Mandarin Oriental Announces another Luxury Hotel in Beijing

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has announced that it will manage another luxury property in the heart of Beijing, scheduled to open in 2017. The hotel will be located in the new premier mixed-use centre 'WF CENTRAL' being developed by Wangfu Central Real Estate Development Company Limited, an affiliated company of Hongkong Land. The 74-key Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing will feature two restaurants and a bar. Other facilities will include an all-encompassing spa, an indoor swimming pool and a fitness centre. Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing, Beijing will be the group's second hotel to open in the city after the 241-key Mandarin Oriental Beijing (part of the CCTV project), which is scheduled to open in 2016.

D-mart Owner Radhakishan Damani Acquires Radisson Blu Resort & Spa Alibaug

Radhakishan Damani, owner of hypermarket chain D-Mart, recently bought the Radisson Blu Resort & Spa in Alibaug. Damani's Derive Trading Pvt Ltd has acquired this 156-key hotel from Phadnis Group, a Pune based real estate developer, for a consideration of INR135 crore. The hotel was built in 2008 for approximately INR110 crore. It is expected that the property will continue to be managed by the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group post the transaction. Phadnis Group said that the sale of the hotel was a part of the company’s plan to focus primarily on its real estate business. Alibaug is a coastal town located about 100 km south of Mumbai, India and is a popular tourist destination.

Qantas Reintroduces Singapore-Perth Route

Qantas Airways reintroduced its Singapore-Perth route on 26 June 2015, following a year-long absence, after the service was discontinued last year due to profitability issues. With nine other carriers code-sharing the Singapore-Perth service this time, the airline will run five weekly return services with a smaller Boeing 737 aircraft between Singapore Changi Airport and Perth Airport, which serves as the international and regional gateway to Western Australia. In 2014, Western Australia received 826,700 international visitor arrivals, an 8% increase from 2013. The state’s top five feeder markets include the UK (17%), Singapore (10%), New Zealand (9%), Malaysia (9%) and USA (7%). While international arrivals from Singapore, Malaysia and USA saw encouraging growths of 28.9%, 16.7% and 26.1% respectively, arrivals from the UK and New Zealand dipped slightly by -6.8% and -1.9% in 2014. Besides the fact that Singapore’s Changi Airport serves as a convenient transit hub for US travellers, the recent depreciation of the Australian dollar against the US dollar may continue to drive American arrivals to Western Australia.

Myanmar’s Tourism Growth Fuelled by Budget Travelers

Visitor arrivals to Myanmar from the country’s main gateway of Yangon, between the period of January to May 2015 has risen by 9.03% from 410,444 to 447,520. Aye Nyein Win, Sales and Marketing Manager of Yangon-based Orchestra Travel and Tours expects that “overall arrivals for 2015 will likely set a new record”. Asian visitors accounted for 312,645 of Myanmar’s arrivals in this period, which is approximately 70% of total arrivals through Yangon. Amongst this group, Thailand is the largest source market, producing 68,652 arrivals. This is followed by China and Japan with 43,456 visitors and 35,799 visitors respectively. The number of European arrivals to Yangon was 81,221. This was led by France and the United Kingdom with 18,113 visitors and 16,789 visitors respectively. According to Kaung Min Khant, Managing Director of Asia Central Link Travels and Tours, the number of budget travelers is clearly on the rise against the more lucrative group package tours.

Absolute Share Price Performance, as at 02 July 2015