In the news: Hunni Air e-tickets Asian routes, special solar eclipse 2016 programme from Asia World Indonesia, gold award for Accor's leadership, healthy April for APAC airlines
Hunni Air drives more visitors to Mongolia with Abacus technology
Mongolia’s second largest airline, Hunnu Air (formerly Mongolian Airline Group), is harnessing Abacus e-ticketing capability to increase business and leisure travellers from its Asian routes to experience the country's unique offerings.
The e-ticketing facility will help the airline build volumes from Hong Kong and Bangkok, as well as attract new traffic to its Hailar and Inner Mongolian routes.
Seasonal services to the fast moving feeder markets of Shanghai in June, Haneda (Tokyo) and Sanya (Hainan) this winter will also be made more accessible with Abacus distributing the content to travel agents at over 20,000 locations in the region.
The airline has plans to use Abacus to promote charter flights from South Korea’s popular Jeju into Mongolia’s capital and hub, Ulaanbaata in the near future.
Margad Byambajav, VP and chief commercial officer of Hunnu Air, said the airline is working with Abacus to make it easier to arrange travel to Mongolia from Asia's main Hong Kong, Thai, Malaysian and Taiwanese feeder markets, as well as with its domestic network.
“We aim to encourage more corporate bookings and improve access to the country’s many unique tourism experiences, leveraging our nomadic cultural heritage, especially through the summer peak with the July Naadam festival.”
Hunnu Air is investing in new Airbus A330-200s in anticipation of the increased demand, enhancing its A319 fleet.
The carrier is contributing revenues of its own to the economy’s booming 12% GDP growth with expanded routes and new digital services.
According to statistics from Euromonitor International and WTTC, 62% of travel spend in Mongolia is generated from foreign visitors, while business arrivals account for more than half of total arrivals. Over half of the visitors are from China (53%), followed by Russia and South Korea (13% each) and Japan (5%). Chinese arrivals are expected to rise to 240,000 by 2016.
Chase Solar Eclipse 2016 with Asia World Indonesia and TravelQuest
Asia World Indonesia, one of Indonesia’s leading inbound operator, has teamed up exclusively with US-based TravelQuest International, a specialist tour operator in solar eclipse travel, to organise special tours centred around this natural phenomenon in 2016.
A total solar eclipse will take on 9 March 2016 when the moon will completely cover the sun for about two minutes and 45 seconds, and it can be viewed in Indonesia.
Renato Domini, managing director of Asia World Indonesia, said a team from both his company and TravelQuest travelled to various parts of Indonesia to find the best spots for viewing the eclipse, and discovered that Palu in Central Sulawesi is one of the best locations along the entire 2016 track.
The special solar eclipse programme - 10 days/8 nights Bali-Palu (2-11 March 2016) - starts from Bali and. takes guests to watch nature’s greatest event in Palu.
As described by TravelQuest, “the tour will, at its core, features prominently the cultural and scenic beauty of one of the most magical places on earth – Bali, the 'Island of the Gods'. It will also coincidentally time with the days leading up to the Balinese New Year, Nyepi (Day of Silence), which adds a cultural dimension to eclipse 2016.”
Added Renato, “This trip is different from holidays most people take as it brings guests to the right place, Palu, at the right time, on the right day, to actually stand in the moon’s shadow over the earth. They will also be part of an amazing community of ‘eclipse chasing’ travellers to share this extraordinary travel experience with.
He expects about 400 travellers to be in Indonesia for this amazing spectacle
For travellers who want to explore Indonesia before or after the main event there are five special add-on tours – the pre-eclipse 4D/3N Borobudur-Prambanan-Yogyakarta, as well as the 4D/3N Komodo Dragon Adventure, 4D/3N Orang Utan & Wildlife Explorer Kalimantan, 6D/5N Komodo Dragon Adventure and 6D/5N Orang Utan Wildlife Explorer Kalimantan that are scheduled after the eclipse.
Accor strikes gold for leadership and development
International hotel operator, Accor, won the Gold Award for Leadership & Development at the 2014 Human Resources Excellence Awards recently held in Singapore.
The award, given out yearly by Human Resources magazine, honours an outstanding organisation that recognises, rewards and promotes employees from within, with a history of cultivating leaders in the company.
With over 65,000 employees at the group’s 577 hotels throughout Asia-Pacific, Accor said it places human resources at the core of its strategy.
“Leadership is important for any organisation, but it is especially crucial in people-focused industries like hospitality,” added Patrick Ollivier, chief human resources officer of Accor Asia-Pacific.
As the group plans to open a new hotel in Asia-Pacific each week over the next three years it expects to hire 25,000 employees who will need strong leaders – over 200 general managers – to guide them through their hospitality careers.
To achieve this the group has developed a number of best-in-class leadership development programmes.
Through Academie Accor, the group’s in-house learning and development department, its employees throughout the region have access to a variety of leadership programmes to help them develop their hospitality careers:
Every year up to 20 high potential future leaders are selected and enrolled in the International Hospitality Management Programme (IHMP). This is an 18-month fast-track development programme, which helps prepare candidates with the knowledge and skills required to become a hotel general manager.
Emerging Leaders are invited to participate in localised talent programmes, whch are designed to prepare high-performing supervisors for the next step in their career: heading up a department in a hotel in as little as 8 months.
Employees already in leadership positions are encouraged to continue to hone their skills in the High Performing Leaders (HPL) Programme, developed in collaboration with Cornell University, which prepares 25 experienced general managers for senior leadership roles through face-to-face training, online courses and mentoring, among others.
Encouraging growth for Asia Pacific airlines in April
Airlines in Asia Pacific continue to enjoy healthy growth in both international passenger and air cargo markets, according to the preliminary traffic figures for April 2014 from the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) .
In that month 21 million international passengers flew on Asia Pacific-based airlines, a 7.4% increase compared to the same month last year, boosted partly by leisure travel demand during the Easter holiday season in some countries.
Measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), international passenger traffic grew by 7%, a reflection of comparatively stronger demand for short-haul travel. However, the average international passenger load factor dropped 0.3% to 76.4% for the month reviewed, on a 7.5% increase in available seat capacity.
International air cargo demand in freight tonne kilometres (FTK) increased by 4.7% in April, on the back of sustained demand for Asian exports. However, freight load factors remained under pressure due to capacity expansion, averaging 64.3% that was 0.4% lower than the same month last year.
Andrew Herdman, AAPA director general, said International passenger traffic demand continued to grow, with the region's carriers registering a 5.2% increase in international passenger numbers during the first four months of the year.
“This was on the back of an improvement in business and consumer sentiment in most economies worldwide. During the same period, air cargo demand for the region's carriers grew by 4.2%, thanks to an improvement in global trade conditions."
Looking ahead, Herdman said, "The overall demand environment looks positive, underpinned by positive growth in the global economy. However, the region's carriers continue to face intense competition in the marketplace with signs of overcapacity and the resulting yield pressures.