2005

Malaysia approves low-cost hub at main KL airport

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia has decided to build a dedicated terminal for low-cost carriers at Kuala Lumpur's main international airport, Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy said on Wednesday.Chan said the government would spend 100 million ringgit ($26 million) to build the terminal, which will be operations in the first half of 2006. It's a very strategic move to help Malaysia, and AirAsia and other LCCs (low-cost carriers) in the country," he told reporters.

http://www.reuters.co.in

From Morocco to the Maldives and China to Chile, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:HOT - News) will open more than 70 new hotels in 2005 and 2006 in choice destinations around the globe. Nearly half of these new hotels are outside of the United States, marking an exciting period of global development for the hotel giant.

"Our development momentum continues to be strong and we've won more than our share of hotel deals," said Steven J. Heyer, Starwood's Chief Executive Officer. "Our W and St. Regis brands are very sought after by the development community and Westin was actually the world's fastest growing upper upscale brand in 2004 and is a terrific growth vehicle with lots of opportunities abroad. Sheraton is perhaps the most global brand in its category and its international pipeline is quite robust, particularly in China which is the hottest hotel market on the globe. Our moderately-priced Four Points by Sheraton brand still has plenty of room to grow both in the United States and abroad and we continue to aggressively expand the brand."

http://biz.yahoo.com

Holiday flights from Finland to Phuket resumed

Some of Finland's biggest travel operators have decided to resume flights to Thailand's Phuket, six weeks after the Boxing Day tsunami catastrophe.

Aurinkomatkat, Tjäreborg, and Detur started flying tourists to hotels in the Thai resorts of Kata Beach, Karon Beach, Surin Beach, and Patong Beach on Wednesday evening. Trips to Khao Lak, which was completely devastated by the tsunami, remain cancelled.

Another travel agency, Finnmatkat, resumed trips to Phuket already on Sunday.

The tsunami aftermath has caused many Finns to make changes to their planned holidays in Southeast Asia. A third of Detur's clients have cancelled their trips to Thailand.

Tjäreborg has also had a number of cancellations, but most of their clients have simply switched from Phuket to alternative destinations in Thailand and elsewhere. Many Finns also travel to Bangkok and to Gulf Coast resorts such as Hua Hin and Ko Samui, which were naturally unaffected by the waves in the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean.

helsinginsanomat.fi

Business Travel Expo Hong Kong Returns March 22-23, 2005

Business Travel Expo Hong Kong, now in its fourth year, is to take place from 22-23 March 2005 at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre.

“As worldwide business travel recovers, and China’s accession to the WTO brings increased business travel to and from China, and with it more choices of travel partners, travel planners have greater reason than ever to attend the expo this year,” said Group Event Director Paul Robin.

With a strong line-up of returning and new exhibitors, Business Travel Expo Hong Kong is expected to exceed previous attendances of top business travel buyers from around the region.

The Expo is organised by Centaur Exhibitions, the same team as the highly successful annual Business Travel Show in London, which was held this week at Olympia and drew over 200 exhibitors and more than 7,000 visitors.

The idea behind the Business Travel Expo is the concept of Smart Travel, helping those people who have responsibility for buying, booking or managing travel in their companies to get the most out of their company’s travel budget, to discover new deals, to cut costs and save time along the way.

As in the previous three years, the Expo will also be offering a strong educational programme, with a series of seminars aimed at informing travel planners how to make the most of their companies’ travel dollars. Seminars are free when reserved online by pre-registered delegates of the Expo, or HK$300 each for non pre-registered visitors.

asiatraveltips.com

Global Travel to Increase About 32% by 2010, UN Agency Says

Global travel may increase as much as 32 percent in five years, with Asian nations as the most popular destinations, a United Nations organization said.

The number of people visiting another country may rise to 1 billion by 2010 from 760 million last year, said Augusto Huescar, chief of market intelligence at the World Tourism Organization.

``More and more countries are providing better conditions for travel,'' Huescar said today during an interview in Bangkok. ``Look at India, China.''

The UN agency expects tourist arrivals to expand 5 percent this year after having grown 10 percent in 2004. Arrivals in Southeast Asia last year rose 33 percent, while 20 percent more visitors traveled to South Asia.

``So strong is the desire to holiday, that the industry is looking up,'' Francesco Frangialli, secretary-general for the World Tourism Organization, said in Bangkok at a briefing after a special meeting in Phuket.

Tourist visits worldwide may exceed 1.56 billion by 2020, the World Tourism Organization has forecast. The agency expects the number of trips to increase an average 4.1 percent annually, led by visitors from the Middle East and East Asia.

Ministers and other officials from the 42 members of the World Tourism Organization met in Thailand's southern island of Phuket this week to find ways to attract tourists from Europe and elsewhere back to the region after the Dec. 26 tsunami.

bloomberg.com

Global air travel takes big jump in 2004

GENEVA (Reuters) — International airline passenger traffic in 2004 grew 15.3% over the same period a year ago, industry trade group International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced Monday. IATA said that the Asia-Pacific region — which includes China's fast-growing aviation sector — led the way with a 20.5% passenger increase. Passenger traffic to and from North America, as well as between the United States and Canada, was up 14.8%. European traffic — which includes flights between European countries as well as flights into and out of the region — climbed 10.1%, IATA said. But IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani said the growth — coming after three poor years and with industry losses now totalling $35 billion since 2001 — "is only good news if we can reduce costs." The organization is forecasting that its members will make an overall profit in 2005 of $1.2 billion based on an oil price, its largest single cost, at around $34 per barrel. IATA estimates airlines lost $4.8 billion in 2004. IATA's members include about 270 airlines, which account for 94% of the world's scheduled international air traffic. Most of the booming low-cost carriers, such as Southwest and Britain's easyJet, do not belong to the body. The global industry took a heavy blow after the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings in the USA, and was hit again by the 2003 SARS health scare in Asia and Canada. IATA said around 5% of 2004 growth was due to recovery from the "SARS effect." Between 2005 and 2008, the agency forecasts annual average passenger growth of 6%.

January 2005

asiatraveltips.com

Visa-free travel expected within Southeast Asian nations by end-2005
Southeast Asian nationals will no longer need to obtain visas when traveling to 10 countries in the region by the end of this year, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in remarks published on Wednesday. Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed an agreement in 2002 to allow easier travel in a bid to revive confidence after the bomb attack in Bali that year.
The following year, an ASEAN meeting in Hanoi urged member states to work towards visa exemptions for travel within the region."This will be fully effective by the end of the year," Abdullah was quoted as saying by the Star.
"Of course, we cannot downplay the security requirements of the respective member states," he said in a speech read on his behalf by Tourism Minister Leo Michael Toyad at an ASEAN tourism conference on Malaysia's Langkawi island. "However, in the spirit of ASEAN, I believe we can work together to create means by which we can address these concerns and at the same time ensure visa-free intra-regional travel."
Many ASEAN countries have bilateral agreements on visa exemption for their respective nationals, but the organization does not have a multilateral visa agreement for its members.
ASEAN members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Former premier Mahathir Mohamad went a step further in his address to the conference proposing a single visa for entry to all ASEAN countries by foreign travellers. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to receive tourists, where we have one visa for Southeast Asian countries. ASEAN countries should consider requiring a single visa for tourists," he said.

thejakartapost.com

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