In the news: Visit Malaysia Year 2014 campaign at ITB Berlin, sustained growth for APAC airlines, MTT’s new product – MTT Engage, iPad app for tripwolf

Malaysia to kickstart VMY2014 global campaign at ITB Berlin

Malaysia will welcome Visit Malaysia Year 2014 (VMY2014) at the stroke of midnight on December 31 at Kuala Lumpur’s Daratan Merdeka (Independence Square), marking the start to a year’s celebrations of the country’s rich array of events, festivals and cultural activities,

The year has as its theme, “Celebrating 1Malaysia Truly Asia”, to reflect the diversity in unity of all Malaysians, and the Proboscis monkey as its mascot.

Tourism Malaysia will launch the year’s global promotion campaign at ITB Berlin 2014, as it is the show’s Convention and Culture partner.

Maizan Ahmad, director of Tourism Malaysia Germany, said through the partnership with ITB Berlin Convention Malaysia aims to promote itself internationally as an attractive travel destination this forthcoming year.

Visitors to the show will be able to experience some of VMY 2014 highlights, which include colourful cultural displays at the opening of the ITB Berlin Convention on March 5 in Hall 7.1b.

In the Culture Hall, Malaysia will showcase the country’s cultural diversity, its numerous attractions and hidden natural treasures. Visitors to the Trends & Events Hall can find out about attractive eco-tours and adventure trips. On the main stage in Hall 4.1 dance performances will provide an insight into the multi-cultural society of this country in Southeast Asia.

During the ITB business travel days, Malaysia will be featured prominently in its role as a major MICE destination.

VMY 2014 will the fourth “Visit Year” for Malaysia – the other three were in 1990, 1994 and 2007.

Sustained growth in international passengers for APAC airlines

Asia Pacific airlines reported a strong 8.3% increase in the number of passengers carried to a combined total of 18.5 million passengers in October 2013, said the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) in its preliminary traffic figures recently.

In revenue passenger kilometre (RPK) terms, international passenger traffic grew 8.6%, reflecting good demand on major longhaul routes. Combined with a 7.5% expansion in available seat capacity, the average international passenger load factor climbed 0.7% to 77.2% for the month.

AAPA director general, Andrew Herdman, said, “Overall, a total of 182 million international passengers flew on Asia-Pacific airlines during the first 10 months of the year, a solid 5.9% increase compared to the same period last year. The continued recovery of the global economy boosted traffic for the region’s carriers, driving further growth in both business and leisure travel.

“The steady improvement in global business conditions, and the tentative recovery in consumer sentiment seen in the major developed economies, give us added confidence in future growth prospects, even though competitive pressures are still weighing heavily on both yields and margins for Asian carriers.”

MTT Engage boosts mobile revenue for travel companies

Mobile Travel Technologies (MTT), the mobile solutions provider for the travel industry, has launched MTT Engage, an intelligent push engine to accelerate mobile revenues and customer engagement for travel companies.

The company said currently travel companies are not capitalising on the multitude of ancillary revenue streams available through interacting with customers via mobile, but the new solution enables them to do so.

A recent poll conducted by MTT at the IATA World Passenger Symposium in Dublin indicated that airlines could immediately increase ancillary revenue on mobile by at least 30% by leveraging an intelligent push engine.

With MTT Engage airlines, hotels and travel intermediaries are able to send targeted app (and SMS) notifications to customers to promote relevant ancillaries, to connect with customers at the right time in their journey with real-time travel updates and to engage them with personalised messages and offers.

As it is a permission-based mobile messaging channel, MTT Engage delivers targeted content and offers based on customers’ past in-app behaviours, learned preferences and location. Travel companies can thus deliver greater relevance by understanding customers’ interests through explicitly stated preferences or implicit behavioural cues. Push notifications can be sent to the full mobile app audience or to a segment of it as required.

“Airlines, hotels and other travel companies are failing to capitalise fully on the revenue opportunity on mobile.They can do so much more to monetise the excellent information they have about their customers, They know when their customers will travel, approximately what time they will be in the airport or arriving at a hotel and what types of mobile services are most relevant at the different stages of their journey,” said Conor O’Kane, COO of MTT.

Armed with this information and MTT Engage, travel companies can push timely and relevant promotions, ancillaries and information to respond better to customers’ needs, he added.

MTT Engage is the latest in a series of product releases from MTT to further enhance travel services and the overall travel experience by applying mobile’s unique benefits of intimacy, immediacy and context.

An iPad app for tripwolf

tripwolf, a provider of mobile travel guides for iPhone and Android, has launched its app for the iPad that is optimised for the Apple gadget with a large format.

“Due to its large screen and low weight the iPad represents a class of devices used both at home and on the road. We adapted to the technical capabilities of the iPad and polished the design. Now texts are easier to read, larger photos give a better indication of the places shown, and the easy handling invites to discover,” added Ralf Stoltze, tripwolf’s product manager.

Its CEO Wilfried Schaffner added that as many of its users travel with the iPad, the optimisation enables it to adapt to the different needs of our users.

tripwolf travel guides consists of more than 500 guides for cities, regions and whole countries, and are based on the combination of classical print travel guide content and travel advice of thousands of travellers around the world. Downloads of the guide have exceeded five million.