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.”

TRAVELPORT is significantly expanding its hospitality team this year as part of a global effort to increase hotel bookings through its two GDS platforms, Galileo and Worldspan, and online leisure portal Travelport Leisure.

Heading the team is group vice president for hospitality and partner marketing Niklas Andréen, who will ensure that Travelport’s GDS channel becomes more of a value-based marketing platform for hoteliers instead of just a transaction platform.

Paul Adams has also been promoted to hotel and car rental director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, while Joe Lim and Keith Harrison will continue to head similar dedicated hospitality supplier teams in Travelport’s Asia-Pacific and Americas regions respectively.

The company is also in the process of recruiting dedicated hospitality business development managers to be based in key travel markets (see Hot Jobs). They will work with travel agents to harness the potential of the hotel sector and provide on-the-ground training and educational support to help them earn new incremental revenue.

In 2010, Travelport generated a 12.1 per cent growth in hotel bookings through Galileo and Worldspan compared to 2009.

TWO Malaysia-based inbound agents popular with the Japan market have seen an influx of cancellations for March and April and are anticipating that this year’s demand would be slashed dramatically.

SMI Holiday planning manager Tanaka Miho said business from Japan had been almost wiped out since last week’s disasters. It has received cancellations from MICE and FIT travellers all over Japan for up to May.

“The peak travel season to Malaysia is in July and August, but it still is too soon to gauge demand,” she said, adding that she expects only 40 to 50 per cent of the company’s market forecast to be met this year.

Japan Travel Bureau hotel & reservation manager Jacqueline Lee said about half of the bookings for March and April have been cancelled. These were mainly FIT and package tours.

She added that while the company had met its January and February targets, this would likely be a difficult year.

Both agents noted that suppliers, such as hotels and restaurants, had offered full refunds, and they were in turn extending the same arrangement to their partners in Japan.

Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa Kota Kinabalu director of sales and marketing Suzaini Ghani said the hotel had lost about 300 roomnights due to cancellations for March and April. She said: “We will extend whatever assistance we can to ease the difficulties (by Japanese guests and partners) during this period, including refunds and allowing guests to postpone their stay.”

– Read more in TTG Asia, March 25

HOTELS in Bali are expecting the performance of an already-weak Japanese market to decline even further this year, but are still unable to gauge the full repercussions from last week’s calamities.

Bali Hotels Association (BHA) chairman and Nikko Bali Resort and Spa general manager Jean-Charles Le Coz said: “I have checked with a couple of BHA members and the preliminary information I get is that the impact is minimal so far.

“I’m gathering information (related to the issue) and until I have accurate data, I cannot give any projection.”

Royal Pitamaha director of sales and marketing Pande Sutawan said: “The first three days following the earthquake, we received 15 roomnight cancellations, but since Tuesday, we have received new bookings of 27 roomnights for April.

“It is too early to tell whether this is a trend. I think we need to wait until the end of the month to project for the coming months.”

However, he said the Japanese share of total arrivals to Bali had dropped from 37 per cent in 2009 to 27 per cent last year due to the economic crisis.

He added that with the recent disasters, it would be hard to even maintain last year’s level of business.

– Read more in TTG Asia, March 25

THE BUSINESS Travel Coalition (BTC) is lobbying TMCs and corporate travel managers to help fight further increases in the UK’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) ahead of March 23, when the 2011 budget will be presented.

In a letter circulating online, signatories are urging the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Scotland to “reduce this burden on the competitiveness of the UK for meetings, incentive trips, conventions and tourism”.

Titled “Our friends in the UK travel industry urgently need our help…”, the email states that the APD has risen by 325 per cent over six years and “the UK is already losing our business to European destinations that have no such duty or whose duty is a fraction of the UK’s” .

BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell said the counterproductive tax could add up to US$275 for UK-exiting passengers.

Organisations who wish to add their names to the letter can do so by March 18 at http://svy.mk/g87hpi.

EVEN if Jakarta hoteliers are picking up on using online inventory distribution channels to supplement traditional methods, many still find it challenging to persuade owners to invest in the technology.

Hotel managers attending the Indonesia E-Tourism Summit in Jakarta last week told TTG Asia e-Daily that the perception of technology being expensive and the fact that majority of the domestic market – the hotels’ main business – still relied on direct bookings or travel agents, made it difficult to convince owners of the merits of web-based systems.

Grans Flora Hotel Jakarta’s resident manager, Jamal Muhamad, said: “We know the opportunity to grab inbound business through online channels is there and the returns are better. However, with strong domestic corporate business already filling our hotel, it is not easy to convince the owner to invest in the technology.”

Marbella Hotels’ director of sales and marketing, Paula Purba, said: “We have just started to develop our own system, but the owner is already asking how much money we are putting in and what kind of return on investment we are talking about.”

Digital agency Water & Stone’s founding partner, Ric Shreves, said: “There is an essential amount of money to invest in the beginning, but with more companies now doing the business we do, prices have actually gone down. When the system is up and the right strategies are in place, you will then start seeing the returns.”

CORPORATE travel management company GetThere, owned by Sabre Travel, has opened its first Asia-based office in Singapore.

Rattray said: “Having a direct presence in Asia will ensure that our mission of providing market-specific solutions to our existing and potential customer bases is realised.”

GetThere’s global general manager, Suzanne Neufang, added: “Our investment will provide not only local expertise and support, but also a direct channel for future developments and region-relevant functionality.”

OUTBOUND Malaysian MICE players report that groups scheduled for Japan are switching destinations, as many fear the risk of radiation contamination due to the nuclear crisis there.

So far, Sri Sutra Travel has had a 44-pax incentive group scheduled for six-days/five-nights in Tokyo and Osaka in April change their destination to Dubai. An ICT-based company that booked an incentive trip for 60 pax to Tokyo in July has also put travel on hold as they ponder whether to proceed.

Sri Sutra Travel’s managing director, Syed Razif Al Yahya, said the situation was even pushing some companies to cancel their meetings and incentive trips to all parts of Japan.

Apple Vacations & Conventions’ senior sales manager, Gwen Teng, said the situation was similar on her end, with groups afraid of transiting in Tokyo, as there have been reports of radiation being detected there in the 24 hours.

Teng said all of Apple’s five meetings and incentives groups with plans to visit Japan in March and April had already switched destinations to China, Australia and Europe.

Diners World Travel’s (Malaysia) senior travel manager, Thomas Ng, said only one of its 17 business travellers with trips scheduled to Tokyo this month had proceeded as planned.

CIANJUR District Culture and Tourism Office is developing a train tour to Gunung Padang, in cooperation with national train company Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), to attract more tourists to Bandung, West Java.

Cianjur District Culture and Tourism office tourism business section head Neneng Sumaryanti said: “The highlight of the 90-minute train ride between Bandung and Cianjur will be South-east Asia’s biggest megalithic site, Gunung Padang. Along the way, travellers will also enjoy the scenery and go through an old 600m long tunnel. The journey itself will tell a story.”

The office is inviting about 30 travel agents and event organisers from Jakarta and Bandung to try the attraction at the end of the month. “We would like their input before releasing the product to the public,” Sumaryanti said.

PASSENGERS on flights from Japan to Malaysia being scanned for radiation contamination have so far tested negative, said a source from the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) yesterday.

This means the radiation levels that the passengers had been exposed to in Japan were within the safety limits set by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The AELB started scanning passengers, aircraft and luggage coming in from Japan for radiation contamination since Monday.

According to the source, contaminated individuals will be treated at the Malaysian Nuclear Agency in Bangi, Selangor.