ONLINE travel booking company Expedia has started operations in South-east Asia with the launch of www.expedia.com.sg.

The new website is Expedia’s fifth in Asia-Pacific, adding to its existing regional presence in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and India. Expedia also has a presence in China through a controlling investment in eLong.

“South-east Asia represents an extremely important part of our Asia-Pacific growth strategy. The launch of the Expedia Singapore website is the first step of further investment in this region, with new sites in Malaysia, Korea and Thailand to follow within the first half of this year,” said Dan Lynn, vice president and managing director, Expedia Asia Pacific.

The new Singapore site provides travellers with a suite of online booking and travel management tools to help plan and reserve accommodation and flights, while localised customer service is available seven days a week, 24 hours a day via telephone or email.

BALI should focus on developing infrastructure linking its southern and northern regions to encourage development in the north, instead of worrying about oversupply of hotel rooms in the south, according to Bali Tourism Development Corporation executive director I Made Mandra.

“We cannot expect investors to go north without good access. They will run to Lombok instead, where infrastructure is improving,” he said.

The Bali provincial government introduced a ban in January on new hotel and resort development in Denpasar, Badung and Gianyar, already home to 85 per cent of Bali’s 45,557 rooms, to persuade investors to look at the island’s north as an alternative.

“A moratorium (on construction in the south) is not what Bali needs now,” said Mandra. “If no one cares about the road and the congestion from the airport to (Nusa Dua), Bali will sink no matter how great the hotels are.”

MALAYSIA Airlines’ (MAS) revamped website offers additional travel-related services but is not designed to take business away from travel agents, said a senior executive of the carrier.

MAS executive vice president of commercial strategy Dr Amin Khan reassured agents that the website was not out to compete with them.

“Passengers are showing an increasing willingness to use self-service options when available,” he said of the new malaysiaairlines.com, launched yesterday with a fresh look, simplified navigation and a facility to book airport transfers, hotels and car rentals.

Dr Khan said he hoped four out of every 10 people visiting the site would make a purchase.

Paradise Travel & Tours CEO, Mumtaz Ali, is not worried about losing business to the new website. “In the short term, this might create some excitement among travellers, but people will still want after-sales service and the human touch in the long run,” he said.

Sri Sutra Travel managing director Syed Razif Al Yahya said MAS should consider allowing its appointed agents to earn commission from online sales via its website. “What is the point of becoming an MAS-appointed agent if there are no benefits?” he questioned.

HANOI-based Luxury Travel is confident of growing business from German-speaking markets by 20 per cent this year.

The company handled around one per cent of the 100,000 or so German visitors to Vietnam last year, a 20 per cent increase over 2009.

Besides appointing German native Jens Pickhan as its senior sales and marketing executive based in Hanoi and adding pages in German to its website, Luxury Travel is also training its tour guides and travel consultants to handle German-speaking travellers and plans to launch its first brochure in German at ITB Berlin next month.

Luxury Travel CEO Pham Ha said the company earned 23 billion dong (US$1.1 million) in revenue last year — a 20 per cent increase over 2009. “We expect another 20 per cent growth this year, and to reach 30 billion dong next year.”

QATAR Airways will progressively increase its services into Singapore, from its current daily service to twice a day by early November.

Currently operating nonstop daily flights from Doha into Changi International Airport using its flagship Boeing B777 aircraft, the airline will phase in an additional three weekly flights from May 1, with a further three weekly flights to be introduced from October 1. An extra weekly flight will be added from November 3, taking frequency up to double-daily.

Qatar Airways CEO, Akbar Al Baker, said the addition of a second daily flight to Singapore was a key component of the airline’s growth strategy for the Far East.

“Singapore has been one of our best-performing routes in the entire region for a long time, with load factors consistently in the high 90s. The addition of a second daily service will allow Qatar Airways to grow the passenger market for inbound and outbound travel to Singapore,” said Al Baker.

ACCOR has unveiled a new Novotel room design in seven years and expects the four-star brand to grow as fast as its economy Ibis in Asia-Pacific.

The new-generation Novotel room is 26m2 in size, stays true to the brand’s DNA (simple, efficient and modern), with the redesign focusing on areas such as improved living space and comfort.

The contemporary midscale turf has been the hardest to innovate, with many hotel groups in recent years trying to come up with the best prototype to win over a new generation of mobile, value-conscious travellers.

Frederic Josenhans, Accor’s senior vice president marketing and brands development, said consistency was a key to staying ahead in the four-star sector. “We want to have more consistency than Holiday Inn or Courtyard (the main competitors of Novotel). This is why the product is very standardised. We may have fewer hotels than them, but we want to be more consistent.”

There are now more Novotel rooms in Asia-Pacific than there are in France. Of 74,106 Novotel rooms worldwide, 29 per cent are in Asia-Pacific, versus 21 per cent in France and 37 per cent in the rest of Europe. Accor Asia-Pacific chairman and COO, Michael Issenberg, said he would be disappointed if there were not more Novotels in Asia than in Europe in 10 years.

At present, there are 86 Novotel hotels in operation in Asia-Pacific and an additional 36 in the pipeline.

Asked whether such a standardised product could have the flexibility to cater to the Asian market, Issenberg said: “The room size can go up to 28m2. The colour schemes have been adapted to Asia – the first colour schemes were muted; in Asia, there are more bright colours.

“For investors, the advantage is you can build a small room that is more cost-effective and we consider that as one of the great advantages of Novotel, particularly in the future when the midscale and economy become dominant. Traditionally in Asia, a lot of the development has been in the upscale, but more owners and developers are actually attracted to the midscale and economy and here’s where an economical size Novotel has the advantage.”

The new room is already in nine Novotels worldwide. In Asia-Pacific, it is found in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei and Sydney. The entire Novotel network is expected to be retrofitted within the next five to seven years.

– Read more in TTG Asia, Hotels Guide – Expansion Plans, Midscale Sector, March 11 issue

CHANGE is anticipated at Accor as former president of McDonald’s Europe, Denis Hennequin, settles in as chairman and CEO.

One of his first moves was to rope in a new chief marketing officer, Grégoire Champetier, who worked with him at McDonald’s France and then McDonald’s Europe, where he contributed to McDonald’s transformation. Champetier is responsible for brand strategy, distribution and innovation and design.

Hennequin, 52, replaces Gilles Pélisson, who left on January 15.

“Anytime you have a new CEO, you’re going to see significant change. I expect significant change, but it is too early to say exactly what that’s going to be…it would be different,” said Michael Issenberg, Accor Asia-Pacific chairman and COO, when asked by TTG Asia e-Daily what sort of change he would expect of a new CEO who engineered McDonald’s success in France – home to haute cuisine – and made it the largest Europe market with more than 1,000 restaurants after Britain and Germany.

“I’ve been with Accor for a while, seen CEOs, and the great thing is they all brought great ideas. Every company needs to evolve and Accor has changed a lot through its 40 year-plus history and will continue to change.”

“Gilles changed our brands’ architecture significantly; it is now very segmented, we have standardised, non-standardised brands. He’s also a great believer in Asia, committed Accor to invest particularly in China and India, so it was an exciting period. Denis is equally committed to Asia and brings in fresh perspective,” said Issenberg, who was launching the new-generation Novotel to the international media in Bangkok yesterday.

TTGmice has won a PATA Gold Award 2011 for its cover story, Rebuilding the Team, in the November 2010 issue.

The article examines how teambuilding is enjoying its day in the sun as companies find solutions to rebuild their teams, which were torn and tattered by the big freeze of the global financial crisis.

It was written by group editor Raini Hamdi, with reports from Prudence Lui, S Puvaneswary, Karen Yue, Sirima Eamtako and Mimi Hudoyo.

Excerpts of the award-winning article are in the Editor’s Pick (see section on right, below).

SHANGRI-LA Hotels and Resorts launched last Friday its new Kerry Hotels brand with the opening of Kerry Hotel Pudong, Shanghai, targeting business travellers.

Located in the new Kerry Parkside complex, the 31-storey hotel has 574 guestrooms and suites, with seven floors devoted to Club accommodation that offer round-the-clock butler and Club concierge services, as well as exclusive access to the Club Lounge.

Connected directly to the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, Kerry Hotel Pudong, Shanghai claims to have the city’s largest portfolio of hotel meeting and banqueting facilities at over 7,300m² with two ballrooms, 26 multi-purpose function rooms, a balcony garden, 16 offices and four meeting rooms.

With an emphasis on helping guests “combine work with leisure”, extensive facilities for recreation are also part of the offerings.

These include a three-level sports club featuring a 24-hour gymnasium, a heated indoor swimming pool, an outdoor basketball court and tennis court, a roof garden with a jogging track, a children’s playground, and a wellness day spa that will open in April.

The second Kerry Hotel will open in Beijing after a multimillion-dollar refurbishment of Shangri-La’s Kerry Centre Hotel that is scheduled to be completed by early 2012.

THAILAND’S Ministry of Tourism and Sports is seeking a 134 per cent increase in budget for next year, or about 38.2 billion baht (US$1.25 billion) in total, to catapult the kingdom to regional hub status for tourism and sports.

TTG Asia e-Daily understands the ministry intends to use the money to develop Thailand as the tourism and sports nerve centre of ASEAN and Asia by next year and 2016 respectively.

Under the proposal, the Tourism Authority of Thailand has reportedly sought 8.3 billion baht, a 58.6 per cent increase over this year, to increase arrivals from regional markets and offset the anticipated slowdown in longhaul markets.

Thailand recorded 15.9 million visitor arrivals last year, a 12.4 per cent increase over the previous year. The travel trade, however, noted that hotels experienced a 15 to 20 per cent drop in business due to last year’s manifold crises.

The country welcomed 1.79 million arrivals in January, up 11.6 per cent over the same month last year.