Malaysia Airlines (MAS) expects RM2 billion from both cost savings and and revenue over the 10-year period with the new Passenger Services System (PSS), which MH Mobile is a component of.
“With over RM480 million invested on the integrated platform over 10 years, MAS customers can enjoy seamless service delivery and a suit of new services,” managing director and chief executive officer Tengku Datuk Azmil Zahruddin said.
The PSS component, MHMobile-flymas.mobi, is the world’s most comprehensive mobile booking system.
Developed together with SITA Lab, it offers more choices and convenience for the airline’s 14 million passengers, allowing them to book, pay, check in and board flight using mobile phone.
It is also the first mobile airline application that connects bookings to Facebook, Triplt and Doppir, enabling friends and colleagues to be informed about each other’s travel plans.
Speaking to reporters after launching MHMobile-flymas.mobi here, Azmil also said that MAS was projecting a 20-30 per cent participation in internet bookings compared with about four to five per cent before the PSS project started.
In terms of domestic bookings, about 50 per cent of customers presently used the internet to do so, he said.
In conjunction with the launch of MHMobile-flymas.mobi, MAS will enter into a marketing partnership with Maxis Bhd as telco partner.
From Dec 8 to 31, customers who purchase a first class or business class ticket will receive a complimentary iPhone while economy class customers stand to win ten iPhones via lucky draw.
Source : TMI
[tags : malaysiahotelnews hotels malaysia resorts news travel tourism travel tourism news]
Showing posts with label TMI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TMI. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Malaysia to sell fine art, culture to world, says Yen Yen
Chairs are left empty for “ghosts”, as members of a Chinese Opera group perform during the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival in Puchong near Kuala Lumpur August 23, 2009. — Reuters pic
Malaysia will start to promote its diverse arts and culture as a niche tourism product for fine arts lovers beginning next year.
Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said the target was well-to-do foreign tourists, especially Europeans who spend on fine living and invest in art collections.
She said this would include paintings, plays, architecture as well as its world-class orchestra symphony, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, besides folks music, songs and dances and cuisine.
Speaking to Malaysian journalists after hosting a luncheon for key Finnish tourism players here Wednesday, Dr Ng said Tourism Malaysia had also fixed July, August and September next year for the Malaysian Arts and Culture Festival.
Besides being well-known as a country of sunshine, Mother Nature and friendly people, she also wanted Malaysia to be known for its fine arts and culture.
“We want the world to know that we also have a great pool of talented people such as painters and performers.
“For instance, when they come for concerts and exhibitions, they can also spend a day learning about our batik painting, songket weaving or traditional dances, or maybe learn to cook one or two of our local dishes,” she said.
Dr Ng also said that well-known classical music conductor and tourism ambassador Datuk Ooi Chean See was instrumental in promoting the country’s fine arts and culture, especially to the European market.
On another matter, she said she would intensify promotion of the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme among the Finns.
She was confident that Finland had a good potential for the MM2H programme, although to date, there were only four Finns out of the 13,949 participants of the programme.
Compared to its Asean neighbours, she said, Malaysia had more advantage in terms of its more relaxed policies to lure more foreigners to participate in the programme.
“One of the perks is to allow MM2H participants to purchase property that cost more than RM250,000,” she said, adding that those interested could now apply through the Malaysian embassies in their respective countries.
She said Malaysian ambassador to Finland Cheah Choong Kit would come up with a proposal on how to promote Malaysia among the affluent Finns.
Source : TMI
[tags : malaysiahotelnews hotels malaysia resorts news travel tourism travel tourism news]
Monday, November 02, 2009
Tune Hotels to open 64 hotels by 2013
Some 200 hotels in over a dozen countries across Asia, the Pacific and Europe are offering clean, hip and secure accommodation for value-conscious travellers from around the world.
That, in a nutshell, is the dream being spun into reality by Mark Lankester, the chief executive officer of Tune Hotels.
Controlled by Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia and its boss Tony Fernandes, Tune already operates seven hotels – five in Malaysia and two in Bali.
“We would have had twice that number if not for the financial crisis and the credit crunch,” Lankester told BT.
According to him, development plans are already underway to set up 64 Tune hotels in India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh. These hotels will be up and running by 2013, he added.
And it doesn’t stop there.
“With AirAsia X now flying to London and Australia, we have plans to launch 10 hotels in greater London, and as many in Melbourne and other Australian cities,” Lankester said.
Singapore, despite its high land costs, is also on Tune’s radar screen. So is China.
The hotels, where prices per night start at the equivalent of S$5 for a standard 12 square-metre room, are targeted at not just budget backpackers, but also budget conscious corporate travellers who want good, clean, secure rooms, with hot “power showers” and good quality bed and linen, Lankester said.
“We are not talking about cheap, sleazy hotels,” he said. “Our hotels are good class, hip, budget hotels, centrally located in every city, with airy rooms, full CCTV monitored security, and front glass doors which auto-lock by midnight with access only by smart keys. It will appeal to both budget leisure and budget conscious corporate travellers.”
Each hotel will have an average of 180 to 200 rooms, though some of its existing Malaysian hotels have almost 300 rooms. And the F&B outlets will be farmed out to suitable vendors, be they a global chain or localised versions of “kopi tiams”.
Lankester, a colleague of AirAsia boss Fernandes at Warner Music before he was poached not long ago by his old buddy, says the rollout will be financed by a combination of borrowing and franchise arrangements.
“We will no doubt have to gear up,” he said. “But we will also leverage on existing properties where we will be operating the hotels in franchisee partnerships with the property owners.”
Lankester envisages the Tune hotel chain spreading to locations well beyond the 120 destinations which AirAsia flies to.
“We call them Tune Hotels, and not AirAsia Hotels, for good reason,” he said. “It gives us an option of growing beyond AirAsia.”
Never mind that its owners are the same people who control Asia’s largest budget airline.
And even as Tune picks up, Lankester and his buddies at AirAsia are already rolling out new products such as TuneTalk (mobile telephony cards) and TuneMoney (pre-topped up debit cards).
“TuneMoney, which is a tie-up with Visa cards, enables travellers to top up their debit card with the currency of their destination, thus saving them the hassle of doing forex transactions when they get there,” Lankester explained. “And with TuneTalk, we essentially tie up with local telephony service providers in various countries to enable our customers to use their mobile phones at local rates.”
Lankester envisions that just as AirAsia has established itself as the undisputed leader in low cost air travel, Tune will ultimately emerge as the undisputed leader in hospitality and travel facilitation.
And it appears to have made good headway so far.
Source : TMI
[tags : malaysiahotelnews hotels malaysia resorts news travel tourism travel tourism news]
That, in a nutshell, is the dream being spun into reality by Mark Lankester, the chief executive officer of Tune Hotels.
Controlled by Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia and its boss Tony Fernandes, Tune already operates seven hotels – five in Malaysia and two in Bali.
“We would have had twice that number if not for the financial crisis and the credit crunch,” Lankester told BT.
According to him, development plans are already underway to set up 64 Tune hotels in India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh. These hotels will be up and running by 2013, he added.
And it doesn’t stop there.
“With AirAsia X now flying to London and Australia, we have plans to launch 10 hotels in greater London, and as many in Melbourne and other Australian cities,” Lankester said.
Singapore, despite its high land costs, is also on Tune’s radar screen. So is China.
The hotels, where prices per night start at the equivalent of S$5 for a standard 12 square-metre room, are targeted at not just budget backpackers, but also budget conscious corporate travellers who want good, clean, secure rooms, with hot “power showers” and good quality bed and linen, Lankester said.
“We are not talking about cheap, sleazy hotels,” he said. “Our hotels are good class, hip, budget hotels, centrally located in every city, with airy rooms, full CCTV monitored security, and front glass doors which auto-lock by midnight with access only by smart keys. It will appeal to both budget leisure and budget conscious corporate travellers.”
Each hotel will have an average of 180 to 200 rooms, though some of its existing Malaysian hotels have almost 300 rooms. And the F&B outlets will be farmed out to suitable vendors, be they a global chain or localised versions of “kopi tiams”.
Lankester, a colleague of AirAsia boss Fernandes at Warner Music before he was poached not long ago by his old buddy, says the rollout will be financed by a combination of borrowing and franchise arrangements.
“We will no doubt have to gear up,” he said. “But we will also leverage on existing properties where we will be operating the hotels in franchisee partnerships with the property owners.”
Lankester envisages the Tune hotel chain spreading to locations well beyond the 120 destinations which AirAsia flies to.
“We call them Tune Hotels, and not AirAsia Hotels, for good reason,” he said. “It gives us an option of growing beyond AirAsia.”
Never mind that its owners are the same people who control Asia’s largest budget airline.
And even as Tune picks up, Lankester and his buddies at AirAsia are already rolling out new products such as TuneTalk (mobile telephony cards) and TuneMoney (pre-topped up debit cards).
“TuneMoney, which is a tie-up with Visa cards, enables travellers to top up their debit card with the currency of their destination, thus saving them the hassle of doing forex transactions when they get there,” Lankester explained. “And with TuneTalk, we essentially tie up with local telephony service providers in various countries to enable our customers to use their mobile phones at local rates.”
Lankester envisions that just as AirAsia has established itself as the undisputed leader in low cost air travel, Tune will ultimately emerge as the undisputed leader in hospitality and travel facilitation.
And it appears to have made good headway so far.
Source : TMI
[tags : malaysiahotelnews hotels malaysia resorts news travel tourism travel tourism news]
Monday, October 26, 2009
AirAsia says Q3 passenger traffic up 19pc
Local budget carrier AirAsia carried 19 per cent more passengers in the third quarter from a year earlier, the company said today.Southeast Asia’s largest low-cost airline by fleet size said it carried a total of 3.6 million passengers during the quarter.
The airline’s passenger carrying capacity, measured in available seat kilometres, expanded by 13 per cent after it took delivery of new aircraft.
Third-quarter seat load factor, or the percentage of total seats fill, was unchanged at 75 per cent from a year ago, it said.
AirAsia said these figures are preliminary and have not been reviewed by its auditors. — Reuters
Source : TMI
[tags : malaysiahotelnews hotels malaysia resorts news travel tourism travel tourism news]
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