, is charged at the rate of between one and five euros (US$1.4 to US$7) per person per night, depending on the hotel star rating.

JETSTAR is making further inroads into the Chinese market with the launch of a daily Singapore–Beijing service starting November 24.

Using an Airbus A330-200 aircraft with a two-class seating configuration, the Singapore–Beijing flights, codeshared with Qantas Airways, will be an extension of Jetstar’s Melbourne-Singapore service.

The move comes on the back of a new thrice-weekly Singapore-Ningbo service starting September 9 (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 11).

Jetstar CEO, Bruce Buchanan, said: “Beijing represents a critical step in the growth of our brand in China, and the continued rollout of our Pan Asian strategy.”

The new flights will offer Australia-based travellers a one-stop service to Beijing, Jetstar’s sixth destination in China after Guilin, Haikou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shantou.

THE SIX-day visa-free Pearl River Delta access usually afforded to travellers from Hong Kong will be suspended from July 15 till the end of August, a move that is expected to dampen South-east Asian arrivals to Guangdong province.

The temporary halt is due to the 2011 Summer Universiade competition, scheduled to be held in Shenzhen from August 12 to 23.

Foreign travellers are usually allowed to visit Guangdong, via Hong Kong, for a maximum of 144 hours (six days), via entry ports in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Zhaoqing, Huizhou and Shantou.

Hong Kong-based W Travel, which specialises in South-east Asia inbound traffic, often includes Shenzhen as part of a multi-destination itinerary. General manager, Wing Wong, said: “July and August is the peak season for Indonesia and Malaysia markets. This decision will result in a 15 to 20 per cent drop in group traffic.

“Moreover, it means our overseas partners will need a longer lead time, as last-minute bookings cannot be entertained,” he added.

Century Holiday International Travel Service has operations in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. General manager of its Guangzhou branch, Creamy Chen, is anticipating a 50 per cent drop in traffic due to the visa-free access hiatus.

“The visa-free access enables a six-day stay in Guangdong, and therefore draws a lot of traffic via Hong Kong and Macau,” he explained. “It costs Indonesians US$60 to obtain a visa. In fact, there are a lot of Malaysians and Indonesians traveling during this period.”

OAKWOOD Residence Garden Towers Bangna Bangkok has revamped its accommodation offerings and price structure to attract short-term stays.

The property’s general manager, Trevor MacDonald, said the property’s 66 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments had been transformed into 117 studio and one-bedroom units. The property is still equipped with serviced residence amenities.

He added: “As we have noticed a larger-than-expected demand from our short-stay clients, we have adjusted our studio rates to range from 2,700 baht (US$88) per night, which is comparable to that of many hotels in Bangkok.”

The original rates ranged from 3,800 baht a night for a studio deluxe apartment, to 110,000 baht a night for a three-bedroom unit.

The property is also looking to partner with travel agents, tour operators, airlines and OTAs to promote its packages and value-added offerings for short-stay guests, especially transit passengers and aircrew.

TRAVEL search technology’s new kid on the block, Everbread, is making its presence felt across the globe with Haystack, its B2B proprietary fares and flights search offering.

According to Morten Lund, Everbread CEO, Haystack was developed by 50 scientists using complex algorithms, and is able to provide the lowest-priced flight tickets and the most convenient itineraries.

Ten clients have signed partnerships with the company since its June 2009 debut. These include notable OTAs and meta-search engines such as Cheapflights.com and Jetabroad, whose websites are now powered by Haystack technology.

In addition, around 100 different clients worldwide have signed up so far to try out the company’s Haystack Application Programming Interface (API).

Lund said some of the smaller companies testing the API were using it to build media-driven websites to sell travel-related products.

“Haystack is unlike any other B2B solution or tool. Companies will therefore take some time to integrate our software into their systems,” he said. “We are giving airlines and travel companies a chance to redefine their business model.”

Lund said that the opportunities for airlines were particularly attractive. “Haystack endows airlines with the ability to carry out ‘virtual interlining’, enabling carriers to offer destinations outside their network,” he explained.

A TOUR group scheduled to travel to Shanghai over the weekend failed to board their flight, after their tour representative failed to show up at the airport, and also neglected to respond to their phone calls for about two hours.

The third-party representative of Sino-America (SA) Tours was supposed to receive the group at the airport, as well as provide information about their hotel and trip arrangements prior to departure.

An SA Tours spokesperson admitted that the representative had fallen asleep, and that his mobile phone had been switched off.

According to a report on ChannelNewsAsia.com, one of the ten tourists, Charlotte Lee, said the main reason for them not boarding the flight was the uncertainty over travel arrangements.

The group subsequently made their way to SA Tours’ office at People’s Park Complex, and decided to make a stand by barricading the entrance with their luggage.

SA Tours offered the group an alternative flight later in the day, but this was turned down.

After a four-hour standoff, SA Tours eventually called in the police, who managed to get the group to leave.

The tourists have now filed a complaint with the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), and are seeking a full refund of S$499 each, excluding taxes.

According to CASE, SA Tours was the subject of eight complaints two years ago, as well as one last year. The complaint from the Shanghai-bound group is its first this year.

BEST Western International has recently opened the Best Western Marina Island Resort Pangkor.

Built at a cost of 45 million ringgit (US$14.8 million), the property is situated on Marina Island Pangkor – a man-made island in the northern state of Perak.

The resort features 170 hotel apartments, a restaurant serving local and international cuisine, a bar, a conference hall and meeting rooms, a waterfront shopping complex, an international cruise liner jetty, a yacht club and a marine sports club.

A bridge connects Marina Island Pangkor to the mainland, and a five-minute boat ride provides access to nearby Pangkor Island.

THAILAND-based Creative Destination Management (CDM) is expecting a 25 per cent growth in business in the first year of operations after joining, from July 1, the Brussels-based DMC consortium, euromic, as its new world affiliate in South-east Asia.

The Thai DMC’s managing director, Sumate Sudasna, said the 25 per cent business growth for the company would be on top of the anticipated rebound in business events into Thailand, barring any post-election political turmoil.

Sumate said being a euromic world affiliate would give the company networking opportunities and access to euromic’s worldwide marketing programme, albeit at a substantial annual fee.

He said CDM would leverage on euromic’s wealth of information and business partnerships with events planners, to pursue sales and marketing activities in a bid to attract business into Thailand and neighbouring South-east Asian countries.

Euromic, founded in 1973, now boasts 29 DMC members in Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as eight world affiliates, including CDM.

By Sirima Eamtako

MORE Malaysians are vacationing in Bali, with 52,507 arrivals in the first quarter of 2011, compared to 39,435 in 2010, a year-on-year increase of 33 per cent.

According to Antara News, some 156,865 Malaysians visited the island last year, an increase of 16 per cent over 2009. The number of visitors to Bali from Malaysia now ranks fourth after Australia, China and Japan.

Bali Central Statistics Agency head, Gede Suarsa, said the majority of Malaysians entered Bali on direct flights via Ngurah Rai Airport. Gede added that Malaysian tourists primarily came to the island to enjoy its culture and natural attractions.

Overall, foreign arrivals to Bali in the first quarter of 2011 reached 848,899, up 13.37 per cent compared to the same period last year.

An increase in arrivals was recorded from six other key source markets. Arrivals from Australia were up 34.92 per cent to 210,903; China rose 0.19 per cent to 71,186; the United Kingdom increased 46.98 per cent to 32,128; Russia increased 26.74 per cent to 31,646; Singaporean arrvials were up 42.99 per cent to 30,455; and visitors from France grew 15.15 per cent to 28,897.

Markets that showed a decrease were Japan, which declined by 21.81 per cent to 44,085 visitors; Taiwan, which registered a dip of 10.51 per cent to 39,451; and South Korea, down 1.35 per cent to 37,277.

Bali has set an arrivals target of 2.6 to 2.8 million visitors for 2011.

By Ellen Chen

AUSTRALIA’S aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), initiated over the weekend a review of maintenance practices at Jetstar Airways, the budget subsidiary of national carrier Qantas.

This comes just a week after the CASA took unprecedented action to ground its rival, Tiger Airways Australia, for safety violations (TTG Asia e-daily, July 7).

Jetstar reported last Thursday that it temporarily took four A320 aircraft out of commission for overdue maintenance, and consequently, two return flights had to be cancelled. According to a Jetstar spokesperson, the planes were grounded after crews discovered a prior mix up in their maintenance schedules.

The four planes were serviced overnight and returned to operation the following day, with Jetstar reassuring passengers that there was “no risk to the safety of the aircraft”.

While a spokesperson for CASA confirmed it does not believe there were any serious safety issues with regards to the maintenance oversight, he said that CASA’s review of Jetstar was ongoing, and that they would be “looking carefully at the low-cost carrier’s actions, and checking to ensure Jetstar’s maintenance systems are robust and operating correctly”.