Cotai Water Jet has resumed City Routes ferry services, allowing travellers to go between Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal (Sheung Wan) and Macau Taipa Ferry Terminal.
Six sailings are offered daily at the start of services resumption.
The services will allow visitors arriving in Macau to swiftly access destination attractions via free shuttle buses to places such as The Venetian Macao, The Parisian Macao and The Londoner Macao.
Thailand has ordered proof of full vaccination or Covid-19 recovery within the last six months from all international travellers bound for the Kingdom.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) also expects unvaccinated travellers to show a medical certificate explaining why they have not received the vaccine.
Airlines will be responsible for checking documents before boarding passengers board.
The new measure will not be permanent, with CAAT saying that it would remind at least until the end of this month.
The announcement coincides with China’s resumption of international travel from January 8.
Thailand welcomed it first post-lockdown flight from China on Monday – Xiamen Airlines flight MF833 landed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport with 286 passengers.
Thai passport holders or passengers transiting through Thailand are exempted from the new measures.
Tokyo has been named one of the most accessible cities in the world in a survey carried out by Valuable 500, a global business collective consisting of 500 companies innovating together for disability inclusion.
Some 3,500 disabled global travellers were surveyed in the 2022 poll about the accessibility of destinations they had visited. They listed Tokyo alongside Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Amsterdam, Paris, Las Vegas, New York, Orlando and London.
The Japanese capital was praised for its kerb cuts on main streets, large and well-equipped accessible bathrooms and ubiquitous tactile ground surface indicators, which were invented in Japan for visually impaired people.
Respondents noted that nearly all train and subway stations in the city are wheelchair accessible and praised the excellent customer service, pointing out that “if not familiar with the station, disabled travellers will be personally escorted to the correct platform”.
The majority of buses in Tokyo are wheelchair-accessible while wheelchair-accessible taxis are available although “not easy to book”, the report continued.
Around half of respondents said Tokyo has “a wide variety of accessible accommodation close to cultural attractions, shops and restaurants”.
Furthermore, most museums, galleries and observation platforms, including Tokyo Skytree, are “generally very wheelchair-accessible”. Arts and entertainment venues, such as the National Noh Theatre, are also well-set up for the visually impaired, hard of hearing and those with mobility issues. Still, many ancient shrines and temples remain only “partially accessible”.
Shinjuku Gyoen, one of the city’s largest parks and a popular cherry blossom viewing spot, received special recognition for its access map and universal smartphone app that uses voice, video, text and vibration to guide disabled visitors.
In addition to infrastructure and information for disabled travellers in each destination, respondents noted “the importance of being treated with respect, and how a greater understanding of disability and the needs of people with disabilities can be as important as accessible infrastructure”.
A pan-India survey commissioned by IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) as part of the launch of their Guest How You Guest global loyalty campaign has revealed that guests highly value personalised hotel experiences that allow them to totally be themselves.
With a total sample size of 5,000 respondents including male (52.7%) and female (47.3%) from age groups of 18-65, the survey aimed to explore preferences and desires of guests during hotel stays, critical to offering a world-class hospitality experience.
The survey results revealed what guests are looking for in a hotel experience, with the three most popular features of a hotel stay being room services (58%), food selection at in-house restaurants (53%) and facilities such as pool, sauna (50%). Meanwhile, 40% of respondents enjoy in-room entertainment available in hotels.
The research showed that 32% are content walking around a hotel in their beachwear, while 22% like to dress their best for dinner and 19% are comfortable to just slouch in their sleepwear and hotel slippers. 17% of respondents admitted that not having to cook for themselves or clean up after (15%) are truly key luxuries that enrich the hotel stay experience.
A stand-out statistic was that 93% of guests felt they can completely be themselves while staying at hotels. While 56% feel they are always relaxed during their stay and 34% feel completely at home during their hotel stays, 12% worry that their kids may misbehave and cause disturbance to other guests.
The popularity of a personalised hotel experience (79%) was something IHG is seeking to celebrate with the launch of their Guest How You Guest campaign.
IHG also created a series of ‘hotel guest archetypes’ as part of the research. Among these, 31% are ‘memory-makers’ who focus on creating memorable experiences and touring around the local area; while 23% classed themselves as a ‘groupie’, most likely to relax and enjoy the company of family and friends. ‘Party people’ (17%) spent their days at the pool and going for drinks at night, while 16% were ‘romance-lovers’, enjoying luxurious, romantic trips with their partners. Finally, 10% are ‘explorers’, going off the beaten track to discover new experiences.
Sudeep Jain, managing director, South West Asia, IHG, said: “Guests remain the focal point of all our services, and thus it is imperative for us to understand their needs, desires and preferences to deliver what they’re looking for the most. It has been very insightful to understand that guests value personalised services at hotels the most.”
As the holiday season beckons, Asia has much reason to cheer as normality has finally (mostly) returned to the region.
From Taiwan to Japan, markets that were previously inaccessible to international travellers, have eased their stringent travel restrictions and reopened their borders, welcoming visitors once again into their fold. Equally, tourists are returning to Asia to soak up everything they’ve missed, from the recent Hong Kong Sevens to the Singapore Grand Prix.
Such is travellers’ wanderlust that they are even willing to cut back on non-essential retail purchases or forego their content streaming subscriptions and gym memberships to fund their travels. Airports across the region have become busy once more, and travellers are rushing to maximise their itineraries.
There is, however, a small catch.
Fuelled by the pandemic and the digital acceleration that came along with it, there has been a dramatic shift in the kind of experiences travellers expect from travel today. The modern-day traveller seeks out experiences that not only make their journeys more convenient, comfortable, and complete, but also motivates them to come back for more.
What makes Travel 2.0 different from its predecessor?
The pandemic stands as a pivotal moment in time that has altered the trajectory of travel.
For one, it has made us realise our shared love for travel and appreciate how easy it was to travel at a time when logistical hassles such as mask mandates, mandatory testing and inbound quarantines did not exist. But equally, it has triggered a global economic fallout that has resulted in significantly higher costs of living and, consequently, skyrocketing costs of travel.
While there is ample evidence to suggest that only a small section of people is deterred by this and cautious to travel today, the rest (who are rejoicing the return to the skies) have changed the way they choose to travel.
Having been exposed to different facets of travel over the past two years, travellers in Asia-Pacific are applying heightened value to certain travel benefits that were previously thought of as add-ons. Take airport lounges, for example – an experience that was once considered a luxury, has transformed into an expectation. Additionally, travellers are more willing to pay for luxury or more convenient travel experiences, such as upgraded seats and direct flights.
Raising customer engagement through heightened travel experiences
This tells us that travel today is no longer about going from point A to point B. Travellers are looking to be engaged differently; they expect more – not just from their journeys, but also from those who facilitate these journeys for them.
Beyond considerations of brand and sector, consumers are seeking far more sophisticated, status-enhancing, value-adding experiences personalised to them. They expect brands to deliver integrated online and offline experiences that add value to their lives – above and beyond day of travel. In today’s era of fragile brand loyalties, customers will return to brands that provide them the best experiences.
Brands have acknowledged this and are adapting their offerings to better engage and meet the needs of new-age travellers. For instance, an airport takeout solution from Servy allows travellers to order their food and drinks online in advance and have them delivered directly to them within the airport. In another recent collaboration, Inflyter announced through their partnership with 3Sixty DutyFree that domestic travellers in the US can shop online for their duty-free purchases and have them delivered to their location of choice. Even payment solutions are being adapted to make it easier for people to travel in today’s environment; for instance, a trend towards offering Fly Now, Pay Later allows travellers to undertake a journey without having to worry about any immediate economic consequences – a significant bonus in today’s financial climate.
Travel loyalty benefits offered by brands in the form of rational rewards, cashback, travel miles and points, continue to retain their appeal among a certain segment of travellers. However, they are often limited in their ability to foster meaningful connections with consumers in a way that can help evoke a strong sense of brand loyalty. To build recurring customer engagement and nurture lifelong loyalty, rational rewards must be balanced with emotional connections so as to make consumers feel special and valued.
Creating a seamless traveller experience
To make the travel experience more meaningful, brands within the travel ecosystem are increasingly turning their attention to investing in the digital experience. However, in comparison to their retail sector peers, for instance (a notoriously innovative and customer-centric sector), brands in the travel industry are falling behind.
A study by Collinson suggests that nearly 93 per cent of consumers today are eager and open to building closer, emotional bonds with their favourite brands. An additional report also indicated that 61 per cent of consumers are comfortable with companies using their relevant personal information transparently to offer them bespoke benefits.
Yet, despite consumers’ willingness to engage, the future investments that brands in the travel and hospitality sector plan to make are far from adequate. Our recent research showed that only 38 per cent of brands across Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore are planning to invest in customer experience; 31 per cent in data management; and 61 per cent in technology infrastructure.
With travel becoming increasingly connected, it is now critical for brands in the ecosystem to work collaboratively with each other to drive seamless, integrated consumer experiences. Airports, for one, are investing in creating an interconnected traveller experience, driven by technology and data, to enable a frictionless experience.
Take market-leading airport experiences programme, Priority Pass, for instance – it provides end-to-end journey support, as well as over and above lounge access to our members. Members have the option to pre-book essential travel services, such as ground transportation, before arriving at the airport. Not only does this help make each airport journey seamless, pleasurable and stress-free, it also benefits other brands in the travel ecosystem by connecting them to the traveller and enabling them to maximise their revenue streams.
Futureproofing – the era of collaboration
For the industry to gain strength and be in a better position to meet the evolving needs of modern travellers, brands will need to come together to form an ecosystem where together, it identifies mutual customers and shares anonymised data with each other. This ultimately will enable brands to curate and deliver more unique, timely and relevant experiences for their consumers.
As travel continues to pick up momentum, we’ll need to say farewell to the days of the industry operating in siloes and welcome an era of collaboration – one where we forge strong partnerships to deliver personalised experiences that consumers expect and unlock data and insights to accurately understand their ever-evolving preferences; continuously adding value over and beyond the day of travel.
The Philippine Department of Tourism (DoT) and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China have signed an implementation programme to push for the bilateral tourism cooperation between both countries.
The agreement was signed by Philippine tourism secretary Christina Garcia Frasco and People’s Republic of China culture and tourism minister Hu Heping during the three-day state visit of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, Jr in Beijing.
Frasco shared: “This implementation programme with China will generate massive employment opportunities and investments across all sectors of tourism throughout the Philippines. Our governments will work together on increasing tourist arrivals, resuming and adding direct flights to key and emerging destinations, joint promotional activities, and inviting tourism investments in infrastructure, among others.”
Under the five-year cooperation, both countries will encourage and support the exchange of their respective administrators and tourism professionals to strengthen the mutual development in the field of hotels, resorts, cruise, port, tourism products, and other related industries and competency standards.
Both parties will also make joint measures to guarantee the rights, interests, and safety of tourists visiting each other’s country.
In addition, local tour operators and travel agencies will take part in the implementation programme by jointly advertising both countries’ tourist offerings, and conduct collaborative workshops and training sessions on cruise/port development, tourism products and lake development, understanding the tourism market and industry, search and rescue operations for first-aid measures as well as security measures.
Both the Philippines and China are expected to support each other’s tourism departments and enterprises in holding travel fairs, tourism exhibitions and other promotion initiatives, to inform the travelling public about their products and services, at the same time, cultivate awareness of environment protection and sustainable development in the growth of their respective tourism industries.
“We will also encourage investments in tourism infrastructure and support tourism enterprises of both countries to cooperate in the development of tourism projects in accordance with the current laws and regulations in each other’s countries,” said Frasco.
Officials from both countries will meet at least once a year, or whenever necessary, to further discuss the implementation covered in the agreement.
Fam trips for tour operators have been deployed by SriLankan Airlines as a tool to demonstrate the country’s readiness for tourism, with a series conducted over the course of 4Q2022 resulting in some group bookings.
The biggest fam trip, titled Pearl of the Orient, was hosted from November 16 to 19, 2022 for 170 agents from across the world, supported by local DMCs, hoteliers and the NTO. The programme was part of a larger event that comprised a main conference and a travel mart where more than 500 meetings were conducted between foreign tour operators and Sri Lankan DMCs.
Several fam trips built specifically for agents based in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia were also held since October 2022.
According to Mohan de S Meegolle, regional manager – Southeast Asia and Australasia with SriLankan Airlines, those regional fam trips earned “very positive feedback” as well as group tour bookings after the Chinese New Year festivities.
Richard Nuttall, CEO of the Sri Lankan flag carrier, said fam trips allowed participants to see what the destination truly is – which is especially crucial following a period of negative news coverage of the country’s economic woes.
“We are doing all we possibly can to get people back. The challenge at the moment is not so much that (people did not know about) the attractions in Sri Lanka, but that the international media has been sensationalising matters,” Nuttall told _TTG Asia_.
“Yes, the country has gone through some economic troubles but it isn’t unsafe to come here as a tourist,” he said, adding that news coverage has been “vastly exaggerated and not always accurate”.
“It takes a long time to build a positive story, and just two minutes to make things look bad,” Nuttall remarked.
He emphasised that long fuel queues were a thing of the past, as an efficient QR code system is now in place for fuel rationing. This allows travel operators to “get on with business”.
He also sought to correct the misperception of food supply in Sri Lanka.
“You may occasionally find that an imported brand is not available and that is due to currency issues. Some Sri Lankan families find themselves without enough money to buy as much protein as they need, and that is due to inflation,” he explained.
“We need tourists to understand that they are not taking food away from Sri Lankans. Rather, tourists expenditure can allow Sri Lankans to generate more income to feed their families,” he said.
SriLankan Airlines intends to continue with fam trips throughout this year, and is open to supporting travel agents that are confident about selling the destination.
Meanwhile, Nuttall shared that the airline remains committed to ramping up operations to facilitate inbound tourism. Currently, it is flying with a fleet of 18 aircraft, and is working with manufacturers to refurbish the engines of some aircraft prior to returning them to service, and with the government to replace others that are due to go off lease this year.
With current resources, SriLankan Airlines will focus on adding frequencies to existing routes, particularly to Singapore, Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur, Thailand, Indonesia’s Jakarta and South Korea.
Fleet size is expected to expand this summer and winter, and return to the pre-pandemic collection of 27 aircraft by mid-2024.
The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) and Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (SHA) have a new co-operation agreement to consolidate best practices in sustainable hospitality and tourism.
This new partnership will bring together SHA’s hospitality industry reach and measurement expertise, with GSTC’s experience in sustainability standards and assurance, to enhance the industry’s understanding of sustainability criteria and the need to capture robust sustainability data.
Over recent years, greenwashing has become a widespread issue globally and across every industry, with companies using sustainability language to present a positive image but without evidence of any real impact. What’s more, within the hospitality industry, the current vast number of ways in which companies are required to report ESG data for different stakeholders and countries, is not only inefficient but can also lead to difficulties in benchmarking companies and therefore establishing best practice.
For the hospitality industry to have lasting positive change and continue momentum towards Net Positive Hospitality, it is vital to have solid standards and effective tools to verify legitimate claims of sustainable business in the hospitality sector. This collaboration will combine the GSTC Criteria, accreditation programme and training opportunities with SHA’s industry leadership and bank of pioneering tools and initiatives.
GSTC’s CEO, Randy Durband, shared how the organisation supports the development of universal measurement tools for sustainability to facilitate businesses assessing, benchmarking, and improving performance within the GSTC Criteria, and that “the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance’s work on sustainable measurement in hospitality is critical to that effort”.
Glenn Mandziuk, CEO, SHA said: “Now is the time to unite our expertise, embedding sustainability criteria across the industry and ensuring every hotel has the tools and guidance needed to become a more regenerative business, that gives back more than it takes.”
2022 marked the 25th anniversary of the start of Chinese outbound tourism, a date which for obvious reasons was not granted much attention. With China about to open its borders again in the coming months, a brief look back might give us some indication on how the future development may look like.
Legal border crossings from Mainland China started in 1983 with so-called ‘family visits’, first to Hong Kong and Macao, and after 1990 to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. A growing number of business delegations started to travel to the leading economic countries in the 1990s, with the costs paid often by the Western business partner. The author, who organised such trips during that decade to Germany, helped Siemens, for instance, to secure the contract for the first metro line in Shenzhen by bringing about 200 city government officials to the Eiffel Tower and the Octoberfest in Munich, all paid for by the German company. Shopping was not an issue due to lack of hard currency – the available pocket money was rather invested in the fee to watch other entertainment channels in hotels.
Leisure outbound tourism officially started in 1997 with the publication of the Temporary rules on outbound travel by Chinese citizens paid by themselves and with the signing of the first Approved Destination Status (ADS) agreements with Australia and New Zealand. The development gained speed in 2004 when a large number of countries implemented ADS agreements, offering visa for tourism purposes. The following years saw a chaotic and mostly unregulated development, which quickly swept away ADS rules such as the number of visitors per country in both directions should be on an equal level.
From 2008 the situation stabilised and the Chinese government changed its policy from trying, in vain, to limit the number of outbound trips to supporting and regulating the market development. The gates were pushed open by the growing demand of the citizens, not by a benevolent policy by the government, which however had learned from the fall of the Berlin Wall, which saw East Germans not asking for democracy but for freedom of travel. Outbound tourism also started to be considered as a “soft power tool” to positively influence the image of China abroad.
With more than 80 million trips in 2012, China overtook Germany and the US both in terms of border crossings and spending as the biggest outbound tourism source market in the world.
2013 can be considered as the start of the second wave. In this year, the new president Xi Jinping mentioned as first leader the positive role of Chinese outbound tourism in a major international speech at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, and a Chinese Tourism Law was published. On the host side, visa procedures started to be simplified, or even completely abolished, in many destinations. For the top 10 per cent of the Chinese society, international travel experience became a necessary sign of distinction together with a big apartment, a car and a fancy watch. By 2019, 170 million outbound trips started in Mainland China, with more than half of them going beyond Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR. Many destinations, especially in Asia, relied to a big extent on Chinese visitors, with eleven million arrivals in Thailand and six million arrivals in Vietnam in 2019 for instance.
The pandemic abruptly ended the second wave in February 2020. While the first wave was characterised by being able to gain international travel experience, whatever the quality, the second wave saw developments such as the shift from ticking off sights and shopping at the main destinations in big package-tour groups towards more interest in experiences and activities, a distinct segmentation of the market, more self- and semi-organised trips, as well as a more sophisticated demand and behaviour.
The new wave will see the return of Chinese outbound travellers following that line, but with more experience, knowledge and special interest demands than ever before, combined with a greater focus on value for money. As in the 25 years before, neither the Chinese government nor the host destinations will be able to resist the wanderlust of the Chinese upper and upper-middle class, making it necessary to develop more sustainable forms of tourism for the Chinese market, which at the 30th anniversary will probably represent one fifth of the global market.
The growing number of countries establishing different arrival measures for travellers coming from China has drawn a passionate statement from IATA’s director general Willie Walsh, who described the move as “extremely disappointing”.
He said: “Several countries are introducing Covid-19 testing and other measures for travellers from China, even though the virus is already circulating widely within their borders. It is extremely disappointing to see this knee-jerk reinstatement of measures that have proven ineffective over the last three years.”
He added that research has shown the ineffectiveness of “putting barriers in the way of travel” in preventing the spread of infections.
“At most, restrictions delayed that peak by a few days. If a new variant emerges in any part of the world, the same situation would be expected,” he said.
He urged governments to listen to the advice of experts, including the WHO which has advised against travel restrictions.
“We have the tools to manage Covid-19 without resorting to ineffective measures that cut off international connectivity, damage economies and destroy jobs. Governments must base their decisions on ‘science facts’ rather than ‘science politics’.”
