Newsletter - January 14, 2002

LE MERIDIEN HOTEL GROUP SENIOR APPOINTMENTS

Richard Mahoney, president and chief operating officer of Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts,  announced the appointment of David Maloney as chief financial officer and James Lamb as chief information officer for the company, effective immediately. These new assignments are the latest of several executive appointments since the acquisition of Le Meridien by Nomura's Principal Finance Group in July of 2001.

David Maloney will report directly to Mahoney in his new position. During the past two years, Maloney served as CFO for Thomson Travel Group PLC (TTG), where he was widely credited for his leading role in the sale of the company to Preussag AG. Previously, Maloney served as CFO of Avis Europe PLC where he played a key role in completing a highly successful IPO in 1997. During his 12-year tenure with Avis, he also held a variety of financial positions in the UK and served as managing director of Avis, Spain. Earlier in his career, Maloney held posts with Paramount Pictures and Mobil Oil Corporation.

Joining the company as chief information officer, James Lamb has over 17 years of information technology experience, including the last 12 with Perot Systems where he most recently served as site manager of the company's Reston Development Centre in suburban Washington, DC. His previous experience with Perot includes the management of Westin Hotels & Resorts' worldwide technology center in Salt Lake City, Utah, and leading the successful development of a new central reservation system for Dollar and Thrifty car rental companies.

Lamb will report to David Maloney.

Le Meridien is a global hotel group with a portfolio of 144 luxury and upscale hotels (38,085 rooms) in 55 countries worldwide. The majority of it properties are located in the world's top cities and resorts throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. Headquartered in London, the group was purchased by Nomura International plc's Principal Finance Group in July 2001 and merged with Principal Hotels, acquired by Nomura in February 2000. In the Americas, Le Meridien properties are located in Beverly Hills, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans, New York, Toronto, Cancun, Guadeloupe (2), Guyana, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Martin (2), Rio de Janeiro, Tahiti and Bora Bora. For hotel reservations and/or information, call 1-800-543-4300. The web site address is http://www.lemeridien.com.

JUDGING PANEL FINALISED FOR MIDDLE EAST  HOTEL “OSCARS”

A distinguished international line-up of hoteliers, designers, consultants and restaurateurs will form the judging panel for the second Depa Middle East Hotel Awards, which will take place at an “Oscars” style gala ceremony at the Semiramis Inter-Continental Hotel in Cairo on 18^th April 2002.

The awards - which are open to any five-star hotel in the region - are sponsored by hotel design and construction specialists Depa Hotel Interiors, and celebrate the achievements of the Middle East’s dynamic hospitality industry.

The judging panel comprises: Stephen Head (Lausanne Hospitality Consulting, Switzerland); Mohamed Buzizi (Bahrain Hotels Company, Manama); Russell Kett (HVS International, London); Stuart Scher (Taylor Nelson Sofres Hospitality & Leisure, London); Daniel During (Thomas Klein International, Dubai); Denis Johnson (Six Continents Hotels, Cairo); Samir Daqqaq (Marriott International, Dubai); Jean-Paul Herzog (Hilton International, Cairo); Tony Chi (Tony Chi Associates, New York); Tarek Mansour (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cairo); and Michael Herriot (Virgin Hotels, London). PricewaterhouseCoopers in Cairo will also act as adjudicators.

Over 200 entries are expected for the awards across fifteen categories, which include best new hotel, best design project, most progressive employer, and top business, leisure and conference hotels. The deadline for entries is 22^nd January, with the panel then meeting in Cairo in mid-February to assess the entries and draw up a shortlist of nominations.

The Depa Middle East Hotel Awards were launched in April 2001 in Dubai, and are now recognised as one of the leading events in the international hotel industry calendar. Winners in 2001 included the Jumeirah Beach Hotel Dubai, the Grand Hyatt Amman and the Ritz-Carlton Sharm El Sheikh.

For further information contact:

Email: hotelawards@intelligence-me.com

THAILAND TO DEVELOP “SECOND PHUKET” AS PLAYGROUND FOR THE RICH

The Thai government plans to turn the country's second biggest island, Koh Chang, into a "second Phuket" for rich tourists where budget "backpacker" travellers will not be welcome, reports said Thursday.

The Bangkok Post said Forestry Department chief Plodprasop Suraswadi outlined the plan during a visit to Koh Chang, 282 kilometres southeast of Bangkok, on Wednesday.

"The island would generate huge revenue for the country if it were fully developed," said Plodprasop, who is chairman of the committee drafting Koh Chang's tourism master plan.

He said he was following through on Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's suggestion that the island be developed into a "second Phuket" when the premier visited Koh Chang last October.

Phuket, Thailand's largest island, has provided what many environmentalists consider to be a textbook case of rampant, unplanned development, resulting in widespread ecological degradation and pollution.

Western "backpacker" tourists who pioneered foreign tourism on Phuket in the 1970s were accommodated in small, wooden and thatch bungalows. The giant concrete hotels that now line many of Phuket's beaches began being built in the 1980s to cater to up-scale tourists.

Under the plan outlined by the forestry chief, Koh Chang would be developed to cater to "first-class tourists", to limit the number of visitors.

"So backpackers would not be welcomed," Plodprasop said.

He said the island's tourism industry could one day be linked with trips to the nearby Cambodian island of Koh Kong and the beach resort of Sihanoukville.

Sixty other islands in the Koh Chang archipelago would also be developed for tourism, he said.

Plodprasop said an environmental impact assessment study would be made to protect Koh Chang.

"However, I cannot guarantee that Koh Chang will not end up like Phuket, which has been extensively damaged by tourism," he said.

The Post quoted Sanya Kerdmanee, chairman of the Koh Chang administration organisation, as saying the new development plan offered little to help local tourism operators.

"Only rich investors, who are able to construct new luxury hotels, will benefit from the ideas of Mr. Thaksin and Mr. Plodprasop," Sanya said.

 Source: dpa jh rk 

NEW BOARD MEMBERS FOR SINGAPORE TOURISM BOARD

Following the recent announcement of Mr Wee Ee-chao as the new Chairman of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), to succeed Mr Edmund W Cheng, the STB also welcomes three new Board Members.

Mr Huang Cheng Eng - Executive Vice President (Marketing & Regions) Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA). Mr Huang has 17 years experience with SIA and has served in various management positions. He also has wide international experience, having worked in Taiwan, Hong Kong and France.

Ms Janet Ang Guat Har - Managing Director, IBM Singapore. Ms Ang has been with IBM for close to 20 years working her way up from Systems Engineer to heading IBM today. She has consistently won awards for her excellent contributions to the company.

Ms Chan Lai Fung - Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Environment. Ms Chan is a Colombo Plan scholar who has served in senior positions in various government agencies since 1987. These include the then Ministry of Communications and Information, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance, Prime Minister's Office, Institute of Policy Development and, most recently, the Ministry of Environment.

TheSTB also expresses its appreciation to two outgoing Board Members:

Dr Tan Chin Nam, Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Information, Communications & the Arts. Dr Tan was a Board Member from January 1998 - December 2001. He was also STB's Chief Executive from September 1994 - December 1997.

Mr Kuok Khoon Ean, Chairman South China Morning Post & Executive Advisor Kuok (Singapore) Ltd. Mr Kuok was a Board Member from January 2000 - December 2001.

With the above changes, the STB would have 12 board members.

STB Board Members (2002)

Chairman: Mr Wee Ee-chao
Chairman, Singapore Tourism Board

Members: Mr Yeo Khee Leng
Chief Executive, Singapore Tourism Board

Mr Abdul Rahim Tahir
Chief Executive Officer
PT Repex Perdana International
Licensee of Federal Express Corporation

Mr Frank Brown
President, MTV Networks Asia

Ms Jennie Chua
President & Chief Operating Officer
Raffles International Ltd

Mr Anthony Lee
Area Manager, Travel Related Services
Singapore/ Malaysia/ Indonesia
American Express International Inc

Mr Sunil Sreenivasan
Country Corporate Officer, Citibank N.A.

Mr Anthony Chan
Group Managing Director
Chan Brothers International Limited

Ms Saw Phaik Hwa
Region President
DFS Venture Singapore Pte Ltd

Mr Huang Cheng Eng
Executive Vice President, Singapore Airlines Ltd

Ms Janet Ang Guat Har
Managing Director, IBM Singapore

Ms Chan Lai Fung
Deputy Secretary, Ministry of the Environment

THAILAND TO HOST IT&CMA IN 2002-2004

Thailand's formidable Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) facilities are set to gain extensive global exposure after the industry?s largest regional trade show moves to Bangkok as of this year. The Incentive Travel and Conventions, Meeting Asia (IT&CMA), is to be held at the IMPACT Centre in Bangkok between 23-25 October, 2002, and again in 2003 and 2004. The show is one of the most powerful gatherings of world-wide buyers and sellers of MICE products and services in Asia.

TAT Deputy Governor Juthamas commented, ?We are very happy that Thailand is to be the host country for IT&CMA. Not only does Thailand itself have excellent MICE facilities in Bangkok and all around the country, it is also an important hub to tap the emerging opportunities in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).?

TAT will work with Thai tourism-related public and private agencies including hotels and tour operators to ensure that the event gets full support. This will include free or discounted accommodation, ground
arrangements, social functions and tours. THAI will provide a certain number of free air tickets and special airfares while IMPACT will offer discounted venue costs.

Darren Ng, Executive Director of TTG Asia Media, which organises the event, said, ?Our agreement with TAT is another example of our long-term strategy to extend our relationship with key host countries to enhance our show and to extend an established brand into new markets.? ?We plan to use our networks, resource and expertise to grow the MICE business in
the whole of Asia,? Mr. Ng added.

Held first in Hong Kong between 1993-1996 and then in Malaysia between 1997-2001, IT&CMA will help boost the many international MICE events that are coming to Thailand and capitalising on the country?s high-class venues and facilities.

Other upcoming high-profile events include the 12th World Congress of Gastroenterology and the 20th World Scout Jamboree to be held in February and December 2002 respectively, the APEC Leaders Summit in 2003, and the Lions Clubs International in 2008, the world?s largest convention, which will bring 30,000 delegates.

In 2000, Thailand hosted 3,233 international events held throughout the country which brought a total of 305,600 participants and US$495 million in foreign exchange earnings. According to the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), Thailand was ranked the fifth in the Asia- Pacific and 23rd among the world?s top MICE destinations in 2000.

TOP E-TRAVEL BRANDS TO UNVEIL RADICAL NEXT PHASE IN ONLINE REVOLUTION AT GLOBAL CONFERENCE  

The controversial next stage in the e-travel revolution is set to begin when some of the industry's major players reveal their e-commerce strategies at ENTER 2002, the world's leading conference on IT in travel and tourism.

Over 100 top-level speakers, representing all the leading e-travel names, will attend ENTER 2002 (23-25 January, Innsbruck, Austria, www.ifitt.org/enter) where they are expected to signal a seismic shift away from online selling alone, to multiple-distribution strategies, embracing everything from iDTV to mobile phone and call centre technology.

Speakers will include Simon Breakwell managing director Expedia Europe and senior vice president international Expedia Inc, Dinesh Dhamija, founder and CEO of Ebookers, Michael Madison, Andbook's CEO, Peter Fitzgerald, vice president of Pegasus Solutions, and Ryanair Direct's managing director Caroline Green.

The annual event, the most prestigious of its kind, is organised by IFITT (International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism), the world's leading think tank on IT in the global travel and tourism industry. According to IFITT marketing director and ENTER 2002 organiser Karsten Kärcher, the conference offers delegates from travel and tourism, government and academia, a unique opportunity to grill the world's top e-travel companies about the future of selling online.

Said Kärcher: The dotcom bubble has burst. The big question now is: How can travel providers profit online? ENTER 2002 brings together the world's best-known online travel brands under one roof to address the issue and share their predictions for the future of e-travel.

The event is a rare chance for the travel and tourism industries to discover the future for e-travel from the people who not only survived the shakedown but are leading the field. Anyone who wants to win in the next phase of the e-travel revolution should attend. They cannot afford not to.

In addition to a series of panel debates with top industry figures, ENTER 2002 features a full programme of seminars, including several on specific sectors such as air travel and tourism, together with a programme of networking events.

IFITT's (www.ifitt.org) mission is to enable the travel and tourism sectors to capitalise on breakthroughs in technology by setting the agenda for the development of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The organisations 300 members include Norwegian Tourist Board, Amadeus, Irish Tourist Board, Telewest, Institute of Tourism Management, and Canada's CRS Technology Corporation.

Headquartered in Innsbruck, Austria, the organisation operates regional chapters in Australasia, North America and Scandinavia; each one dedicated to addressing issues specific to that region.

The board also includes president Josef G. Margreiter, CEO Tirol Werbung Group & Tourist Board, vice presidents Roger Carter, former CEO of Edinburgh Tourist Board, and Dimitrios Buhalis, senior lecturer in business information management at the University of surrey, along with honorary president Hannes Werthner, co-ordinator of eCTRL at Trento University, Italy and marketing director Karsten Kärcher, chief international business officer of Tiscover, central Europe's leading e-travel destination portal and management system  

CLUB MED WORKS TO MEND FORTUNES

Club Med, which turned 50 earlier this year, had grand plans to bring it into the next half-century. Even the most well-laid out plans fell victim to September 11. N Gunalan spoke to Club Med to find out how Asia’s been faring amid closures of more than 20 of its resorts.

If one company has been hard hit by the events of September 11, it is Club Mediterranee. This week, it reported a net loss of 70 million Euros (US$62.6 million) in the year ended October 31, its worst annual performance in years.

And analysts say the worst may be yet to come. Chief operating officer Henri Giscard d’Estaing said 2001 was hit from three sides – US economic slowdown, the Japanese crisis and September 11.

The company has already closed 23 of its 120 resorts, most for the northern hemisphere winter.

In Asia, it has closed two resorts – its Moorea village in French Polynesia and the New Caledonia resort, the Chateau Royal in Noumea.

“Besides lower occupancies, there were also structural problems with these resorts,” said Maurice Benzaquen, general manager of South-east Asia, Club Med.

“We hope things will be cleared in a few months and we’ll reopen then.”

In Asia, Club Med has also postponed the opening of Malaysia’s Club Med Cherating to February. It also anounced that it was selling its Byron Bay Beach Resort property in New South Wales, as part of its global cost-cutting measures. The property was due to change hands in late December. Benzaquen since September 11, “we are 20 percent below what we were doing last year (2000).”

The diminishing number of Asian tourists, especially the Japanese, who make up 40 percent of the region’s total volume, has been a major factor for some of the closures.

However business at its two resorts – Kabira and Sahoro – has been increasing as the Japanese stay home for their holidays.

He said there have also been “problems” in other source markets like Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Phuket resort “is doing well” while Bali has been strongly affected. “Maldives faces a problem as it’s perceived as a Muslim destination and so some people fear flying to Male.”

Benzaquen however remained optimistic about Asia, despite the gloomy global outlook for the group.

He said that things were picking up and Club Med was on a rebound. “We still keep in mind our development plans and are working to reduce our capacity to face the loss in bookings.

“Fortunately we feel the strongest impact has already gone and we should rebuild and catch up the losses we have incurred,” he said.

“We’re still developing our activities. In most cases, we didn’t stop. We are renovating the Lindeman Island village in Australia, Faru in Maldives and have done part of it in Sahoro in Japan.

‘We’re still working to open new villages in Bali, Phuket and China, specially Shanghai which offers high potential,” he said.

Source:  TravelWeeklyEast.com 

FOUR SEASONS SEES AUTUMN AS RIGHT TIME FOR EXPANSION

 
Shrugging off the effects of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and the general gloom in an industry with chronic overcapacity, the Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts chain is set to open its second hotel here in October and is considering further expansion.

Against the backdrop of the shrinking hospitality industry, Four Seasons has talked with U.S. investment funds seeking bargains among the hundreds of hotels and hot-spring and golf resorts whose nonperforming debt is up for sale, making them vulnerable to buyouts.

The chain's luxury hotel in Tokyo's Mejiro district, which relies on travelers from abroad for 37 percent of its business, was clobbered after the terrorist assaults as travel from the United States dried up. But after seeing the number of its foreign guests fall by half almost overnight, things have recovered.

"Business is picking up," Antoine Chahwan, general manager of the 283-room hotel, said in a recent interview. "We are seeing more travel coming out of the United States, especially business travel," he said.

A catastrophic drop in occupancy rates was averted, thanks to an increase in the number of Japanese guests fearful of overseas travel.

"After the Sept. 11 attacks, we found that local people stopped going abroad. That helped us to balance things out," he said. "It would have been devastating without that (boost)."

Nonetheless, the hotel's occupancy rate dropped by about one-sixth in the months of September and October.

Looking to the future, the chain will open a 57-room hotel in Tokyo's Marunouchi district on Oct. 1.

Scott Woroch, vice president for Asia-Pacific development at the Four Seasons regional office in Singapore, said the chain was also considering buying a smaller resort property. Any such acquisition, he added, would probably be "oriented around golf and spa" and "within an hour or so of Tokyo, maybe around the Izu Peninsula."

Also "fairly high on the list of priorities" are Yokohama and Osaka, Woroch said.

Four Seasons views expansion in this country as beneficial for the brand internationally.

"Japan is a very important market for us as a company- not only from a local standpoint, but from an international standpoint because 17 million Japanese travel abroad every year, Chahwan said. "The more the Four Seasons brand is marketed in Japan, the more likely Japanese people will stay in Four Seasons hotels overseas."

Chahwan also said the soon-to-be introduced tax on hotel rooms in Tokyo could be positive for the industry.

"I don't think it will deter people just because they have to pay an extra 200 yen, providing they take that money and use it to promote tourism," he said.

Those charged with selling the nation's image abroad are currently doing a poor job, Chahwan reckons.

"The only message that is out there is that Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world," he said. "You don't hear anything else. You don't hear about the beauty, the cleanliness, the safety, the variety."

Hotel service in this country is also a selling point, he said. While hotels in the West are generally staffed by people "working their way through college" or other transients, Chahwan notes that hotel work here is seen as a career.

"It never ceases to amaze when I see how many employees are here since the opening," he said, referring to the approximately 65 percent of the hotel's staff who have been on the payroll since 1992.

This loyalty reflects a dedication to service. Politeness is not to be taken for granted in a New York hotel, but it's a matter of course here.

"In Japan, you don't get 'attitude,"' Chahwan said.