Travel Trends

Asian online travel agent Zuji, recently bought by Webjet from Travelocity, is switching its GDS affiliation from Sabre to Travelport with migration to the new platform under way. Travelport will now exclusively provide the airfare inventory to Zuji, in addition to other content such as hotels when needed. Webjet MD John Guscic claims Zuji is the "number one OTA for air ticket sales in Singapore and Hong Kong".

A pictures tells a thousand words, right. Well, with No Vacancy Southeast looming on June 25, take a visual stroll down memory lane with these shots from 2012. This year's event will be great, too, with a strong program and excellent speakers. See you there? More …

Expedia's sales and marketing costs continue to blow out with the online travel giant on track to spend around US$2 billion in this area in 2013. In the March quarter Expedia spent US$492 million on pushing product. That's almost half of every dollar it brings in – 48.6% of revenue, an increase of almost 3% on 2012.

It was one reason Expedia reported a net loss of US$104.2 million for the quarter despite increasing revenue 24% to just over US$1 billion. Investors have reacted badly sending the stock down 14% over the past few days. More …

Good news for travel marketers – Asia's middle class is expected to grow almost 500% to 3.4 billion people over the next 20 years, according to a report from the United Nations World Tourism Organization and Tourism Australia, which has five Southeast Asian countries in its sights: Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.  "The crucial factor behind the growth of travel out of the Asian markets is the increasing middle class," TA Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said. More …

Hotel markets in Southeast Asia strongly outperformed the rest of Asia Pacific during the March quarter, according to STR Global, recording year on year increases in occupancy (2.4%), room rate (5.8%) and revenue per available room (8.4%). The rest of Asia Pacific, with the exception of  Australia and Oceania, which was marginally up, performed poorly. Hotels in Northeast, Central and South Asia were hurt by falling occupancy and rates.

Interesting to see that, after the all the hype, some industry leaders are starting to adopt a harder edge with mobile, questioning its expense, return on investment and complexity. Expedia SVP global market management, Cyril Ranque, put matters into perspective at the World Tourism Forum Lucerne when said: "Mobile is the fastest-growing channel, but it is just 7% of our room nights. It is complex and every next move is expensive." See full story at Travolution.

Virgin Australia's proposed acquisition of 60% of Tiger Airways Australia has been approved by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which said the deal "is unlikely to lead to a substantial lessening of competition in the Australian (domestic) market". More …

Forget the rhetoric, it's money that counts. Accor Australia today said its hotels have reduced gas and electricity consumption by 5.1%, while water use is down 20.5% in the past year. "These savings have been achieved thanks to the use of energy saving technology such as Voltage Power Optimization and Building Management System controls which monitor and adjust the CO2 performance of the hotel," the company said. "LED lighting, chiller upgrades and Jemflow water saving devices have also been installed to conserve energy." Meanwhile, Accor has planted more 3m trees around the world as part of its Plant for the Planet project.

STR Global reports that the Philippines is expecting Southeast Asia's biggest increase in hotel supply (+35.7%) "if all 14,048 rooms in the country’s total active pipeline open". Also facing significant supply increases are India (+29% 54,478 rooms in the active pipeline); Indonesia (+24.2% 30,942 rooms); Vietnam (+18.7% 8,500 rooms); China (+13.9% 211,118 rooms); Malaysia (+12.9% 14,245 rooms); and Cambodia (+12.3%  1,755 rooms).

Derek Sharp

Travelport says its new Merchandising Platform is a game-changer as the company makes a concerted bid to reinvent and differentiate itself from competitor Global Distribution Systems.

"It is critical for us," said Derek Sharp, Managing Director, Global Distribution and Sales at Travelport, in Singapore yesterday.

“There was a period of time where our heads were down and we were very inwardly focussed.

“Then three or four years ago we decided that we couldn’t be the same old GDS.” More …

Asia is the largest, fastest-growing and most competitive market for air travel according to fresh analysis from Amadeus Air Traffic Travel Intelligence. Air traffic volume in Asia grew 9% between 2011 and 2012, almost double the global growth figure of 5%. More …

Quickbeds.com, the online accommodation division of retail group Flight Center, today announced a second major distribution deal in a week – an agreement with Travelport Rooms and More to distribute its inventory of 4200 Australian hotels through Travelport's global agency network. The announcement follows last week's news that Quickbeds inventory will now be available through the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse. More …

Ideas flowed at the first THack Sydney yesterday. It brought together around 50 travel tech tragics who saw seven teams present their hacks at at the co-op work space Fishburners. Most of the hacks addressed either of two "problems" – 1) multi-model travel or 2) mobile travel assistance. All of the hacks had merit but of course it was a competition so the judges had to choose two winners. More …

The two biggest players in the backpacker accommodation market are set to become one. Web Reservations International, owner of Hostelworld.com and Hostels.com, has agreed to buy rival HostelBookers.com, subject to regulatory approval.  WRI’s Chief Executive, Feargal Mooney claimed such scale is necessary to compete with the 'big beasts' of the online travel world like Expedia and Booking.com. More …

Mantra Group's rapid expansion – it has 17 hotel projects in the pipeline – is behind the appointment of Richard Crawford (pictured) as Development Manager. Mr Crawford co-founded Hobart’s Henry Jones Art Hotel and has been working as an industry consultant for the past six years. Mantra, which already has 112 hotels in its portfolio,  is on a steep growth trajectory across its three brands: Mantra, Peppers and BreakFree. Asia is a particular focus with the recent opening of Mantra Nusa Dua in Bali "the first of many for the region", the company said.

The diversification of TripAdvisor continues with its acquisition of private sale site, Jetsetter.com, which specialises in luxury hotel deals. Jetsetter brand will continue to operate out of New York City and be incorporated into TripAdvisor subsidiary Smarter Travel Media, which also runs Booking Buddy, SniqueAway and Tingo. More …

The boom in Eastern European visitors to Thailand in general and Phuket in particular is not all good news for many locals, says analyst Bill Barnett from C9 Hotelworks.  "The mounting influence of Eastern European visitors has triggered stress fractures in local infrastructure support and created ongoing controversy over the blending cultures of the new East and the old West," he said. More …

Amadeus has broadened its airline IT offering (and revenue stream) through the acquisition of  Hitit Loyalty, a division of Hitit Computer Solutions. Hitit Loyalty will be fully integrated into Amadeus’ Altea airline IT platform. "More than half of Hitit Loyalty’s existing customers are also Altéa users," Amadeus said, adding that it will now be able to offer IT products spanning frequent flyer, corporate, partnership and alliance management programs.

Two new websites have launched to capitalise on booming consumer interest in cruising. Travel retail group Jetset Travelworld is behind Thecruiseteam.com.au, which it's using as a lead generator for 500 cruise specialists across its agency brands: Jetset, Travelworld, Harvey World Travel and Travelscene. Meanwhile, Cruiseguide.com.au has been started by Sydney online entrepreneurs Ron Hodge and Nigel Poole.  More …

Ken Morrison

Ken Morrison was today named the new CEO of industry lobby group Tourism & Transport Forum.

Mr Morrison joins the TTF after a lengthy stint as Operating Officer and National Policy Director at the Property Council of Australia.

The TTF role has been vacancy for several months following the surprise resignation of John Lee.