In the news: ASEAN for ASEAN campaign, Amadeus’ new partnership with AccesRail, trending destinations for Singapore travellers, Thailand hotels’ top booking sites
ASEAN for ASEAN: new joint campaign to promote intra-regional travel
Nature-based tourism in Lao PDR to draw in visitors. (Image credit – Vang Vieng: antbi/Stock)
It’s all for one and one for all as the 10 member countries of ASEAN joined hand to promote the region as the preferred holiday destination among its own people.
The national tourism organisations (NTOs) of the ASEAN member states revealed the combined ‘ASEAN for ASEAN’ campaign at the recently concluded ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) in Manila, Philippines.
The campaign has nine different themes to promote travel within the ASEAN region. Each NTO takes on a specific task to drive internal regional tourism through 2016, as well as generate awareness of the ASEAN tourism brand.
“Although many ASEAN people are quite familiar with their neighbouring countries, there are still plenty of unique tourism attractions in each ASEAN Member State yet to be visited and experienced. We’d like the people of ASEAN to be fully aware of, appreciates and proud of the great diversity of tourism assets in ASEAN member states,” said Zulzalani Osman, acting head of marketing and promotion centre of Brunei’s Ministry of Primary resources and tourism and chairman of ASEAN Tourism Marketing and Communication Working Group.
The 10 member ASEAN countries are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. This is what each undertakes to do:
- Brunei Darussalam promotes community-based tourism via trade shows, its official website, and publishing related articles in the print media.
- Cambodia promotes ASEAN culture and heritage tourism through its official website, tradeshows, national festivals, local TV and magazines.
- Myanmar does the same as Cambodia, in addition to arranging photo exhibitions in its national events.
- Indonesia endorses ASEAN spa and wellness via websites, participation in local trade shows, and development of promotional videos.
- Lao PDR advocates nature-based tourism through the NTO’s website, brochures and other marketing collateral.
- Singapore promotes cruise tourism, especially the infrastructure and itinerary development in the region, the Southeast Asia Cruise branding project, and the collective participation of ASEAN member states at cruise shows.
- Vietnam takes on river-based tourism by marketing and promoting it through print media.
- Malaysia promotes ASEAN adventure travel with the e-book it has developed, which is available at ASEAN Tourism website.
- Thailand organises experiential and creative travel through photo exhibitions, and will run the #ASEANPhotowalk social media campaign.
- The Philippines promotes MICE, by organising international events such as the ASEAN MICE Leaders Congress, ASEAN Plus Three Tourism Youth Summit, ASEAN Friendship Run, and ASEAN Festival.
The NTOs will also feature the region’s tourism brand at their pavilions in tradeshows and in their promotional collaterals.
Intra-ASEAN visitors accounted for 53% of total international tourists visiting ASEAN in 2014, making intra-regional travel the main source of tourism growth in ASEAN. The encouraging arrivals was attributed to the ASEAN Open Skies Agreements, which will help drive up the numbers in the coming years.
Amadeus and AccesRail team up to integrate ground and air travel
Amadeus’ Air-Rail Display enables booking on air and ground transport on same screen. (Image credit: pelucco/iStock)
Amadeus and content aggregator, AccesRail, have partnered to offer bookings for air and ground transport on the same screen via Amadeus’ Air-Rail Display.
The partnership brings 18 rail and bus operators across 26 countries to travel agencies. The latter can offer Deutsche Bahn’ standalone services in Germany and National Express bus routes in the UK, in addition to popular routes such as London Heathrow-Bristol with Great Western Railway and Madrid-Barcelona with Spanish Renfe
“Amadeus and AccessRail laid the tracks for door-to-door travel nearly 20 years ago by introducing the first rail and bus options to the travel agency channel,” said Thomas Drexler, director rail and ground travel at Amadeus.
He added the partnership “reinforces this commitment as travel agencies can compare and contrast 18 ground options with air for the same city-pair, offering travellers exponential choice, and visibility throughout their journey to enhance their experience.”
Top 10 booking sites for Thailand’s hotels in 2015
Online distribution platforms help increase revenue for hotels. (Image credit: ArtemSam/iStock)
Global hotel industry cloud platform, SiteMinder, has revealed the top 10 booking sites for Thailand’s hotels in 2015.
They are Booking.com, Agoda.com, Expedia, Hotelbeds, GTA, TheBookingButton, Orbitz, Ctrip, Mr & Mrs Smith, and HotelTravel.com
The annual list is based on the total gross booking revenue facilitated by online distribution platform, SiteMinder’s Channel Manager, for the company’s hotel customers based in Thailand.
“This list captures the distribution channels that led the industry in providing one the most critical measures for a hotel’s success today – its online revenue,” said Mike Ford, co-founder and managing director at SiteMinder.
He revealed that about US$11 billion worth of online revenue has passed through SiteMinder’s technology over the past year.
“This has been via both the third-party booking sites and Internet booking engines SiteMinder’s Channel Manager integrates with – including SiteMinder’s own product, TheBookingButton, which for the fourth year running features in the list to show the increasing value that direct bookings provide for hoteliers.”
Destinations trending for Singapore travellers in 2016
Penang is a popular destination for Singapore travellers. (Image credit – George Town: Pasticcio/iStock).
Osaka (Japan), Chennai (India) and Georgetown (Malaysia) are the three most popular destinations in Asia for travellers out of Singapore for this year.
Outside of Asia, Auckland (New Zealand), Melbourne (Australia), and London (UK) head the list.
KAYAK.sg identified the top trending destinations out of the island republic for 2016 through its analysis of flight search data.
Japan dominated the Asian ranking with 3 cities on the list – Osaka, Tokyo and Sapporo. The top five trending destinations are Osaka with 89% increase in interest compared to last year, Chennai (87% increase), George Town (76% increase), Tokyo (62% increase), and Kuala Lumpur (61% increase). – see chart below for full list.
For destinations outside of Asia the top 10 most searched destinations by Singapore travellers are Auckland (43% increase), Melbourne (32% increase), London (25% increase), Rome (24% increase), Perth (22% increase), Zurich (14% increase), Paris (14% increase), Amsterdam (7% increase), Sydney (6% increase), and New York (4% increase).
