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

AN EARLIER-than-expected takeover of the management of The Datai, Langkawi has caught the resort’s staff by surprise. Overseas tour operators contacted by TTG Asia e-Daily are also in the dark as to whom the new management company, Archipelago Hotels & Resorts, is and whether the resort’s quality and style will remain consistent.

The Datai was managed over the past 17 years by Singapore-based General Hotel Management (GHM), which put it on the map as one of Malaysia’s foremost hotels.

Archipelago took over on July 28 (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 28). But a source at the hotel said while the change was impending, staff had expected it to happen only by the end of the year.

Last year, Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia’s investment holding arm, bought a 70 per cent stake in Teluk Datai Resorts, the owners of The Datai, and subsequently formed Archipelago, its own hotel management company.

Franz Zeller, who was Taj Luxury Hotels Resorts and Palaces senior vice president and COO, has been appointed managing director of Archipelago, and a corporate team to grow the portfolio has been assembled.

A luxury tour operator based in Singapore said no one from The Datai had contacted him yet about the change, while a UK luxury tour operator was concerned about “consistency of quality and style” following the change.

The new GM at Datai is Anthony Sebastian.

Contacted by TTG Asia e-Daily, Archipelago’s Zeller assured tour operators that the new management company would continue the resort’s successful journey.

“All of the associates of The Datai are retained and our guests can expect the same warmth of hospitality and commitment to excellence that they have come to expect,” he said.

– Read more in TTG Asia, August 5 issue

THERE were 3,597,632 visitors to Indonesia over the first six months of 2011, a 6.42 per cent increase over the same period last year, according to the Central Board of Statistics of Indonesia (BPS). Regionally, Bali experienced robust arrivals growth, while Jakarta posted a slight decrease in visitor numbers.

The Bali Statistics Agency (BPS Bali) recorded 1,303,609 arrivals to Bali in the first half of the year, a 10.56 per cent increase over the 1,180,118 visitors recorded during the same period last year.

Travellers from Australia contributed 26.73 per cent of total arrivals to Bali. “Australia showed a significant growth in arrivals, the highest among the top ten markets,” said BPS Bali head, I Gede Suarsa.106,400 visitors were from China, up 8.29 per cent over last year’s 98,258; Malaysian visitor numbers grew from 69,251 to 83,491, an increase of 20.56 per cent.

Meanwhile, arrivals to Jakarta decreased from 935,673 to 911,021, a drop of 2.63 per cent.

BPS data also showed that there were 5,262,800 outbound air passengers from Indonesia over the first half of the year, up 17.08 per cent over the same period last year.

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport recorded the highest outbound traffic with 2,656,200 passengers, 50.47 per cent of the total. This was 20 per cent more than last year’s 2,213,700 passengers.

Bali’s Denpasar International Airport came second with 1,432,600 passengers, contributing 27.22 per cent of total outbound traffic. This was a 7.95 per cent increase over the first six months of 2010, when there were 1,327,100 passengers recorded.

INDIA-listed Cox & Kings’ planned takeover of Holidaybreak UK (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 29) forced many people to do a double take.

Thus far, the major travel acquisitions have been the other way round, i.e. European firms buying Asian companies, as Europe’s growth stagnates while Asia’s bubbling pot spills over.

Also, what’s a company like Cox & Kings, with a reputation in high-end travel, doing in buying Holidaybreak, which specialises in the more humble school trips, adventure, camping and short breaks segment?

– Find out more in Editor’s Pick, ‘Say what?’

HOTEL groups have so far shied away from commenting on the recent statement by hotel booking agent GTA’s Thailand and Indochina team on stop sell policy (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 29).

Accor, Centara Hotels and Resorts and Onyx Hospitality Group informed TTG Asia e-Daily that they were reviewing the situation, while Dusit International declined to comment.

Accor explained that the matter was a complicated one, and was dependent on the booking situation at each of its hotels in different locations. Accor, however, stressed the need to honour allotment contracts with agents.

Chris Bailey, Centara Hotels and Resorts sales and marketing senior vice-president, said: “We will need to review our current trading situation with GTA to evaluate their effectiveness as a distributor of our product.”

Starwood Hotels and Resorts said it was “aware and would comply with the GTA statement”, but stopped short of commenting further by moving on to reiterate its online marketing strategies to attract more direct bookings via its branded websites.

A source from a destination management company, who asked not to be named, said hotels were partly to blame for the current standoff.

The source explained that some properties in popular destinations such as Phuket had been constantly putting up stop sell orders, and their actions might have upset agents holding allotment contracts.

By Sirima Eamtako

SINGAPORE-based Furama Hotels International (FHI) has added Furama Bukit Bintang to its portfolio.

The four-star business hotel is situated in Kuala Lumpur’s Golden Triangle, adjacent to Bukit Bintang and Berjaya Times Square.

The property features 433 rooms, meeting and conference facilities on the top floor, an executive lounge, a restaurant, a swimming pool with Jacuzzi, and a gym.

Jason Peck, FHI CEO, said: “With the soft opening of our forty-first Furama brand of hotel – adding to our 7,500 rooms, this time in Kuala Lumpur, we are forecasting aggressive expansion within the region for our three brands.”

FHI is aiming to expand its portfolio in the Asia-Pacific region comprising China, Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand, to 60 hotels within five years.