Kuala Lumpur

Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh instructed his cabinet to relax certain visa requirements in a bid to attract more foreign tourists to the country. Bloomberg said Chinh wants to offer visa waivers to more countries, expand their e-Visa program and allow foreigners to stay for longer. Vietnam is targeting 8 million visitor arrivals in 2023. They attracted 18 […]

Hilton’s Asia Pacific president, Alan Watts, told Nikkei Asia that they expect hotel guest numbers in China to return to their pre-pandemic levels by year-end. By the fourth quarter, they are expecting to see regular 80% occupancies. Of the 7,000 hotels Hilton runs worldwide, Asia Pacific accounts for about 9% with 672 properties representing 12 brands. […]

Savills Vietnam issued a report saying despite improvements in 2022, occupancy and room rates in Ho Chi Minh City have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. The occupancy rate of 45% last year was 20 percentage points higher year on year but was still 23 percentage points less than the figure in 2019. The average room rate reached 1.6 […]

Hotels in Thailand still want the government to accelerate the launch of the new phase of the domestic stimulus scheme even with an influx of Chinese tourists expected to show up. The Thai Hotels Association said the “We Travel Together” hotel subsidy scheme provides integral support for hotels and domestic tourists in terms of spending but […]

Zero-Covid in China is definitely on life support as, despite a continuing steady stream of new cases, Beijing’s International Airport and Daxing Airport have dropped the requirement for a negative Covid-19 test result to enter their terminals. While some will say President Xi has blinked after the recent protests, financial markets around the world had the […]

Pan Pacific Hotels Group announced it will double its serviced suites portfolio in 2023 with openings in key gateway cities such as Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Nairobi. Its developments are under parent company UOL Group Limited. The Group’s latest wave of expansion will increase its global development portfolio by 50%, adding more than 4,000 keys by 2023. Parkroyal Suites Bangkoklaunched on […]

The supposed reopening trade for China stocks hit a speed bump as the realization set in with investors that Covid cases are not going down, in fact they continue to go up. For the sixth straight day, the number of new cases topped 20,000 with a new seven month high today of more than 26,000. Guangdong is once again […]

STR reported China hotel RevPAR for the week ended 11/5 was up 4.4% year over year. When compared to a similar week in 2019, RevPAR was down -44.7% which tells a better story of what is going on there. Year over year, absolute occupancy for this past week was 49.6% while the comp week in 2021 absolute occupancy […]

Bloomberg reported that hotel rooms in Singapore are now the most expensive in almost a decade as the city-state seeks to position itself as the tourism and business destination in Asia. The average hotel room rate in Singapore rose nearly 70% year on year in July to S$259, the highest since September 2021. Visitor arrivals continue to […]

STR reported China hotel RevPAR for the week ended August 20 was up 89.7% year over year, up against an easy -43.4%. When going against the week in 2019, China hotel RevPAR was down -21.5%. Absolute occupancy for the week was 64.6%, compared with only 38.1% in the year ago week. Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism said that […]

The Singapore government said indoor masks will no longer be mandatory from August 29 on and that masks will only be worn in medical facilities and on public transport. The bigger announcement is same-day visitors will no longer be required to be vaccinated when entering the country. Same-day visitors will just need to present a two […]

China reported 2,312 new Covid infections nationwide today, the first time in more than three months that cases topped 2,000 for three consecutive days. That was actually down a bit from Saturday’s 2,467 which was the highest since May. Protests and anger are exploding in places like in hotel resorts in Hainan and even in […]