IATA revises Hong Kong aviation recovery to end-2024
IATA has upgraded its passenger traffic recovery projection for Hong Kong, just as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government makes a move on easing labour crunch in the aviation sector.
IATA now expect to see a recovery to pre-crisis levels by the end of 2024. This revision brings Hong Kong’s recovery in line with expectations for a faster recovery in the Asia-Pacific region.
“China’s earlier than expected reopening is providing a much-needed boost to the passenger recovery. By the end of 2024, we expect to see Hong Kong’s traffic return to pre-crisis levels,” said Willie Walsh, director general, IATA.
The Hong Kong government introduced a labour importation scheme to ramp-up the airport workforce with 6,300 workers from mainland China. While demand for air travel has been strong, airlines in Hong Kong have been struggling with supply chain issues and a staff shortage.
Walsh shared: “As we look ahead to the recovery and prepare for future growth, it is important that the entire Hong Kong aviation community, including airlines, airport, regulator, and government, work together to address the challenges and are well prepared to tap on future opportunities.”
In addition, IATA and the Airport Authority Hong Kong have teamed up to organise the Hong Kong Aviation Day, which will be held from August 2 to 3 this year.
YTL Hotels sees strength in South-east Asia markets
Staycations and short hops around South-east Asia seem to be making a comeback, noted YTL Hotels’ chief, as travel demand continues to remain strong after the initial wave of post-lockdown revenge travel.
Mark Yeoh Seok Kah, executive director of YTL Hotels, told TTG Asia that there has been an “upswing in demand on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays” for YTL properties in its home country Malaysia.
“We’ve always had a domestic tourism base, but I see more Malaysians are getting used to the concept of staycations, and I think they will continue to do so (in the long-term). In Singapore, staycations in hotels are common, but this only emerged in Malaysia post-lockdown,” he elaborated.
Over in Thailand, locals are also driving up demand at The Ritz-Carlton, Koh Samui (a YTL-owned property). This segment typically flies in from Bangkok for the weekend.
At the same time, Yeoh observed that as airfares stabilised, YTL’s traditional European and Australian markets returned in droves. However, he does not expect the Chinese market – an important source for Thailand pre-pandemic – to “fully return until 4Q2023”.
“Although we remain very bullish about the market, flight capacities and air routes first have to be reinstated,” he explained.
Overall, Yeoh is “very positive” about South-east Asia’s travel future, pointing to recent news of economy carrier Scoot’s injection of Embraer jets into its fleet, indicating stronger operations to come for secondary destinations in the region.
Yeoh opined that the “final frontier” of travel in South-east Asia was to transform the region into the “Mediterranean of Asia”, likening it to Greece’s cruising sector, which boomed over the years, spawning a host of tourism-related businesses.
While Yeoh acknowledged that appropriate infrastructure is lacking in this region to support such an endeavour, he believes that long sailing trips from Singapore northwards to Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cambodia, or eastwards towards Philippines and Sabah, would appeal to the younger, luxury travellers of the future.
When asked how the perceived strength of regional tourism would affect future acquisitions and pace of new signings, he told TTG Asia that the company is working on a few projects in Malaysia and continued focus is placed on Japan’s Niseko Village.
“Many opportunities have surfaced, but we are sifting through them to find one that makes the most economic sense for us. As we own all our properties, my mandate is that all our projects must be in a location that (allows ownership),” he said.
Worldwide Hotels Group acquires Parkroyal On Kitchener Road in Singapore
Worldwide Hotels Group has acquired Parkroyal On Kitchener Road in the move to expand the group’s presence in Singapore.
The property is a well-established hotel along Kitchener Road in Little India, which will be rebranded and launched after the takeover has been completed in 4Q2023.
Carolyn Choo, CEO of Worldwide Hotels Group, said: “This acquisition aligns perfectly with our growth strategy and allows us to expand our commitment to deliver guest experiences with exceptional value and thoughtful customer service in strategic locations.”
With this new addition, Worldwide Hotels Group’s portfolio now comprises 41 properties in Singapore, including two upcoming hotels to open later this year.
New hotels: voco Ma Belle Danang, Teardrop Villas and more
voco Ma Belle Danang, Vietnam
The new voco Ma Belle Danang is just steps from My Khe Beach, on Vo Nguyen Giap Street, and offers three restaurants and bars, a rooftop pool, spa, gym, and event spaces.
Attractions nearby include Man Thai, a traditional fishing village, Linh Ung Pagoda which houses Vietnam’s tallest Buddha statue, and the famed Golden Bridge.
Danang International Airport is a short 15 minutes ride away.
Teardrop Villas, Sri Lanka
Teardrop Hotels has introduced its first Teardrop Villas: 41 and 42 Lighthouse Street villas, located in the heart of UNESCO World Heritage Site Galle Fort.
The 41 Lighthouse Street is a three-bedroom, two-storied luxury private villa which comes with a pool and can accommodate a maximum of seven guests.
The 42 Lighthouse Street is a four-bedroom villa complete with living spaces for up to 10 guests, with a veranda or secret sky terrace, with views of the Galle Fort ramparts and Indian Ocean.
Hyatt Regency Hangzhou International Airport, China
Hyatt Regency Hangzhou International Airport boasts 336 rooms, three restaurants and lounges, spa, swimming pool, fitness centre, and event spaces.
The hotel, a minute’s walk from Terminal 4 of the airport, is well connected to the city. Hangzhou’s business district and expo centres are a 20-minute drive away, while West Lake is 40 minutes away.
Rissai Valley, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, China
Situated in the famed Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan province, the 87-villa Rissai Valley, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, offers views of the snow-capped Minshan mountain range, forests, and ancient Tibetan villages.
Each villa stay comes with a dedicated personal host who takes care of every detail for guests.
The property features restaurants, lobby lounge, spa, and a kids’ club. Activities include the artistry of Tibetan folk dance and classical music, the meditative practice of Thangka painting, and hiking in the surrounding forests.
Broadway musical & Juliet to grace Singapore’s stage
& Juliet, the hit musical on Broadway, will be making its premiere and only Asian stop in Singapore from September 21 to October 8 at Sands Theatre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.
Based on a book by Emmy Award-winning Schitt’s Creek writer David West Read and music from five-time Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Max Martin, & Juliet sees Shakespeare’s famous love story remixed with some of the most iconic pop songs of the last three decades in an uplifting story of self-discovery, empowerment and love.
The playlist of pop anthems includes Roar, Baby One More Time, Larger Than Life, That’s The Way It Is, Can’t Stop the Feeling, plus a brand-new song written especially for the show by Martin.
Tickets start from S$68 (US$50), excluding booking fees, and are available via Marina Bay Sands and SISTIC box offices and online.
Maybank cardholders can get 15 per cent discount on tickets, and Trip.com is also offering a 15 per cent discount on its website.
For more information, visit & Juliet.
Sofitel Melbourne on Collins appoints new GM
Rachael Harman has been named general manager of Sofitel Melbourne On Collins.
She brings over 20 years of experience to her new role having spent time working in senior management roles for various luxury hotel brands across Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Before joining Sofitel Melbourne On Collins, she was general manager at Sofitel Adelaide.
UNWTO, G20 develop sustainable development roadmap for tourism
As the knowledge partner of India’s G20 Presidency, UNWTO delivered the Goa Roadmap for Tourism as a Vehicle for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals at the meeting of the Ministers of Tourism of the world’s leading economies.
Halfway between the 2015 launch of the 2030 Agenda and the deadline to accomplish it, UNWTO called on G20 Tourism Ministers to lead the sector’s contribution to accelerating progress towards achieving the 17 SDGs.
The Goa Roadmap, developed with the Tourism Working Group, builds upon the five priority areas under India’s G20 Presidency.
The first is green tourism, which recognises the critical need to work towards climate action and environmental protection and related international cooperation. The roadmap incorporates recommended actions and good practices from G20 economies and guest countries on issues such as financing, sustainable infrastructure and resource management, integrating circular approaches in the tourism value chain and engaging visitors as key actors in sustainability.
Next is digitalisation – the roadmap makes clear the wide-ranging benefits of supporting businesses and destinations through digitalisation, including enhanced productivity, improved infrastructure management and delivering a safer and more efficient visitor experience.
It also emphasises on the need to provide tourism workers, particularly youth and women, with the skills employers need, to future-proof tourism jobs and to make the sector a more attractive career path.
With tourism MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) accounting for 80 per cent of all tourism businesses worldwide, the roadmap stressed the importance of public policies and public-private partnerships in addressing key challenges, including financing, marketing and skills gaps and market access to support MSMEs through the digital and sustainable transitions.
Lastly, the roadmap presents a set of proposed actions to create a holistic approach to destination management that strengthens public-private-community partnerships and enhances a whole of government approach. It further shares examples of innovative programmes among G20 and invited countries.
UNWTO secretary-general Zurab Pololikashvili said: “As tourism bounces back close to pre-pandemic levels, we must ensure that recovery is sustainable, inclusive and resilient. The Goa Roadmap for Tourism as a Vehicle for Achieving the SDGs offers the G20 economies a proposed plan of action to lead the way forward towards a better future for all.”
“Tourism can be instrumental in addressing many of the challenges faced by our societies while transforming itself to address its socio-economic impacts. Working together on a common roadmap for recovery and long-term sustainability will unlock its immense potential to deliver on the SDGs,” added Shri G. Kishan Reddy, minister of tourism, culture and development of North Eastern Region, government of India.
UNWTO and the UN Environment Programme also hosted the side event Towards a circular economy of plastics in tourism – the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, in association with the Ministry of Tourism of India.
The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative provides a common vision for a circular economy of plastics in tourism. The side-event provided delegates and participants with practical guidance to address plastic pollution in tourism operations.
The Central Nodal Agency for Sustainable Tourism of India, a technical agency of the Ministry of Tourism, became a signatory of this initiative, together with the government of Punjab and the Responsible Tourism Society of India.
Philippine outbound appetite on the rise
Filipinos have taken to traveling in droves to outbound destinations near and far and purchasing travel insurance without prodding.
These observations were shared at the recent 10th Travel Madness Fair in Manila.
As Ark Travel Express president, Paz Alberto, put it: “Travel has become part of Filipino lives,” adding that their appetite for it has been whetted even more with “promotional airfares, increased long weekends, and the need to maintain one’s health and well-being”.
One of its consequences is the growth in demand for travel insurance, many with Covid-19 coverage, even for shorthaul destinations, a trend likely to persist longer as can be gleaned in the longer list of insurance companies exhibitors this year.
“Travel insurance is a must nowadays. Unlike in the past when passengers had to be pushed to buy, with only about 20 per cent of them getting travel insurance, now it’s the other way around,” said Dorothy Lauron-Aytona, president and general manager, Skynet Travel Corp.
Alberto shared that Japan is now the new Hong Kong, enjoying a brisk demand due to having visas which are valid for one year or more.
Many have opted for Japan after South Korea implemented earlier this year new visa processing procedures eliminating accredited travel agencies in favour of an online visa appointment system, resulting in longer queues and processing time.
The Embassy of South Korea in Manila stated in a notice that “online reservation slots for Individual Applicants for Tourism for the month of July 2023 has been fully booked”, which means travellers had to queue up for slots in August.
Estimating that the number of Filipino tourists to South Korea had halved, Lauron-Aytona said that apart from Japan, Filipinos are also travelling longhaul to the Balkan states, Morocco, Turkey, and Greece.
Dubai is also getting its fair share of tourists, and pilgrimages to Europe and the Holy Land are blooming. Meanwhile, Corporate International Travel and Tours basks in getting good volume for international cruises.
Simon Ang, managing director operations, Celebrate Life, Travel, Leisure and Celebrations, said luxury travel is in and has resumed much ahead of leisure travel.
Lauron-Aytona noted that “China is back” but advised travel consultants to get the hang of visa processing procedures being done in the Philippines. The destination is also accepting groups, however, the tour operator in China will be the one to process visa applications.
She added that previously, families usually travel to a single destination – the trend now is for multiple destinations, like combining Asia with Europe, possibly because they had travel money saved during the pandemic.
Hotel rates are still high owing to increased demand, while the shortage of flights due to some airlines not yet resuming their original flight schedules means airfares will continue to remain high.
Making accessibility a norm
Where did your passion for accessibility issues in tourism begin, and how did you end up becoming a champion for its causes?
I’ve been a lifelong traveller doing longhaul flights since I was six months old, until Covid hit. It became increasingly frustrating with the lack of accessibility in tourism as my disability progressed. I’d been doing workarounds to keep travelling for myself, and thought surely there are other people like me who are finding it just as frustrating and there’s so little information out there. So, I wanted to find solutions not just for myself but for others facing the same challenges.
Can you tell us about your disability?
I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1996 but I had symptoms from 1985. It’s an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system where basically my major nerves and my brain will short circuit, which can cause all sorts of ‘fun’ problems.
In my case at the moment, it’s not being able to walk and having very weak arms, but it started with a few twitches here and there, a few pins and needles and that’s why it took over 10 years to be diagnosed. I now get around in a power wheelchair.
How easy is it to travel with your wheelchair?
It’s not easy but what I found more limiting was the stage where I was still walking, but slowly with a cane. I would tire very easily but wasn’t yet requiring so much assistance that it (could be) labelled assistance.
It would’ve been very helpful to have more benches or different rest spots where I could still enjoy myself. That’s what we talk about at GetAboutAble – how to cater to everyone regardless of what their physical needs are, which can include invisible, psychosocial, intellectual disabilities, or other areas of neurodiversity.
How big is the community of people who love to travel and have disabilities? I’m sure this community bands together and shares notes.
One in five or six people has some form of disability, and that doesn’t even count the older population or others who might never classify themselves as having a disability. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that’s one in three households.
So, when we talk about travellers with access needs, we say, don’t look at us as a specific niche. Look at us as one in five travellers across the entire spectrum. We’re solo travellers, families, luxury and business travellers.
For most businesses it’s 20 per cent of their market but they’re completely missing it because they don’t even think about it, much less work to cater to it. It’s not that hard – it’s all about knowing your customers and how to make their visit more enjoyable.
By the way, most people who think about accessible tourism think about ramps and wide doorways and measurements, but that’s just the compliance piece for building standards. What we need for inclusive travel is just asking the same question you ask other customers: what can I do to make your visit better?
Is there monetary value that you’ve been able to place on the disability travel market?
Absolutely. We just heard from Tourism Australia when they came to speak at our annual conference that they had it valued at A$13.5 billion (US$8.9 billion) annually in 2021, compared to just over A$10 billion before the pandemic.
In the year it was measured, it was (worth) more than the Chinese tourism market. Think of how travel and tourism operators catered to the Chinese market and compare it to this market that’s at least that big and growing without any (extra) effort. We estimate it’s going to be two or three times as big once people start looking at it.
When borders were closed, we were waving our hands going “Hey, we’ve got a market for you” and that’s when people started listening. With Queensland declaring 2023 as the Year of Accessible Tourism and the Olympics and Paralympics coming in 2032, there’s just such a groundswell of momentum.
I’ve been saying this for a long time – people with access needs are high-value travellers, spending almost three times as much as the average traveller even if they’re staying in budget accommodation. The reason is because they travel with more companions, they stay for longer and they are more loyal. I feel like it’s just a big secret that’s going to get out.
What do you think the Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Conference in the Asia-Pacific held in Queensland this year achieved?
It’s our third year but our first with an in-person event.
Progress, not perfection, was a really big theme for this conference. Start wherever you are on that journey, figure out what you already have in your business and build on that.
Also, looking at accessible and inclusive tourism as a customer service issue rather than a compliance issue – so many businesses are used to having to tick the box that says that they’re accessible as part of legal requirements.
We’re not talking about those at all. We’re talking about how do you make a good experience for your customers. Start with a statement of welcoming people of all abilities and telling us what your access requirements are. You might have to say, I’m sorry, we can’t help you or maybe let’s work on this or that.
The other thing is working on access and inclusion as business as usual, not as an afterthought. It’s much more expensive to retrofit or deal with a complaint later. If inclusion is part of your business as usual, and if your intention is good, a lot will be forgiven because you are on the journey together.
It sounds like you are still up against much resistance in the tourism and hospitality industry. What do you think is the biggest misconception about accessible travel that you are encountering?
First of all, I wouldn’t call it resistance – I think it’s fear. The biggest hurdle is the preconception that it’s too expensive or too difficult. If you work in an old heritage building, to get it compliant-accessible could be very expensive but to get it customer service-inclusive is quite a different conversation.
In your opinion, which is the most disability friendly country in the world, and what did you love about it?
In our region, Singapore is incredibly accessible and inclusive every step of the way. The culture is such that people will help people with disabilities. If you are talking cities, Barcelona is also incredibly inclusive.
What are some of the most imaginative ways you’ve seen tourism operators incorporate services for the accessible and inclusive market Ideas?
Oh goodness, there are so many! There is an art deco style hotel in the UK that has a ceiling hoist track, which you can think of as an upside-down monorail that goes across the ceiling – they had done the moulding in such a way that the ceiling hoist track goes into a closet and gets stored there so it isn’t in your face as soon as you walk in the hotel room.
That’s the thing – for most people when they think of accessibility, they’re thinking of the ugly hospital-like looking, plastic or metal up the wall but I’ve seen so many examples of it being done really well.
That’s when it doesn’t feel like accessibility – it feels like a holiday.
A discussion at the recent PATA Destination Experience Forum and Mart 2023 on the topic of Leveraging New Trends in Sustainable Forms of Tourism revealed that the pre-pandemic challenges of over-tourism are coming back and the misuse of ecotourism term prevails.
Hannah Pearson, regional director APAC, Adventure Travel Trade Association, said: “There’s that struggle… between wanting to get back to those 2019 levels and at the same time recognising that getting back to that is perhaps not necessarily what the planet needs.”
She believes that adventure travel can provide a balanced return to tourism business, as it can drive the economy and contribute to local nature through conservation efforts and serving local communities.
“Adventure travel can help to address a lot of those pre-pandemic issues, but it needs to be implemented strategically. This means that you guys (need to) diversify your source markets, disperse travellers throughout the whole country, and give young people an incentive to stay in those rural areas,” Pearson explained.
Meanwhile, Masaru Takayama, founding chair of Asian Ecotourism Network, highlighted in his presentation that the term ecotourism is often used to label activities that may not necessarily fit the definition.
“Greenwashing is rampant in travel and tourism, but if there is greenwashing, it’s not ecotourism,” he opined, stating that not all nature-based tourism can be considered ecotourism, and that going for a hunting trip or staying in an eco-resort does not necessarily equate to ecotourism.
Takayama added: “Sustainable practices in large hotels and resorts are highly commendable, however, a sustainable or eco label is not synonymous to an ecotourism experience. Although the accommodation might be operated using good environmental practices, the siting and construction of the hotel might have had big impact on the local environment and community.”
Takayama also advised nature-based attractions to be mindful of the kind of negative impact they may be making through their social media activities.
He explained that with “the emergence of social media”, many are tagging locations in their online posts. Should a photo of a rare flower species be shared on social media, more people would want to visit the area to do the same and result in overcrowding.