Travel Trends

More than 80% of people would use the internet to research and book a Tropical North Queensland holiday, new research from Travelzoo has revealed. More …

TTG Asia Media, one of the region's leading travel industry publishers, yesterday declared it will replace the term 'travel agent' with 'travel expert', 'travel consultant' or 'travel professional'. More …

Australia's outbound travel boom shows no sign of abating with a 10.2% increase in the number of Australians (665,000) travelling overseas in September 2011 compared with September 2010, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The fastest growing destinations were: More …

Sexy Singapore, two words I never thought would be used in the same sentence. But I was in Singapore for business recently and found myself coming around to the James Packer point of view – that it offers Australia some lessons in tourism, though not necessarily in life (they work too hard). More …

Profits are still down at Orbitz despite an impressive performance from its ebookers European hotel business, which increased net revenue by 39% in the September quarter. Total international bookings increased 31% but US results slumped -4%. Other concerns include lower HotelClub volumes, an airfare sales drop of -3% and increased costs. Net income for the quarter was US$11.2m compared with $15.3m for the same period in 2010.

Book with the supplier direct if you want the best rate for either airfares or accommodation – you could save a lot of money. Huge differences also between the prices charged by Online Travel Agents. These are the major findings from a brief pricing survey conducted by TravelTrends.biz today of online retailers Jetabroad, Wotif.com Agoda, Webjet, Zuji and Expedia – comparing the rates they offered to Raffles Hotel Singapore and Thai Airways. More …

Sam Yip

After a late start travel is now the largest category in Australia's booming 'Daily Deals' sales sector, turning over an estimated $37m in the September quarter, according to new research from Telsyte.

“In less than three months, travel deals have moved from being the smallest category to the largest with 24% of market revenue,” Telsyte senior research analyst Sam Yip says. More …

Profits are on the rise at TripAdvisor with a 23% year on year increase in operating income before amortisation to US$91m for the third quarter. More …

Investors backed Qantas with shares rising 5% in early trade on the Australian Stock Exchange after Fair Work Australia at 2am today ruled unions engaged in industrial action against the national carrier were no longer able to strike and gave the warring parties 21 days to reach a binding agreement or face compulsory arbitration. Qantas boss Alan Joyce shut down all its services on Saturday night in a sensational bid to force the situation – a strategy that appears to have worked, at least in the short-term. More …

Troubling tourism figures coming out of Tasmania where in the three months from July to September the number of seats into Hobart dropped by 10 per cent, or 55,000 seats, due to reduced schedules and the absence of Tiger Airways. More …

Air New Zealand has signed with Viator to supply tours and activities through its revamped website. Air NZ is the first to connect tnrough Viator’s new dynamic API system.

What do you want first – the good news or the bad news? Ok, we’ll go with the good news, get it out of the way. Capital city hotels are doing great business, especially mid-week, and room rates are rising. More …

Business is slowly recovering at Wotif after the company recorded its first fall in profit last financial year.

CEO Robbie Coke is forecasting that the online hotel retailer will make "in excess of" $27m in the six months to Dec 31, effectively returning Wotif to the position it was in at the end of 2009, when business was booming. More …

Jetstar and Tourism Australia have agreed to spend $10 million to revive flagging Japanese inbound tourism. The marketing alliance will also boost Australia's profile in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand. Tourism Australia and Jetstar will each contribute at least $1.6m a year over the next three years to joint promotional campaigns. More …

Singapore is pumping. The city was packed last week for the Travel Rave series of conferences – around 10 all told – and hoteliers are having the time of their lives, charging like wounded bulls with budget properties costing more than S$200 a night. Iconic Raffles was around S$650. Good money if you can get it with some properties running a year-round occupancy of 95%. More …

Former Zuji AP boss Scott Blume has joined Indonesian hotel distributor PT Raja Kumar International as its CEO.

Raja Kumar is owned by a consortium of Indonesia's largest travel comanies including Panorama, Dwidaya and Smailing.  Blume, a consultant for the past couple of years, will be based in Jakarta.

What in a brand name? Plenty, if you ask me. Things like history, meaning, experience, intent, and – hopefully if it’s a good brand – pride, love, honesty, integrity and satisfaction. A brand should stand for something. And in the hotel world it once did. But now I’m not sure, especially where the major hotel management and franchising groups are concerned. More …

The deal debate continues in Asia with a Singaporean hotelier revealing at Web In Travel that virtually no-one who bought an ultra cheap "daily deal" package at his property came back. "I have to admit a very, very small percentage of repeat business from these customers," said Mohamed Yusof, Director of Business Strategies, Royal Plaza on Scotts. More …

Hong Kong and Singapore will be the world's best-performing hotel markets through to the end of 2012, STR Global has predicted. "The gains will be led mainly through increases in rate rather than occupancy." STR is forecasting revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth for Hong Kong of 24.7% for the rest 2011, while it believes Singapore will lead the pack through 2012 with an increase in RevPAR of 9.6%. More …

Mobile will be the key driver of online regional travel transactions, according to the Abacus Asia Travel Insights Survey 2011. "Asian mobile internet penetration is expected to rise to 42.1% of mobile users in the region by 2015, and for many of these users mobile is the first screen for Internet access," the report says. More …