In the news: Indonesia’s new tourism partners, AccorHotels’ move into collaborative workspace, two new travel companies for Flight Centre
DESTINATIONS: Indonesia gets on board with AirAsia and Adobe for tourism promotion
All smiles, AirAsia’s red ladies flanking (from left) Indonesia tourism ministry’s Robert D. Walon, AirAsia’s Aireen Omar, Indonesia tourism ministry’s Judi Rifajantoro and Indonesia AirAsia’s Rifai Taberi
Indonesia is entering into partnerships to promote itself as the preferred tourist destination in ASEAN, as well as to meet its target of 15 million foreign visitor arrivals this year and 20 million by 2019.
The country’s ministry of tourism has chosen two partners in this endeavour – Asia’s largest low cost carrier AirAsia and Adobe.
The collaboration between Air Asia and the tourism ministry will see both parties focus on marketing in brand advertising, promotional activities and activations across various touch points including digital, print, radio, in-flight branding and consumer travel fairs.
Aireen Omar, CEO of AirAsia, said the partnership was timely as the airline has seen “robust demand” for Malaysia and Indonesia.
“In 2016, we (flew) over four million guests between both countries to contribute significantly to the tourist arrivals last year and this is only a fraction of the potential we can achieve.”
Aireen added AirAsia could achieve the target of flying 1.5 million Malaysians to Indonesia by end of this year in conjunction with Indonesia Tourism’s ‘Wonderful Indonesia’ campaign.
AirAsia connects Malaysia with Indonesia through more than 350 weekly flights to 15 different cities such as Banda Aceh, Bandung, Bali, Jakarta, Lombok, Medan, Pekanbaru, Palembang, Padang, Pontianak, Semarang, Solo, Surabaya, Makassar and Yogyakarta.
The airline recently added more frequencies to several routes in Indonesia and launched direct Kuching-Pontianak flights to meet the growing travel demand.
Indonesia tourism ministry’s partnership with Adobe will see the NTO leveraging Adobe Experience Cloud to broaden its reach, connect with travellers better, and improve its competitiveness in the region.
In line with the ministry’s “Go Digital” theme this year, Adobe’s cloud platform will help drive its digital transformation strategy and connect with today’s tech savvy travellers.
Livefyre, part of Adobe Experience Manager, will allow the ministry to tap into the power of user-generated content enabling the NTP to sieve through billions of social posts created by tourists to share with global audiences.
Additionally Adobe Analytics will provide in-depth analysis of web traffic and visitors to offer insights for targeting and attracting new visitors.
Adobe said it would help the ministry strengthen its network and reach by establishing an alliance with major airlines, with a target of signing 10 airlines in the first year of the partnership (the ministry has just inked a partnership with AirAsia).
Commenting on this tie-up Arief Yahya, Indonesia’s tourism minister, said: “The partnership with Adobe will help us connect with our visitors more effectively, better understand their preferance and be abe t cstomise the experience for them accordingly.”
HOTELS: AccorHotels moves into coworking space
Nextdoor offers wide range of services and solutions for networking (Image credit: Bouygues Immobilier)
After a buying spree of holiday home and villa rental companies AccorHotels now sets its sight on on collaborative workspace through a 50/50 joint venture with Bouygues Immobilier.
According to the French hotel group, the aim of the partnership is to accelerate the growth of Nextdoor as the “European leader in new collaborative workspaces”.
Nextdoor was established in December 2014 by Bouygues Immobilier, a leading private property developer in France and Europe and a subsidiary of Bouygues Group.
The “new workspaces” rolled out by Nextdoor provide an innovative real estate offer, a wide selection of services and solutions facilitating networking, and allow 24/7 accessibility.
By the end of this year Nextdoor will operate eight sites in France with more than 4,000 clients.
“The collaborative workspace market is booming. Within the next five years, flexible workspaces could represent 10 to 20% of office space in France, compared with 2% currently,” AccorHotels said in a statement..
“To capitalise on this growth, Bouygues Immobilier and AccorHotels are combining their respective expertise with the goal of making Nextdoor the European leader in Business Hospitality, whose key challenges will be to secure the best locations and rapidly reach a critical size.”
Together, the two groups aim to create 80 collaborative Nextdoor workspaces by 2022, at a development rate of 10 to 15 launches per year from 2018.
TRAVEL: Flight Centre expands in New Zealand with purchase of two travel companies
Travel Managers Group is Flight Centre’s first acquisition in the home-based sector
Flight Centre Travel Group (FLT) is growing its leisure and corporate travel market in New Zealand with the acquisiton of two travel businesses – the leisure-focused Travel Managers Group (TMG) and corporate travel management company, Executive Travel Group (ETG).
The price for the 100% purchase of both companies were not disclosed. The deals are expected to formally settle during the first quarter of 2018.
FLT managing director Graham Turner said the acquisitions would strengthen FLT’s New Zealand operation, which is now the company’s fifth largest business globally by sales behind Australia, USA, UK and Canada.
“Executive travel and travel managers are profitable businesses, generating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in excess of NZ$3 million (US$2,2 million) annually, with solid growth trajectories and good track records of success,” he said.
TMG, established in 2002, is FLT’s first acquisition in the broker or home-based sector. The company provides systems and support services to a network of more than 180 individual brokers. It also operates a 22-shop franchise network, which includes 12 TravelSmart shops and 10 non-branded stores. It generated about NZ$120million in total transaction value (TTV) during its 2017 year.
ETG, established in 1978, is one of New Zealand’s largest independent corporate travel management companies. It generated about NZ$60million in TTV during the 2016 calendar year.
Both businesses were privately owned, with former FLT New Zealand employee Kevin Weston co-owning ETG and being a major shareholder in TMG.
Weston and his business partners, Nicola Jamieson and Dave Wallace, will continue to oversee both businesses’ day-to-day operations and will report to FLT New Zealand managing director, David Coombes.
These latest acquisitions by FLT follows its recent purchase of Bangkok-based Bespoke Hospitality Management Asia, marking its first investment in the accommodation sector.
• Featured image credit: ErmakovaElena/iStock
