Chinese travellers celebrating Year of the Snake abroad  

A large number of Chinese travellers are not staying home to welcome the Year of the Snake, but instead are taking advantage of the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays to go overseas. High on their vacation list are Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia, according to Skyscanner.

The global travel search site, Skyscanner, reported outbound searches from China for travel during the New Year period were up 122% compared with the period immediately before it, and this was a huge 209% increase on the same holiday period in 2012.

Searches for international flights make up 92% of traffic, up from 88% last year, showing that Chinese travellers are increasingly looking to visit destinations outside China.

Japan tops the list of the 10 top destinations for Chinese travellers, with searches reaching 309% despite recent political tensions between the two countries. This is followed by Vietnam (+275%), Cambodia (+274%), Sri Lanka (+267%), Taiwan (+267%), Thailand (+265%), Philippines (+253%), Malaysia (+274%), Singapore (+186%) and (+180%).

Yi Bao, Skyscanner’s general manager for Greater China, said, “Our data shows that more and more Chinese travellers are using the New Year holiday week to travel and, in particular, to destinations such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

“Where once most people would stay at home the availability of cheap flights mean families can relax abroad for a few days, or visit family overseas for far cheaper than they think.”

World’s first Harrods Hotel to open in Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia could be home to the world’s first Harrods Hotel come 2018 when the RM2 billion hotel and integrated development is fully completed. It will be among the first three Harrods Hotels to be built, the other two in London and Italy.

The project, a tie-up between Qatar Holding LLC and Malaysia’s Jerantas Sdn Bhd, will comprise two residential towers, an office building and a retail podium with direct connectivity to the award-winning Pavilion Kuala Lumpur mall.

Qatar Holding vice-chairman Dr Hussain Ali Al-Abdulla said Harrods Hotel Kuala Lumpur should be the first to be completed, with the London hotel following slightly later.

The seven star hotel will have between 250 to 300 rooms, serviced apartments and some retail space. It is located on a 2.21-hectare land between Jalan Raja Chulan and Jalan Conlay, where currently the Chulan Square and Sri Melayu restaurants are currently sited.They will be making way for the hotel.

In a statement, Qatar Holding said the development was part of its strategy to grow the Harrods brand and expand the group’s portfolio by opening Harrods hotels in key cities like Kuala Lumpur, New York and Paris, as well as in China.

“Preference will be given to construct on sites already owned by Qatar Holding or its affiliates, for example at Chelsea Barracks in London or Costa Smeralda in Sardinia (Italy),” it said.

Jerantas is a joint venture company set up by PS Trading Sdn Bhd (34%) and Gagasan Simfoni Sdn Bhd 66%). PS Trading is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tradewinds Corp Bhd, which holds the Harrods retail franchise in Malaysia.

Qatar Holding, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority, owns the rights to the Harrods brand, It will have an equity participation in the project through its shareholding in Gagasan Simfoni.

European travel leaders, innovators, top media practitioners at PhoCusWright@ITB

PhoCusWright@ITB, a key European travel conference that is held in conjunction with ITB Berlin on March 6, brings together travel startups, media powerhouses, social pioneers and several of Europe’s key travel companies to debate and define the future of travel.

Confirmed speakers include executives from Accor, Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Odigeo and Hotels.com.

The conference themed, “Pivot Point”, is in its eighth year. It is designed to help executives capitalise on the advances, strategies and innovations that are shaping the global travel, tourism and hospitality marketplace. It features a flexible format, which allows the audience to interact in a unique community setting.

PhoCusWright analysts will share insights on key European travel trends, and deliver groundbreaking research on the emerging Middle East travel market and the travel payments landscape. Lively roundtable sessions will assess the state of travel startups and examine how travel’s new intermediaries are disrupting the marketplace.

The conference is included at no additional charge with ITB Berlin tickets valid for entry on March 6. It will be followed by the PhoCusWright New Media Summit on March 7.

Macdonald Hotels & Resorts partners with SiteMinder to boost online growth

UK’s largest privately owned hotel group, Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, has tied up with global channel manager, SiteMinder, to boost its online exposure by connecting the group’s reservation and rate management systems with online booking sites around the world.

The hotel group’s Opera ORS, iCentral Reservations System (CRS) and IDeaS Revenue Management System (RMS) connect with the reservation sites from SiteMinder’s one central cloud application. The latter’s Channel Manager automatically sends live availability from the hotels’ Opera CRS along with rates from IDeaS directly to the reservation sites. When bookings are made on these site the Channel Manager instantly reduces inventory across all their sites and delivers details of all reservations back into the hotel group’s CRS, saving time and improving business efficiency

Head of sales for SiteMinder UK and Ireland, Bernhard Ballin, said hotel groups around the world were under mounting pressure to deliver revenue performance in increasingly competitive markets.

SiteMinder had seen a huge demand from companies, such as Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, looking to combat this scenario with online distribution solutions that delivered fast, seamless and cost effective, two-way integrations with high-yielding booking platforms, he added.