Brij Hotels has appointed Shiv Kumar Mehan as chief executive officer. He joins the senior leadership team to forefront operational excellence, innovation in brand building efforts and strategic development for the company.
His in-depth industry knowledge and expertise spans across three decades, having successfully launched and operated many hotels, resorts and various hospitality models. Over the years, he has led dynamic hospitality teams and has been instrumental in establishing multiple ventures in markets across the country.
Prior to joining Brij Hotels, he was the chief operating officer at Leisure Hotels Group.
With New Zealand borders reopened since August, Tourism New Zealand is eyeing to attract ‘value’ travellers in India who are seeking unique experiences with a strong connection to its people, culture and nature.
“What we are looking at from the Indian market is not much about volume but value of travellers who are coming in. So, we want to tap Indian travellers who can connect with local communities and explore lesser-known places in the country. We are seeking curious travellers who are ready for the unexpected,” said Gregg Wafelbakker, general manager, Asia, Tourism New Zealand while speaking to TTG Asia on his recent visit to India.
Wafelbakker: recovery for the tourism sector will happen gradually
Wafelbakker shared that the average length of stay of Indian visitors to New Zealand has been 14 days in the past, which is more than any other international market. The number of Indian tourist arrivals to New Zealand doubled from 2015 to 2019 with 60,000 Indian visitors.
“India has been the fastest growing market for us prior to the onset of the pandemic. Indian travellers traditionally have engaged in more activities than other markets. However, as sustainability has become critical as we look to rebuild tourism, we want Indian travellers to contribute both economically and socially,” added Wafelbakker.
Going ahead with the strategy above, Tourism New Zealand introduced its new campaign If You Seek in the Indian market in September, associating with trade partners including Thomas Cook, MakeMyTrip and Kulin Kumar Holidays. As part of the campaign, Tourism New Zealand has curated special itineraries for travellers that include variety of experiences like relaxing in the hot pools of He Puna Taimoana to swimming with dolphins at Kaikoura Dolphins.
“If You Seek is a unique campaign targeting high-quality visitors to New Zealand and will create curiosity among end travellers to explore the destination deeper. It simplifies the magic of New Zealand to step out of one’s comfort zone and seek more,” said Pratik Shah, chief operating officer, Kulin Kumar Holidays.
“We are encouraged with the forward bookings for New Zealand from the Indian market. We understand that recovery for the tourism sector will happen gradually and we are encouraged by what we are hearing from our trade partners,” said Wafelbakker.
Indonesia Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (MoTCE) will focus on growing the domestic travel next year with a target of 1.4 billion movements while boosting the quality and sustainability for the international market.
This statement was made by minister of tourism and creative economy Sandiaga Uno during the inauguration of new MoTCE deputies in his office on October 3.
The inauguration ceremony of new Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy deputies (Photo: MoTCE)
Ni Made Ayu Marthini is deputy for tourism, taking over from Nia Niscaya, who is now the deputy for strategic policies. Marthini was formerly director of the manufacture product export development for Ministry of Trade.
The new deputy for resources and institutional affairs is Diah Martini Mohammad Paham, who has built her career at MoTCE in the communications and marketing departments. She was previously director of inter-agency relations.
Sandiaga said: “Our (domestic travel) target of 500 million movements this year has been passed. By August, domestic travel movements have reached more than 600 million. Next year, domestic travel will be the focus.
“International arrivals have started to recover in number, but we want to improve its quality and sustainability.”
Aside from accelerating campaigns like #inDOnesiaCARE and #DiIndonesiaAja, Sandiaga shared that president Joko Widodo has given instructions to travel ‘di Indonesia saja’ (just in Indonesia) to optimise the potential of Indonesia’s varied nature and culture, adding that this would resonate with #BanggaBuatanIndonesia (proud of the Indonesian products).
He said that not only should they be proud of buying Indonesian products but also travelling within Indonesia, making sure that the domestic market becomes mainstream and an on-going trend.
Sandiaga’s instruction to Diah was to expand and improve the quality of manpower in the tourism and creative economic sectors though upskilling, reskilling and new skilling pro-grammes to be ready for the 5.0 era.
“The target is to create 1.1 million new job openings in 2022 and 4.4. million by 2024,” he said, and also emphasised the importance of materialising regional and international MoUs and other collaborations.
Scoot is expanding its network with the launch of new services for the year-end period, as well as resumption of flights and increased flight frequency on the Pikachu jet.
Increasing Scoot’s existing network in Indonesia to eight cities, new twice weekly flights to Indonesia’s Lombok and Makassar will start on October 16 and 24 respectively, while twice weekly flights to Yogyakarta and Pekanbaru will resume from October 15 and 24 respectively.
Scoot will increase the frequency of its Pikachu Jet to three fixed routes per month
From the end of October, Scoot will increase the frequency of flights to Jeju from three-times weekly to five-times weekly, and make its Osaka service a daily one.
Additionally, seasonal non-stop flights between Singapore and Hokkaido (Sapporo) from November 2022 to February 2023 will be mounted.
From the end of October, the frequency of its Singapore-Taipei-Tokyo flights will be increased to daily services, and three-times weekly Singapore-Taipei-Sapporo flights and five-times weekly Singapore-Taipei-Seoul flights will be reinstated – a total of 18-times weekly flights to Taipei by the carrier.
Scoot will also increase the frequency of the Pokémon Air Adventures themed flights. From November, the Pikachu Jet will operate three fixed routes per month on the Singapore-Tokyo route.
In October, Scoot will also resume flights into Hangzhou (October 3), Zhengzhou (October 12), and Wuhan (October 13), as well as increase the flight frequency to Tianjin to twice weekly (October 11).
Klook is seeing over 300 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth in Asia-Pacific as it crosses its eighth year of operations.
Travel interest remains high with Klook seeing more than 140 per cent year-over-year increase in searches on the platform. The company quadrupled its bookable services, and destinations such as Singapore, Korea, Australia and Malaysia are also seeing strong recovery, with Klook exceeding its pre-Covid cross-border revenue by 40 per cent for its best performing markets.
Travel interest remains high with Klook’s platform seeing over 140 per cent year-over-year increase in searches
Klook reports incredible surge in interest since Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan reopened their doors to tourists. There is a tenfold increase in searches for Japan, with Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore travellers driving this demand.
In addition, collaborations with tourism boards on multi-faceted partnerships help to rebuild travel confidence and accelerate tourism recovery. This includes creating engaging content to rekindle wanderlust, co-curating and co-developing new and unique experiences to cater to changing consumer behaviours, and creative regional marketing campaigns to encourage and capture consumers’ desires to travel again.
Recent partnerships comprise Singapore Tourism Board, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Korea Tourism Organization, and Tourism Australia.
Eric Gnock Fah, co-founder & chief operating officer, Klook, said: “After more than two years of the pandemic, many travellers are excited to travel again. That is why we are doubling down on bringing the best experiences and marquee events to the platform such as Avatar: The Experience in Singapore to inspire and ignite wanderlust. The future of travel looks promising as we seize this opportunity to empower the next generation of travellers and bookable experiences.”
In order to cater to evolving consumer habits and make the process of discovering and booking experiences more seamless, Klook will introduce several platform upgrades. One is the re-engineering of the destination discovery feed powered by user-generated content from Klook’s repository of over seven million verified user reviews, allowing customers to see local recommendations from others on the best of what a destination has to offer.
Klook will also introduce a new Trips feature, which allows users to automatically generate personalised trip itineraries that they can share with friends and family.
In celebration of its eighth anniversary, Klook is partnering with its merchants on a variety of deals and promotions for consumers. In addition, the Klook Travel Fest is back with an extended week of deals and offline events across South-east Asia.
AirAsia has enhanced its facial recognition system, FACES, by integrating it with Malaysia Airports EZPaz technology at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (klia2), offering an end-to-end contactless journey for passengers.
FACES is now available across key customer touchpoints including mobile enrolment, check-in counters, pre-security check and boarding for selected domestic travel in the start-up phase. Guests who have enrolled for FACES via the airasia Super App can now travel seamlessly from arrival at the airport, departure gate to the flight, without having to present their boarding pass after self-check-in.
With FACES, passengers can now breeze through the pre-security and boarding with their biometric identity
The enhanced contactless feature went live on October 3 with guests departing on flight AK5234 from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching.
FACES is said to increase operational efficiencies, safety and security for the airline.
AirAsia Malaysia CEO, Riad Asmat said: “As we are back painting the skies red, it is more important than ever for AirAsia to be focusing on implementing digital innovations that take the hassle out of air travel, providing a more seamless and efficient customer experience. It is also an opportune time for our facial recognition system to take centre stage following the government’s recent announcement of face masks no longer mandatory at public places and in flight.
“As a digital and contactless procedure, which includes online check-in anywhere, anytime in the world with a click of a button, FACES is a definitive game-changer and a revolutionary enhancement to help restore confidence in air travel.
“We look forward to deploying our contactless FACES technologies in every airport we operate to in the near future to make flying more convenient, efficient and seamless than ever before.”
Enrolment for FACES can be done at dedicated airport counters W15 and W16 at klia2.
Vietjet has launched two new routes connecting Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with India’s Ahmedabad. The carrier will operate four weekly return flights every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday for each route.
With these, Vietjet now covers 17 direct services from Vietnam’s key cities of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang and Phu Quoc to India’s New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
Vietjet now flies from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to Ahmedabad
Passengers can also connect to other Asian destinations on Vietjet’s flights.
Koh Samui, with its glut of five-star hotels, glamorous boutique properties, well-maintained roads and manicured public spaces, has earned a reputation as the country’s posh island. Posh or not, Koh Samui was profoundly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and has only recently begun to bounce back, but not without some changes.
Lynn Grebstad, vice-president PR & communications of Skål International Thailand, details the pandemic’s impact on the fortunes of the once popular Chaweng Beach area: “One of the most notable changes is the shift of the island’s social centre towards the Bophut (Fisherman’s Village) and Bangrak areas, which now form the main attraction for visitors. Both locations are thriving with great new restaurants, chic beach clubs and boutique hotels.
Stunning sunsets on Koh Samui
“Bangrak, in particular, survived the pandemic fairly well, thanks to the growing international community on the island. People have been moving to the island from all over Asia for the past couple of years, providing a continued source of income for local businesses.
“Another plus for Fisherman’s Village is the continued popularity of Coco Tam’s, a vivacious beach haunt of Samui’s young people and hip Thai tourists who pack the place out almost every night, even during the pandemic. Fisherman’s Village and Bangrak are teeming with activity, with even local favourite Friday Walking Street extending their opening to Mondays and Wednesdays.”
Susan Field, co-owner of Tembo Beach Club & Resort, said Koh Samui is benefitting from the return of international travel and removal of most restrictions.
“The UK market, in particular, has shown healthy recovery, as have northern European countries,” Field told TTG Asia.
Field, too, has observed the emergence of several new resorts, beach clubs, restaurants and activities across the destination.
These add “significantly to the guest offering”, she opined.
“Koh Samui looks beautiful after two years of inactivity, and locally based companies and groups are striving to preserve the environment, taking a more sympathetic and eco-sensitive approach to building and renovating commercial and residential properties. The greatly enhanced infrastructure makes the island more pleasant and easy to move around,” she added.
Already home to the largest concentration of five-star branded hotels outside of Bangkok and Phuket, Koh Samui continues to welcome even more top-end properties. Brands such as Kimpton, Hyatt Regency and Melia are latest additions. These add to the posh island’s growing allure among travellers who favour the finest things in life.
The Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2022 has set a new record for the highest attendance ever in its 13-year history.
After a two-year hiatus due to Covid-19, the Marina Bay Street Circuit welcomed a sold-out record crowd of 302,000 over three days from all over the world, including Australia, Indonesia, Netherlands, the UK and the US.
The Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2022 welcomed a sold-out record crowd of 302,000 over three days from all over the world
Since the gates opened on September 30, fans have returned in droves, fuelled by the return of Formula 1, the debut of two new support races and over 100 hours of entertainment over the race weekend.
Colin Syn, deputy chairman of Singapore GP, said: “It is wonderful to welcome fans back to the Marina Bay Street Circuit. The return of Formula 1 was highly anticipated, with tickets snapped up within hours of the launch earlier this year.
“In addition to the race action, we have curated an exciting range of entertainment, interactive and gastronomic experiences for the fan zones, as well as introduced new grandstands and hospitality facilities.”
Fans were treated to an entertainment line-up that included Marshmello, Westlife, Black Eyed Peas, Suede, and TLC. The thrilling finale to the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2022 weekend, had Charles Leclerc in pole position, Sergio Perez in second, and Lewis Hamilton third on the grid, with performances by Green Day and The Kid LAROI at the Padang Stage, as well as the Black Eyed Peas at the Wharf Stage.
Tickets for the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2023, to be held next year from September 15 to 17, are already on sale.
The recovery of Indonesia’s tourism industry has picked up in recent months, and the country is intent on propelling it forward with the help of Singapore’s outbound market to reach, and eventually improve, pre-pandemic inbound visitation levels.
“Post-lockdown, Indonesia tourism has picked up twice its speed as compared to other industries, and therefore we need to move fast to capture the opportunities. Singapore is our number two inbound market, and data is very encouraging,” shared Sandiaga Uno, minister of tourism and creative economy, during the Wonderful Indonesia Sales Mission held last week in Singapore.
Minister of tourism and creative economy, Sandiaga Uno, speaking to industry stakeholders during the press conference
In the absence of China, Australians were the top visitors to Indonesia from January to June 2022 at 153,000, but Wonderful Indonesia Tourism Office’s country manager of Singapore Sulaiman Shehdek believes that Singaporeans, currently in the number two spot, can easily top Australia, once air capacity is fully restored.
At press time, airlift from Singapore to Indonesia stands at around 70 per cent. Representatives from Scoot and Garuda Indonesia, who were also present at the forum, shared that both airlines are in the process of ramping up its capacities.
Aside from Singaporeans, Sulaiman also put forth a suggestion for short-term visas of three to five days for expats and employment-pass holders based in Singapore, most of whom currently need visas to enter Indonesia. This would allow them to visit nearby Bintan and Batam, and encourage travel during long weekends and school holidays.
Ferry loads are also back on track, with Bintan Resorts’ group general manager Abdul Wahab confident that they will hit 60 per cent of 2019 levels by December.
Indonesia has also restarted sports tourism, such as the upcoming Ironman in Lombok, as well as MotoGP 2023. Sandiaga shared that hosting large events like the MotoGP has helped to bring in about US$350 million worth of economic impact in terms of investments, accommodations, and increasing the revenues of micro, small, and medium-size enterprises.
“I saw a massive increase in racing enthusiasts (who came for the MotoGP) choosing to stay in homestays, all of which were then sold out. There were close to around 4,000 homestays available, and the type of accommodation – which blends with nature – was a clear winner,” he said.
Cruising is another sector the ministry is looking into – aside from regional tourists, Indonesian agents are targeting longhaul markets such as Europe and North America, and are encouraging travellers to bask in Indonesia’s warmer climate during the frigid winter months.
To help speed things along, Sandiaga shared: “I have asked my team to fast track how we can receive more cruise ships, and construct the infrastructure (needed) in Bali and other ports. This will help tourists not only stay longer in the destination, but in other South-east Asian destinations.”
Finally, Indonesia will also promote cultural events, where the ministry has helped create at least 100 regional events spread across the country.
Sandiaga added that marketing promotions in Singapore will be “targeted”, and focus on “big data” that makes use of demographics and age brackets.
“There is no one-size-fits-all promotion. We’re also (planning to) do more cross-platform activations across radio, TV, and social media.”
Prior to joining Brij Hotels, he was the chief operating officer at Leisure Hotels Group.
