Expedia offers Covid-19 tests to Singapore travellers
To ease the pre-travel preparation process for Singapore travellers, Expedia and Raffles Medical Group have teamed up to offer pre-departure Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests at a rate of S$124 (US$90).
Outbound travellers who book any travel service through the Expedia Singapore app or website, and need a pre-departure Covid-19 PCR test, can now take one at any of the 36 participating Raffles Medical Clinics in Singapore.
To be eligible for the PCR tests, Expedia customers are required to book any travel offering through this link: www.expedia.com.sg/lp/b/rmg. Once a booking is complete, they can proceed to schedule an appointment for their pre-departure Covid-19 PCR test through www.rafflesmedicalgroup.com or the Raffles Connect App.
Customers will be asked to present their NRIC/FIN and Expedia.com.sg itinerary at the selected clinic on the day of their test.
Since the launch of the vaccinated travel lanes (VTL), Expedia has observed strong demand for travel to VTL destinations among Singaporeans, with search data showing high interest for travel in the year-end holiday period.
Expedia Group’s managing director and senior director of government and corporate affairs, Asia, Ang Choo Pin, said: “The growing confidence in international travel is good news for the travel industry, but we understand that the additional steps and costs of a mandatory pre-departure Covid-19 test may add stress to travellers. Expedia’s goal is to help travellers get the most out of every trip, by providing all their travel needs on a single platform.
“We hope this important collaboration with Raffles Medical Group to offer pre-departure Covid-19 tests will help ease pre-travel planning stress so that our travellers can better enjoy their holidays.”
IHG makes trio of appointments for first voco hotel in Singapore
IHG Hotels & Resorts has revealed the senior leadership team at voco Orchard Singapore ahead of the hotel’s rebrand from Hilton Singapore on January 1, 2022.
The appointments will see Mark Winterton return to Singapore as general manager, and see Sahil Rahat step into the role of director of sales & marketing. Walid Ouezini will also start as hotel manager in January 2022.
Winterton returns to Singapore after a three-year stint with IHG Australia, to spearhead the pre-opening conversion operations.
He first moved to Asia in 2007, and has since successfully launched new IHG hotels such as Crowne Plaza Changi Airport, Holiday Inn Express Singapore Clarke Quay and InterContinental Singapore Robertson Quay, and rebranded the Crowne Plaza Bangkok Lumpini Park in Thailand.
Next, Rahat will lead the charge of developing and executing the overall commercial strategies of the hotel. Prior to joining voco Orchard Singapore, Rahat held dual responsibilities as director of sales, marketing and revenue, and acting director of operations at Holiday Inn Singapore Orchard City Centre. Having been with IHG for more than 10 years, he brings a wealth of experience across the different markets and all aspects of commercial deliverables.
Lastly, Ouezini has led operations at the Orchard Road Hotel since he joined as hotel manager in 2019. He has been instrumental in spearheading major projects for the hotel. Post-rebranding, he will continue to take on the role as hotel manager effective January 1, 2022, and lead daily hotel operations.
Ouezini started his career in F&B and has over 18 years of hospitality experience across luxury and lifestyle brands in France, Tunisia, Maldives and South-east Asia.
Marking the brand’s debut in South-east Asia when it opens on January 1, 2022, voco Orchard Singapore will offer 423 contemporary rooms, four restaurants and bars, and more than 1,750m2 of meeting and event space.
Voco Orchard Singapore will be IHG’s 12th hotel in Singapore and its seventh brand in the country where it joins Regent, InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.
Azerai Can Tho welcomes new GM
Azerai Can Tho in the Mekong Delta has appointed Nicolas Pillet as its new general manager.
The French national brings a strong culinary background to Azerai Can Tho, having studied cuisine as part of his hospitality education in Nantes. Pillet has worked with several internationally recognized brands in his career, including the Eastern & Oriental Express, where he was general manager of South-east Asia’s only luxury sleeper train, and most recently as the general manager of Amanoi, the Aman property in Ninh Thuan, Vietnam.
Bruce Ryde to lead Kimpton Margot Sydney as GM
Australia’s first Kimpton property, Kimpton Margot Sydney has announced that Bruce Ryde has joined the hotel as general manager.
Ryde has a long history of both operating hotels and leading global brands across Asia Pacific. Most recently, Ryde worked with owners John and Karina Stewart on their holistic wellness brand, Kamalaya, in Thailand, where he helped expand Kamalaya’s diverse range of solutions, improving its digital reach and launching an online platform, Kamalaya Connect.
Previously, the Australian managed the luxury brand strategy for Marriott International’s brands, amongst them The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, JW Marriott, The Luxury Collection and W Hotels as vice president Asia Pacific. Prior to that, Ryde held the same position with IHG, overseeing the InterContinental brand as well as the launch of the Hotel Indigo and Kimpton brands in Asia Pacific.
Ryde will also act as the brand guardian for Pro-invest Group’s growing luxury and lifestyle portfolio.
Kimpton goes to Khao Yai
IHG Hotels & Resorts has signed a deal with Nusasiri Public Company to open its third Kimpton hotel in Thailand, following the brand’s debut in Bangkok last October and its signing in Koh Samui this April.
Opening in 2024, the 100-room luxury wellness resort Kimpton Khao Yai will offer scenic mountain views across all of its 70 rooms and 30 pool villas. Guests will enjoy Kimpton’s innovative culinary experiences in its restaurants and locally-inspired drinks in its lobby bar, along with its famed daily Social Hour. Other facilities include a 50m² meeting space, swimming pool, fitness centre, spa and resort centre.
Situated north of Khao Yai National Park and within Pak Chong, Kimpton Khao Yai will be part of the Nusa MyOzone Project, a 242ha integrated resort which will house an 18-hole golf course, retail and recreational facilities including an organic farm, hotels and residences, and a private airport.
Guests will enjoy easy access and proximity to nearby waterparks, adventure theme parks, award-winning vineyards and golf courses, as well as outdoor adventure experiences in Khao Yai National Park.
Currently, IHG operates 29 hotels across eight brands in Thailand, with another 34 properties in the pipeline. The company aims to double the size of its estate in Thailand within the next five years and grow its luxury and lifestyle portfolio in the country by 50 per cent.
Editor’s note: Khao Yai was erroneously spelt Khai Yai in the original post.We apologise for the error.
Malaysia unveils Covid-19 insurance to woo medical tourists
In a bid to entice more healthcare travellers to the country, Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) has collaborated with Tune Protect Group to introduce a Covid-19 travel protection plan for foreign nationals seeking medical advice and treatments in private hospitals in Malaysia.
Known as the Covid Travel Pass+, there are two types of plans: the basic and premium plan. The basic plan provides medical expenses and hospitalisation coverage due to Covid-19 of up to RM100,000 (US$23,849); and the premium plan, up to RM350,000. Both plans also come with a bereavement allowance of RM10,000.
Benefits of the travel insurance plan include trip cancellation, flight on arrival delay, loss or damage to checked-in baggage, and Covid-19 diagnosis quarantine allowance (RM350 per day up to RM2,450), among others.
Rohit Nambiar, group CEO, Tune Protect, said in a press release: “Malaysia is recognised for its award-winning healthcare services and with travelling restrictions loosening up, we are expecting the number of healthcare travellers to increase.
“With this, we are pleased to collaborate with MHTC as we believe in going where customers want us to be. The timely collaboration provides convenience and worry-free travel experience for healthcare travellers seeking to access medical treatment and advice here in Malaysia.”
Mohd Daud Mohd Arif, CEO of MHTC, said the launch of the travel insurance plan is part of the council’s strategy “to demonstrate Malaysia’s strengths as a safe and trusted destination, and offer healthcare travellers accessible and affordable protection plans as the country begins to welcome international visitors back to our shores”.
Launched last week by Tune Protect Group, the Covid Travel Pass+ is designed to help foreign travellers entering Langkawi in Malaysia and destinations in Thailand meet the mandatory Covid-19 insurance coverage requirements set by the respective governments – which is a minimum of US$80,000 for Langkawi and US$50,000 for Thailand.
The service is currently available to foreigners flying AirAsia into Langkawi and destinations in Thailand, and will later be rolled out to other destinations.
Eligible travellers can purchase the Covid Travel Pass+ when booking their flight tickets on the AirAsia super app. Post-flight purchase subscription is also available prior to departure.
Singapore’s vaccinated travel lanes lift flight, hotel bookings, but overall improvements are muted
- Leisure, VFR, expatriate segments dominate November, December flights into Singapore
- Hotels see booking improvements for the year-end, with VTL markets driving new demand
- Overall inbound recovery hampered by regional travel restrictions, local distancing measures
Singapore’s move to further ease border controls as well as social restrictions have led to an uptick in hotel enquires and bookings from countries with a vaccinated travel lane (VTL) with the city-state.
To date, Singapore has launched VTLs with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the US and will be commencing with Malaysia, Finland, Sweden, Indonesia and India from November 29. There are intentions to do the same with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates from December 6 – bringing the total VTL countries to an eventual 21.
According to a Marina Bay Sands spokesperson, the integrated resort saw an overall increase in bookings from overseas travellers from VTL countries, particularly Australia, the US, Malaysia, the UK and South Korea, with most of them staying over the peak period of November and December. The bulk of these bookings was made by FIT travellers, and many came through OTAs.
Pan Pacific Hotels Group’s properties in Singapore also saw a slight growth in reservations by inbound travellers, revealed Cinn Tan, chief sales & marketing officer.
“As of October 2021, international travellers from the VTL markets contribute between five to eight per cent of our total room nights booked. The top markets we are receiving bookings from are the US, Germany, the UK and South Korea,” Tan said.
Also seeing brighter days for the upcoming holiday season is Charis Choi, director of sales and marketing at Grand Hyatt Singapore. “With the re-opening of international travel, there has been an increase in demand and a better pace than months prior,” she said, adding that bookings streamed in from the US, Australia, Switzerland, South Korea, Germany, and France.
Over at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore and The Fullerton Bay Hotel Singapore, enquiries have climbed on the back of the VTL news, with guests being a mix of travellers and Singaporeans who are returning primarily from the UK and the US. General manager Giovanni Viterale expects bookings and enquiries to increase over the next few weeks, especially as travellers plan their year-end getaways.
Slow recovery
While the mood among Singapore hoteliers is more positive today, Singapore’s travel and tourism stakeholders agree that inbound improvements are still muted.
Allen Khoo, resident manager at Shangri-La Singapore, observed that while enquiries from VTL guests have gone up, there were no spikes in bookings. In fact, holiday season bookings are still dominated by domestic demand.
Potential for vast improvements in Singapore’s inbound arrivals is hampered by a current quota of 10,000 travellers daily for all VTL countries.
Another obstacle to inbound travel recovery, according to Steven Ler, president of National Association of Travel Agents Singapore, is that most of the VTLs involve long-haul travel – markets that typically package Singapore as a twin destination with another South-east Asian country.
With current cross-border restrictions remaining within South-east Asia, these long-haul travellers can only spend their time in Singapore, which makes the trip “a costly attempt”, explained Ler.
“However, the dynamics would be different when Australia and more neighbouring countries open up,” he added.
Association of Singapore Attractions’ chairman, Kevin Cheong, also believed that the first wave of VTL travellers will primarily consist of business travellers, returning expatriates and long-term pass holders and those visiting friends and relatives in Singapore.
“The usual leisure travellers could still be tentative due to the availability of seats and costs of travel, and may be holding off till more restrictions are lifted,” he said.
Indeed, Kwee Wei-Lin, president, Singapore Hotel Association, pointed out that Singapore’s safe management measures will need to return to pre-pandemic level so that tourists can enjoy authentic local experiences without restrictions.
“Relative to countries with less stringent public health protocols, such as mandatory wearing of face masks and dining restrictions, Singapore’s appeal as a travel destination is compromised. Many of the countries participating in the VTL scheme have less stringent controls, therefore we may not see significant arrivals until Singapore’s visitor experience improves.”
Pre-Christmas flight bookings at all-time-high
Flight ticketing data collected by ForwardKeys indicated a spike in booking momentum from late-October, peaking in mid-December to reach 18 per cent of 2019 levels.
“Arrivals in the week before Christmas are at an all-time-high since the pandemic. Arrivals from the US have reached 35 per cent of 2019 levels, with Europe trailing behind at 28 per cent”, Jameson Wong, ForwardKeys’ vice president clients & partnerships APAC, elaborated.
Arrivals from Australia and South Korea are at 26 per cent and 18 per cent of 2019 levels respectively.
Positive movements in demand for flights into Singapore were seen since August 19, 2021, when the first VTL announcement was made, with global inbound flight arrivals into Singapore hovering at five to 10 per cent of 2019 levels.
Nancy Dai, ForwardKeys insights expert, described the month-on-month uptake from August to October as “steady and encouraging”: inbound flight tickets issued for arrivals into Singapore in August were 107 per cent of July; September’s issues were 108 per cent of August; and October’s issues were 285 per cent of September.
Bookings from the US, the UK and Australia led the recovery, observed Dai. In October, flight arrivals from the US rose 13-fold, while the UK and Australia improved by 8.6 times and 3.6 times.
Further defining the inbound booking profile, ForwardKeys noted that 28 per cent of flight arrivals into Singapore in November and December are for single pax per booking, 31 per cent are for two pax, and 41 per cent are for more than three.
The leisure segment dominates the profile of travellers on flights on the books for the period of November and December, making up 67 per cent of the total – unchanged compared to pre-pandemic in 2019. However, the Visit Friends & Relatives and Expatriate segments have inflated to reach 14 per cent, compared to three per cent in the same period in 2019.
The average length of stay has increased from 6.5 days pre-pandemic to 11.7 days, with arrivals from Australia spending an average of 7.3 days and those from the US and Europe, 18 days.
The bulk of bookings was made directly with airlines, at 61 per cent, compared to 17 per cent in 2019. – Additional reporting by Karen Yue
Pelago curates on-ground experiences led by SIA’s cabin crew
Pelago, a travel experiences platform owned by Singapore Airlines (SIA), has launched two exclusive experiences led by the airline’s cabin crew.
These include a nostalgic coffee workshop and private museum tour titled Travel Back to 1970s Singapore, as well as a Peranakan museum tour dubbed A Nyonya’s Journey.
The pilot project is a collaboration among Pelago, Tradewinds Tours & Travel, SIA’s tour-operating arm; KrisLab, SIA’s digital innovation lab; as well as SIA’s cabin crew division.
As part of this collaboration, SIA’s cabin crew can sign up as tour ambassadors, and go through structured training sessions before taking consumers through these experiences. The project resulted from KrisLab’s Demo Day, where SIA employees pitched innovative ideas to extend SIA’s service offerings beyond flight by leveraging the airline’s cabin crew talent.
The Travel Back to 1970s Singapore experience transports consumers back to Singapore in the ‘70s, with a private tour of old-school set-ups including a barbershop, coffee shop and tailor shop, in a museum owned by David Wee, a vintage collector. The experience also includes a nostalgic workshop, bringing consumers through Singapore’s unique coffee culture.
The second experience, A Nyonya’s Journey, features a tour of a private Peranakan museum where guests can enjoy glimpses of a wealthy Peranakan home and learn more about Peranakan cultures.
Participants can also discover how the history of the sarong kebaya is linked with the SQ Girl’s uniform, and dress up in a traditional Peranakan outfit to take photos for keepsake.
Both exclusive tours will run from November 26 to March 2022.
SIA, Malaysia Airlines expand codeshare
Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Malaysia Airlines will reactivate their codeshare arrangement between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and expand it to include 15 domestic points in Malaysia, seven destinations in Europe, and two cities in South Africa.
This follows the announcement that Singapore and Malaysia will launch a vaccinated travel lane arrangement beginning November 29, said the airlines in a joint statement on Friday (November 19).
They added that the substantial expansion of the codeshare arrangements comes amid the gradual reopening of international borders and an increase in the demand for air travel.
From November 29, SIA customers will be able to progressively connect on Malaysia Airlines services out of Kuala Lumpur as the carrier adds 15 new codeshare destinations in Malaysia. These are Alor Setar, Bintulu, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Terengganu, Kuantan, Kuching, Labuan, Langkawi, Miri, Penang, Sandakan, Sibu, and Tawau.
From January 1, Malaysia Airlines customers will be able to connect on SIA flights from Singapore to seven points in Europe – Barcelona, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Moscow, Munich, Rome, and Zurich – as well as Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa.
Other points in the SIA or Malaysia Airlines network will be progressively added to the codeshare arrangements.
This significant expansion of the codeshare arrangements is the first phase of a wide-ranging commercial agreement that Malaysia Airlines and SIA signed in 2019.
Under the agreement, the airlines plan to undertake a joint business arrangement between Malaysia and Singapore, subject to regulatory approvals. This would allow the partners to coordinate flight schedules, offer joint fare products, align corporate programmes, and explore tie-ups between the KrisFlyer and Enrich frequent flyer programmes.
Both carriers will also explore joint tourism marketing initiatives and multi-stop itineraries, which would enable customers to travel to more destinations in Malaysia through Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
The deadline for Singaporeans to use their SingapoRediscovers Vouchers (SRVs) for eligible attractions, hotels and tours has been extended until March 31, 2022, but bookings must still be made by December 31.
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said on Monday (November 22) that it had announced in April this year that the SRV scheme would end on December 31. “However, we understand that some Singaporeans may not have been able to use their SRVs due to reduced group sizes and capacity limits at tourism establishments,” it said. “This extension allows Singaporeans more time to enjoy their SRV experiences.”
This is the second time that the SRV scheme has been extended, following an earlier extension from end-June to December 31.
The voucher scheme was launched last July to boost the tourism sector amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the scheme, every Singaporean aged 18 and above was given S$100 (US$74) worth of tourism vouchers, which can be used on hotel staycations, attraction tickets and tours.
In line with the latest extension, the five authorised booking partners – Changi Recommends, GlobalTix, Klook, Traveloka and Trip.com – will add more booking slots.
Singaporeans can also bring their original identification documents to book their experiences at the physical SRV booking counters across Singapore before December 31.
From January 1, the authorised booking partners will no longer accept tourism bookings made using SRVs, and all physical SRV counters will be closed.
Those who wish to donate their vouchers can do so via the five authorised booking partners which offers donation options or through the physical booking counters.
STB reminded Singaporeans that reselling or exchanging the SRVs for cash is strictly not allowed. “STB conducts regular checks to ensure the SRVs are used for their intended purposes and will not hesitate to take action against businesses or individuals that abuse the SRV scheme,” it said.
As of November 1, close to 1.3 million Singaporeans have used their SRVs at least once, making over 1.6 million transactions. Collectively, about S$256 million in vouchers and additional expenditure have been spent under the scheme.