Source: TravelMole Newsletter
http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1148149.php?mpnlog=1&m_id=_rm~AbY!Y!
Ole! Singapore Girl to promote Spain
Singapore Airlines and Spain Tourism Board have signed an agreement aimed at boosting tourist arrivals to Spain.
Under the deal, both parties will jointly explore and implement activities to promote tourist traffic to Spain, by way of Singapore Airlines’ services between Singapore and Barcelona.
Both have agreed to commit funds through to the end of this year to support advertising and promotional campaigns, as well as familiarisation programmes for trade and media, among other plans.
Since launching thrice-weekly flights to Barcelona in 2006 with Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, the SQ service has been increased to seven times weekly, using Boeing 777-300ER.
Beyond Barcelona, Singapore Airlines customers can connect to the Spanish cities of Bilbao, Madrid, and Palma de Mallorca on codeshare partner Spanair’s services.
“The signing of this MOU means a lot to us since it’s the first of its kind signed by Singapore Airlines with a European destination to cover several target markets,” said Angela Castaño, director of the Spain Tourism Board.
Key target markets under the agreement include Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.
Source: TravelMole Newsletter
http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1148149.php?mpnlog=1&m_id=_rm~AbY!Y!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Luxury brands thrive as the economy strengthens: study
Luxury brands thrive as the economy strengthens: study
Published: 06 Jun 2011
Companies are reinvesting in travel after having to tighten their belts during the recession. And luxury brand hotels are in a “fantastic position” to benefit from this since they rely significantly on business travel, according to a new report.
According to iPerceptions’ Hospitality and Tourism Industry Report for Q1 2011, luxury brands are benefitting from the increase in discretionary income and corporate travel budgets more than any other tier. Luxury brands were among the most negatively impacted by the recent economic downturn. Economic indicators such as increases in employment, disposable incomes and corporate budgets for business travel, all point to the reasons of their strong recovery.
Important findings from the report include:
Business travel increased from 29 percent in Q4 2010 to 32 percent in Q1 2011, while leisure travel decreased from 63 percent to 60 percent during the same time period.
Luxury hotel stays increased from 36 percent in Q4 2010 to 44 percent in Q1 2011. As a result, there was a decrease in visitors who stayed at midscale and economy hotels.
Technical difficulties increased from 14 percent in Q4 2010 to 18 percent in Q1 2011 for visitors who came to make a reservation and encountered booking problems.
Business travellers continued to have difficulty finding specific information related to their stay, such as conference room details, maps/distance to meeting locations and shuttle service.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Predicting hotel guests’ booking behaviour
Predicting hotel guests’ booking behaviour
Published: 06 Jun 2011
Japan’s Solare Hotels & Resorts has implemented a new software application that allows the most up to date analysis of internal metrics plus access to key external data that impacts properties.
Intouch Data’s (ITD) HotelSnapshot, a web-based application, merges key in-house data sets with external intelligence. According to ITD, based in Australia, the application has been developed to provide the industry with a hybrid product that transcends the barrier of internal versus external influences when predicting future operational trends.
Solare Hotels and Resorts currently has over 75 properties within its portfolio and all are linked to HotelSnapshot.
“The ability to get up-to-date statistics and predict booking behaviour and trends will bring tremendous competitive advantage in optimising yield,” said Tony Virili, CEO, Solare.
Jack Tan, CIO at Solare, said, “When implementing new software we always consider two crucial factors - will the functionality deliver a commercial return for the business and will the interface be user-friendly enough for our staff to ensure a smooth roll-out and transition. HotelSnapshot delivers on both fronts.”
The HotelSnapshot interface can be tailored to accommodate specific user requirements at all levels, from CEO to revenue manager, marketing coordinator and anywhere in between.
Solare Hotels & Resorts will also be the first hotel chain to access HotelSnapshot’s international flight seating capacity, a new expansion of the application and a tool that allows access to real-time trends and historical perspectives that assist hotels in projecting inbound seat capacity up to 90 days in advance. The flight seating data is being sourced from OAG.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Business models diverge at long-time archrivals Cathay and Singapore Airlines
Business models diverge at long-time archrivals Cathay and Singapore Airlines
Published: 03 Jun 2011
Cathay Pacific Airways sees enough growth in the top end of the market to stick entirely with the traditional full-service model and will not be persuaded to follow some of its biggest rivals in establishing a low-cost carrier subsidiary.
New Cathay CEO John Slosar said he “doesn’t fully understand the goals” of the planned new long-haul low-cost subsidiary at Singapore Airlines (SIA). He says Cathay doesn’t see a need to establish a new brand and plans to instead grow its network and traffic “through the Cathay brand”.
Unlike SIA, Mr Slosar points out Cathay’s traffic, including premium traffic, has already fully recovered to pre-global recession levels. He sees Cathay in a unique position to be able to continue to rapidly grow its premium business. Demand for premium travel to and from Hong Kong has been particularly robust as Hong Kong has emerged as the biggest equity market in the world while premium demand from neighbouring China is expected to take off.
SIA has seen its passenger traffic drop in recent years, prompting it to rethink its previous strategy of focussing entirely on the top end of the market. The SIA Group including regional carrier SilkAir transported 19.3 million passengers in 2010, a 1% drop compared with the 19.6 million passengers transported by the group in 2006. Over the same period, the combined traffic at Cathay and Dragonair has increased 21% from 22.1 million passengers in 2006 to 26.8 million passengers in 2010.
Mr Slosar took over as Cathay's CEO two months ago from Tony Tyler, who is now preparing to assume the top post at IATA. But unlike the recent CEO transition at SIA, do not expect the change of management at Cathay to result in any strategy shift.
For Cathay, the need to change is simply not as pressing. While SIA has been struggling to grow its business under its traditional premium-focussed model, Cathay has been quickly able to resume growing its premium business after a temporary setback during the global downturn. If SIA wants to again overtake Cathay as a larger airline group (in terms of total passengers, the SIA-SilkAir combination were bigger in the early portions of last decade than the pre-merger combination of Cathay and Dragonair) it has to diversify and take the risk of assuming a new business model.
Retaining its focus on the premium end of the market allows Cathay to continue spending all of its capital expenditure on its original business model. Cathay is now investing significantly in new business-class cabins and upgrading its lounges at its Hong Kong hub.
The battle for the best business class seat
Mr Slosar believes the new business-class seats introduced by Cathay over the past few months on some of its A330s and B777-300ERs will be an “industry setter”. He says the initial response to the new seat, which has already been introduced on some A330-300 flights to Sydney and some 777-300ER flights to New York, has been very positive. All of Cathay’s A330-300s and B777-300ERs will be outfitted with the new seat by early 2013.
Although SIA will need to funnel a significant amount of funds into launching its new long-haul low-cost carrier, it is not about to let its premium product suffer. SIA is generally considered the industry trendsetter when it comes to long-haul premium products and SIA is now planning yet another new generation of business-class seats for its future fleet of A350s and B787s.
Contrary to Cathay’s aim to leapfrog over SIA in the battle for the best business-class seat, SIA sees Cathay’s move to replace its current long-haul herring-bone business-class seat, which was only introduced four years ago but proved to be unpopular with frequent flyers, as more of a response to its more successful seat that was first introduced on B777-300ER at the end of 2006. SIA’s current long-haul class seat, which is also featured on the carrier’s A380s, is still wider than Cathay’s new seat although Mr Slosar believes Cathay’s design is better for side-sleepers and the carrier has found the “sweet spot” between privacy and space.
The reality is both SIA and Cathay long-haul premium products are once again at or near the top of the industry and the bigger differentiator is the strength of their networks. Given the very rapid growth of the Hong Kong and Chinese markets, Cathay seems to be developing the edge in this respect although SIA also has a very strong local market in Singapore. Mr Slosar points out the economic growth in China is fuelling not only a huge increase in economy class travel as a larger sector of the population now has the means to travel by air but also more Chinese are becoming wealthy enough to afford to travel in premium cabins.
Cathay expanding rapidly in mainland China while SIA is shrinking
Both SIA and Cathay have an edge over mainland Chinese carriers in tapping this growth at the top end of the Chinese market as their products are viewed as far superior by China’s growing upper class. But in terms of capacity, Cathay has a much bigger offering.
Cathay and Dragonair have almost 80,000 seats per week out of China. Dragonair, which operates to 17 destinations in mainland China, accounts for the most of the company’s Chinese capacity. Cathay and Dragonair merged in 2006.
In comparison, SIA and SilkAir combined have only about 21,000 seats per week out of China. The SIA Group has reduced its capacity from mainland China over the last five years by 8% while Cathay/Dragonair capacity from China has increased 21% over this period.
SIA’s positioning in the increasingly important premium Chinese market is also weakened by the fact almost none of its flights to China are operated with B777-300ERs or A380s, which are the only aircraft in the carrier’s fleet with lie-flat business-class seats. Cathay and Dragonair also primarily offer a regional business-class product on its flights to China but Cathay’s Chinese flights are significantly shorter.
In many connecting markets out of mainland China, SIA is also increasingly competing for premium business against Middle Eastern carriers, which unlike SIA and Cathay generally offer a full lie-flat seat on their Chinese flights. Emirates now has almost 13,000 seats per week out of China and has increased its capacity out of China by 354% since Jun-2006.
Qatar Airways now has 6000 seats per week out of China, a 217% increase over Jun-2006. Etihad only launched services to China in 2008 and now has 2000 seats per week in the market. Turkish Airways also has been growing its Chinese operation fast and now has 5000 seats per week from China, a 214% increase compared with Jun-2006.
Combined, Emirates, Qatar, Etihad and Turkish now have 3% of the international market out of China, compared to only 1% five years ago. Over this period SIA Group has seen its share of the market drop from 3.5% to 2.3%. Cathay/Dragonair also has seen its share drop from 9.9% to 8.8% as the total market has expanded by 36%, outpacing the 21% expansion by Cathay/Dragonair.
Bullish on its ability to exploit the fast-growing Chinese market, Cathay is also expanding at a significantly faster clip. Cathay plans to grow capacity by about 11% this year compared with 6% at SIA. While SIA has 48 new widebodies on order, according to Ascend data, Cathay has 88 widebodies on order.
Mr Slosar hints of more orders, saying “we may not be finished yet”. But he insists that for now Cathay has decided not to follow SIA in acquiring A380s.
Cathay to rethink A380s and 747-8s
In recent years Cathay has conducted several studies of new jumbo jets, including the A380 and B747-8, but Mr Slosar says Cathay prefers to stick with twin-engine widebody aircraft because it “really wants to offer a good schedule”. He cites specifically two of Cathay’s biggest markets, Hong Kong and Sydney, where the carrier now offers four daily flights and says Cathay’s schedule really helps its premium business as its frequent flyers know there is always a flight when they need one.
Looming capacity constraints at Hong Kong, however, could persuade Cathay to re-evaluate its requirement for widebody aircraft over the next few years. Hong Kong International Airport is now projected to reach capacity within the next seven to nine years. Community discussion of a third runway will begin this year. If the airport does not get the green light to construct the third runway, Cathay would need larger capacity aircraft to better utilise its existing slots. Mr Slosar acknowledges that in a couple of years Cathay will have “another look at the 747-8s and A380s”.
Cathay is also continuing to look at introducing a premium economy product. Mr Slosar believes premium economy has become more than a niche product for select long-haul routes and expects it to continue becoming more widespread. He says Cathay takes the premium economy trend “very seriously” and is prepared to respond. “We’ve been looking at it long and hard,” Mr Slosar says. “We see the industry going that way.”
While Cathay continues to focus on improving its overall premium offering, Mr Slosar believes the carrier can remain competitive at the lower end of the market without investing in a low-cost subsidiary. He says Cathay is already competing effectively against low-cost carriers in several markets, including Hong-Singapore and Hong-Kuala Lumpur. Mr Slosar believes passengers understand the value Cathay brings and realise the difference in cost is not much when all the extra charges are considered, but acknowledges “in economy class you need pretty sharp fares”.
(This article appeared as a posting on Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation’s Site).
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
10 things hoteliers should be doing on Facebook but probably aren’t
10 things hoteliers should be doing on Facebook but probably aren’t
Published: 01 Jun 2011
Facebook has become one of the must-haves in any modern-day marketing strategy and every socially-aware hotel should have its own page. But with it being such a new tool, how do you know what you should be doing? Why should you invest time engaging people on Facebook?
The answer is simple. Search engines like Google are taking account of interaction with social websites and Facebook in its search algorithm. This means that you could get higher search engine results and an edge over your competition just by being social, as well as generating a lot of traffic to your website’s booking engine.
evolution, the hospitality e-commerce and e-distribution provider, recommends the top 10 things hoteliers should be doing on Facebook that probably aren’t.
1. Create a custom URL for your Facebook page
If you haven’t already created a customised URL for your Facebook page, do it now. It’s first-come first-served so claim yours before someone else does! Search engines are indexing Facebook and are returning these URL’s in results. Simply visit http://www.facebook.com/username and follow the instructions. Your URL cannot be changed once it is set, so make sure you choose it carefully. Tip: include your city, state or country in your URL depending on how people find you on Google. For example, Facebook.com/yourhotelnameparis.
2. Promote your visual identity through video
Photos are great but there’s nothing that sells a hotel more than watching a good video, so promote your hotel through video on your Facebook page. Create general videos or niche-specific videos and use Youtube to host and share them on your page, alternatively you can upload them directly. Videos will also get more hits for your hotel in search engines as they also appear in results.
3. Use Facebook insights
Every administrator of your Facebook page will have access to Facebook insights which can be a powerful tool for tracking the growth of your page. You are able to analyse which types of posts are the most popular, monitor fan growth and interaction, see page views and track impressions. Tip: You’ll be able to see how many fans have “hidden” you from their feed – if this is high, it may indicate that you are posting too often or the wrong type of content. Monitoring these metrics will enable you to adapt your engagement and content strategy.
4. List the hotel on Facebook places
Make sure you are listed as a hotel in Facebook places. Your hotel should be there already, but if not you can add it easily. Encourage users to “check-in” via Facebook places by offering an incentive such as a free drink in the bar or a money off voucher for a certain number of check-ins. Every time a user checks-in this gets promoted across their network giving you extra exposure and boosting brand awareness as well as potentially adding more likes to your page.
5. Use the reviews application
Facebook has a reviews app which you can easily add to your page. It allows guests to leave honest reviews and opinions of the hotel. These reviews will let your prospective clients know what to expect from the property. In the event of a bad review, you don’t necessarily have to remove it. Respond to the user with a positive reply and look at how you can improve things in the future. You can also pull reviews from Tripadvisor into your page if you prefer.
6. Run competitions to encourage interaction
Running a competition on Facebook is a great way of increasing fans and interaction. If someone sees a competition that one of their friends has entered in their newsfeed, they will probably enter it and recommend it to their friends and so on. There are endless possibilities with competitions but be careful – Facebook has guidelines on what you can and can’t do so make sure you read these rules carefully and if necessary use a third party application to run a competition.
7. Customise your page with a welcome page
Landing on a customised welcome page on Facebook is far more appealing than seeing the basic wall or the general info page. First impressions count for everything so design your own customised welcome page. You can change the settings of your page so every new user automatically lands on your welcome page.
8. Use Facebook questions
Anyone can add Facebook questions to their page and for hoteliers, it’s a great tool to survey users and get feedback. You can create quick polls to gather opinions and learn about your potential guests or ask questions – great if you are thinking of trialling new services or want to put together packages. To get started visit www.facebook.com/questions.
9. Use Facebook advertising
The beauty of advertising on Facebook is that you can target your preferred demographic based on a users profile information. So whether you want to target 20-something women, men who like golf or married couples, you can reach these markets through Facebook. Before you even place an ad, you can use the advertising platform to see how many people are in a certain demographic and then add or remove filters if necessary. You can get started easily by visiting http://www.facebook.com/advertising.
10. Allow users to book directly from Facebook
Think about offering a direct booking functionality through Facebook by installing your own booking widget. It allows access to your booking engine where customers are able to check rates and book special packages created just for them by assigning special rates and offers only available through the Facebook booking channel.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Hong Kong Visitor Arrivals in April 2011
Visitor arrivals to Hong Kong reached 3,357,960 in April 2011, a 20.1% increase compared to the same month last year (Hong Kong Visitor Arrivals in April 2010).
For the first four months combined, total arrivals stood at 13,065,931, 14.4% ahead of the figure last year.
In April, visitor arrivals from Mainland China continued the upward trend, rising by 28.7% to surpass 2.13 million. The majority of the visitors remained those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme, who accounted for 1.35 million or 63.2% of all Mainland arrivals, a year-on-year increase of 41.9%. Those travelling with tour group visa also grew by 21.1% to exceed 270,000, or 12.9% of the monthly total from the market.
Growth was also observed in the short-haul markets, with total arrivals increased by 6.4% to over 680,000. In North Asia (Japan and South Korea), notwithstanding the 11 March earthquake and its aftermath, the decline in arrivals was less than 1% (-0.8%), as business travel from Japan remained unimpaired. Meanwhile, a strong travel sentiment prevailed in South Korea, powered by vigorous promotion of Hong Kong tour products by the local travel trade in collaboration with the HKTB. In April alone, South Korean arrivals went up by 13.8%.
In Southeast Asia, arrivals grew steadily by 7.9%, with Singapore being the best performer. Factors such as the increased number of Hong Kong - Singapore flights, enhanced promotion of Hong Kong tour products and a strong Singaporean dollar against the Hong Kong dollar combined to lift arrivals from the country by nearly 20%.
Taiwan also showed satisfactory performance in April, with arrivals growing by 10.3% to almost 200,000. In particular, overnight arrivals surged by 42.3% to 73,093. This could be attributed to the launch of vacation packages that are even more competitively priced by the Taiwanese travel trade following the Japanese earthquake, supported by promotions by the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
For the long-haul markets, arrivals rose by 7.1% to surpass 460,000. In particular, arrivals from Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific, as well as Europe, Africa and the Middle East climbed up by 9.4% and 8.4% respectively, as boosted by increased business visits from these regions for MICE activities in Hong Kong.
As for the emerging markets, Russia continued to take the lead with a growth rate of 73% in April, as led by the continuous robust economy of the country, which has encouraged outbound travel. In the Middle East, as political instability gradually spread to the Gulf Cooperation Council region, arrivals from the market dropped by 7.7% during the month.
Overnight Visitors vs. Same-Day, in-Town Visitors
In April 2011, overnight arrivals reached 1.79 million, representing 53.3% of all visitors to Hong Kong and a 13.4% increase over last year. Same-day visitors also rose by 28.7% to 1.56 million.
Cumulatively, overnight arrivals increased by 7.6% to 6.9 million or 52.9% of all visitors to Hong Kong, whereas same-day visitors went up by 23.1% to 6.15 million.
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