Open up your ‘Chinese Wallet’, here comes Kosmopolito
The name Kosmopolito Hotels International (KHI) may not be as familiar as Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, but this Hong Kong-based hotel chain is slowly but surely making an impact in the hotel scene with its interesting range of hotels and aggressive marketing.KHI currently owns and operates 17 hot [...]
Opening homes for heritage’s sake
When I was approached to be a judge for this year’s Melaka Tourism Awards and to choose the "Best Tourist Attraction - Traditional House", my first question was "What’s a traditional house? Aren’t all the houses in Malay kampungs (villages) traditional?" (Pictured above: Kampung Padang Seba [...]
OTA battle to hot up in S’pore, now comes Webjet
Online travel agencies have not been particularly active in Singapore despite the market being a solid adopter of the internet.The dominant player has been Zuji, the Travelocity-owned (once airline-owned group) website. Zuji operates in several markets in Asia as the local brand for the Sabre Holdi [...]
Love, sex and money, according to Oprah
Given that February 14 is just round the corner, I am going to talk about love for a while, then sex, followed by money.Oprah Winfrey says her brand is about love. This I heard in her interview with Piers Morgan (left) in his debut appearance on the CNN talk show, Piers Morgan Tonight.Morgan said he [...]
MakeMyTrip powers on, buys into ixigo
MakeMyTrip, India's leading online travel company, managed to maintain strong growth and, at the same time, has bought into ixigo, the online travel metasearch engine.In its unaudited financial and operating results for its fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2011, Deep Kaira, chairman and CEO, said the [...]
Malaysian Kitchen Insiders: A lesson on how to sell out an event
On Wednesday night I found myself sitting at a table in alley eating amazing food cooked by some of Sydney’s finest Malaysian restaurants. Not just okay, or not too bad but amazing – take a look:See more pictures hereThe three-day event dubbed “Malaysian Kitchen Insiders” was organized by O [...]
Maldives claims “Always Natural”
The Maldives has unveiled its new tourism slogan and logo, "Always Natural".(pictured left)"The slogan and logo are designed to underscore the outstanding natural beauty of the Maldives, which tourists from all segments of the market consistently rate as one of their main reasons for visiting the co [...]
Maldives: Paradise Lost or Rubbish Found?
There are two faces to paradise, as I found on a recent surf trip I did to the Maldives on a charter boat spanning from the Gaafu Dahl Atoll all the way up to the more recognisable northern Atolls around the capital city Male.For those of you interested in the surf quality, yes we got some sick wave [...]
Melaka grows closer to Indonesia
One of the laments of Melaka, Malaysia’s historical city, is that it has an international airport but no big airlines servicing it as neither national carrier, Malaysia Airlines, nor low-cost carrier, AirAsia, shows any interest in basing any of its aircraft there.The only air link Melaka's Batu [...]
Melbourne sees big jump in international meetings
Victoria’s capital city hosted 92 international meetings in 2010 compared to 39 the previous year, a 136% increase, according to the latest report by Union of International Associations (UIA).Melbourne jumped 21 places in international association meeting city rankings to reach the18th position in [...]
