|
Colin Grant appointed executive chef at Centara Grand Mirage
Beach Resort Pattaya
Colin Grant.
Andre Brulhart, general manager of Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort
Pattaya, has announced the appointment of Colin Grant as executive chef.
Chef Colin is Scottish and has over 25 years of extensive international
experience in the hospitality industry, having worked in France, Canada,
Bermuda, Hong Kong, New Zealand, China, Fiji, Indonesia, Korea and Egypt.
Prior to joining Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort Pattaya, Chef Colin was
with Centara Hotels & Resorts as executive chef at Centara Grand at Central
Plaza Ladprao Bangkok for two years back in 2005, and most recently
executive chef at Sheraton Soma Bay Resort in Egypt for five years.
“It is a pleasure to be back to Thailand and working with the Centara family
once again,” says Colin. “Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort is an enormously
successful concept, and offers tremendous scope in cuisine with its exciting
dining outlets.”
Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort, located directly on the beach at Wong
Amat in North Pattaya, is the first truly themed hotel in Thailand, being
designed to a Lost World concept.
|
|
 |
Air Asia opens
South Pattaya office
Management, staff and local officials gather for
the grand opening of Air Asia’s customer service center at the Tesco-Lotus
mall in South Pattaya.
Thanachot Anuwan
Discount airline Air Asia opened an office in Pattaya, giving flyers
another way to book travel plans usually managed only online or via
telephone.
The customer service center at the Tesco-Lotus mall in South Pattaya is the
carrier’s 12th branch in Thailand. While some travel agents book tickets on
Air Asia, most of its business is handled through its website or over the
telephone.
Sales manager Nattapol Banphakan said the center is the first full-fledged
office on the Eastern Seaboard, which Air Asia considers a fast-growing
market. The airline previously operated a small booking counter at the
Tukcom shopping mall.
The airline, he said, hopes to increase services by launching flights at
U-Tapao-Pattaya International Airport.
A-One The Royal Cruise Hotel Pattaya announces the appointment
of public relations manager
Sunee Vaewmanee.
Somchai Ratanaopath, managing director of A-One The Royal Cruise Hotel
Pattaya, recently announced the appointment of Sunee Vaewmanee as a public
relations manager of hotel.
Sunee Vaewmanee graduated with a Masters Degree in Mass Communication from
Chulalongkorn University. She worked in media communication with many
companies before changing her career into the hotel business.
Sunee became a public relations manager at Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort
Pattaya in 2011. Her former job was a director of public relations in the
local property developer company in Pattaya.
“I truly feel delightful to get back to work in hotel environment again. I
will put my effort to make people know A-One better from now on,” Sunee said
about her new career.
‘Lost in Thailand’ film helping to drive Chinese tourist boom
Andrew J Wood,
Director of Worldwide Destinations Asia Co., Ltd.
What does mainland China’s highest grossing film of 2012 have to do with a
tourist boom in Thailand? The land of smiles - once the choice destination
for middle-aged male tourists, the Germans and the Japanese in the 1980s,
followed by Italians and Russians in subsequent decades, now has a new kid
on the block - Chinese mainland tourists.
Blame it on Lost in Thailand, a hit movie directed by Xu Zheng released in
late 2012 that charts the exploits of two bumbling Chinese businessmen and a
tourist in Thailand. Riding the popularity of the film, predictably
choc-a-bloc with Thai icons from lady-boys to Buddhist statues, Chinese
travel agencies were quick off the mark to offer tailored tours to key
locations featured in the movie, much of which was shot in Chiang Mai, in
time for the Lunar New Year holiday. Initial estimates number mainland
tourists visiting Thailand over the 2013 Lunar New Year at 270,000, which,
on an annualised basis, makes Chinese mainland tourists the single biggest
source of inbound tourism to Thailand.
Of course, there is more to the mainland tourist boom in Thailand than the
movie alone. Thanks to improving infrastructure and a stable government,
inbound tourism is booming. In 2012, tourists numbers reached a record 22.2
million, almost 15 percent up on 2011 despite flooding that paralysed most
of Bangkok in the end of 2011 and early 2012. By 2012, Chinese mainland
tourists to Thailand totaled 2.7 million, up 50 percent on 2011 and
representing the largest single source of inbound tourism to the country. A
key reason for the deluge has been the rapid growth of low-cost carriers
serving Bangkok as a regional hub, making travel to Thailand affordable to
many low-income travellers.
With Bangkok’s modern Suvarnabhumi Airport (code BKK) running above design
capacity for most of 2012, full resumption of operations at Bangkok’s older
Don Mueang airport (code DMK) in the third quarter opened up a lot of new
capacity for low-cost carriers. Another factor has been the improved
connectivity between China and Thailand, as part of Beijing’s “go west”
policy (designed to boost investment in inland provinces) with seven
mainland carriers now plying direct air routes to Thailand from large
mainland cities. Thailand has also made a smart move by offering mainland
tourists tourist visas immediately on arrival without any need to pre-apply.
Serendipity may have also played a role. Following the onset of
Sino-Japanese hostilities in late 2012, mainland visitors to Japan, which
had averaged 140,000 a month until then, dropped by almost 40 per cent in
October.
Thailand clearly has picked up some of the tourist flow from Japan.
Significantly, Thailand is one of the few Southeast Asian nations with whom
China does not have a territorial dispute in the South China Sea. Observers
also suggested that Thailand has started to attract a lot of middle-class
Chinese tourists who may normally visit Hainan Island or Vietnam, for the
traditional sea-and-sand holiday during the winter months. The Tourism
Authority of Thailand expects 3.3 million mainland visitors this year from a
total of 24.5 million tourists. The estimate may prove to be conservative
based on a 90 percent year-on-year rise in mainland arrivals to Thailand in
the first two months of 2013.
|
|
NiHao Magazine
launched in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai, March 22 - Access China Communications (ACC) Limited, is pleased
to announce the launch of NiHao, a new Chinese language travel magazine due
to roll off the press on August 8, 2013.
NiHao is the way Chinese people say hello, as is “Sawadee” in the Thai
language. The magazine will be Thailand’s only definitive Chinese language
travel and business guide promoting business investment and all tourism
related businesses in Thailand. Content will focus on hotels, spas,
shopping, golf, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues as well as
properties.
Distribution will target the rapidly increasing number of affluent Chinese
visitors to Thailand from Greater China (covering mainland China, Hong Kong,
and Macau, as well as Taiwan), estimated to exceed 4 million in 2013. It
will also reach overseas Chinese, visiting Thailand from Singapore, Malaysia
and Indonesia.
Published both in print and online (www.NihaoMagazine Online.com), it will
be the only magazine to provide a combination of print and digital platforms
to reach this affluent, exclusive audience. NiHao will be distributed
free-of-charge to all major cities in China and nationwide in Thailand. It
will reach thousands of top business executives, and elite, affluent, and
well-educated Chinese travelers who have a taste for travel, art, and
culture. Each edition will have a substantial number of copies of controlled
free circulation distributed in China and Thailand to embassies, selected
airline lounges, deluxe hotel business centers and guest rooms, exclusive
restaurants, top golf courses, national travel bureaus, major travel
organizations, and at major travel fairs and conferences.
The international editorial team of NiHao is headed by an award-winning
veteran publisher, Jaffee Yee, with more than 30 years of experience in
publishing. Yee was formerly based in Hong Kong as the regional manager of
McGraw-Hill and CBS International Publishing (a Division of CBS Inc. New
York). His first book, Thailand from the Air, with over 100 aerial
photographs taken by celebrated photographer Luca Tettoni Invernizzi, set a
benchmark and trend for future coffee-table book publishing in Thailand in
the 80s, and helped promote some of Thailand’s most beautiful and scenic
spots from north to south.
Access China Communications Limited is incorporated in Chiang Mai with
liaison offices in Bangkok and Chiang Rai. The core business activities are
publishing, marketing and public relations focusing on travel and tourism
covering China, Thailand and other Asean countries.
For further information, please contact: Jaffee Yee, Publisher &
Editor-in-Chief [email protected]
+66 (0) 81 922 9063 (English, Mandarin, Thai).
|
|
|
