ROYAL Caribbean International’s Legend of the Seas has added Malacca to her array of Asian destinations, with a maiden call there on January 9.

Its shore excursions in the Malaysian city include shopping tours, a palm oil and rubber tree plantation tour and a city tour of the Dutch Square, St. Paul’s Church and the A’Famosa where one can learn about Malacca’s Dutch and Portuguese colonial past.

The 2,074-passenger ship will also visit three new ports-of-call in Indonesia next month – Bali, Semarang and Lombok – as part of her seven-day/eight-night Bali & Semarang itinerary.

HILTON Worldwide has announced the signing of a management agreement with local property developer, Bach Dang Hotel Complex Trading Service Company, for a new Hilton Hotels & Resorts property in the central Vietnamese city of Danang.

Scheduled to open in 2013, the 226-room, new-build Hilton Da Nang is the second Hilton hotel in Vietnam after the Hilton Hanoi Opera.

The hotel is part of a large-scale mixed-use development featuring office and retail space as well as serviced apartments.

TIGER Airways commenced today daily flights between Singapore and Taipei as well as increased its Singapore-Jakarta service to a twice-daily frequency, even as its full-year report card showed solid gains in volume last year.

The low-cost carrier (LCC) recorded 5.8 million passengers for its Asian and Australian operations in 2010, a 32 per cent increase over 2009.

Average load factor for the last 12 months was 86 per cent, a year-on-year increase of two percentage points.

Tony Davis, president and group CEO of Tiger Airways Holdings, said: “We are pleased to report solid increases in our passenger numbers, whilst continuing to maintain high load factors across our network.”

The LCC launched the Partner Airline Programme last December, which saw Philippine-based South East Asian Airlines commencing services between Manila (Clark) and Singapore using two Airbus A319 aircraft leased from Tiger Airways. Tickets were distributed through www.tigerairways.com.

Over the next 12 months, the group will also take delivery of an additional nine new Airbus A320s, growing its current combined fleet of 25 aircraft by 36 per cent.

SINGAPORE-BASED Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG) is continuing its expansion Down Under with the opening of its first Pan Pacific-branded property in Australia last week.

The unveiling of the 486-room Pan Pacific Perth, formerly the Sheraton Perth, follows hot on the heels of the group’s other openings in Australia.

Parkroyal Darling Harbour, Sydney and Parkroyal Parramatta were introduced late last year, while PPHG also recently entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement to acquire the Hilton Melbourne Airport hotel, with a view to rebrand it into a Parkroyal property.

The new Pan Pacific Perth offers extensive meeting and banqueting facilities with 11 function rooms, as well as an entire level dedicated to seven boardrooms. From March, the hotel will also open its Grand Ballroom, which is currently undergoing refurbishment.

All three existing dining outlets – Origins Restaurant, Montereys Restaurant and The Lobby Lounge – have been retained.

ENCOURAGED by strong demand for bookings for Malaysia, Bangkok-based Discovery Aviation Tour and Travel (DAT) plans to grow outbound traffic by leveraging on Firefly’s flights to Thailand.

DAT, a joint venture between Bangkok-based CBS Travel Asia and Kuala Lumpur-based Discovery Overland Holidays, was appointed airline marketing representative for Firefly in Thailand from mid-last year.

The airline operates four-times-weekly flights for Kuala Lumpur-Koh Samui and Penang-Phuket routes.

Although the flights attract mainly incoming Malaysians, expats and tourists into Thailand, bookings from Thais, expats and tourists in Phuket and Koh Samui represent “significant” numbers, said CBS Travel Asia CEO Chaladol Ussamarn.

Chaladol said Firefly’s competitive airfares and full-fledged service appealed to outbound travellers from the Thai islands.

To enhance its marketing, DAT is looking to hire a sales representative, a reservation officer and a travel consultant.

By Sirima Eamtako

RIAU provincial government-owned airline Riau Air, which launched thrice-weekly commercial services between capital city Pekanbaru and Malacca last weekend, is aiming to connect cities within the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) as it grows its fleet.

Riau governor Rusli Zainal was quoted by the media as saying: “We are planning to add at least 10 more aircraft by the end of this year to enable (Riau Air) to serve not only domestic routes but also intra-regional city routes.”

The airline currently has one leased Boeing 737-500 124-seat aircraft which plies the Pekanbaru-Malacca, Pekanbaru-Tanjung Pinang and Tanjung Pinang-Natuna routes.

Pekanbaru-Malacca used to be served on a charter basis with the Fokker 50, and the airline is targeting a 70 per cent load factor in the first year with this new commercial service.

Riau Air president director Teguh Triyanto told TTG Asia e-Daily: “We would like to position Riau Air as a bridge between cities in the IMT-GT area. We are considering Subang and Ipoh as our next destinations in Malaysia, and a number of cities in Thailand.”

Grand Anoa Tours and Travel Pekanbaru tour manager Samsul Basar said: “I think the potential inbound market from Malacca is the meeting and incentive market as Pekanbaru has the facilities, apart from business and golf.”

FIREFLY’S Boeing 737-800 aircraft will commence services to South-east Asian destinations out of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in the third quarter of 2012.

Managing director Eddy Leong said the airline was looking at routes that were within six hours’ flight time.

The carrier, which has been operating with ATR 72-500 turboprops out of Subang Airport, will launch twice-daily flights from KLIA to Kota Kinabalu and Kuching this Saturday. This will increase to thrice daily for Kota Kinabalu and four times daily for Kuching from January 24.

Firefly would have 13 B737-800s by 2012, up from two now, and by 2015, this would grow to 30 or more.

At a recent press conference, Leong guaranteed airfares would be at least 10 per cent lower than that of its rival, AirAsia.

A random check on the websites of both airlines for airfares from Kuala
Lumpur to Kuching showed that AirAsia’s lowest fare for February 8 was RM223 (US$73), whereas Firefly’s lowest fare was RM148.95.

PYOTravel.com senior manager, operations management, John Chan said pricing was the most important factor for attracting leisure tourists, while business travellers were influenced by flight times.

Leong added that Firefly had plans to set up secondary bases for its B737-800 aircraft in Penang, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching as this would help improve rotation times and schedules.

SINGAPORE will get its very own MICE coalition, which aims to band together key industry stakeholders to create a MICE-friendly environment.

The brainchild of Edward Liu, the Singapore Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers’ (SACEOS) outgoing president, the proposed entity was given the green light by SACEOS’ executive committee on January 7.

Liu, who will not be standing for re-election this year, told TTG Asia e-Daily that the MICE alliance was something he wanted to create before leaving SACEOS.

The idea was to gather key travel trade associations such as the Singapore Hotel Association, Association of Singapore Attractions and National Association of Travel Agents Singapore (NATAS), said Liu.

This would help create a strong MICE eco-system, and hopefully see a collective effort to winning and executing events in Singapore.

NATAS CEO, Robert Khoo, said Singapore’s first MICE alliance was different from other alliances in the past, that were formed to bid for or manage specific events.

Said Khoo: “There is strength in numbers, especially in winning projects. As many NATAS members are involved in MICE, it is natural that NATAS will support this alliance wholeheartedly.”

CHANGI Airport’s tactic of promoting Singapore as a regional air hub is paying dividends, with nine carriers including China’s Hainan Airlines, the Philippines’ Airphil Express and Malaysia’s Berjaya Air commencing operations at the republic’s national airport in 2010.

The Changi Airport Growth Initiative, launched January last year (TTG Asia e-Daily, February 1, 2010), was introduced as an incentive package to promote the airport’s connectivity and drive up passenger and freight traffic.

This year, the initiative is set to add even more airlines to Changi’s growing network, with Air Macau beginning twice-weekly passenger services to Macau from January 3, and Hong Kong Airlines launching its first passenger flight from Changi on Saturday.

From January to November last year, Changi Airport handled 38 million passengers, an increase of 13.8 per cent over the same period in 2009.

THE INDIAN government has waived travel requirements for foreign nationals to Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland for the first time in 52 years, in an effort to boost tourism in these North-east Indian states.

Previously, foreign visitors had to pay US$50 for a permit to enter the states, and were restricted to travelling in groups of four over a limited number of days.

“The permit system was seen as an impediment,” said resident commissioner of Manipur Bhawan Rakesh Ranjan. “Now that it has been lifted, we expect to see many tourists.”