Australia's Mantra Group has fully-opened its first hotel in Asia, the Mantra Nusa Dua Bali. Soon after the soft-opening earlier this year, it has now launched all 172 rooms, plus all leisure facilities and food and beverage (F&B) outlets. The upscale resort offers a spa, fitness club, an indoor/outdoor swimming pool with pool bar, a children's pool and F&B outlets. While for the events market there is a 400-pax capacity ballroom, eight meeting rooms and purpose-built wedding venue with ocean views. Mantra now plans to develop more properties in Bali, under all three of its brands. Negotiations are underway for a further two upcale Mantras and one budget BreakFree property, while three more properties are in the pipeline, including Asia's first luxury Peppers resort.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand invited more than 30 medical tourism facilitators and travel agencies specialising from 10 countries to the country, for the second annual medical fam trip. The 'Thailand Medical & Wellness Tourism Trade and Media Fam Trip' took participants on a tour of the country's medical tourism facilities in Bangkok, Phuket and Hua Hin, and introduced them to 58 Thai medical tourism suppliers, including hospitals, clinics and spa operators, to discuss business opportunities. The Thai health and wellness tourism sector is expected to be worth THB2 trillion (US$64 billion) by 2014, combining both domestic and international revenues.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts will continue to focus its MICE strategy on expanding domestic trade across its Asian properties, while tapping inbound and outbound travel in China and India to drive future growth. Elsewhere in the region, Thailand continues to do brisk business from its offering as a total destination. Bangkok and Phuket are most popular, with the latter benefitting from an increase in direct flights from India, which has spurred solid growth in the lucrative weddings market. Sydney, Delhi, Singapore and Hong Kong also remain hot favourites, while Japan has posted strong growth, partly due to a weakening Japanese yen. Taiwan and South Korea are gaining momentum as popular group destinations, while demand has surged in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Growth in international visitor arrivals during July has delivered a strong start to the winter season for the industry - with arrivals up 5.9 per cent against July last year. Total arrivals also increased, up 0.5 per cent on the year ending July 2012, a year boosted by Rugby World Cup arrivals. A record 183,700 visits to New Zealand delivered the highest ever July month. There was also a significant additional 83,000 holiday stay days generated during the month compared to July last year. Arrivals from Asia also increased, with China up 25.2 per cent and Singapore up 11.3 per cent.