MYANMAR Airways International (MAI) is widening its regional reach with the March 3 launch of twice-weekly flights between Yangon and Guangzhou.

MAI assistant marketing manager Aye Mra Tha said the airline would add an extra “six to nine charter flights a week” on the route to cater to high demand during the gem emporium in Nay Pyi Taw this month.

The service operates on an Airbus A320 that can accommodate up to 160 passengers.

MAI is the second airline to operate flights between Yangon and Guangzhou. China Southern Airlines offers a twice-weekly service on the route.

BANYAN Tree has a slew of hotel openings, developments and refurbishments scheduled this year for Phuket, Macau, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Mauritius, the Maldives and Bintan.

Angsana Laguna Phuket, rebranded from a Sheraton, will open on December 1 after a US$30 million makeover starting in July (TTG Asia e-Daily, February 15).

Banyan Tree Macau is expected to open in the second quarter as part of integrated resort development Galaxy Macau. The resort will have 246 suites and 10 pool villas, a grand ballroom for up to 1,200 pax, two conference rooms and four restaurants.

The group also has a number of other hotels scheduled to open this year, including Banyan Tree Riverside in Shanghai, Angsana Hangzhou and Angsana Balaclava in Mauritius.

Elsewhere, 24 DoublePool Villas have been added at Banyan Tree Phuket and Angsana Velavaru in Maldives has introduced new activities and programmes for its guests, while Angsana Bintan is currently undergoing a major refurbishment, to be completed in phases by middle of the year.

REAL Madrid are the newest brand ambassadors promoting Spain as a tourist destination in a groundbreaking, sports-focused marketing strategy.

The three-year agreement with the professional Spanish football club will allow Turespaña (Spain Tourism Board) to promote the country and Madrid to an estimated worldwide audience of over 300 million people with the slogan Visit Spain, Visit Madrid.

Aside from using Real Madrid’s main players as brand ambassadors in international advertising campaigns, the agreement also grants Turespaña access to advertising space during league matches.

With the partnership, Turespaña is hoping to tap into Asia, where Real Madrid has a strong fan base. The NTO launched its new campaign I Need Spain in 2010, using Asian faces in its creatives for the first time.

The NTO has so far engaged the Spanish Football Federation, Spanish MotoGP riders, the Spanish Basketball Federation and professional kiteboarder Gisela Pulido in its drive to brand Spain as the home of leading Spanish athletes and sports stars.

INDONESIA AirAsia (IAA) plans to expand its fleet with the US$200 million it expects to raise from an IPO in the third or fourth quarter of the year.

Jakarta-based IAA, which currently operates 16 Airbus A320s and four Boeing B737s, intends to have 30 aircraft by 2015.

The fleet expansion will support the airline’s domestic and regional route development, with plans to establish a new Makassar (South Sulawesi) hub to launch services to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei and Hong Kong.

IAA currently uses Jakarta, Denpasar, Surabaya and Medan as its domestic and regional hubs for 26 routes.

The airline’s president Dharmadi said: “There is still a lot of potential, both domestically and regionally.”

IAA will be the second airline listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange this year after Garuda Indonesia, which went public on February 11 (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 13).

Another Indonesian carrier, Lion Air, is also planning an IPO for either 2012 or 2013.

THAILAND’S Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MoTS) recently received Cabinet approval for its 6.65 billion baht (US$218 million) tourism development plan from 2012 to 2014 (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 1), with beach resorts getting the biggest allocation.

The tourism plan covers 385 tourism development projects in eight tourism clusters for the upgrade of basic infrastructure, landscaping and convenience at tourist sites nationwide, according to MoTS permanent secretary Sombat Kuruphan.

Beach resorts will receive 3.98 billion baht to fund 141 projects in 20 provinces. This includes the active beach cluster (770 million baht for 44 projects in four eastern coastal provinces), the royal coast cluster (859 million baht for 24 projects in four upper southern provinces) and the two-sea cluster (2.35 billion baht for 73 projects in 12 lower southern provinces).

The Lanna civilisation cluster will get 983 million baht for 46 projects in seven northern provinces, while the E-sarn civilisation cluster has been allocated 230 million baht for 26 projects covering six north-eastern provinces.

The UNESCO World Heritage Sites cluster will receive 475 million baht for 57 projects in eight provinces, while 612 million baht will be pumped into 60 Mekong River lifestyle projects in six provinces. In the central plains cluster, 454 million baht will be spent on 55 projects in 14 provinces.

MINOR Hotel Group will be rebranding its 413-room Bangkok Marriott Resort and Spa as Anantara Bangkok Riverside in November, growing the brand’s portfolio in the Thai capital to three properties.

Anantara Hotels, Resorts and Spas senior vice president Peter Carmichael said there would be an official announcement of the changes at ITB Berlin next week. “The moves are part of plans to establish the Anantara brand in key cities worldwide and compete with big-name players,” he said.

According to an industry source, the upgrading of Bangkok Marriott to Anantara is seen as Minor’s attempt to drive rates more aggressively and avoid dilution, given the growing number of Marriott-branded properties in Bangkok.

Minor manages four properties and owns 12 in Thailand, including the soon-to-be-launched 224-key The St Regis Bangkok. Of the 16 properties, eight are branded Anantara.

Anantara also manages the 79-key Anantara Baan Rajprasong Serviced Suites Bangkok and 425-room Anantara Bangkok Sathorn. The latter, initially launched as a Radisson hotel in late-2009, joined Anantara’s network yesterday.

By Sirima Eamtako

FINNAIR will be the only airline offering a daily service between Singapore and Northern Europe when it launches its Helsinki-Singapore flight on May 30.

“In addition to Singapore, we expect to attract passengers, particularly from Australia,” said Petteri Kostermaa, head of Finnair’s Singapore sales unit.

For passengers from Asia, the route will offer connections via Finnair’s network of 50 European destinations. Passengers to Singapore will be able to fly to Australia and South-east Asia via Finnair’s partner airlines.

The route will be serviced by Airbus A340 aircraft. Singapore will be the carrier’s 10th scheduled flight destination in Asia.

GLOBAL Hotel Alliance (GHA) yesterday officially launched GHA Discovery, the first-ever loyalty programme that unites independent luxury hotel brands. GHA is the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands.

The programme was created to deliver rewards across nearly 300 Anantara, Doyle, First, Kempinski, Leela, Mirvac, Marco Polo, Omni, Pan Pacific, PARKROYAL, Shaza and Tivoli hotels and resorts worldwide. It provides access to more than 1,000 unique Local Experiences, which are off-the-beaten track activities designed with input from hotel employees.

Local Experiences vary by membership level, with the higher membership level getting more exclusive rewards.

“GHA Discovery was built on the philosophy that recognition and authentic, local experiences – and not just collecting points – are the true pillars of a rewarding hotel loyalty programme,” said GHA CEO Chris Hartley.

“Whether taking advantage of spare time on a business trip or exploring a destination through a local’s eyes on a weekend, the guest experience begins with personal recognition at the front desk of our hotel brands and is made richer with adventures that are not easily accessible to the general public,” he added.

Guests may book a reservation with any of the 12 participating hotel brands at a centralised website, gha.com

TIRTA Putra Wisata (Panorama Tours), the outbound extension of Panorama Leisure Group, has undergone major restructuring, with changes to its name, leadership and operations.

The company, which is now known as Panorama Tours Indonesia, has its former vice president Royanto Handaya serving as its new president director.

It is now divided into three separate business units – leisure management, corporate management and MICE/incentive management – each with a different managing director at the helm.

The group also established a new Singapore-based holding company, Panorama Tours International, to incorporate its Panorama Singapore and Panorama Malaysia offices. These two used to operate under Tirta Putra Wisata.

Panorama Group commissary Rama Tirtawisata said: “After operating for 13 years, the (Tirta Putra Wisata) management has decided to expand. The restructure and succession is the way to achieve this.”

He also said he would be taking charge of the new holding company, which “will be a vehicle for (Panorama) to grow regionally”, adding that Panorama was looking to expand to Thailand and Hong Kong, “but nothing (is) confirmed yet”.

MYANMAR Airways International (MAI) launched a twice-weekly Yangon-Siem Reap direct service on February 23, the same day a new visa-on-arrival facility available to its passengers flying into Yangon from the Angkor town came into effect (TTG Asia e-Daily, February 15).

The carrier operates on the route using a 160-seat Airbus A320 aircraft.

Phyoe Wai Yar Zar, vice chairman of Myanmar Marketing Committee and managing director of All Asia Exclusive Travel, said the limited reintroduction of the VOA was “very encouraging”.

“This positive policy will push sales (of travel packages) between the two countries and has opened another gateway into Myanmar,” he said.

Aside from the Yangon-Siem Reap route, MAI is also beefing up its other services. The airline begins a twice-weekly service between Yangon and Guangzhou today using an A320 and is awaiting the delivery of one new aircraft this month. In addition, it is planning to launch a new Yangon-Singapore-Jakarta and Yangon-New Delhi services, according to its assistant marketing manager Aye Mra Tha.

“In the long term, we are planning direct flights from Yangon to Tokyo, Seoul, Dubai, Doha and Bali,” Aye said.

MAI currently operates flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Gaya in India and Siem Reap, with a fleet consisting of three A320s and one A321.