Asia/Pacific Briefs: Asia/Pacific Hotel Occupancy Down, Rates Way Up

Average daily hotel room rates throughout Asia and the Pacific continue to run far higher than they did one year ago, despite occupancy declines throughout the area, according to new research from Smith Travel Research and STR Global. Across the continent, average occupancy levels dropped 5.1 percent to 66.4 percent in the first eight months of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007, but room rates rose more than 17 percent to $142. "We see a trend of declining occupancies and growing room rates across the world," said STR Global managing director James Chappell. "The worldwide economic slowdown has started to take its toll on the hospitality industry." Asia/Pacific led every global region in ADR growth and occupancy decline.

Virgin Atlantic COO Strambi To Join Qantas
Virgin Atlantic COO Lyell Strambi in December plans to join Qantas in a newly formed position of executive general manager of operations, Qantas said last month. Strambi plans to relocate to Sydney to take responsibility for "engineering, pilots, airports, catering and flight training," Qantas said. Strambi has been COO of Virgin Atlantic for six years. The announcement comes as Qantas readies for Alan Joyce, currently CEO of its Jetstar subsidiary, to take over as CEO in November upon Geoff Dixon's retirement. Qantas said Dixon would stay as a consultant until March 31, 2009, and John Borghetti will remain as executive general manager, overseeing sales, marketing, scheduling and route network. Meanwhile, Jetstar will gain its new CEO, Bruce Buchanan, this month.

Singapore, Japan Expand Air Service Pact
The governmental aviation authorities of Japan and Singapore expanded an agreement last month to significantly increase passenger air service between the countries and allow Singapore-based carriers to operate flights beyond Osaka and Nagoya to the United States. The broadened agreement also will allow Singapore service to Tokyo's Narita and Haneda airports to increase in 2010 and allow Japanese carriers to operate flights beyond Singapore to India and the Middle East. Eight airlines operate 288 weekly scheduled flights between Singapore and nine cities in Japan, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.

InterContinental Adds To Asian Pipeline
InterContinental Hotels Group recently announced several new builds throughout Asia, planning to open the InterContinental Wuhan and Holiday Inn Wuhan New City, each located at the Wuhan New City International Expo Centre in China, in 2012; its first Holiday Inn in Vietnam in Hanoi in 2012; and two resort properties in South Korea in 2009. The properties in total will have more than 2,500 rooms.