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Amari Airport Hotel announces appointment of new executive assistant manager
Robert Jaermann, GM of the Amari Airport Hotel announces
the promotion of Joerg Malloth to executive assistant manager.
 Joerg
Malloth
Malloth, a Swiss National and graduate of the Zurich Hotel School, has
been working at Amari Airport Hotel as assistant manager F&B and has
previous work experience with Swiss UBS bank, travel agencies such as TUI
Suisse, Kuoni Travel Ltd. Switzerland and Down Under Travel Ltd, Switzerland
as well as with the Arabella Sheraton Hotel & Resort, Davos and the One
& Only Royal Mirage, Dubai.
Thailand hopes to attract more tourists next year
Thailand hopes to attract more than 13 million foreign
tourists next year from its target markets. The Tourism Authority of
Thailand (TAT) expects these foreign tourists to come from 13 key markets,
according to senior TAT manager Pornsiri Manoharn. Thailand is on track to
reach its target of 12 million visitors this year, she said. This represents
a 15 percent increase over last year’s arrivals.
With TAT’s new strategy to promote Thailand as a
holiday destination and the opening of new attractions, the organization is
confident of attracting more than 13 million visitors next year.
Over the past five months of this year, the number of
tourist arrivals in Thailand by plane has actually increased by 25 percent.
This is likely to rise even more by the end of the year, as there is already
a large number of tourist charter flights from Europe scheduled to fly to
Thailand. The successful operation of local and regional low-cost airlines
is also expected to add to the number of foreign tourist arrivals in
Thailand.
Thailand’s main tourist markets are China, Malaysia,
Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, France, the United States,
Australia, Sweden, Hong Kong and Taiwan. More recently, smaller markets,
like Vietnam, Russia and the Middle East, have been growing steadily.
Thailand’s tourism industry earned more than 360
billion baht last year in foreign exchange. (TNA)
Regional visitor arrivals shoot up
Early 2004 statistics for international visitor arrivals
(IVAs) to 30 Asia Pacific destinations show 21 percent growth, the Pacific
Asia Travel Association (PATA) Strategic Intelligence Center (SIC) revealed.
While these are only preliminary results reflecting the
first months of 2004, managing director-SIC, John Koldowski, said signs were
positive. “The PATA region is on track for IVA growth of more than 15
percent for calendar year 2004 compared to calendar year 2003,” he said.
A direct comparison of each destination’s year-to-date
IVAs with those for the same reporting period in 2003 showed that, in total,
the 30 destinations welcomed an additional 15.3 million IVAs in early 2004.
Comparing IVAs in 2004 with 2003 is not ideal due to the
effects of the SARS outbreak, said Koldowski. “However, the good news is
that the destinations that were most directly affected by SARS last year are
collectively well ahead in volume terms in 2004,” he said. “This is
largely due to the dramatic increases in flows to and from mainland
China.” (TTG Asia)
Bangkok Marriott Resort & Spa appoints new assistant director of food & beverage
 Jonathan Wigley, general manager of Bangkok Marriott
Resort & Spa has appointed Ms. Rangsiya Suebpong as the new assistant
director of food & beverage at the Bangkok Marriott Resort & Spa.
Rangsiya
Suebpong
Rangsiya has a wealth of experience in food &
beverage with many years in the hotel industry. Before joining Bangkok
Marriott Resort & Spa she rose through the ranks at various properties
including the Cape Panwa Sheraton Hotel in Phuket, Sheraton Grande Laguna
Beach Resort in Phuket, Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Bangkok, and JW Marriott
Hotel Bangkok.
Global air traffic up 20 percent
World air passenger traffic rose 20 percent in the first
half of this year as travel recovered from the effects of the SARS virus and
the invasion of Iraq, recent official figures showed. Issuing the figures,
the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA) said the
outlook for the rest of 2004 was also good, forecasting double-digit growth
in international air passenger traffic for the year as whole.
While oil prices remained a risk, cost controls
introduced by the airlines in the wake of the long travel downturn meant
that the industry could achieve break-even or better by the end of the year,
IATA said.
“International passenger traffic growth in the first
half of 2004 substantially exceeded our expectations,” IATA
Director-General Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement. “If current
growth trends prevail, and barring any unforeseen event, we could end the
year with double-digit growth, surpassing our March expectation of 7.5
percent for the year,” he added.
Passenger traffic was 20.4 percent higher in the
January-to-June period compared with a year earlier, while cargo traffic was
13 percent higher, IATA said.
Traffic in the six-month period was up by 35 percent in
the key Asia-Pacific region, by 20.1 percent in North America, which covers
the huge US air travel market, and by 12.8 percent in Europe. The smaller
Middle East region was up 44.3 percent.
For the month of June alone, overall global passenger
traffic was 25.5 percent higher year-on-year. An almost 70 percent rebound
was registered in Asia-Pacific, 21.2 percent in North America, 12.5 percent
in Europe, and 36.7 percent in the Middle East.
The 2004 average first-half passenger load factor reached
73 percent, 1.4 points above the level seen in 2000 before the travel
industry downturn from 2001. “If airlines can maintain strict control on
their costs and capacity, the strong traffic recovery for this year could
see the industry break even or better,” Bisignani said.
Suvarnabhumi Airport
to open on schedule
Bangkok’s new international airport will open on
schedule in September next year despite concerns over the rising cost of
fuel, the chairman of the New Bangkok International Airport Company (NBIA)
confirmed.
Speaking after an NBIA board meeting, Srisook Chandrangsu
said that progress on the airport’s construction was now 70 percent
complete, and that all building work would be finished by March 31, 2005,
with the airport opening its doors to passengers on schedule on September
28, 2005.
While conceding that some of the construction work had
run into delays, these delays were only minor glitches, he said. He also
dismissed suggestions that rising fuel prices could adversely affect
construction work, noting that various signed contracts had committed the
contractors involved to completing the building.
Once construction is completed in March next year, a
number of test-runs will be carried out at the new airport, which will
replace the Don Muang Airport as Thailand’s main international airport.
Once the Suvarnabhumi Airport is in full operation, the
Don Muang Airport will be modified to act as an aircraft maintenance centre
and Air Force training ground .(TNA)
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