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| TRAVEL & TOURISM |
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On the Road to Mandalay
Gardeners at the Governor’s Residence
hotel-Yangon.
Andrew J Wood
Mad dogs and Englishmen spring to mind, the famous song by Noel
Coward; however, instead of the mid-day sun we were greeted on the first of
our twelve-day journey with a tropical downpour with such velocity that it
sent everyone scurrying for cover and their umbrellas.
Today it was Yangon.
The rain was over in a flash and thankfully Eastern and Oriental hotels had
arranged to meet us at the airport and we were already safely ensconced
inside our luxurious and very new and very shiny black minivan with deep
upholstered arm chairs.
We were on a journey to Asia’s ‘hot ticket’ destination - Myanmar. Our trip
would take us north to Began and Mandalay.
We British still call Myanmar ‘Burma’ but this is politically incorrect. A
former British outpost the name Burma was made famous in the UK by the uncle
of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and the second cousin once removed
to HRH Queen Elizabeth. The uncle was Lord Mountbatten of Burma. Born Louis
Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten and affectionately called
‘Dickie’ by his family.
After the Second World War, Mountbatten served as the last viceroy (governor
of a country who rules as the representative of his monarch) of India from
March through August of 1947. He oversaw the creation of India and Pakistan.
During this time the title Lord Mountbatten of Burma was created; he also
served as Governor-General of India for a year, from 1947-1948.
The 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979) was one of the last of
Britain’s great war heroes, assassinated by the IRA in 1979.
We arrived at the Governor’s Residence after a 30 minute drive. A beautiful
5 star all teak colonial-era hotel. It is located in the Embassy Quarter
near the Shwedagon Pagoda in Dagon Township, Yangon (formerly Rangoon - the
ruling military junta changed its name from Rangoon to Yangon and Burma to
Myanmar in 1989).
The elegant teak mansion was built in 1920. The two-story building, as its
official name denotes, served as the official home of the governors of the
British Crown Colony of Burma.
The rooms are spacious and very well equipped. The floors are beautifully
polished (squeaky clean) teak and the room and bathrooms exquisite.
We started our evening with cocktails in the hotel’s aptly named Kipling bar
before heading off for a short trip to meet Sonny Aung Khin, owner of the
famous Padonmar Restaurant (means Lotus Flower). Billed as ‘Fine Dining
Myanmar & Thai Cuisine’ it was a real treat. An outstanding kitchen and
service to match (a team of 130), Sonny’s restaurant is set in a beautiful
house with extensive gardens and private rooms. A popular choice, the
restaurant was busy even at this wet/green time of year.
The meal was delicious, possibly the best Asian food I have had all year. We
tried the local red wine. A deep ruby, soft wine with Cabernet Sauvignon /
Merlot characteristics, quite excellent.
http://www.myanmar-restaurantpadonmar.com
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Samui operators create
reservation website
Andrew J Wood
Samui, Thailand: If you can’t beat them - join them, appears to
be the thinking of a tourism association on the resort island of Koh
Samui, who wish to develop their own hotel booking website.
“The new site will provide an additional option for those travellers
looking for a good deal on room rates, besides which it should increase
our hotel operators’ role in the market,” said Sittha Eckul, a member of
the Tourism Association of Koh Samui, who is in charge of developing its
website technology.
“We currently don’t have enough potential to compete with global players
like Agoda, but the site is considered an option. What do you think
would happen if we did nothing over the next 10 years? The more tourism
grows, the more money the global booking giants (OTA’s) earn outside of
the country,” he said, adding that local hotels had lost more than Bt3
billion to online booking sites over the past decade.
“It is unfair to allow such players to regulate the market at the
expense of the hotel owners who have invested a lot of money in
construction, he said. The collection of high commissions on the
existing sites slashes the hotels’ margins, denting the sector’s growth
in the long term.”
The Samui website initiative is in line with a concept used elsewhere.
Malibu, California, has developed its own online booking site offering
collective hotel rooms to travellers, with the aim of strengthening its
local tourism community and preventing exploitation from outside online
operators.
Sittha Eckul said that at present, the global sites charged commissions
of up to 25 percent to hotels, and sometimes even 40 percent during the
low season.
The Samui hotel operators’ site will be run by the association on a
non-profit basis. It will charge only 5 percent to operators, while
offering the same room rates as quoted by Agoda and Booking.com and
other international rivals.
The amount levied will then be returned to the community via a fund to
be spent on the island’s development. This will serve as a model for
other major tourism destinations in the country, if successful.
In the early stage, the website will be a platform for Samui hotels, of
which at present there are more than 500. The service will later extend
to hotels on nearby Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngan, which are also among the
top Thai destinations for international tourists.
The total number of hotels covered in the three islands will exceed
1,000, he said.
Tourism and Sports Minister Somsak Pureesrisak said the Samui initiative
was a good one, and added that he had a similar initiative in mind to
create a website that would be used as a model to help hotel operators
around the country.
He is in talks with the Information and Communications Technology
Ministry about creating such a model website.
In principle, Somsak said, the website would charge a commission of
between 7 and 10 percent to operators.
After covering management costs, up to half the amount levied would be
returned to local communities in the form of a fund. The ICT Ministry
has a budget to move forward with such a website’s development, he
added.
The minister was in Samui recently to preside over the official opening
of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting discussing the tourism
industry under the theme of “Impact of Trusted Traveller Programmes on
Tourism in the APEC Region”.
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Medical tourism expanding
Andrew J Wood
Medical tourism is a $40 billion market that’s expanding 25 percent a year,
according to the guidebook Patients Beyond Borders.
US patients can save 65-90 percent by seeking treatment in Thailand for
ailments ranging from a coronary artery bypass to rhinoplasty and sex
reassignment surgery. The average cost of a hip replacement in Thailand,
which has emerged as a “thrift” destination for orthopaedic and cardiac
surgery, is one-fourth of that in the US.
Thailand earned 31.12 billion baht ($995 million) from medical tourism last
year, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
Singapore and India are also major destinations for international patients.
Vishal Bali, group chief executive officer of Fortis Healthcare, a leading
chain of hospitals in India, commenting on Thailand’s success said, “Medical
tourism became a priority for Thailand who have taken the opportunity to
support this trend at the highest levels, because they felt there was an
economic upside in doing so.”
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Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort Pattaya announces the promotion of Executive Sous Chef
Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort, Pattaya recently
announced the promotion of Praput Pranich as Executive Sous Chef with
immediate effect.
Chef Praput Pranich.
Chef Praput graduated with a bachelor’s degree in
Social Science from Kasetsart University, Dusit Thani College majoring
in Kitchen and Restaurant Management, and achieved a certificate of
achievement on cross culture and wine from Vakschool, Ede-Wageningen,
Netherlands.
He has over 10 years of experience in kitchen and restaurant management
in Thailand, Netherlands and New Zealand, including stints in De
Bovenste Molen, Venio, Netherlands; Sukishi Inter Group, Bangkok; Summer
Set Park Sounplu Hotel, Bangkok; the Elephant Thai cuisine, New Zealand
and Wang Thai restaurant, New Zealand.
Prior to his promotion as executive sous chef, he was Chef de cuisine at
Oceans and Flames restaurant for 4 years.
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