The Sebel Yarrawonga, Australia
Located in the picturesque Murray River region of Victoria and adjacent to Silverwoods Golf and Lifestyle Resort, The Sebel Yarrawonga opened on November 1 to offer accommodation, dining, conference and events facilities.
There are 63 stylish studios rooms and apartments, with a further 54 keys to come in stage two of the development in 2022/2023. Two of three F&B venues are now welcoming guests – Stock & Barrel bar and casual dining and Sunset Pool Bar. A fine dining restaurant is set to open in December.
COSI Krabi Ao Nang Beach, Thailand
Opened on October 23, the 142-key COSI Krabi Ao Nang Beach projects a youthful energy through its red hawk murals created by award-winning street artist Rukkit Kuanhaweth as well as The Hub, a destination in the heart of the hotel for guests to work, connect and relax over a film or a game.
Central to the COSI lifestyle is 24-hour convenience, delivered through a café, COSI Fit fitness centre and a self-service laundromat – all open around the clock.
The hotel is located within walking distance from Ao Nang Beach and the town’s nightlife and restaurants. Further afield, adventure-loving travellers can visit and explore the region’s caves, go rock climbing on its soaring limestone cliffs, and search for offshore island gems.
YaTi by Artyzen Hongqiao Shanghai, China
Projecting creativity, vitality and passion, the new YaTi by Artyzen Hongqiao Shanghai promises a space for youthful travellers to live and breathe social, art and culture scenes while offering stay essentials without fanfare and complications.
The 303-room select service hotel offers direct access to Artyzen Habitat, which was launched a year ago. YaTi’s guests can enjoy Artyzen Habitat’s facilities, such as a fully equipped gym, Utility Hub with self-serviced laundry, a bistro and café, an amphitheater and events studios.
The hotel is close to Ziteng Road Metro Station on Line 10 and a short drive to the Hongqiao Railway Station and the Hongqiao International Airport.
GHM will manage Aquarius International Development’s 200-key Chedi Aquarius Koh Chang, which is slated to welcome guests in 4Q2023.
The property will feature an all-day-dining restaurant, a cliff-edge restaurant, rooftop bar, spa, infinity pool with pool bar, and conference facilities overlooking the Gulf of Thailand.
Chedi Aquarius Koh Chang will open in 4Q2023
“This new resort is shaping up with an integrity of design and a certain poise that are hallmarks of the Chedi experience,” said GHM CEO Tommy Lai.
“We’ve been on the lookout for a way back into Thailand since 2013, and The Chedi Aquarius Koh Chang is the perfect vehicle.”
GHM opined that Koh Chang, as Thailand’s third largest island, will charm travellers with its relative obscurity compared with popular Phuket and Koh Samui. Its natural splendour, by way of a national park that covers 83 per cent of the island, will also work in its favour.
The Travel Corporation (TTC) has recorded an emergence of solo travel bookings out of Singapore, Malaysia and the US for 2021, many being retirees who cannot wait to resume travel and check off their travel bucket-list.
Anthony Lim, president, TTC, Asia, told TTG Asia that these customers are aged above 50 and had experienced the company’s guided travel products pre-pandemic.
Mediterranean countries have proven a hit with solo advance bookers; Meteora monasteries are featured in Trafalgar’s Best of Greece itinerary
Besides booking ahead with confidence, these early bookers are planning to take longer holidays and to rely on a travel company that can provide a travel itinerary, which is required for some destinations, such as Greece, when travel restarts.
Some of the destinations that are seeing early recovery for Asian bookings are Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Greece and Egypt. Lim said these destinations could have fared particularly well as Turkey and Greece have policies that take care of travellers should they be stricken by Covid-19, while Egypt is a bucket-list destination.
“Travellers into these three countries also need not quarantine when they enter,” Lim added.
TTC’s flexible booking policy with a low US$99 deposit and allowing unlimited changes up to thirty days before the trip commences, single supplement discounts as well as full waiver of Single Supplement fees for select itineraries could have also played a part in triggering demand.
“Solo travellers recognise the attractive deals as a great opportunity with low risk since they can change their booking if they are still unable to travel,” said Lim, but added that customers are encouraged to book for trips taking place after June 2021.
As the “attractive deals” are still fresh, introduced ahead of this week, and valid until December 31, 2020, Lim expects take-ups to climb further.
“We believe that there is spark of revival in travel plans as there are travel insurance companies like Etiqa that are offering Covid-19 coverage,” he added.
Beyond financial lures, TTC is working to rebuild traveller confidence through a new well-being video and processes that provide peace-of-mind for customers. Among its efforts are a collaboration with the World Tourism and Travel Council to create a set of Safe Travels and Seamless Traveller Journey” global protocols that are aligned with WHO guidelines and national and regional government authority regulations. TTC has also appointed a well-being director for all guided programmes, who ensures adherence to hygiene procedures and provides travellers with the latest travel protocols guidelines.
COTRI, the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, will unveil details of Advantage: Tourism (A:T), a Covid-19 recovery and resilience programme, in a hybrid summit organised by the Global Tourism Forum Institute on November 27.
Wolfgang Arlt, COTRI founder and CEO, will be speaking on A:T at the summit, and COTRI will be conducting a masterclass on how to restart Chinese outbound tourism for the Asian market on December 8.
Overtourism, climate change pose continued challenges post-pandemic: Arlt
A:T partners, Arlt said, include Trend Transfer, an experienced incubator for ideas and connections for destinations; Stocastic.World, thought leader in innovation and value production; Landways International, a leading tour operator for Chinese visitors to South-east Europe; Planet Payment, Tencent Cloud Europe and TCI Research.
Arlt, who is programme lead, said A:T aims to address the significant changes in how Chinese travellers will travel, work, eat, sleep and spend their money after the end of the Covid-19 crisis.
A:T, he noted, is based on enhancing customer experience and satisfaction, transforming the focus on generating visitor arrival numbers to concentrate on local value creation and developing sustainable and qualitative KPIs of sentiment and satisfaction.
This is to be achieved by using finely tuned product adaptation based on increased knowledge to create recommendation marketing, spending money on empowerment of local stakeholders instead of huge amounts on unspecific social media marketing.
He continued: “The need to react to the challenges of overtourism, climate change, decreasing margins and decreasing levels of satisfaction of travellers, staff and locals alike, which were growing even before the virus struck, still exists.
“Decades of unreflected growth have shifted away from the priority for local welfare and KPIs addressing sustainability. There is not really a destination where this does not apply. Accordingly, even before the pandemic, many destinations have been approaching COTRI for support in moving upmarket, towards tourism which is less superficial and less discount-price oriented.
“The answer depends obviously on local strengths and the local situation, but generally speaking, there is a need for tailor-made products and services for different segments of the Chinese outbound market.
“Affluent families with children from Beijing have different interests and needs compared to a group of young foodies, who studied abroad from Shanghai, or a retired couple from Guangzhou looking for a spa holiday.
“Themed tours for Chinese with special interests can take visitors to less frequented parts of the destination and low-season times of the year. There is no need to be afraid of niches – with digitalisation, recommendation marketing and well-trained staff now, opportunities can be created as many niches in China still concern millions of potential customers.”
According to Arlt, Chinese outbound tourists travel mostly not just to relax, but to gain experiences, learn new skills from sailing to music or cooking, to meet friendly locals and to enjoy nature and landscapes.
Finding new distribution partners in China, he added, can go beyond tour operators. Twin-city relations can be used for exchanges of school children or urban planners, universities, hiking associations, retailers of outdoor equipment, and VIP clubs of banks are all possible partners if the right itinerary is offered.
He opined: “Volunteer tourism will become more important for young Chinese and also government initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative and the Greater Bay Area programme will have positive effects for creating different forms of tourism from China to Asian countries.
Arlt believed that better quality, leading to more satisfied Chinese visitors, will allow for concentration on satisfaction marketing, “saving a lot of the budgets now spent on social media marketing with often dubious results”.
WWF, in cooperation with GlobeScan, recently released the findings of an extensive study conducted to understand the main drivers and motivations of Chinese outbound travellers to purchase ivory products abroad and suggest targeted interventions to curtail demand among this group of travellers once international travel resumes in the new normal.
The study, which was conducted between August 2019 and January 2020, surveyed 3,011 outbound Chinese travellers to Cambodia, Hong Kong, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam in the previous two years.
Travel and tourism industry plays a key role in facilitating ivory purchases in destination countries, and can intervene to stop such purchases
The results revealed that one in 10 Chinese travellers (11 per cent) had planned to purchase ivory prior to their trip. This was especially true for those travelling to Thailand (21 per cent), Japan (19 per cent), and Hong Kong (17 per cent).
More than half the people who reported buying ivory said they did so as a gift for a friend or family member, while a quarter did so as a gift for a business relation, shared Daniel Bergin, senior project manager, GlobeScan, when presenting the results via Zoom on November 10.
He also shared that 22 per cent of surveyed travellers had someone recommend visiting an ivory retailer, with almost a quarter of travellers having visited at least one shop that sold ivory.
Recommendations to visit these shops were mostly given by local tour guides (60 per cent) and staff at tourist information centres (37 per cent).
Karen Xue, director of WWF’s Ivory Initiative, shared: “The fact that ivory purchases are being facilitated by those working in the travel and tourism industry in destination countries is worrying, but also presents a good opportunity for targeted interventions.
“If we can change the behaviour of these tourism sector actors, we can greatly reduce the chances that travellers have to purchase ivory while abroad.”
When assessing the authenticity of the ivory, nearly half of the travellers surveyed (47 per cent) relied on authenticating documents provided by the sellers to determine if the ivory was real.
Of those that bought ivory, 44 per cent of consumers mailed it home to mainland China, either personally or through the retailer, while 28 per cent carried it back with them.
Jan Vertefeuille, senior advisor on advocacy in wildlife conservation for WWF, said: “These findings show that creative demand reduction efforts and interventions with the private sector are key if we want to keep Chinese outbound travellers from taking ivory home.
“If we can discredit the documentation that identifies ivory as ‘authentic’ or get courier companies to cooperate with our counter wildlife trafficking efforts, we can disrupt the flow of elephant ivory into China.”
Another key finding of the report revealed that 17 per cent of Chinese outbound travellers think it is legal to bring ivory back to mainland China.
Thus, among GlobeScan’s recommendations to WWF was to educate the Chinese public that it is illegal to transport ivory across borders under any circumstances and to have campaigns dissuading Chinese travellers from purchasing ivory.
Other recommendations included targeting courier and delivery companies in their campaigns to reduce illegal cross-border transportation as it has been found that sending ivory and rhino horn products by mail is the most popular method of transporting it back to mainland China.
As the Lunar New Year and Golden Week Holidays combined accounted for more than half the trips undertaken by outbound travellers to the seven destinations in the study, it was also recommended that campaigns be organised targeting these two peak periods.
GlobeScan also suggested devising campaigns against the practice of buying ivory as a gift. A poll conducted during the online unveiling of the findings where participants were asked what non-ivory, wildlife-friendly souvenir they thought would make a popular alternative saw the majority of respondents (44 per cent) voting for local artisan crafts, followed by gems and minerals (21 per cent).
This study builds on previous consumer surveys about the elephant ivory trade in China conducted by GlobeScan for WWF which looks at changes in attitudes and purchases since China banned its domestic ivory trade on December 31, 2017. Following this historic decision, WWF initiated a global initiative addressing the supply and demand of ivory products which is embedded in its multifaceted strategy to tackle the illegal wildlife trade around the world.
A sharp shift towards domestic tourism, shorter booking lead times, and rising demand for contactless booking tools are some of the emerging trends in the post-pandemic travel landscape in China and South Korea.
These insights are based on a study by B2B accommodation provider WebBeds, following extensive research including focus groups, expert insights, interviews with travel experts, and its own in-house data.
Spending power and independent travel leading tourism rebound in South Korea; Hangang Park in Seoul, South Korea pictured
In China, WebBeds has found that the country relied on the rebound of its large domestic tourism sector, although uncertainty is still having a major effect. Ted Zhang, co-founder and CEO of DerbySoft, revealed that the booking window has shortened to just two to three days in advance, as customers lack information on when hotels and facilities will be fully operational.
This assertion was echoed by Zhiwei Bai, vice president of brand marketing of Tongcheng Elong, who also stated that online hotel bookings have significantly increased, and that walk-ins have become almost impossible as travellers don’t know if a hotel is still operational.
According to Bai, domestic airfares were “surprisingly low” this year, which enabled many migrant workers to book flights. Many trains were suspended and demand for bus tickets grew fast.
Wenzhi Zhao, executive vice president of Guangzhilv Travel Agency, noted that his business – like many others – has shifted to focus on domestic travel. “We are intensifying efforts to develop small group customised products with niche characteristics, especially products focused on ecotourism and wellness,” he said.
Gloria Wang, executive vice president of Jin Jiang Hotels – China Region, predicted that the domestic travel switch could continue for “three to five years… if international travel restrictions continue”. She also noted that “short-haul destinations around urban areas will become more popular, particularly in destinations with nature and fewer people”.
China’s Ministry of Culture & Tourism has forecast that domestic tourism will decline 43 per cent to 3.43 billion trips this year, while domestic tourism revenue is expected to slump by 52 per cent to US$394 billion) in 2020.
Over in South Korea, spending power and independent travel are diving revival. Following the closure of international borders, South Korea saw an 80.2 per cent plunge in international visitor arrivals in the first eight months of 2020, according to government data. But while the country has a much smaller population than China, it still ranks as the world’s ninth biggest outbound tourism market – a reflection of South Korea’s affluence. This local spending power has the potential to fuel a domestic rebound.
WebBeds research found that, as in China, booking lead times in South Korea have been severely shortened, which has also reduced the popularity of early bird rates. Flexible booking conditions are now the top priority for customers when making a travel or hotel reservation. Interestingly, Youngmi Jung, general manager overseas at Interpark, noted that travellers are now booking either ultra-short breaks or very long holidays, with a preference for self-contained stays.
The preference for secluded vacations since the onset of Covid-19 has also led to a rise in South Korean motorhome holidays. Despite mixed opinions on the sector’s long-term sustainability, Kyung Ok Kim, managing director of Hotelpass, suggested that demand may continue in the post-pandemic era, as more people become accustomed to this style of independent travel. South Korean consumers were also found to prefer contactless booking.
Finally, the usual travel seasons have been usurped by Covid-19 swings; according to Wook Sung, managing director of Shinhwa World, demand now grows when customers feel confident that an outbreak is under control and declines when a new outbreak occurs.
Sun Kok Sheng, WebBeds’ CCO for Asia Pacific, said: “The results of our focus groups in China and South Korea correlate with WebBeds’ own in-house findings. For example, our bookings have seen a considerable shortening of lead times, with a 60 per cent increase in proportion of bookings made two to three days in advance.”
“We’ve noticed a sharp increase in requests for room rates that include value-added services, such as dining, airport transfers, spa treatments and hotel credit. We’re also offering our clients in certain markets a B2B affiliate programme to book motorhome vacations,” he added.
Based on the findings of its research, WebBeds recommends that hotels and other tourism providers continue to offer flexible travel policies, rather than simply relying on discounting. It also advises travel agencies and other stakeholders to continue making investments in technology, including contactless services.
Thailand’s leading resort island Phuket is facing up to the reality that its tourism high season will not see a marked reopening to overseas travellers, following the dismantling of the Phuket Model and refocus by the government on using Bangkok as a single international gateway.
The key tourism indicator for the island is airlift and Phuket International Airport is the gateway for 70-80 per cent of visitors to the destination. According to Airports of Thailand data, 121,530 passengers arrived in the month of September. This equates to just over 4,000 arrivals a day, including local residents and business people. Comparing year-on-year data, 2019’s daily arrivals which included international travellers was five times higher.
Iconic Thai island destination Koh Phi Phi is a popular day trip for Phuket tourists, but with borders closed, hotels and tourism businesses remain empty
C9 Hotelworks managing director Bill Barnett said that “there is a dramatic change in the market mix where the current domestic-led average length of stay for hotels is approximately 1.8 days, while for foreign travellers, it’s more than double this amount. What this means for hotels is severely reduced overall demand across the island’s entire accommodation sector”.
Looking forward to the high season when the numbers spike upwards in the four months of December through March, the high season months last year equated to more than one-third of annual demand. Total domestic and international arrivals at the airport totalled just over 9 million in 2019.
Adding in high season shoulder months into the equation, the stark economic impact of Phuket’s economic seasonality is reflected in the fact that well over half of the island’s tourism arrivals are packed into a six-month period.
Now, nearly two months into that timeframe, what is apparent is it’s virtually impossible to save the high season and hotel owners in 2021 will be forced to contend with historically the lowest trading months of the year by May. Given these grim prospects, C9 Hotelworks is predicting large-scale job losses and business closures, given there is no light at the end of the pandemic-induced tunnel.
“Taking a 360-degree view on the restricted domestic-only demand, you have to take into account that Phuket’s current registered accommodation supply has continued to surge to its present size of 90,267 rooms in 1,773 hotels/tourism establishments,” added Barnett. “Of this supply, upper midscale, upscale, and luxury properties of international standards are approximately 25 per cent of the total rooms.”
Data from STR has Phuket occupancy averaging 10 per cent, with upward spikes on weekends at international standard hotels. Looking into the number though, the reality is domestic travellers are cashing in on cheap deals at upscale and luxury hotels.
Given limited visitor arrivals, the far larger mid and economy tiers where most of the hotel inventory sits, are experiencing even lower occupancy. This domino effect is expected to prevail unabated throughout a sustained downturn and effectively crushes the smaller properties and local tourism businesses.
As Thailand’s government policy has maintained Bangkok as the sole entry point for a limited number of travellers from overseas under the Alternative State Quarantine (ASQ) programme, a number of hotels in all tiers are operating under the scheme. Hotel performance data for Bangkok from STR is reflecting occupancy just above 25 per cent for international standard hotels, though again, in the broader marketplace, demand is at considerably lower levels.
In Phuket, many hotels pinned high-season hope on the now-aborted Phuket Model to allow Special Tourist Visas aimed at long-staying visitors, given the island’s legacy winter ‘snowbird’ market from Northern Europe and Russia.
Putting the ASQ programme at the head of the reopening tourism initiative, 17 Phuket hotels have been approved and 21 applications are under process. Properties who have undertaken both the expense and time in qualifying for the status have been shut out, given the government’s about-face policy of centralising all overseas arrivals into Bangkok.
What is unclear is the logic in policy flip flop on negating the island’s essential tourism lifeline. Using smaller contained resort-focused islands would appear a logical risk mitigation strategy that was echoed in all of the hype over the Phuket Model but after the dust has settled, it ultimately failed to launch.
The time has come that Thailand must gain confidence from international benchmarks, such as the tourism-dependent Maldives. According to data from the nation’s Ministry of Tourism, in October, the destination recorded 21,514 tourist arrivals. This trend is again on the rise in November and looking back, the country has safely managed the reopening of its borders since mid-July. Meanwhile, Singapore is set to start its air travel bubble with Hong Kong from November 22.
Putting Phuket’s economy debacle into perspective, Barnett said “losing this high-season will further intensify the catastrophic impact on the island’s business owners and the livelihoods of the vast majority of residents. Given the sheer size of the hotel inventory, it cannot survive only on domestic visitors, cheaper airfares, or by adding more public holidays. For Phuket, this high season, faced with the prevailing arithmetic, the island can only wait and wonder what comes next.”
The inaugural air travel bubble (ATB) flight between Singapore and Hong Kong will kick off on November 22, allowing for leisure travel between the two places without the need for quarantine.
This marks the world’s first air travel bubble arrangement, after the pandemic forced the implementation of border restrictions globally.
Residents in Singapore will soon be able to travel to Hong Kong, under a bilateral travel bubble arrangement
Under the ATB, travellers between Singapore and Hong Kong will be subject to Covid-19 tests, in lieu of quarantine or stay-home notice. There will be no restrictions on the purpose of travel and no requirement for a controlled itinerary or sponsorship.
As a start, there will be one flight a day into each city, capped at 200 travellers per flight. This will be increased to two flights a day into each city from December 7. Travellers from both cities must travel on designated flights on Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Cathay Pacific.
If the Covid-19 situation deteriorates in either city, the travel bubble arrangements will be suspended, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said in a statement on Wednesday.
Travellers must also meet the eligibility criteria and adhere to the prevailing border control measures and public health requirements of both cities, it added. More information is available here.
Transport minister Ong Ye Kung said: “The Singapore-Hong Kong Air Travel Bubble enables us to achieve two objectives at the same time – open up our borders in a controlled manner, while maintaining safety in our societies. While we may be starting small, this is an important step forward… It will be a useful reference for other countries and regions that have controlled the epidemic, and are contemplating opening their borders.”
The inaugural ATB flight from Singapore, SQ890, will depart on 22 November; while the inaugural ATB flight from Hong Kong, SQ891, will depart on 23 November, according to an SIA press release.
Customers who have existing bookings but do not meet the ATB requirements, or are travellers transiting through Singapore or Hong Kong and therefore not eligible for ATB flights, will have the option to be reaccommodated on SIA’s low-cost subsidiary Scoot instead.
However, passengers travelling on Scoot’s non-ATB flights must meet the entry requirements for Singapore or Hong Kong, and will have to serve either a stay-home notice or a quarantine.
All travellers are required to take a Covid-19 swab test 72 hours before the scheduled departure time of their designated ATB flight and obtain a negative test result. Upon arrival in Hong Kong, travellers from Singapore are required to take a second Covid-19 test, and must remain in the airport until their results are out. Travellers from Hong Kong arriving in Singapore are not subjected to another round of testing.
Conrad Clifford, IATA’s regional vice president for Asia Pacific, welcomed the impending start of the Hong Kong-Singapore ATB.
He said: “International air travel in Asia-Pacific is practically non-existent. Our latest figures for September show passenger demand at about 95 per cent below the same period last year. The Hong Kong-Singapore air travel bubble, though starting small, is a step in the right direction to reboot international travel in the region. We look forward to seeing Hong Kong and Singapore expand this arrangement with other destinations, and for other governments to adopt a similar approach.
“What is significant is that quarantine measures have been lifted for any travel between Hong Kong and Singapore, and is not limited to just business or essential travel. Replacing quarantine measures with Covid-19 testing will help in reopening borders, restore connectivity that jobs and the economy depend on, and give passengers confidence to travel.
“Standards and technological solutions will also be needed to facilitate the management, communication and verification of test results by the multiple stakeholders involved in the travel process. This is something we are working on with the parties in Hong Kong and Singapore.”
The use of contact tracing tools, GPS and Bluetooth, mobile phone applications, artificial intelligence, digital thermometers and wearable technology by governments have helped to restore confidence in people to resume some form of normal life even in the absence of a Covid-19 vaccine.
However, their application is not without obstacles, from privacy woes to information overload when multiple programmes are utilised.
In the sixth and final article by TTG Asia Media for the PATA Crisis Resource Center, TTG Asia’s Marissa Carruthers looks at the technologies and solutions available to support governments in their contact tracking and health tracking efforts, and finds out from specialised developers as well as travel and tourism industry leaders what an ideal solution would be to grant the public a reliable license to travel once more.
License to Travel is now available on the PATA Crisis Resource Center website.
A subscription model for hotels where customers pay a monthly fee to utilise rooms and facilities has been met with much curiosity but also limited interest among Asian hoteliers TTG Asia spoke to.
The business potential of the model was earlier discussed during a HICAP conference panel on October 23, where Pan Pacific Hotels Group’s (PPHG) CEO Choe Peng Sum expressed support for it.
A subscription model for hotels could improve advance cash flow
Choe said the model would supplement the group’s existing loyalty programmes, and would be a natural evolution of loyalty building with a growing emphasis on communities.
He opined that customers now seek greater flexibility, value savings and instant rewards – needs that the subscription model could satisfy instantly, compared to the delayed gratification offered by loyalty redemption programmes.
But for the model to work, a “mindset shift” is needed.
“Hotel stays are perishables – pay as you stay. The idea of pay now stay later through a paid membership is a foreign concept. It is a new wave for the hospitality sector, catering to a new generation of travellers, which players must recognise and come on board to,” he said, citing Inspirato as an example of a hospitality company that has launched a subscription-based service in 2019, offering its subscribers access to over 60,000 vacation homes, hotels and resorts around the world.
Choe told TTG Asia that the model could work for PPHG, which has “a plethora of high quality restaurants and bars in our hotels globally”.
“There is a huge potential for us to build up a community through our portfolio of hotels, resorts, services suites and dining outlets. We are exploring different models,” he said, pointing to PPHG’s dining collection in Singapore as a best fit – “a low hanging fruit” – for the subscription model.
“With five hotels here, we have a collection of close to 20 restaurants and bars. A shrewd next step would be to build a strong community of food lovers and diners through a subscription model to our Pan Pacific Dining Collection. Other possibilities could stretch to subscription models for regional business travels for SMEs and hybrid meeting spaces,” he elaborated.
Choe: subscription model could be applied to PPHG’s dining collection in Singapore
However, TTG Asia‘s conversations with other hoteliers in the region found less enthusiasm. Several hoteliers said the subscription model was still fairly new and unfamiliar.
A Hong Kong-based hotelier who requested anonymity, said it was not a concept the company has considered, or will likely consider in the immediate future.
Another hotel general manager in Hong Kong suggested that the subscription model could work better in Singapore, as the city-state has a strong presence of regional headquarters of multinational companies – a frequent-travelling segment that would find the concept beneficial.
However, he feared limited benefits for the hotel deploying the subscription model. “There is no flexibility. We’ll be in trouble if all our subscribers decide to come and stay on the same week of a month,” he said.
Instead of a subscription model, the general manager is pushing the sale of hotel coupons with face value, which companies can purchase and give away to staff as a form of performance bonus or reward.
Venessa Koo, COO of Taiwan headquartered Silks Hotel Group, also expressed uncertainty around the subscription model, saying that it will require a “very long-term commitment” to get off the ground.
She, too, is utilising a voucher system, which customers can buy in advance with discounts and use before expiry. This system is common in Taiwan, with Silks itself starting the voucher programme in 2011.
“Instead of collecting a monthly fee, it’s just one-off purchase,” Koo said, adding that this mitigates administrative problems that the subscription model could bring, such as resolution of unused rooms by the end of the month.
Koo said Silks is unlikely to adopt the model because “we need to make sure that we look after our guests’ interest and our own interest without making them feel that they are being scammed or taken advantage of”.
WWF, in cooperation with GlobeScan, recently released the findings of an extensive study conducted to understand the main drivers and motivations of Chinese outbound travellers to purchase ivory products abroad and suggest targeted interventions to curtail demand among this group of travellers once international travel resumes in the new normal.
The study, which was conducted between August 2019 and January 2020, surveyed 3,011 outbound Chinese travellers to Cambodia, Hong Kong, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam in the previous two years.
The results revealed that one in 10 Chinese travellers (11 per cent) had planned to purchase ivory prior to their trip. This was especially true for those travelling to Thailand (21 per cent), Japan (19 per cent), and Hong Kong (17 per cent).
More than half the people who reported buying ivory said they did so as a gift for a friend or family member, while a quarter did so as a gift for a business relation, shared Daniel Bergin, senior project manager, GlobeScan, when presenting the results via Zoom on November 10.
He also shared that 22 per cent of surveyed travellers had someone recommend visiting an ivory retailer, with almost a quarter of travellers having visited at least one shop that sold ivory.
Recommendations to visit these shops were mostly given by local tour guides (60 per cent) and staff at tourist information centres (37 per cent).
Karen Xue, director of WWF’s Ivory Initiative, shared: “The fact that ivory purchases are being facilitated by those working in the travel and tourism industry in destination countries is worrying, but also presents a good opportunity for targeted interventions.
“If we can change the behaviour of these tourism sector actors, we can greatly reduce the chances that travellers have to purchase ivory while abroad.”
When assessing the authenticity of the ivory, nearly half of the travellers surveyed (47 per cent) relied on authenticating documents provided by the sellers to determine if the ivory was real.
Of those that bought ivory, 44 per cent of consumers mailed it home to mainland China, either personally or through the retailer, while 28 per cent carried it back with them.
Jan Vertefeuille, senior advisor on advocacy in wildlife conservation for WWF, said: “These findings show that creative demand reduction efforts and interventions with the private sector are key if we want to keep Chinese outbound travellers from taking ivory home.
“If we can discredit the documentation that identifies ivory as ‘authentic’ or get courier companies to cooperate with our counter wildlife trafficking efforts, we can disrupt the flow of elephant ivory into China.”
Another key finding of the report revealed that 17 per cent of Chinese outbound travellers think it is legal to bring ivory back to mainland China.
Thus, among GlobeScan’s recommendations to WWF was to educate the Chinese public that it is illegal to transport ivory across borders under any circumstances and to have campaigns dissuading Chinese travellers from purchasing ivory.
Other recommendations included targeting courier and delivery companies in their campaigns to reduce illegal cross-border transportation as it has been found that sending ivory and rhino horn products by mail is the most popular method of transporting it back to mainland China.
As the Lunar New Year and Golden Week Holidays combined accounted for more than half the trips undertaken by outbound travellers to the seven destinations in the study, it was also recommended that campaigns be organised targeting these two peak periods.
GlobeScan also suggested devising campaigns against the practice of buying ivory as a gift. A poll conducted during the online unveiling of the findings where participants were asked what non-ivory, wildlife-friendly souvenir they thought would make a popular alternative saw the majority of respondents (44 per cent) voting for local artisan crafts, followed by gems and minerals (21 per cent).
This study builds on previous consumer surveys about the elephant ivory trade in China conducted by GlobeScan for WWF which looks at changes in attitudes and purchases since China banned its domestic ivory trade on December 31, 2017. Following this historic decision, WWF initiated a global initiative addressing the supply and demand of ivory products which is embedded in its multifaceted strategy to tackle the illegal wildlife trade around the world.