The faces of K-pop girl group Blackpink now adorn the body of a Korean Air Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, as the airline makes a special move to support of South Korea’s successful bid to host the World Expo 2030 in Busan.
The aircraft with the unique livery will begin its journey on May 4 departing from Seoul Incheon for Paris Charles de Gaulle and make stops in multiple destinations on the airline’s global network.
The Interlude, Australia
The Interlude in Melbourne is a 19-room urban retreat offering guests unique experiences during their stay, such as exploring the evolution of Victoria’s wine region over time, tea blending, learning how to roll truffles, and more.
It features a restaurant, wine bar, underground relaxation pool and a reflection garden.
OMO Kansai Airport by Hoshino Resorts, Japan
OMO Kansai Airport by Hoshino Resorts is conveniently located near Osaka’s Kansai Airport – the hotel’s second floor is directly connected to the train station, and just one stop from the airport.
On site, there is a restaurant on the 21st floor that offers a gourmet buffet, and serves okonomiyaki (Japanese savoury pancakes), a local specialty from the Kansai region. There is also a sento-style bath area for hotel guests with heated baths and dry sauna.
For guests wishing to explore the surrounding area, the hotel provides neighbourhood maps.
Adina Apartment Hotel Pentridge Melbourne, Australia
The new Adina Apartment Hotel Pentridge Melbourne was transformed from the 170-year-old historic Pentridge Prison site, and is located just 20 minutes from Melbourne’s CBD and airport.
The 106-key property offers apartment-style accommodation including studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The hotel offers F&B options and event spaces, and has implemented green features such as built-in solar panels, rainwater tank recycling system, EV charging stations in the basement, and more.
Travelodge Sapporo Susukino, Japan
Travelodge Sapporo Susukino in Sapporo City, Hokkaido offers guests 212 guestrooms and is nearby local restaurants, bars, shops and entertainment stores.
Daily breakfast is provided at the social area which later transforms into a coworking or networking space for the rest of the day. Facilities include a self-service laundromat, Wi-Fi, and 24/7 guest services.
The hotel is within walking distance to Susukino Station and Sapporo Station, which provides easy access to all parts of Hokkaido.
Luxury Lodges of Australia has added True North II, a freshly refurbished luxury expedition ship, to its collection.
The 10-cabin adventure yacht features capacity for 20 guests and offers five dedicated adventure boats and a ship’s helicopter, with access to pristine, remote wilderness along the Australian coast, onboard dining and a host of activities for guests.
2023 departure dates for True North II are ongoing from now till Dec 25.
For more information, visit True North.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry has named Melissa Ow as the new chief executive of Singapore Tourism Board (STB) effective from June 1. She will take over the role from Keith Tan.
Currently the executive vice president for customer experience, marketing & investment facilitation group at the Economic Development Board (EDB), Ow played a key role in transforming the organisation’s B2B sales and marketing model.
Ow has held several positions in STB, with the last being deputy chief executive. She also headed the Experience Development Group and the Corporate Group as well as oversaw STB’s corporate functions such as legal, procurement and corporate administration, finance, and human resources.
A wheelchair-designed charter cruise, a fishing operator with a purpose-built motorised rod, and a business that has developed a power chair with the ability to transform into a fishing chair, are three fishing businesses in Queensland paving the way for everyone to experience the joy of landing their first catch.
Based on the Gold Coast, Pacific Wind is Australia’s first wheelchair-designed charter cruise boat. It was launched when Michael Brown, the brainchild behind the venture who is a quadriplegic and wheelchair-bound angler, purchased the boat and fitted the boat for wheelchair access in 2017.
Further up north, Robert Agius, owner of Reel Keen Powerchair in Hervey Bay, has created a worldwide product to assist fishing fanatics to hold a rod and be able to reel in the big fish, all while on a wheelchair. He is in the process of purchasing a purpose-built fishing vessel to take clients to his favourite local fishing spots.
Meanwhile, Fishability – a partnership between Bribie Island Boat Charters and several community groups – helps individuals requiring support to experience the joy of fishing with the assistance from trained and experienced volunteer guides, and by using purpose-built motorised rods, reels and fishing rod holders.
Tourism businesses such as these will be further supported this year as the Queensland government declared 2023 as The Year of Accessible Tourism in Queensland, where A$12 million (US$7.9 million) in funding has been set aside to create opportunities for small- to medium-sized tourism and events businesses to develop or enhance accessibility for people of all abilities.
With this move, the government aims to change the perception of what it means to be an accessible tourism business, and will promote accessible tourism destinations and experiences in Queensland.
According to a 2017 Tourism Australia study, travellers with a disability spend A$3.3 billion on tourism, accounting for 17 per cent of all tourism expenditure. Equally, they account for 21 per cent of day trips and spend five per cent more than people without disabilities.
“The statistics prove that this really is an untapped market. Great Fishing Adventures of Australia (GFAoA) supports and promotes all types of fishing in Australia as we believe our operators and our locations are the best in the world. This includes inspiring all people to fish in Australia, regardless of disability,” said Ange Esdaile, executive officer of GFAoA, a collective of independent fishing operators.
She added: “We encourage our operators in the GFAoA collective to realise the potential of this market and work towards inclusivity in both infrastructure and experience.”
As to how tourism businesses in Australia can be more inclusive, Esdaile opined that it would help if they could “say yes where possible”.
Moving forward, Esdaile pointed out that continuous education would be key, and programmes, such as the Queensland Tourism Industry Council self-assessment module to help tourism businesses evaluate their facilities and procedure, would be of great help.
Every year, about 1.6 billion tonnes of food worth US$1.2 trillion is wasted, which in turn generates 9.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
One of the largest generators of food waste are buffet lines in the hospitality industry, and Rayner Loi, co-founder and CEO of Lumitics, is leveraging technology to bring about a higher level of insight to help businesses take actionable steps.
The Singapore-based start-up, backed by venture capital firm Velocity Ventures, has developed a smart waste tracker that uses artificial intelligence to track and identify the amount of food wasted. It uses a variety of sensors and computer vision to identify the item about to be thrown away.
This information is fed into a platform which is then presented in tables, highlighting areas of opportunity to trim portions down, and showing if a particular dish is slow moving and should be replaced by something else more popular.
“Visibility drives change, and visually after six months, the Fairmont team (one of Lumitics’ partners) was already throwing less away by tracking the leftovers from the daily buffet line. The team then adjusts the amount for future breakfast buffets,” said Loi.
Beyond hotels, this technology can also help reduce food waste on buffets onboard cruise ships, and airlines to achieve “precise catering”, he said.
When asked about the possibility of replacing buffets with cook-upon-order requests, Loi told TTG Asia: “I have posed the same question to some of our partners. But we have to understand that for the hospitality industry, labour is one of its biggest challenges. Running a buffet is advantageous, as you don’t need staff to take orders. QR ordering also doesn’t quite work, as staff will still need to serve guests. So, I think buffets are not going away.”
Aside from being labour intensive, buffets allow guests to serve themselves immediately. This is especially useful for time-starved business travellers in the morning.
Other factors that consumers do not see is the operational challenge in having enough blast chiller space to handle food redistribution. This is because cooked food has a four-hour window, and to maintain the freshness, it needs to be blast-chilled before being recooked. This leaves the hotel with lesser space for food preparation for an upcoming event or dinner service.
As for donating leftover food, Loi pointed out that although charities and organisations in Singapore want to donate food, there is no “legal environment that supports that type of goodwill”.
He explained: “We do not have a Good Samaritan Act, and local companies are fearful of legal liability. In other parts of the world like the US and Europe, the Act absolves the donor of any legal liability resulting from goodwill. Until that changes, retailers will try to minimise as much food waste as possible.”
Loi has been in touch with a few ministers about the goodwill act, and according to him, it will be tabled in parliament sometime later this year.
One solution that would be more suitable for Singapore’s context, he opined, would be to turn food into energy or even fish feed. Turning it into compost would not help as Singapore is not an agricultural nation.
He noted: “It’s not that these hotels don’t care – they are making commitments to reduce food waste. What they are doing is trying to make the best out of the situation. The reality is that there’s going to be food that cannot be reduced, but the bigger the hotel chain, the larger impact (on the reduction of food waste) there will be.”
In conjunction with Hyatt’s annual Global Month of Service, three of its properties – Grand Hyatt Jakarta, Park Hyatt Jakarta and Alila SCBD – have come together to support youths through the RiseHY Career Day.
Three non-profit organisations were invited to Grand Hyatt Jakarta’s ballroom on April 28 for career guidance and a recruitment simulation, where professional mentors and volunteers from the hotels provided tips on how to succeed at work interviews. The event drew 20 participants aged 16 to 24 years old.
These young adults also got to broaden their knowledge about the hospitality industry through a hotel tour, and underwent mock-up interviews to build their confidence.
Grand Hyatt Jakarta has been supporting youth development for several years through the RiseHY programme, in line with Hyatt’s World of Care value. The hotel aims to hire 12 opportunity youths – young people who are disconnected from school and work – by 2025, supporting Hyatt Hotels Corporation’s global target of hiring 10,000 opportunity youths.
From September, Vietjet will increase frequency for flights between Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City and Australia’s Melbourne and Sydney from thrice weekly services to four each.
The Ho Chi Minh City-Melbourne service will operate every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, returning every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
The service from Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney will fly every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, with the return flight taking off every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Qantas Airways has named finance chief Vanessa Hudson as its next chief executive officer.
Hudson joined Qantas 28 years ago and has held several senior roles there, including chief financial officer, chief customer officer and senior vice president for the Americas and New Zealand.
She will officially take over from Alan Joyce, whose has held the role for 15 years, at the 2023 annual general meeting in November.
While it is common to hear of travel and tourism companies embarking on sustainable initiatives in response to growing awareness of responsible operations and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Walk Japan’s first steps into its community engagements were borne out of its CEO’s longing to live out his countryside dream.
Paul Christie’s love for the countryside first bloomed in his teenage years, when he used to visit his grandfather in Southern England and would take walks together through the surrounding apple orchards and botany of hops.
“My grandfather also kept honey bees and geese, and grew lots of vegetables. I loved walking with him through the area, and determined then that I would one day live in the countryside,” Christie recalled in a conversation with TTG Asia.
At the age of 40 in 2002, he decided it was time to get started on fulfilling that dream. With that, he gave up his life in London to settle in Kyushu, Japan, where he found joy in building his own house, growing some vegetables, helping the local farmers with their tasks, “pottering around”, and leading tours for Walk Japan “to earn some pocket money”.
“Essentially, I got to lead the good life in the countryside. But as the tour business picked up, I got taken away from the other things I wanted to do in the countryside. So, I started Walk Japan’s Community Projects some time in 2007, and my initial plan was to do things related to farming and looking after the forests,” he said.
“But these projects developed into things far more than that.”
One of the first initiatives of Walk Japan’s Community Projects was to buy over houses in Kunisaki, a small coastal town in Kyushu, that have long been abandoned. A team renovated and converted the houses into offices and places for customers – and eventually volunteers – to stay.
Christie now has seven properties in the area, five of which have been renovated. Two are used as offices, two as accommodation for guests, and a beach house that is currently being rented.
Another aspect of the Community Projects is taking care of communal parks that local councils are unable to care for due to budget issues. One initiative involves regenerating forests that have just one or two types of cedar trees grown very densely together, resulting in poor sun access and barren forest floor with little variation of flora and fauna. Christie hopes to turn these plots into ecologically vibrant areas, but acknowledges that this will be an initiative lasting for decades.
Coming up, Walk Japan’s Community Projects will embark on English classes for Kunisaki children. It will work with local schools that are unable to provide English enrichment classes due to limited skillsets.
“We hope that in doing so, we will encourage people to move to Kunisaki because they see opportunities in getting English education not available in other rural areas,” said Christie.
Christie believes that Walk Japan’s Community Projects are helping to revitalise rural areas.
As the projects are “integral to our walking tours”, Walk Japan’s customers have the opportunity to be part of initiatives and interact with the local people. Some customers have chosen to visit Kunisaki again and again, and to eventually stay for weeks or months to volunteer for Walk Japan’s Community Projects in the area.
“For example, we have an Australian, who is retired now but used to work with the national parks, who came for six weeks to help us on our projects. He started off as a customer who booked a tour with us later in the year, but learnt about our projects and decided to come ahead of time to join us.”
There are also others who have relocated from the big cities to work at Walk Japan’s office in Kunisaki. The company has a multinational team, comprising Japanese, Italians, French, a Hong Kong Chinese, a Lithuanian and many more.
Christie said: “The main population in Kunisaki is getting old and will not be producing youngsters. So, our community projects also look at ways to make Kunisaki a more vibrant place to live in, not just a place to farm rice for example, so that people elsewhere will be enticed to move here and live.”
He noted that fresh relocations to Kunisaki were few prior to the pandemic.
“There were a few Japanese who moved here and nearly no foreigners. That has since changed. I think two major reasons are at play, besides us being here to create jobs.
“One reason is the Fukushima nuclear incident, which forced many people in East Japan to relocate elsewhere. Second, the pandemic: some people living in the Tokyo region looked to move into the countryside where pandemic restrictions were fewer and it was easier and cheaper to move around. There were also people who could not travel overseas during the last three years and considered domestic destinations, like Beppu (a popular hot springs town), not too far away from Kunisaki. They came, fell in love after realising Kunisaki is more than just a beautiful coastal town, and moved in.”
It is not just Kunisaki that is benefiting from revitalisation through Walk Japan’s work.
Christie cited villages on the Nakasendo trail as an example. Walk Japan is recognised as pioneers of walking tours through Nakasendo, an ancient route that connected Edo (Tokyo today) to Kyoto. Its tours prioritised support for local businesses – small inns, local transport operators, restaurants, and more.
“That placed money in the hands of locals. When I did economics in university a long time ago, I learnt that when you put a dollar into a local business, that value grows six-fold because local businesses often go on to support other local businesses,” he said.
And as word spread that tourism brought improved financial independence to the local community, people were inspired to stay put and set up tourism-related businesses, instead of leaving for the big city.
“I’m not saying that Walk Japan alone can inspire that sort of change. We are the vanguard of walking tours. Many other travel companies that have seen what we do went on to design similar experiences with their own flavour. When more travel companies do that, they bring more people into a destination, which then supports local businesses,” he said.
In assessing the outcomes of his Community Projects, Christie said the initiatives are also good for the heart.
“Sure, our customers support the local communities as they participate in our walks, but they also gain so much from being part of the communities,” he said, pointing to the intangible value of spending time with a host family and transcending language barriers to share genuine conversations.
In Kunisaki, Walk Japan tours sometimes call on Etchan, an old friend of Christie who just turned 80, at her house.
“She cannot speak a word of English but is a master communicator. During Covid, she was so desperate for foreigners to return. So, I think, in a way, our Community Projects are also about building bonds between travellers and the locals, and among travellers,” he reflected.
