TRAVEL TITBITS
Tops in Asia
Thailand has been voted Asia’s Leading Dive Destination 2018, replacing Indonesia, which won the award in 2017.
The award was recently announced by the World Travel Awards, established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all key sectors of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. Each year the World Travel Award hosts a “Grand Tour”, which is a series of regional gala ceremonies to recognise excellence within each continent, culminating in a “Grand Final” at the end of the year.
For the Asia’s winners, Vietnam won the leading destination while Sri Lanka was named the leading adventure tourism destination. The Philippines was voted leading beach destination. Hong Kong was named leading city break destination and meetings and conference destination. Singapore was crowned the leading festival and event destination.
Among 100 categories in the regional winners, Thai Airways was awarded the leading airline for economy class, InterContinental Samui Ban Taling Ngam Resort was the leading beach resort and the most romantic resort. The Sarojin in Phangnga was named the leading boutique hotel. Melati Beach Resort & Spa on Koh Samui was named Asia’s leading boutique resort.
Hilton Pattaya was voted Asia’s leading design hotel. Tower Club at Lebua in Bangkok was named the leading luxury all-suite hotel and King Power Duty Free was named Asia’s leading airport duty free operator. AirAsia was voted Asia’s leading low- cost airline and the leading low- cost airline cabin crew.
The Grand Final of the 25th World Travel Awards and the Travel Technology Award are still open for online votes until Oct 24.
Visit worldtravelawards.com/vote.
Maggie Q honoured
Hollywood actress Maggie Q will receive the World Tourism Humanitarian Award as part of the annual World Tourism Awards ceremony in London on Nov 5. For years, she has helped raise funds for Kageno, an organisation that transforms impoverished communities, specifically in Kenya and Rwanda, by focusing on programmes for clean water, healthcare, conservation and education.
AIRLINES AIRLINES UPDATE UPDATE
Thai AirAsia will launch its first direct flight from Bangkok to Visakhapatnam and to Bhubaneswar in India on Dec 7.
The flight will depart from Don Mueang airport to Visakhapatnam, the port city in Andhra Pradesh on the eastern shore, at 10.15pm and will arrive in Visakhapatnam at 11.45pm. The service will be available every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The return flight will be available every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 12.15am. The travel time is about three hours.
The flight to Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha also in the eastern part, will depart Bangkok at 10.35pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and will return from Bhubaneswar at 12.25am every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The travel time is 2 hours and 50 minutes.
Meanwhile the airline also has launched a relief fund to support tsunami victims in Palu in Indonesia.
Until Oct 31, the #ToIDwithLove fund will collect donations online via AirAsia Foundation (airasiafoundation.com/relieffund) and on- board cash collections. AirAsia will match the total public collection, which will be announced in January.
The money will be donated to the Yayasan Arkom Indonesia (Indonesia Community Architects’ Foundation) to help rebuild homes and improve disaster resilience in affected areas.
Bangkok Airways launches the “Let’s Go Samui” promotion. It offers all-inclusive fares starting from 2,750 baht one way from and to Koh Samui. The airline flies from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and U-Tapao airports to the island daily.
The promotion will last until Nov 30 and travelling period is valid between Nov 1- 30.
Visit bangkokair.com.
HOTEL HOTELS DEALS DEALS AND & UPDATE UPDATE
Bangkok-based Onyx Hospitality Group has signed an agreement with a joint venture company led by Panchshil Realty to launch Ozo Maldives.
Scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2020, the resort will occupy a private island in the Raa Atoll, located northwest of the Maldivian capital of Male.
Positioned as a family- oriented resort, it will feature 200 villas, dining outlets, bar, island farm offering organic produce, spa, fitness centre, yoga facility, dive centre and a lagoon swimming pool. There will also be an activity centre, an observation tower, a lighthouse, kids’ club, educational sundial and weather station.
Visit onyx-hospitality. com.
The Hotel Association of Portugal has launched Click2Portugal.com, an online hotel booking platform.
The aim is to help tourists from Thailand and around the world book accommodation directly with hotels and to boost hotel visibility to international travellers, according to the association president Raul Martins.
Supported by the Portuguese government, the website was launched after the association conducted research with 1,500 hotels and found that more than a third of the hotels had no direct online booking capability. “Many hotels either don’t yet have an appropriate online presence, have no direct booking capability, or no translation function — all of which serves to limit their accessibility to tourists,” said Martins.
The new portal will also help make Portugal a much more accessible country, he said.
The website is available in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. It provides offers from 300 hotels with details of facilities, reviews, ratings and maps.
Visit click2portugal.com.