FREE WI-FI reigns as the most desired hotel amenity, according to travellers polled by Hotels.com.

Trumping free parking and complimentary breakfasts, complimentary Wi-Fi is the most crucial factor in choosing a hotel even for leisure stays, said 34 per cent of respondents. Some 56 per cent rated it the number one must-have when on business trips, while 66 per cent want free Wi-Fi to become a standard at all hotels this year.

For modern amenities, 23 per cent said they would like in-room high-end coffee makers.

For simple amenities, 43 per cent chose free bottled water as the most welcome, though travellers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Brazil rated free power adaptors above water.

In food and beverage, 31 per cent of travellers want to see breakfast become a standard at all hotels, making it the favourite non-tech item.

Happy hours, wine tastings or any other time with free food and drinks is 42 per cent of global travellers’ favourite newly offered hotel service amenity.

Travellers voted the high-end fitness centre and/or spa (26 per cent) and designer toiletries (21 per cent) their first and second favourite amenities at luxury hotels respectively.

While 54 per cent of respondents said they would like to experience the complimentary use of a Rolls Royce Phantom as an “outrageous” luxury hotel amenity, 26 per cent and 24 per cent said they were not interested in the promotion of bath menus/bath butlers and turn down service respectively.

Survey results were based on responses from over 8,600 respondents from across 28 countries including Australia, China, France, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

ONLINE travel site TripAdvisor has compiled a list of the top attractions in Malaysia that have set the tongues of travellers around the world wagging.

Ranked according to the number of reviews posted on TripAdvisor based on global IP addresses between January 1 and December 31, 2012, here are Malaysia’s top 10 most popular attractions, according to consumers.

1. Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur

2. KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

3. Langkawi Cable Car, Kedah

4. Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Kuala Lumpur

5. Aquaria KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

6. Kek Lok Si, Penang

7. Islamic Arts Museum, Kuala Lumpur

8. Mount Kinabalu, Sabah

9. Semenggoh Nature Reserve, Sarawak

10. Pinang Peranakan Museum, Penang

THE prospects for business travel are looking up in 2013 with corporate spending expected to be greater, based on the latest report by Global Business Travel Association (GBTA).

According to the association, US business travel spending is expected to rise 4.6 per cent in 2013 to US$266.7 billion, despite a slight 1.1 per cent decline in trip volume to 431.8 million for the year.

Factors driving this growth are the forecasted rise in international outbound travel spending by 5.9 per cent and group travel spending by 5.2 per cent, as well as modest price inflation, meaning that companies will be spending more real dollars on business trips.

“Even with an agreement to avert the fiscal cliff in the near term, there are still many issues that need to be addressed; however, companies should now have somewhat greater confidence in their spending decisions,” said Michael W McCormick, GBTA executive director and COO.

“While companies will approach the first half of the year with some caution, pent-up demand to get back on the road should hopefully fuel accelerating growth in business travel spending through the end of 2013.”

Previously a strong driver of overall business travel spending growth, international outbound business travel grew just 0.7 per cent in 2012 as the eurozone impacted confidence and caused a ripple effect on the US and Asia.

Although the eurozone remains troubled, increasing industrial production and retail sales in China signal an improving economy for 2013. Among other factors, a stronger China will improve US export growth and help act as an engine for international outbound business travel, said the report.

After a very challenging year with group travel spending rising just 1.3 per cent in 2012, 2013 should bring a welcome turnaround to the group travel market as the broader economy recovers.

“The projections that we see for both international and group travel are encouraging,” McCormick said.  “Businesses will be looking to capitalise on growth opportunities abroad and spend more on in-person meetings and events as well.  By nature, meetings are longer-lead investments that require greater confidence in the future.”

ASIA-PACIFIC (APAC) hotels suffered a slight dip in occupancy but achieved modest increases in average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR) for November 2012, according to STR Global.

In year-over-year measurements, APAC’s occupancy ended the month down with a 1.1 per cent decrease to 72.1 per cent; ADR rose 2.5 per cent to US$132; and its RevPAR was up 1.4 per cent to US$95.

“For 11 months this year, the region achieved an almost flat occupancy growth of 0.6 per cent to 68.4 per cent”, said Elizabeth Winkle Randall, managing director of STR Global. “ADR performed very similarly, with a 0.9 per cent growth to US$129.25. The number of available rooms in the region increased only 2.9 per cent year-to-date, the lowest increase in supply over the past six years. Demand for hotel accommodation across the region continued to rise, growing 3.5 per cent year-to-date to more than 699 million rooms occupied year-to-date.

“Thailand reported a huge boost to its November results, bouncing back from the flood-impacted November performance last year”, Winkle commented. “Bangkok achieved 82.5 per cent occupancy, which is the first time since 2007 that the month of November reached more than 80 per cent occupancy”.

For November 2012, Bangkok also posted the largest increase in ADR, rising 38.1 per cent in ADR to US$100, followed by Taipei with an 18.4 per cent increase to US$209. Delhi reported the largest ADR decrease, falling 13.5 per cent to US$150.

At the same time, Bangkok jumped 100 per cent in RevPAR to US$82.7, achieving the largest growth in that metric, while Mumbai (-21.9 per cent to US$99.6) and Delhi (-18.6 per cent to US$103) ended the month with the largest RevPAR decreases.

INDONESIA’S Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy is optimistic that international tourist arrivals to the country in 2012 would exceed the target of eight million, as arrival figures for the January-November period rose 5.1 per cent year-on-year to reach 7.3 million.

Deputy minister of tourism and creative economy, Sapta Nirwandar, said: “With the exception of July 2012, month-on-month arrivals have been increasing. We expect the December performance, whose result will only be available at the end of this month, to also increase.

“Even if the number (for December 2012) is similar to December 2011, which was around 725,000, the target is already achieved.”

Indonesia would set new records with eight million arrivals and US$9 billion in revenue from tourism in 2012, Nirwandar pointed out.

The country recorded 7.6 million tourist arrivals and a total revenue of US$8.5 billion in 2011. For 2013, the ministry has set a goal of nine million arrivals.

Meanwhile, total tourist arrivals to Bali in 2012 have surpassed the targeted 2.8 million to reach 2.9 million, led by visitors from Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea, according to Bali Regional Tourism Office director Ida Bagus Kade Subhiksu in a report by Indonesian news agency Antara.

The regional government is expecting arrivals to Bali to increase to 3.1 million in 2013, based on the average arrival growth of between 10 and 12 per cent to the island in the last five years, Subhiksu revealed.

HALF of travel, leisure and transportation businesses were affected by fraud in the last one year, with internal financial fraud or theft being the most common type reported at 22 per cent.

According to the Kroll Advisory Solutions’ Global Fraud Report, travel and leisure companies were the most likely to report that an insider has been involved (88 per cent) and that senior management employees were involved (34 per cent).

Regulatory or compliance breach was the second common at 16 per cent, while information theft, loss or attack came in third at a slightly lower 14 per cent.

Despite a significant 52 per cent of businesses within the sector affected by fraud, travel, leisure and transportation maintained its position as the industry with the least fraud cases for the third consecutive year.

Of affected companies, 36 per cent cited IT complexity as the biggest factor for increased exposure to the crime.

Another key finding from the report is that outside of Africa, India and Indonesia had the highest number of companies touched by fraud of any region or country, across all sectors, at 68 and 65 per cent respectively.

Eight of the 10 frauds mentioned in the report were more prevalent in India than globally, while Indonesia posted the highest rate of information theft among all countries that participated in the survey at 35 per cent.

Carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit, 839 senior executives worldwide from a broad range of industries and functions were polled in July and August 2012. The survey covered Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East/Africa.

AIRLINE passengers want greater control of their journey and are looking for more self-service and mobile-based offerings during travel, according to the 2012 SITA/Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service Survey.

Based on responses from 2,526 international passengers passing through airports in Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Frankfurt, Atlanta, Mumbai and Sao Paulo, the survey found that 70 per cent of passengers now carry smartphones, which is fueling demand for services such as self-boarding and flight information updates via their mobile devices.

This year, websites were the most frequently used platform for check-in with 79 per cent of respondents using them regularly or occasionally. Kiosk usage also increased, with 77 per cent of passengers using them for check-in. Mobile check-ins grew by one third during this period, while 21 per cent of passengers used a mobile boarding pass.

Seventy per cent of respondents used a self-service channel to check-in on the day of the survey, up from 54 per cent last year.

Close to 90 per cent of passengers surveyed rated flight status updates on their mobile devices and self-boarding as their top self-service technologies, while 68 per cent picked automated bag drop as one of their top self-service offerings.

Sixty-five per cent of respondents said they would use flight status updates if offered via social media platforms, while 89 per cent would use them if offered via mobile devices.

Passengers surveyed also demonstrated a lack of enthusiasm for receiving service promotion or retail offers on their mobile phones, with just over half open to receiving advertising.

However, of those who were reluctant to receive advertising, 61 per cent said they would change their minds if airlines and airports personalised the messages, made them relevant and allowed passengers to control their delivery.

VISITOR arrivals to Hong Kong during the first three quarters of 2012 grew 16.3 per cent year-on-year to reach 35.4 million, based on the latest figures from the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB).

Of this number, 25.3 million were mainland Chinese visitors, a year-on-year increase of 24.2 per cent. The Individual Visit Scheme contributed 66.2 per cent or 16.8 million tourists, gaining 26.4 per cent from last year. The number of Shenzhen residents making visits with the multiple-entry visa hiked 58.8 per cent year-on-year to about seven million.

Among shorthaul markets, North Asia chalked up the best performance with 1.8 million arrivals, a year-on-year growth of 6.3 per cent. Over half (one million) of these visitors came from Japan – seven per cent more than last year – while the remaining 800,000-plus arrivals from South Korea represented growth of 5.4 per cent year-on-year.

From South-east Asia, arrivals reached almost 2.3 million, similar to last year’s figure, though the Philippines posted an encouraging 11.4 per cent boost in arrivals.

Overall longhaul overnight arrivals increased 4.2 per cent to more than 1.3 million. The UK contributed some 380,000 visitors (up 5.1 per cent), while arrivals from Russia displayed a marked increase of 48.9 per cent to 130,000.

HKTB expects to sustain the steady growth of arrivals in 4Q2012 to reach its target of 44 million visitors for the year.

INCIDENTS which result in an unnecessary waste of time, such as losing one’s luggage or having to deal with an unstable Internet connection, have the greatest propensity for causing stress to business travellers, according to a recent study by Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT).

Part of a wider CWT initiative to shed light on the hidden costs of business travel caused by travel-related stress, the study surveyed 6,000 business travellers from nine global companies to understand the factors that trigger stress during a typical business trip.

Respondents were asked to score 33 stress factors that occur at different stages of a journey (from booking through to transportation, hotel stay and expense report) based on their perceived intensity.

Source: Carlson Wagonlit Travel

CWT discovered that there were three main categories of stress: lost time, surprises (an unforeseen event such as lost or delayed baggage) and routine breakers (inability to maintain daily habits).

Business travellers were most stressed by losing time during their journey, with the highest triggers of stress being lost or delayed luggage, poor Internet connectivity, flying economy on a longhaul flight and flight delays.

The study also highlighted how different segments of business travellers perceive travel stress. For example, travel stress increases with age and travel frequency, while women report higher stress levels than men.

When faced with an unknown language, business travellers from North America indicated greater stress levels than those from other regions. More senior executives also reported higher stress levels than other travellers within the same organisation.

THE latest Hotels.com Hotel Price Index (HPI) has revealed that hotel room rates are soaring across most of Asia, as the region continues to recover from the disasters and crises of 2011.

During the first half of 2012, hotel room rates in Asia rose four per cent year-on-year to stand at 108 on the HPI. Even though this was 18 per cent lower than its high in 2008, the recovery hints that the industry is back on track as travel to and within the region returns.

Prices in Singapore climbed by just one per cent to S$232 (US$188) per night, but key rival Hong Kong experienced a 13 per cent surge to S$219, while rising business hubs such as Seoul (up 23 per cent to S$200), Jakarta (up 16 per cent to S$167), Kuala Lumpur (up seven per cent to S$141) and Shanghai (up five per cent to S$138) recorded impressive uptrends.

Elsewhere in China, prices had their ups and downs with Guangzhou up two per cent to S$105 and Beijing stuck on S$136 as rates remained flat. Hangzhou fell 12 per cent to S$124 and Shenzhen was down six per cent to S$98.

Macau climbed 12 per cent to S$193, while Taipei was up 10 per cent to S$152, thanks to growing demand from China and an improving hotel stock.

In Japan, Sapporo rose 24 per cent to reach S$147, Kyoto saw its average price rebound by 13 per cent to S$192 and Tokyo was up two per cent to S$189. However, Osaka registered a drop of seven per cent to S$149.

In Thailand, Krabi was up by 15 per cent to S$147, Phuket rose 10 per cent to S$161, Koh Samui increased nine per cent to S$260, but Chiang Mai dropped 20 per cent to S$94.

The Indonesian island of Bali saw a rise of 11 per cent to S$237 while, in Malaysia, Langkawi rose seven per cent to S$252 and Penang was up one per cent to S$133.

Elsewhere, Cambodia’s Siem Reap saw its average price fall nine per cent to S$107, while Phnom Penh dropped 25 per cent to a great value rate of S$82. In Hanoi, rates were down 26 per cent to S$92.

*The latest HPI reflects the actual prices paid by travellers from Singapore in Singapore Dollars (S$) during the first half of 2012 compared to prices paid in Singapore Dollars for the same period in 2011.