In the news: Seven new hotels for Carlson Rezidor in India, Amadeus airline cloud-based tool, Christmas in Asia
Carlson Rezidor expands in India with seven new hotels
Jammu and Kashmir to have seven new Carlson Rezidor hotels. (Image credit: filmlandscape-iStock)
Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group is expanding across India with seven new hotels comprising 817 rooms in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The opening of the new hotels under the Radisson Blu, Radisson, and Country Inns & Suites By Carlson brands are under an agreement between Carlson Rezidor and Mushtaq Group of Hotels, which has interests in hospitality and commercial real estate development.
The hotels will be located in the main gateway markets throughout the state, positioning Carlson Rezidor as “the largest international hotel operator in Jammu and Kashmir,” the company said in a statement.
The new hotels are:
- Radisson Srinagar, an 89-key conversion in Srinagar, scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2016.
- Country Inn & Suites By Carlson Jammu, a 55-key conversion in Gandhi Nagar, scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2017.
- Radisson Pahalgam Golf View Resort, a 118-key conversion located in Pahalgam, scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2018.
- Country Inn & Suites By Carlson Sonamarg, a 100-key new build hotel close to scenic Himalayan glaciers and trekking routes in Sonamarg, scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2018.
- Radisson Blu Resort Tangmarg, a 150-key new build hotel on a 25-acre site in the Himalayan mountains, scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2021.
- Country Inn & Suites By Carlson Gulmarg, an 80-key conversion in Gulmarg, scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2020.
- Radisson Blu Srinagar, a 225-key new build hotel located in Srinagar city, scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2020.
“This multiple-hotel portfolio deal underscores the rapid rate of Carlson Rezidor’s expansion and reinforces our leading position in India, a key market that we remain deeply committed to,” said Thorsten Kirschke, president, Asia Pacific of Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group.
Mushtaq Chaya, chairman of Mushtaq Group of Hotels, said the agreement with Carlson Rezidor was in line with its vision “to promote Jammu & Kashmir and make it a preferred tourist destination not only for travellers within the country but globally.”
Carlson Rezidor has 120 hotels in operation and under development across India in 45 Indian cities including 14 state capitals. By 2020, the group expects to have more than 170 hotels in operation and pipeline in the country.
Amadeus cloud based search tool helps airlines cope with high traffic
Lufthansa pilots use of Amadeus cloud based flight tool. (Image credit: scyther5/iStock)
Amadeus has launched Amadeus Airline Cloud Availability, a cloud-based search solution, which helps airlines deal with the ever-rising flight search and shopping volumes.
The tool has been successfully piloted by Lufthansa using the Google Cloud Platform infrastructure as a service, which enables instances of airline data and revenue management logic to be deployed remotely in the cloud on all continents to serve local demand.
The tool synchronises the airline’s central systems and the distributed instances of the airline’s availability calculation in real time, giving consumers close to 100% accurate results of the airline’s availability.
“At the same time, the airline does not lose out on any sale opportunity by being able to respond to these exponentially growing shopping requests, whilst protecting the airline’s own central systems,” said Amadeus in a release.
It added that the solution could be scaled up on demand to meet the airline and channel needs offering flexibility and efficiency. It can also cope with any search peak, which means airlines do not need to anticipate such peaks several months in advance.
When Amadeus Airline Cloud Availability was piloted with Lufthansa in the second quarter of 2015 it easily absorbed a 20-fold increase in transaction volumes.
“This solution combines our airline industry expertise along with Amadeus technology leadership to deploy a fully scalable remote instance of our content within the proven Google Cloud Platform. With the continuous proliferation of digital channels this future-proof innovation has opened a new era in real time merchandising,” Roland Scheutz, senior vice president at Lufthansa.
Click here to see the infographic for the Amadeus Airline Cloud Availability solution.
Celebrating Christmas in Asia
Christmas decorations at Central World Shopping Mall in Bangkok. (Image credit: KreangchaiRungfamai/iStock)
Christmas is the time to be merry and to travel. In Asia this festival is widely celebrated in a uniquely Asian and colourful way, complete with season greetings in the local language.
Travel site, Wego, shares the traditions surrounding Christmas in some Asian countries and how to say “Happy Christmas” in the local language (see infographic below for the latter).
“Each Asian country reflects the season in their own unique way adopted over time, resulting in a tradition that can take on an entirely new delivery,” said Joachim Holte, chief marketing officer of Wego.
In Cambodia the local greeting is “Rikreay Thngai Bony Nauel”, and Cambodians have their own colourful yike dance and adapted traditional Christmas carols into classic local songs.
It is “Chung Mung Giang Sinh” in Vietnam. Visitors are showered with confetti in the streets, and shoes filled with treats are left in front of homes for children to find in the morning.
Greet the Japanese with “Omedeto” when meeting them on Christmas day. And join them at KFC as it is the tradition in Japan to spend the festival eating fried chicken, a practice so popular that reservations at KFC have to make ahead of time. It seems the locals consume around a quarter of a million barrels of chicken at this time. Believe it or not!
In China, although there is no official recognition for Christmas, it is a time for sharing gits of wrapped up apples, and Santa Claus can still be found in many shopping malls that are a hive of activity at this time. “Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan” is the Mandarin Christmas greeting.
The team at WIT joins in the celebrations and wishes everyone a “Happy Christmas” in all the Asian languages. May the Force be with you in 2016. Happy New Year!
