The Flight Centre Travel Group has announced plans to merge its FCM and Corporate Traveller brands in Greater China, Malaysia and Singapore to support growing regional travel demand.

Previously operated alongside each other, the larger FCM business targeted national, regional and multi-national accounts while the Corporate Traveller brand targeted SMEs.

“This merger will simplify our structure in Asia and strengthen our brand presence in the corporate travel sector,” said FCM Asia’s general manager Bertrand Saillet.

He added: “With a renewed focus on a regional approach for the growing travel programmes of our national clients, this merger means we are more ready to quickly scale up any travel programme for our customers as their business expands.”

According to a Flight Centre statement, customers who were previously with Corporate Traveller can enjoy better integration of product roll-out and travel technology, account management and data consolidation as their travel programme regionalises.

The FCM Asia businesses will continue to operate alongside the Flight Centre brand offering, which also caters for small corporate accounts.

“KWG has a small inbound travel business in Guangzhou and hence looks for experienced hands like Swire Travel,” she added.

The company is eyeing penetration into China’s main and secondary cites where there exists “a lot of unstructured corporate travel management for SMEs or larger corporations,” she explained.

The strategy for 2017 remains focused on Swire’s corporate travel core. “We will leverage KWG’s network and local expertise to build up Great Bay Area (Hong Kong-Macau-Guangdong) business for us, strengthening corporate business as a whole.”

Adapting and diversifying, including in its leisure segment, will also be key. In response to a declining preference for standard packages, the company has started building more itineraries on private tour basis.

“We’ll also implement a B2C platform for our leisure clients who want point-to-point dynamic packages. It will soft launch this month.”

Slethaug said transition in the past five months has been smooth as all staff are retained. A Greater China MICE team was set up, headed by Eva Lai who also heads the Shanghai and Beijing branches.

From July 11-13, 2017, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will play host to the International Corporate Governance Network’s (ICGN) annual conference.

Milly Sheehan, ICGN’s communications manager, explained that the three-day conference will be “very valuable” as it offers ICGN’s members and interested non-members the opportunity to meet face to face, share knowledge, extend their professional networks, and learn from one another.

Sheehan added: “It aims to promote a meaningful dialogue between companies and investors with a series of engagement sessions, company site visits and plenary debates.”

The ICGN conference was last held in Malaysia in 2011, and this year’s edition is expected to attract about 500 capital market senior professionals. It is hosted by the Kuala Lumpur Retirement Fund and in partnership with The Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group Malaysia.

The event is important to Malaysia as it will shine a spotlight on the country’s initiatives taken in the areas of corporate governance and stewardship developments, many of which have been promoted through a mix of government-driven reforms. As a result, the annual conference will help to attract inward investment by helping to instil investor confidence.

Sarawak has withdrawn its sole representative from the Malaysia Tourism Board (MTB).

In a statement, Sarawak Chief Minister’s Office explained: “The state government deems that the participation of its representative in Tourism Malaysia is not necessary, as (it duplicates) the role and functions of the Sarawak Tourism Board.”

A source told TTG Asia that the board was not involved in policy making and having a representation was not “critically important”.

The decision was made by the chief minister of Sarawak Abang Johari Open and was not due to the recent spat with Malaysian tourism and culture minister Nazri Abdul Aziz over the tourism tax issue, according to Sarawak State tourism, arts, culture, youth and sports minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah in a report by the Borneo Post.

He was also quoted in the same report as saying that MTB has “not been doing much for Sarawak. We might as well help ourselves through the Sarawak Tourism Board.”

Abdul Karim felt that the federal government should have consulted with the state first before pushing the tourism tax on Sarawak.

Queensland’s treasurer Curtis Pitt has announced that A$176 million (US$134 million) will be put towards the upgrading and expansion of Cairns Convention Centre.

Aside from the refurbishment of the existing centre, new exhibition space and meeting rooms will also be added.

With this monetary injection, the government predicts that the expansion will bring with it an additional A$30 million of economic benefit for the regional economy each year, 20,000 extra visitors to Cairns every year, and job creation.

Ross Steele, Cairns Convention Centre’s general manager, said: “We welcome the announcement made in the recent budget. The continued commitment by the state government will allow the Cairns Convention Centre to grow in line with the aspirations of the city, with new hotels, new aquarium and continued strong investment in the city heart, it really is an exciting time in Cairns.

“We look forward to progressing our plans for construction which is expected to commence following the Commonwealth Games basketball preliminaries which will be held at the Centre in April 2018.”

The nine-level, 136-room Mantra Hotel at Sydney Airport will open soon on July 19.

Facilities within the nine-storey hotel include a restaurant and bar, a lobby, reception space, and an Internet kiosk. Airport-facing rooms located on the fourth floor and above boast impressive views of the domestic and international airport runways as well as the premium arrivals section of the airport where all VIP charter jets park.

Studio King room

The new-build is located at 3 Ross Smith Avenue, a short distance from Sydney Airport’s T2 and T3 domestic terminals.

Mantra Hotel at Sydney Airport is currently offering an opening special of A$159 (US$121) per night in a Studio King room including 1GB of Internet access daily, a welcome drink voucher on arrival and room upgrade. Subject to availability, the offer is valid from July 19 to September 29, 2017.

With this opening, Mantra Group will operate a total of eight properties in Sydney and 128 globally.

Six Marco Polo Hotels in Hong Kong and the Philippines are offering a triple meeting rewards package entitled Thrice as Nice.

To qualify, event organisers and meeting planners have to book at least 15 rooms and one meeting or banquet room, with a minimum spend of HK$70,000 (US$8,976) in Hong Kong or 200,000 pesos (US$4,004) in the Philippines. The booking period is until June 30, 2017, for stays until December 30, 2017.

Marco Polo Plaza, Cebu’s Grand Ballroom

Thrice as Nice rewards include an overnight stay with breakfast buffet at the participating hotel of choice in Hong Kong or the Philippines, and a one room category upgrade for one delegate during the event.

A dining discount would be the third perk. For Marco Polo hotels in Hong Kong, event organisers can enjoy a 10 per cent F&B discount at participating restaurants. In the Philippines, a 1,000 pesos value voucher will be offered, valid in any of the participating Philippine hotel’s restaurants and bars. Other terms and conditions may apply.

More international visitors came to the US than expected in April 2017, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s latest Travel Trends Index (TTI) – defying expectations of slowed growth or outright decline in reaction to president Trump’s controversial executive orders on travel and immigration, first issued January 27.

In fact, international travel grew by about four per cent year-over-year in April.

Because the average international visitor embarks on a trip to the US 56.9 days after their initial travel search, any fallout from president Trump’s controversial orders in January and February 2017 would only begin to register in April travel data.

“Are we surprised by this data? The honest answer is yes,” said U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Roger Dow. “There have been many claims that the administration’s actions on travel have tarnished America’s brand abroad, but we’re seeing hard economic evidence of the US travel sector’s remarkable resilience.

“Even though we’re encouraged by these strong figures, we’ll continue to urge the administration to more publicly send the message that while the US is closed to terror, it remains open for business. We should not take it for granted that this trend will sustain, and the 15.3 million American jobs that depend on travel are not worth putting at risk. A simple and clear welcome message will go a long way in that regard.”

Dow pointed to remarks by US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross at U.S. Travel’s IPW trade show as evidence that the administration well understands the importance of international travel to the US, and the role that it plays in boosting the American economy, growing exports and supporting jobs.

Despite strong international travel growth in April, travel overall grew at a slower year-over-year rate in April 2017 than in March 2017. Domestic leisure travel growth remained strong, while domestic business travel growth tapered, due in part to the timing of holidays like Easter and Passover this year.

As with many economic indicators, a TTI reading of 50 or more indicates positive growth, while a reading below 50 indicates decline.

The U.S. Travel Association developed the TTI in partnership with Oxford Economics, and draws from multiple data sources to develop these monthly readings. In order to compile both the CTI and LTI readings, the organisation’s research team utilises multiple unique non-personally identifiable data sets, including:

– Advance search and bookings data from ADARA and nSight;

– Passenger enplanement data from Airlines for America (A4A);

– Airline bookings data from the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC); and

– Hotel room demand data from STR.

Click here to read the full report.

Following the recent announcement of a controversial tourism tax coming into effect on July 1, hoteliers and agents in Malaysia say the short notice given, lack of official documentation and confusing information are putting them in a difficult situation.

Anthony Wong, managing director at The Frangipani Langkawi Resort & Spa said: “The messages on implementation are confusing. According to the tourism and culture minister it will start on July 1. However, the Royal Malaysian Customs Department website stated August 1.”

In a report published by Free Malaysia Today dated June 12, Malaysia’s minister of Tourism and Culture Nazri Abdul Aziz was quoted to have said: “The ministry is flexible on the date. If hotel operators cannot make it on July 1, we will defer it to August instead. It depends.”

The short notice was a common grievance for Wong and others interviewed. Arokia Das, senior manager at Luxury Tours Malaysia, said agent partners in India are expecting the company to absorb the taxes as groups have been confirmed and deposits accepted.

“We are in a Catch-22 situation. If we absorb, we lose money as our mark-ups are slightly higher than the room rates. If we say no, we may lose future business. This tax should not have been sprung on us with less than a month’s notice. It should have been better planned.”

Ally Bhoonee, executive director at World Avenues, shared similar sentiments.

“Without a circular by the Malaysian government and contradictory statements in the press on when this tax will be introduced, we face difficulty in explaining it to our Middle East partners overseas. There is so much confusion now. What happens to the state tourism taxes in Penang, Melaka and Langkawi? Will the new taxes over-ride the existing taxes in these states? Because of this, we lose our credibility and reputation, and we also risk losing these clients,” Ally stressed.

And while the tax has been likened to one introduced in Dubai, at least a year’s notice was given in the latter case.

Wong added there has been no information on the payment procedures. “We need to know before we can upgrade our software, and this will not come cheap.”

Saini Vermeulen, Within Earth Holidays’ executive director, opined that Tourism Malaysia’s overseas offices should take the lead in informing the travel trade on the new tourism tax.

Moreover, he said: “It is also the wrong time to implement this tax as the business environment is soft, and this makes Malaysia less competitive when compared to Indonesia and Thailand.”

The tourism tax rate is fixed at RM20 (US$4.70) per room per night for five-star accommodation; RM10 per room per night on four-star accommodation; RM5 per room per night on one-, two- and three star accommodation; RM2.50 per room per night on one-, two- and three- Orchid as well as non-rated accommodation premises.

According to tourism officials, the tax revenue will be used to develop the industry, such as through enhancing tourism infrastructure and facilities, supporting tourism promotional activities and campaigns, and the protection and preservation of the earth, and Malaysia’s culture and heritage.