In the news: KL Central Market’s MoU with 11street, new baggage tracing solution from Lufthansa and SITA, Hop Inn and FASTBOOKING partner
Historic Central Market goes online to reach a wider audience
Central Market, a showpiece for Malaysian culture and heritage.(Image credit: TkKurikawa/iStock)
Central Market, one of the most popular attractions in the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur, has inked a Memorandum of Understanding with online marketplace 11street to make its products available online.
The historic venue is famed for its wide offerings of unique products that range from fashion to home decorations, sports, electronics, paintings and local handicraft.
“This strategic collaboration will enable a business, which began life in the 19th century, to make its products available to consumers across the country through a state-of-the-art 21st century medium,” said 11street chief executive officer, Hoseok Kim.
The company will offer marketing support to Central Market’s 300 tenants that includes training programmes covering effective product listing, digital content strategy, integrated online marketing and photography, he added.
Cheong Wai Mun, Central Market’s complex manager, added that one of the secrets behind the market’s success was its location within the heart of Kuala Lumpur.
“Now, with the brand new presence on 11street Central Market has broken its reliance on geography. Retailers can focus on doing what they do best – offering an incredible range of artistic and exciting products as well as services at attractive prices – to a wider group of audience.”
Central Market has a rich history that dates back to 1888, and was originally used as a wet market. The current art deco style building was completed in 1937, and has been classified as a Heritage Site by the Malaysian Heritage Society. It is a landmark, as well as a showpiece for Malaysian culture and heritage.
11street in Malaysia is hosted by Celcom Planet Sdn Bhd, which was established in November 2014 as a joint venture between Celcom Axiata Berhad (49%) and SK Planet Ltd (51%), a leading Korean e-commerce online marketplace provider.
The online marketplace was established in Korea in 2008, and is now one of the top global e-commerce providers. It is also represented in Turkey as n11, and Indonesia as elevenia.
Faster tracing of baggage at Lufthansa with new generation WorldTracer
New generation WorldTracer finds lost/delayed baggage faster. (Image credit: ronniechua/iStock)
The next time your luggage on a Lufthansa flights get lost in transfers the German airline group will be able to find them quickly, as it is implementing a new baggage tracing solution to speed up repatriation of delayed or mishandled bags.
Lufthansa is working with global air transport IT specialist, SITA, to jointly develop the new generation WorldTracer, an easy-to-use baggage tracing technology.
The system provides Lufthansa agents access to a new, user-friendly desktop interface, which makes it easy to record delayed baggage and trace the missing bags no matter where in the world they are.
The WorldTracer desktop application will be available to all agents across the Lufthansa group in 2016.
SITA said the existing WorldTracer has a global presence with 450 airlines and ground handlers at more than 2,500 airport locations. This makes the deployment of the new interface across a global network easy and cost-effective.
Guenter Friedrich, vice president commercial & passenger at Lufthansa, said the airline strives to ensure that passengers have their baggage with them at the end of their journey.
“However, in those rare situations where baggage is delayed this new, user-friendly version of WorldTracer makes it possible for agents to quickly trace a bag and return it to its owner. This will have a powerful impact on customer satisfaction.”
Dave Bakker, SITA president Europe, revealed that technology has helped in reducing the number of mishandled bags and saved the industry US$18 billion since 2007.
“However, unforeseen situations such as weather delays can still result in a bag being mishandled. This new, easy-to-use application of WorldTracer speeds up the process of tracing and recovering mishandled baggage and provides further cost savings for airlines, airports and ground handlers.”
The new WorldTracer will be made available to the broader air transport community as part of SITA’s ongoing investment in the tracing system,
SITA also recently launched the WorldTracer Tablet, which allows mobile agents to roam the airport, helping passengers to report mishandled baggage and trace their status
Hop Inn chooses FASTBOOKING as technology partner
Hop Inn is working with FASTBOOKING to increase brand awareness.
Hop Inn, a network of budget hotels in Thailand, has partnered with FASTBOOKING to develop a website with an integrated booking engine, which can help increase its online bookings.
Owned by The Erawan Group, Hop Inn plans to double its portfolio from its current 17 to 30 hotels in and out of Thailand.
Pierre-Charles Grob, managing director of FASTBOOKING in Asia, said the company would help the hotel group achieve its goal of increasing its brand awareness in the marketplace with the development of the e-commerce website.
Hop Inn will also benefit from FASTBOOKING’s account management team who will follow up on online sales and advise it on distributions strategies.
The hotels will also have local technical support from FASTBOOKING’s team based in Bangkok.
On the partnership with FASTBOOKING Youssef El Khomri, executive general manager of Hop Inn, said: “We were particularly interested in FASTBOOKING’s responsive booking engine that had capabilities for 37 languages and worldwide currencies, and also location maps for each hotel. These are features we feel will help develop our direct online sales.”
