A FEW days into his role as interim PATA CEO for six months, Bill Calderwood has started the search all over again for a new chief for the organisation after a candidate – an executive with a western NTO who was offered the job – ditched it weeks before Gregory Duffell left at the end of February.

Calderwood, in a phone interview with TTG Asia e-Daily, said his immediate three objectives were recruiting a CEO, ensuring the success of the forthcoming PATA 60th Anniversary and Conference in Beijing, and formulating the business plan.

Asked “why not stay?”, Calderwood said: “No, that’s never been an option. I’ve been asked by different people at different times, but I’ve issues back in Australia and this is going to be just an interim position.”

Calderwood said it was unfortunate that the earlier search identified a candidate but the individual changed his mind. “That’s a reality and can happen in any search,” he said.

This time, “we’re looking at using external resources and cast the net wider for a potential candidate”, he said.

A source said the task would rest this time only on Calderwood and a headhunting firm to prevent, in the words of another source, “too much politicking, too much backstabbing, too much airing in the media…”

PATA chairman Hiran Cooray had earlier instituted a committee of four people headed by him to find a replacement in time for a smooth transfer by end February. The search started after the PATA Travel Mart in Macau last September when the board was informed of Duffell’s resignation.

THAILAND will not extend two of the seven tourism stimulus policies it launched in the last two years in a bid to restore travellers’ confidence during the country’s political crisis (TTG Asia e-Daily, February 9).

The two initiatives to be discontinued are the exemption of tourist visa fees for certain nationalities, including from China and India, and the government-backed tourist insurance scheme in case of riots. Both tourist-specific policies will cease on March 31.

Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MoTS) permanent secretary, Sombat Kuruphan, said that keeping the insurance scheme might send the wrong message to tourists about the country’s political situation.

To make up for the removal of the tourist visa fee waiver, Thai authorities have promised speedier immigration procedures at Suvarnabhumi Airport, which is usually crowded during peak air traffic hours.

In January, there were 1.18 million tourist arrivals at the airport, a 6.2 per cent increase over the same month last year. There was also a total of 4.29 million domestic and international passengers passing through the airport, or a 4.91 per cent increase.

IATA downgraded its 2011 airline industry outlook to US$8.6 billion from the US$9.1 billion it estimated last December. According to the statement IATA released yesterday, this is a 46 per cent drop in net profits compared to the US$16 billion earned last year.

On expected industry revenues of US$594 billion, the US$8.6 billion equates to a net profit margin of 1.4 per cent.

“Political unrest in the Middle East has sent oil over US$100 per barrel, significantly higher than US$84 per barrel in December that was the assumption in December,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

“At the same time, the global economy is now forecast to grow by 3.1 per cent this year — a full 0.5 percentage point better than predicted just three months ago. But stronger revenues will provide only a partial offset to higher costs. Profits will be cut in half compared to last year and margins are a pathetic 1.4 per cent,” he added.

IATA has now revised its 2011 average oil price assumption to US$96 per barrel of Brent crude from US$84 in December. This will increase the industry fuel bill by US$10 billion to US$166 billion. Oil prices are expected to be 20 per cent higher this year compared to 2010, with fuel estimated to represent 29 per cent of total operating costs, up from 26 per cent last year.

“There is very little buffer for the industry to keep its balance as it absorbs shocks. Today, oil is the biggest risk — if its rise stalls the global economic expansion, the outlook will deteriorate very quickly,” said Bisignani.

While growing economies are seen to offer airlines some relief, higher revenues are not seen to be enough to prevent the hike in oil prices from causing profits to shrink.
IATA sees Asia Pacific carriers as delivering the largest collective profit of US$3.7 billion and the highest operating margins of 4.6 per cent. However, this is substantially down from the US$7.6 billion that the region’s carriers made in 2010 and from the previously forecast $4.6 billion for 2011.

According to the IATA release: “While the strong economic growth in the region is still driving profitability, inflation fighting measures in China are slowing trade and air cargo demand. The key reason for the downgrade from December’s forecast is that the region is more exposed to higher fuel prices, due to relatively low hedging on average.”

NINETY-ONE flights were delayed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) yesterday, following the precautionary detonation of a World War II bomb found at a nearby construction site.

The airport’s runways for takeoff and landing were closed for one-and-a-half hours as the bomb was detonated at a construction site on KLIA II, located five km away from KLIA.

Flights landing and taking off from KLIA between 11.00 am to 12.00 am and 3.00 pm to 4.00 pm were rescheduled, delaying a total of 45 arrivals and 46 departures. Normal operations resumed at 3.26 pm.

The AsiaOne.com portal reported that airlines affected included Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, AirAsia X, Firefly, Garuda, Iran Air, Silk Air, AirAsia Indonesia, Thai AirAsia, Thai Airways, Tiger Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Pakistan Airlines and Eva Air.

The Straits Times quoted Malaysia transport minister Kong Cho Ha as saying that the two service interruptions were necessary because it was too risky to move the bomb. “It was better to detonate it,” he said.

Workers found the bomb on Monday night.

A RESTRUCTURE at Tourism Australia under months-old managing director Andrew McEvoy sees one of the NTO’s best-known faces, Richard Beere, leaving the organisation on April 22.

This is a result of the International Operations, currently broken down into East and West, being renamed Marketing Operations. Beere is executive general manager Eastern Hemisphere based in Sydney, while Francis Anne Keeler is executive general manager Western Hemisphere. Anne Keeler will head the merged entity. Business Events will also report through this area to bring the team closer to the corporate end-users.

Beere told TTG Asia e-Daily: “I am looking to stay in tourism and engaged with Asia, but have not yet decided exactly what this means and am looking at a number of possibilities.”

Beere has been with both the Australian Tourist Commission and Tourism Australia for over 20 years, responsible for managing marketing programmes to consumers and trade as well as business development activities across eastern tourism markets including Japan, North and South-east Asia and the Gulf countries.

INDONESIA’s former tourism minister Joop Ave has called the relevance of the country’s tourism associations into question, urging the industry to be more pro-active in resolving its issues.

Speaking at the Panorama Management Conference over the weekend, Ave delivered a scathing assessment of the current state of affairs of tourism-related associations in the country, declaring that the Indonesian tourism industry “has never been as weak as it is today” and that the “associations were irrelevant”.

He said: “If 40 per cent of the hotels in Indonesia are not part of the Indonesia Hotels and Restaurants Association, then something must be wrong. The ‘restaurant’ part also has no representative even though the Indonesian restaurant industry is booming. Maybe, here in Indonesia, you just need no association?”

Ave added that the Association of the Indonesian Tours and Travel Agencies (ASITA) had become irrelevant, saying: “I am sorry to see that the whole of ASITA is kaput (no longer working). The Jakarta chapter, which is the biggest and most productive, is not even recognised by the central board.”

Ave was Indonesia’s Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications from 1993 to 1998.

THE KUONI Group acquired on Monday Stockholm-based luxury tour operator Lime Travel, which specialises in tailored longhaul travel with a particular focus on Bali, Mauritius, the Maldives and the Caribbean.

Lime Travel’s products are sold almost exclusively through direct customer contact at its own travel offices and over the phone.

“In acquiring Lime Travel, we are expanding our business activities in the Swedish luxury travel sector,” said Leif Vase Larsen, executive vice president northern region of the Kuoni Group and CEO of Kuoni Scandinavia.

He added: “Our new acquisition should offer synergies with existing premium Kuoni products. It should also enable us to expand our luxury travel business in our Norwegian and Danish markets.”

Lime Travel, which was founded in 1995 and generated turnover of around CHF 9.3 million (US$10 million) last year, will be integrated into the Swedish unit of Kuoni Group’s Division Market Region North. All its 14 employees will be retained, and the present co-owner and company CEO will remain at the helm.

AIRFARE promotions by local and foreign carriers are driving sales of Malaysian agents’ ground packages, ahead of the series of outbound fairs in Kuala Lumpur this month as well as the school holidays in May.

MATTA, Mayflower Travel and Reliance Travel are all holding travel fairs in the middle of March.

Zenmax Travel & Tours executive director Steven Choo said he was seeing strong demand for Australia and Europe, mainly from parents visiting their children studying overseas. He said the current airfare promotions allow savings of RM1,000 (US$328) or more.

Choo added that demand was also swelling for Hong Kong, China and Macau, especially during the May school holidays and the last week of August, which coincides with the Hari Raya and National Day public holidays.

Nantha Travel & Tours managing director M Nantha Gopal said his company had been experiencing strong demand for regional destinations such as Bali and Bandung in Indonesia, Phuket and Bangkok in Thailand, as well as Siem Reap and Hanoi, mainly over the coming school holidays.

Gopal noted that Malaysian travellers have more purchasing power now. “Last year, there were a lot of couples travelling. This year, they are travelling with their children. They are also opting for better hotels, and do not mind paying more for comfort.”

VIETNAM Airlines will shift its Singapore-based operations from Changi Airport’s terminal one to terminal three from March 27.

The airline will also double its Singapore-Hanoi services to twice-daily from June 16, using Airbus A321 aircraft with 16 business class and 168 economy class seats.

The additional service will bring Vietnam Airlines’ services from Singapore to twice-daily operations to both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

THAI Airways International (THAI) has set aside 457 billion baht (US$14.9 billion) to acquire 75 new aircraft between this year and 2022 as part of plans to modernise its fleet.

The Thai national carrier will spend 216 billion baht between this year and 2017 on 11 narrow-bodied and 26 wide-bodied planes. Another 241 billion baht will be invested between 2018 and 2022 on 38 wide-bodied aircraft.

The investment will be on top of existing orders for seven Airbus A330-300s and eight Boeing 777-300ERs to be delivered between this year and 2013, while six A380-800s will join the fleet within the next two years.

The carrier will gradually decommission some 21 aging planes by 2024, in the process reducing the average age of its aircraft from 11.9 years in 2010 to 8.5 years in 2017, and eight years by 2024.

Meanwhile, THAI yesterday inked a shareholder agreement with Tiger Airways to establish new regional low-cost carrier (LCC) Thai Tiger Airways, following a memorandum of understanding signed last August (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 2, 2010).

The LCC was slated to take off sometime this month, but has faced delays due to opposition from Thai authorities (TTG Asia e-Daily, September 3, 2010).