In the news:  Vanilla Air to take flight, changing behaviour of Chinese travellers, corporate travel trends in APAC

AirAsia Japan rebrands as Vanilla Air, takes flight in December

New LCC based out of Tokyo’s Narita Airport

“Vanilla” may not sound a likely name for airline, but this is what AirAsia Japan is being rebranded as – Vanilla Air.

The airline’s president Tomonori Ishii said the company chose Vanilla as the airline’s name “because it is popular and loved by everyone in the world,” adding that it was also a cute name. It was picked out of over 200 other names.

The rebranding of AirAsia Japan follows the breakup of the partnership between its parent company, Air Nippon Airways (ANA), and Malaysia based AirAsia due to a difference of opinion in management and on ways to operate the business. This led to the exiting of AirAsia from the joint venture, AirAsia Japan, which has been operating out of Tokyo’s Narita International Airport for just over a year.

The termination of the JV saw ANA Holding acquiring AirAsia’s 49% in AirAsia Japan. The company also has to return all AirAsia aircraft leased to AirAsia Japan by November 1, among other arrangements. Flights on AirAsia Japan flights continue up to October 31, 2013. (read story here).

Vanilla Air is scheduled to begin operations in late December with two planes, which will  be leased from ANA.

According to Ishii, the airline will be based at Narita airport and will fly to resort destinations, beginning with short haul services, but would eventually expand to mid- and long haul services. By 2015 the airline is expected to increase its fleet size to 10.

Vanilla Air will target both domestic and Asian travellers. Details of destinationst it will  fly to, fares and other aspects of its operations will be announced in late September.

The airline will also take on the staff of AirAsia Japan,

Chinese travellers spend big, prefer to travel independently

Chinese travellers shedding off the group tag

The second annual Chinese International Travel Monitor (CITM) released by online accommodation booking website, Hotels.com, reveals significant insights into the changing behaviours of Chinese travellers and how the global hotel industry is adapting.

More than 3,000 Chinese international travellers and 1,300 hoteliers took part in the survey, which reveals the majority of overseas Chinese travel (96%) has been for leisure purposes, while just over half (52%) has also visited other countries for business or education.

According to the report, China has overtaken Germany and the US as the world’s biggest spenders on travel, with Chinese travellers spending US$102 billion on international travel in 2012, an increase of 40+% over 2011.

In a growing trend, nearly two thirds (62%) of Chinese travellers said they preferred to travel independently and not as part of a group.

This development has been confirmed by the hoteliers surveyed, who said 70% of Chinese guests now travel independently, compared with a much more even split in 2012.

Johan Svanstrom, managing director of Hotels.com Asia Pacific, said, “The 2013 Chinese International Travel Monitor shows the move to independent travel identified in the CITM last year is now preferred by the majority of Chinese travellers.

“While in-roads have been made in this area, governments will have to take this into account when organising their visa application infrastructure and processes.”

Highlighting a disconnect between the desires of Chinese travellers and provisions made by hoteliers, a quarter (25%) of hoteliers said they offered cultural awareness training to staff but only one in 10 (11%) offered welcome materials in Mandarin.

When it comes to researching and booking travel, personal recommendation plays an increasingly vital role, with almost a third (30%) of Chinese travellers saying they rely on advice from family and friends, followed by online travel booking and review sites.

More than a quarter of Chinese travellers (27%) use social media to help them make decisions on holiday destinations, with this figure rising to 33%among younger travellers under 35.

“These insights highlight the need for hoteliers to adapt their marketing strategies, with a particular focus on online and social media channels, to attract Chinese travellers,” Svanstrom said.

“In addition, programmes being implemented by many governments and tourism authorities to attract and facilitate for Chinese travellers are a positive step in the right direction, but the pace of growth in the volume of Chinese travellers appears to be outstripping the pace of change in the hotel industry.”

Top three corporate travel trends in APAC

Image credit: Amadeus

Duty of care, retained travel consultants and a one stop shop’approach have been identified by corporate travel managers, who attended Amadeus’ first Asia Pacific Corporate Travel Network event in Singapore recently, as paramount to success.

With business travel on the rise, the delegates said there was a need to work together within the corporate travel sector, strike a balance between catering to travellers’ needs and keep corporate travel costs low.

They identified the three key priority areas in APAC as:

• Retaining a travel consultant: Ths is of utmost importance to ensure consistent service quality and using technology to integrate multiple or complex bookings.

• Duty of care: This remains paramount in the quickly evolving travel sector. Travel managers are increasingly looking towards integrated solutions as a “corporate duty of care and reporting tool” to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees.

• One-stop shop: This IS key when making travel arrangements. With the tech-savvy end user in mind, travel management companies are progressively adopting user-generated content and big data to customise and personalise the travel experience through a single entry point.