MINOR International is broadening operations into Australia and New Zealand, with a cash takeover offer for Australia-based four-star hotel brand Oaks Hotels & Resorts.

Minor International’s CEO, William Heinecke, said: “We see Oaks’ unique apartment portfolio as a valuable addition to our expanding resort and hotel portfolio and look forward to adding significant value to the business in terms of growth and expansion.”

Minor has so far accumulated a 14.96 per cent stake in Oaks Hotels & Resorts and is set to purchase 5 per cent more, bringing its overall stake to 19.96 per cent—worth AUD$12 million (US$12 million).

The investment is Minor’s first foray into the Pacific and doubles the company’s hotel interests to 71 properties across Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East and Australasia.

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) will drop one of four daily flights to Tokyo starting Sunday due to reduced travel demand in the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis.

In a statement on its website, the carrier said that SQ635 and SQ636 operating between Singapore and Haneda would be suspended from March 27, while SQ633 and SQ634 on the same route would continue to run.

The airline’s two other daily flights to Narita, SQ11 and SQ12, will operate as usual.

SIA did not say when full services to Japan were expected to resume.

The carrier is also postponing the introduction of Airbus A380 services on SQ12 and SQ11 between Singapore and Los Angeles via Narita until further notice. The flights will continue to operate with Boeing 747-400 aircraft.

IN rebuilding Egypt’s arrivals post-protests, the government is grappling with another costly problem: damaged and stolen artefacts from historical sites, the bread and butter of its tourism industry.

During weeks of political upheaval starting late January, Cairo’s popular Egyptian Museum, site of the ancient city of Buto and at least 10 other locations across the country were looted, according to Singapore’s The Straits Times last Friday.

“This is the worst looting I have ever seen,” Dr Mohammed Abdel Maqsoud, a senior official of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, was quoted as saying.

The newspaper reported that at the height of the upheaval, the government withdrew the police force, a move largely seen as an attempt to foster lawlessness. This left the country’s antiquities vulnerable.

The police have returned to some sites in Cairo’s vicinity, but many of the country’s 40 major antiquities depots and 2,000 active excavation sites continue to face a security vacuum. While some objects from the Egyptian Museum have been recovered, 42 items remain missing.

DAFAM Hotels & Resorts last Friday held the grand opening of its first two properties, Hotel Dafam Semarang and Hotel Marlin Pekalongan, marking the entry of the first Central Java-based chain.

Located in the provincial capital of Semarang, the three-star Hotel Dafam Semarang has 103 rooms, a ballroom with a 500-pax capacity, five meeting rooms and a business centre with secretarial service.

The 39-room Hotel Marlin Pekalongan is a two-star property in Pekalongan, a city known for its batik industry. It has a business centre and meeting room.

Dafam Hotels & Resorts managing director Andhy Irawan said: “There is great potential in Java, Central Java in particular, that many don’t see. Our owners, the Dahlan family, are successful businessmen in Central Java, so we know and dare to set up our head office in Semarang, instead of Jakarta or Bali.”

Since their soft openings last November, Hotel Dafam Semarang has managed to reach an average occupancy of 65 per cent, with Hotel Marlin Pekalongan under 50 per cent.

Indonesia’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jero Wacik, said at the launch: “As the economy grows, travelling becomes a necessity. The trend will only keep growing as more and more people can afford to travel and more hotel rooms will be needed.”

MALAYSIA’S Muslim population has caught the attention of at least two NTOs, Thailand and South Korea, who are putting out specific initiatives this year to lure more travellers from this segment.

Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) director, Malaysia and Brunei, Wiboon Nimitrwanich, said this was the first time TAT was specifically targeting the Muslim population in Malaysia.

TAT will be promoting southern Thailand due to its large Muslim population and easily-available halal food. A fam trip to Krabi was organised early this month for travel agents and the media.

Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) director for Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Guam, Yun Jae Jin, said a new Muslim guidebook was published early this year, listing halal restaurants in Seoul and highlighting the country’s attractions.

Other ongoing support for this market includes subsidising inbound operators for meals at halal restaurants, where food prices tend to be higher, and facilitating Malaysian movie productions.

Both NTOs noted that the number of Muslim tourist arrivals was still small. Of the 1.96 million tourist arrivals from Malaysia to Thailand last year, about 30 per cent were Muslim. South Korea, on the other hand, saw Muslim visitors contributing to 20 per cent of last year’s arrivals.

BRACING itself for a drop in Japanese arrivals, Indonesia’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism is strengthening marketing activities in alternative sources, such as South Korea, China, India and Australia.

“Our target for the Japanese market for this year was 400,000 arrivals. We are expecting a 20 per cent drop this year, or around 80,000,” said Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jero Wacik, at a press conference last weekend.

“This should not affect much of our 7.7 million targeted arrivals for the year. (But) we would like to push arrivals from other potential markets, like China, India, Australia and South Korea by switching the marketing budget for Japan to these countries.”

With the devastating conditions in Japan and rebuilding in progress, Wacik said the ministry would halt marketing programmes in Japan until the situation improved.

“I don’t think the timing is right for us to do promotional programmes in Japan at the moment. While the country is working to overcome their problems, we have first allotted the marketing budget to other countries,” he added.

WITH tourist arrivals growing by almost 50 per cent last year, flagship carrier SriLankan Airlines is pushing ahead with network expansion and capacity increases, citing Asia as its fastest-growing market.

On March 27, the airline will reactivate daily flights to Kochi, its seventh destination in India. It had served Kochi until the global financial crisis hit in 2009.

Earlier in January, SriLankan also launched a new service to Guangzhou. It currently flies to Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangzhou thrice-weekly and Shanghai four times a week. Chairman Nishantha Wickramasinghe said frequency was poised to increase to five each by next year.

“We have a very close relationship with China. They’re involved in the airports, highways…We have a lot of Chinese working in Sri Lanka,” he added.

SriLankan is also making its presence felt in other continents. By the end of this year, Frankfurt, Paris, Bahrain, Doha and Muscat will see capacity increases, while new destinations on the horizon include Zurich, Amsterdam and Moscow.

Wickramasinghe added that such worldwide expansion would be met with fleet growth, as the airline was looking to increase its aircraft count, from the current 14 to 30 by early 2014.

TARGETING the incentive market, Tourism Queensland has launched a Million Dollar Memo campaign, offering companies across the world a chance to compete for A$1 million (US$992,700) worth of travel experiences in Queensland.

Tourism Queensland CEO, Anthony Hayes, said the campaign was the consumer element of a five-year Global Incentive strategy.

“Tourism Queensland aims to re-engage with this sector, as incentive travel represents a high value market, with incentive travellers spending around 2.5 times more per day than international visitors.”

The competition consists of three phases and applicants must first create a 60-second video that shows what makes their company a special workplace and why they think Queensland is the best incentive destination. Entries must be submitted at www.milliondollarmemo.com by May 1.

To ensure that incentive capabilities will be showcased, the winner will have to engage a Queensland-based DMC to plan and execute the programme and use not more than 20 per cent of the prize on airfares.

Tourism Queensland spokesperson in Singapore, Christina Leong, said: “The company can use it for a single incentive trip or several separate ones, considering how most companies will not completely shut down operations for a retreat.”

HAVING opened nearly 100 properties across Asia-Pacific last year, Wyndham Hotel Group will add two more to its regional portfolio, one in Sanya, China, and another in Khao Lak, Thailand.

Now under construction, the beachfront Wyndham Khao Lak Resort, owned by South Sea Prakarang Resort Co., is scheduled to welcome guests by late 2011. The hotel will feature 134 resort rooms and 66 villas.

The 26-storey Wyndham Sanya Resort, to be built by Sanya Hengsen Industrial Investment Co., is expected to open in January 2014. Each of the 403 rooms will provide scenic views of the bay.

“The Asia-Pacific region continues to be a key area of focus for our company’s development,” said Eric Danziger, Wyndham Hotel Group president and CEO.

The group said the addition of the Sanya resort strengthened its position as the largest US-based hotel company in China, where the company franchises 301 hotels representing more than 46,000 rooms under the Wyndham, Ramada, Howard Johnson, Days Inn and Super 8 brands. There are now 14 Wyndham hotels open or under development in China.

THE THREAT of an impending nuclear disaster has resulted in tourists giving Japan a wide berth, well beyond the devastated north-eastern coast.

Avi Lugasi, managing director of Kyoto-based agency Windows To Japan, told TTG Asia e-Daily there had been cancellations of all trips bound for Japan during spring.

“(The spring season) is 80 per cent of our yearly income, so this is definitely a hard time for us,” he said.

Kyoto Convention Bureau international marketing coordinator James Kent said cancellations to Tokyo inevitably led to a similar situation in Kyoto, as most of its business comes via Tokyo.

Hotels in Kyoto city, however, were still holding up, he added. “Many people are making precautionary evacuations from areas close to Fukushima (where the nuclear plant is). Kyoto is seen as a safe destination and hotels are seeing that in their bookings.”

Hotels.com managing director and vice president for Asia Johan Svanstrom noted that the crisis had created “a nervousness about making new bookings”, with places not affected by the natural disasters suffering.

Singapore-based Nam Ho Travel Service manager Lucy Lai said: “Demand for even Taiwan and Hong Kong has been affected, as Singaporeans are worried that radiation from Japan will contaminate these destinations.”