The next two years will be a boom time for hotel management in Asia Pacific despite the economic turmoil, according to new studies and announcements. In other news, Air Canada is launching a budget carrier, and a Vietnamese airline gets fined for having an in-flight bikini dance. Those are some of the stories Tnooz is following for 10 August.
Choice Hotels Australasia to offer hotel management services. Down Under's largest hotel franchise group, Choice Hotels Australiasia, moves into hotel management by inviting franchisees to hand over the day to day operations to its new hotel operator partner Lancemore Group of Victoria.
The backstory: Launching next week, PhoCusWright’s Asia Pacific Online Travel Overview Fifth Edition: Hotels report will reveal strong double-digit gains in 2013 for the region's online leisure/unmanaged business travel market, when online hotel penetration will reach 22%" says TravelDailyNews. Mobile is a growth area, as Shangri La Hotel chain's mobile announcement and Starwood's Aloft Hotel's debut in South Korea proves.
India update
Star Alliance won't be accepting Air India into its fold, despite the airline's five-year effort to meet 87 joining requirements, because the airline is a basket case, with only three of its 300 routes covering costs.Star Alliance spurns Air India for good
The backstory: Axel Hilgers, the South Asia director of Lufthansa, which was mentoring Air India for induction into the Star Alliance, has devastatingly declared that Dubai is now the real hub of India, not Delhi.
Air Canada is launching a low-cost carrier
Next year, Canada's biggest carrier will debut a budget carrier. Airwise reports up to 20 Boeing 767s and 30 Airbus A319s will fly to tourist destinations in the southern U.S., such as Las Vegas.
Innovation from the giants of Web-based mail services
Microsoft formally launches Outlook.com, its replacement service for Hotmail which has gotten surprisingly rave reviews. Now's the time to sign-up for a free username, such as [email protected].
Meanwhile Google invites people to join its field trial its tool that adds to a user's search results any of their relevant Gmail messages. See our Tnooz story.
From the Department of Creative Marketing Efforts
Budget Vietnamese carrier VietJet Air has been slapped with a $960 fine by authorities for organizing an in-flight bikini show (video), reports Tuoi Tre News, via AviationWeek.
N.B. Image courtesy of Grand Hyatt Seoul, South Korea.