SINGAPORE 25 January 2022: Oakwood continues to gain
momentum across the Asia Pacific to double its portfolio by 2025.
Starting 202 on a high note, Oakwood Hotel & Apartments
Azabu Tokyo marks the first of 20 new openings scheduled for 2022, along with strategic
partnerships to advance the fast-growing brand’s frontiers into China’s
tropical southern resort island of Hainan as well as Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The opening of Oakwood Hotel & Apartments Azabu Tokyo earlier this month represented the brand’s 13th property in Japan located in Tokyo’s prestigious Azabu-Juban embassy district,
Advancing its expansion into key travel destinations in
China, Oakwood recently signed a strategic partnership agreement with China
Green Development Group, one of China’s biggest state-owned enterprises, for
the management of projects in China. This strategic partnership is China Green
Development Group’s first venture with Oakwood.
Oakwood Hotel & Apartments Dhaka and Oakwood Suites
Dhaka will open in April 2022, both owned by Aara Hospitality. Located in Dhaka
City’s upscale enclave of Gulshan 2, the 89-room Oakwood Hotel & Apartments
Dhaka will offer 32 well-appointed studios and one-bedroom apartments.
An aggressive expansion should deliver 20 new openings across the Asia Pacific,
including the debut of Oakwood Beluxs, a brand that was launched in Mainland
China in 2020. Created in partnership with Country Garden Commercial and
Culture Tourism Group, the brand aims to establish 100 Oakwood Beluxs
properties in China by 2030. The first three properties are slated to launch in
April, August and October 2022 in Dalian, Yantai and Qingdao, respectively.
BANGKOK, 25 January 2022: AirAsia introduces Xtra Carry-on,
allowing up to 14 kg of carry-on baggage up from the usual 7 kg, and Xpress
Baggage, offering express baggage claim at key terminal destinations.
Both optional ancillary services are available now for
booking along with flights on the AirAsia Super App.
AirAsia Thailand chief executive officer Santisuk Klongchaiya said: “These new services for 2022 are designed for guests who value greater convenience and speed when it comes to bringing extra baggage on board or priority checked baggage collection on disembarkation. They have been introduced following AirAsia guests survey responses collected over the past few years.
Xtra Carry-on is a service that allows guests to carry up to
14 kg of baggage onto a flight so that they can keep their valuables in their
sight at all times. At present, guests are allowed two pieces of carry-on
baggage with a combined weight not exceeding 7 kg at no cost. With Xtra
Carry-on, each piece may now weigh a maximum of 7 kg for a combined 14 kg. This
service may be limited on some flights due to inflight weight restrictions, and
security regulations will apply.
Xpress Baggage is a service for guests who need to claim
their baggage as fast as possible upon arrival at their terminal destination.
From only 50 THB, AirAsia travellers can receive their baggage as priority
guests soon as they disembark. Book the convenience of Xpress Baggage along
with seats and other optional extras, using AirAsia Super App.
BANGKOK 25 January 2022: Emirates has launched a new offer for passengers visiting Dubai with friends and family when booking flights by 6 February 2022.
Two or more
passengers travelling to Dubai from 24 January to 30 April 2022 can save 25% on
fares when travelling together.
This special offer is valid for two or more travellers who book a return trip via emirates.com to Dubai in Economy or Business Class between 24 January 2022 and 6 February 2022 on the same booking reference. The offer is also available via travel and call centre agents and Emirates Retail shops.
Experience Dubai with Emirates
In addition
to this exclusive new offer, there are plenty more ways to save on your Dubai
getaway with Emirates and take advantage of its incredible winter sun, beaches,
outdoor dining and events including:
Free Emirates Expo Pass: It’s an amazing time to travel to Dubai with the much-anticipated Expo 2020 mega-event taking place until 31 March 2022. Emirates customers visiting and travelling through Dubai anytime during the final two months of Expo 2020, will be eligible to receive a free Emirates Expo Pass for every flight ticket booked with the airline. For more information on this promotion, please visit thededicated offer page.
My Emirates Pass – Expo Edition: Customers travelling to or via Dubai anytime until 31 March 2022, get to explore the city for less with My Emirates Pass Expo 2020 Dubai. Enjoy exclusive discounts and benefits at over 500 retail, dining, and recreational attractions by simply showing their Emirates boarding pass.
Emirates has
resumed passenger services to over 120 destinations and currently operates 21
weekly passenger flights from Bangkok to Dubai, and seven weekly passenger
flights from Phuket to Dubai. Four additional weekly flights from HKT-DXB will
be added beginning 1 February 2022.
Customers can book their holiday to Dubai, including other Expo-themed packages through Emirates Holidays. Emirates Holidays’ dedicated 24/7 On Holiday Service team will be there to support holidaymakers for every moment that they’re away.
Customers are
encouraged to check their latest government travel guidelines and ensure they
meet the travel requirements of their final destination.
(Your Stories: Emirates)
For more information on entry requirements for international visitors and residents returning to Dubai visit:
SINGAPORE, 25 January 2022: Travelport introduced the latest
update to its next-generation platform, Travelport+, last week to pave the way
to modernize the booking experience and make it easier for agents to offer more
choices to their travellers.
The evolution of Travelport+ tools and agency capabilities
continues with simplified access to enriched travel content from multiple
sources, including New Distribution Capability (NDC) standard content.
Travelport is the first and only global distribution system
(GDS) to sign NDC content distribution deals with all three major European
airline groups (Air France-KLM, International Airlines Group (IAG), and
Lufthansa Group). The company continues to expand its NDC connections with more
than 16 airlines worldwide, including American Airlines, Emirates, Qantas, and
Singapore Airlines.
Simplified Trip Management
Customers using the latest version of Travelport’s desktop
tool, Smartpoint, can access a suite of features aimed at simplifying everyday
tasks. Enhancements include more customized itinerary quotes in Trip Quote as
well as faster Assisted Ticketing capabilities that streamline complex
ticketing and exchange tasks for agents.
Travelport has also launched a new Trip Manager portal on
Travelport+, offering travellers the ability to service their own trip, and
carry out fast, easy transactions on the go. The self-service option for
travellers using the new portal allows agencies to preserve resources while
providing travellers with an improved experience with the ability to easily add
extras to their trip.
Agencies can better manage the hotel bookings they sell with a simple self-service rules engine, the Content Optimizer. This tool complements previous improvements to fare management tools so that agencies can easily create and customize their own content rules.
SEOUL,
25 January 2022: Busan Metropolitan City and Busan Tourism Organization (BTO)
declares 2022 as the year it will become the global MICE city in the
post-Covid-19 era and accelerate its sustainable MICE project, including ESG*
management.
Expectations are high this year as more international conferences are scheduled to meet in Busan, attracting thousands of overseas delegates.
※ ESG management, an abbreviation for Environment · Social · Governance, refers to overall management activities related to environment-friendly and social responsibility.
@ MICE representative city Busan.
Entering
the third year of Covid-19, the MICE industry in Busan is expected to move as
vigorously as before the pandemic. To gradually recover the MICE industry,
Busan has built a MICE infrastructure optimized for hybrid online and offline
events and completed its vision of a “super-connected hub of the MICE industry.”
Along with “Busan! Again” campaign, Busan will establish an internal and external consultation system and actively attract and hold small-scale VIP events and mid-to-large-scale hybrid MICE events.
In addition, it will focus investment and support on the sustainability of the Busan MICE industry (ESG management).
They
plan to hold briefing sessions and joint campaigns so that organizers and
participants can take part in ESG management.
Haeundae
International Conference Complex (HAEVENUE) will improve travel convenience
between integrated facilities by expanding accessibility, such as linking
eco-friendly personal means of transportation, as a hub for MICE in Busan.
Several
improvements and support projects for HAEVENUE are waiting in line.
From
this year, the Busan MICE Alliance (BMA), a consultative body of MICE
institutions and companies which aims to become a driving force of Busan MICE,
will change drastically.
Previously, MICE-related companies, organizations, and institutions located in Busan were able to join without any sort of process, but from 2022, the minimum verification criteria for actual operational capabilities, such as the capacity for holding MICE-related events, must be satisfied. The reason for introducing the minimum verification process, such as evaluation and approval of the operating committee, is to strengthen the practical networking BMA and to create new synergies with domestic and overseas MICE-related organizations.
@ 2021 BUSAN MICE ALLIANCE DAY.
The MICE support programme has also been reinforced to provide more practical benefits to the organizers and participants in the pandemic situation. The programs include three areas: △international conferences, corporate incentives, and tourism. For international conferences, hybrid online and offline international conferences are also supported if more than 10% of the total participants take part offline. For corporate incentives and corporate conferences, up to 50 million won will be provided to attract and host an event. For tourism, up to 3 million won for actual expenses will be supported, which includes tour buses and interpreters for international conferences with 10 or more foreign participants.
Some international conferences have already chosen Busan as the “optimal MICE destination.” The organizers of the conferences postponed due to COVID-19, such as the 2022 General Assembly International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the 2022 International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) World Congress, as well as the mega-scale conferences including the Asian Patent Attorneys Association Council Meeting 2022 and the 2022 International Council of Combustion Engines (CIMAC) Congress started to prepare the event in Busan in full swing.
The IAU and FIATA World Congresses are scheduled to be held in Busan in 2020, and 2021 (more than 3,000 participants from 100 countries each) switched to a hybrid-type event this year due to prolonged COVID-19.
In addition, seven large international conferences with more than 1,000 people are scheduled to be held in Busan in 2022: the 18th IFSES World Congress of Endoscopic Surgery, the Asian Patent Attorneys Association (APAA) Council Meeting 2022, and the 2022 International Council of Combustion Engines Congress.
@ The view of Busan Port, where the 2022 International Federation of Freight Forwarders.
An
official from BTO said, “As the landscape of the MICE industry at
home and abroad has been changing rapidly for the last three years of the
COVID-19 crisis, it is necessary to support not only the conference and
exhibition infrastructure that can be used both online and offline, but also
tourism resources such as Unique Venues. Entering the post-COVID-19 era in
2022, Busan will take an opportunity to make it the first year of MICE
innovation, ensuring the city emerge as one of the world’s top MICE
destinations.”
SINGAPORE, 24 January 2022: Recent lockdowns in China,
imposed in response to outbreaks of the Omicron variant, have cast a long
shadow over new year travel plans, according to the latest report on travel
trends by ForwardKeys.
The latest data up to 11 January shows flight bookings for
the upcoming holiday period, 24 January to 13 February, were 75.3% behind
pre-pandemic levels but 5.9% ahead of last year’s dismally low levels.
In addition to Omicron-related travel restrictions,
government advice on Lunar New Year travel has also been an influential factor
in dampening demand. Last year, many local authorities advised people to “stay
put”. This year, the advice is a little more lenient, with people advised to
protect their personal health while travelling, but not to “stay put”. That
stance allows people the flexibility to wait and see how things develop and to
make a last-minute decision to travel if they wish.
All is not necessarily lost for the airlines and others in
the travel industry in China. This is because the lead time for flight bookings
has shortened dramatically during the pandemic. Recently, around 60% of
bookings on Chinese domestic flights were made within only four days of
departure. Therefore, with a fortnight between the latest data and the
beginning of the peak holiday period, a last-minute surge is still possible.
Whether or not that happens will depend on new outbreaks of the Omicron variant
and how quickly they can be contained. This is because the pattern of domestic
travel in China throughout the pandemic has been a tug of war between strong
pent-up demand for travel and draconian restrictions to contain Covid-19, with
travel bouncing back strongly, as soon as travellers feel the risk of becoming
stranded in an area of infection has receded.
Analysis of the most-booked destinations reveals that
leisure travel is the light in what would otherwise be a gloomy outlook. Among
the top 15, the most resilient destinations are Changchun, reaching 39% of
pre-pandemic levels; Sanya, 34%; Shenyang, 32%; Chengdu, 30%; Haikou, 30%;
Chongqing, 29%; Shanghai, 26%; Wuhan, 24%; Harbin 24% and Nanjing, 20%.
Of those, Changchun Shenyang and Harbin contain numerous
winter sports resorts, and it is notable that Harbin is still in the top 15
list even though it was affected by a COVID-19 outbreak as recently as
December.
Sanya and Haikou, which are both located on Hainan, China’s
holiday island in the South China Sea, have seen consistent growth in
popularity throughout the pandemic, fuelled by China’s ban on international
travel and special tax treatment on the sale of luxury goods. According to
Hainan’s commerce department, the number of duty-free shoppers grew by 73% in
2021, and sales increased by 83%.
The other destinations, Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, Wuhan
and Nanjing, are all popular for city sightseeing.
ForwardKeys APAC VP Sales Bing Han Kee said: “I am not yet ready to give up hope of a last-minute recovery. The reason: throughout 2021, travel has bounced back strongly as soon as restrictions are lifted, with ever shorter lead times. I am also impressed by the strongly growing enthusiasm for winter sports, which I am sure has been encouraged by publicity surrounding the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing.”
PUTRAJAYA, 24 January 2022: Tourism Malaysia kicked off its promotional calendar in Europe at the International Tourism Trade Fair (FITUR 2022) at IFEMA MADRID, Spain, with the target to woo back international tourists, especially from the long-haul markets.
The 42nd edition of FITUR 2022 that convened 19 to 23 January marked the 20-year milestone of Malaysia’s participation in this important trade fair for inbound and outbound markets in the Iberian Peninsula and the gateway to Latin America.
Leading the Malaysian delegation at FITUR 2022 is Tourism Malaysia International Promotions Division (America, Europe & Oceania) senior deputy director Noor Azlan Abu Bakar.
The promotion focused on the Langkawi International Tourism
Bubble and sustainable tourism destinations to continue promoting public
awareness and encourage trade visitors to discover more about Malaysia. Tour
companies Exo Travel and Vive Malaysia joined the promotion from the private
sector.
The previous special edition of FITUR 2021, which focused on
tourism recovery, was the first fair held in Europe since the pandemic and
attended by over 62,000 visitors with the participation of 5,000 companies from
55 countries around the world.
Tourism Malaysia director-general Dato’ Zainuddin Abdul Wahab said: “We are excited to participate in FITUR 2022 at Madrid, which is also home to the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). FITUR continues to be an important platform for us to network with the travel trade, airlines, and media.”
Spanish tourist arrivals to Malaysia recorded a positive
3.2% growth of 42,267 in 2018 to 43,616 in 2019, with MYR 182 million in
tourism receipts.
BANGKOK 24 January 2022: Thai Vietjet encourages passengers to use the Amy Live Chat feature by offering a discount of THB 50 when pre-booking baggage through the chat service.
Amy is the airline’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot
that the airline has recently introduced, which can simulate instant
conversation with passengers online, offering optimal interaction experiences
and more convenient communication.
To receive the special discount when pre-booking baggage,
passengers can contact Amy through direct message on Line Official Account
‘ThaiVietjet’, Facebook at www.facebook.com/VietJetThailand, via Twitter
@ThaiVietjet, and webchat at www.vietjetair.com. Then, choose the language you
prefer. Click on the “Main Menu” tab, tap on “Baggage”, and
choose “Contact Agent”. Then, inform an agent of your booking number
and the weight of baggage allowance you prefer. The special promotion runs
until 31 January 2022.
Passengers can book flight tickets to travel on Thai
Vietjet’s entire domestic flights’ network in Thailand from Bangkok
(Suvarnabhumi) to Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phuket, Krabi, Hat Yai, Nakhon Si
Thammarat, Surat Thani, Udon Thani, Khon Kaen, and Ubon Ratchathani,
cross-country routes connecting Phuket to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, together
with a flight from Chiang Rai to Hat Yai via Amy Live Chat.
DUBAI, UAE, 24 January 2022: Emirates has signed a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Public Service of The Bahamas to explore joint initiatives to promote tourism
to the island nation.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by HH Sheikh
Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Group Chairman and Chief Executive and The
Hon Frederick A Mitchell MP, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Public Service,
The Bahamas at the Emirates Group Headquarters.
Also present at the meeting were Adnan Kazim, Emirates’
Chief Commercial Officer; Salem Obaidalla, Emirates’ Senior VP Commercial
Operations for the Americas; and HE Tony Joudi, Ambassador of The Bahamas to
the UAE.
HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Group Chairman
and Chief Executive, said: “Across the world, Emirates plays a key role in
boosting tourism to various destinations by providing travellers with reliable,
convenient and comfortable flight options for travel. We are delighted to work
with The Bahamas to strengthen transport links and to support the country to
welcome tourists from around the world. We look forward to a long and fruitful
partnership.”
Spread across 16 major islands and boasting more than
100,000 sq. miles of the world’s clearest ocean, The Bahamas is one of the most
sought-after tourism destinations in the Caribbean, offering a rich mix of
leisure and cultural activities for visitors.
Through the MoU, Emirates will develop initiatives to
promote The Bahamas as a tourism destination to customers across its global
network, including developing enhanced connectivity to Nassau Lynden Pindling
International Airport (NAS) from American gateways through its codeshare and
interline partners.
Additionally, through its tour operating arm Emirates Holidays, the airline is also making available to customers and its retail travel partners across its markets a range of travel packages, including hotels and flights to The Bahamas.
Currently,
Emirates customers can connect to Nassau airport on codeshare flights with
JetBlue from four major US airports, including Boston (BOS), Newark (EWR), New
York (JFK) and Orlando (MCO). Customers can also opt to fly through Toronto on
interline flights with Air Canada to Nassau and George Town. Emirates operates
a modern fleet of Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 aircraft to a network of more than
120 destinations across six continents.
SINGAPORE, 24 January 2022: IHG Hotels & Resorts is refreshing its loyalty programme, by adding a new tier bonus point earning structure as it rolls out improvements over the coming months
The new tier and bonus point earning structure – which will
go live in March – is designed to help members earn more points faster.
A key component is the introduction of a new Gold Elite tier
starting at 20 nights, with an industry-leading 40% bonus point structure.
IHG will also rename its ‘Spire Elite’ tier to ‘Diamond
Elite’ to simplify member recognition and understanding of the highest tier,
which will retain a “best-in-class 100% bonus point structure. It will
also improve the bonus point earn levels across all other Elite tiers.
IHG Hotels & Resorts chief executive officer Keith Barr
said: “Travel is its own biggest reward, and that’s really at the heart of what
we’re doing with our loyalty programme. Each time our members choose to stay at
our hotels, we are increasing their opportunity to travel more, experience
more, and reap benefits they won’t get anywhere else.”
Since 1 January 2022, IHG Rewards members’ stays count
toward the new-and-improved status when the programme launches.
