Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2020 - January 2021 i Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Edition

THE HARI HONG KONG TO OPEN BY THE END OF 2020 HONG KONG-based Harilela Group’s new hotel, The Hari Hong Kong, is set to open its doors by the end of 2020. Located in the city’s Wan Chai district, the brand-new hotel has 210 guestrooms including three signature rooftop suites designed by Tara Bernerd. The hotel aims to “serve as the community’s living room” with a variety of social spaces including a lobby lounge for guests; Zoku, a Japanese restaurant and terrace bar; and Lucciola, an Italian restaurant. thehari.com THAI AIRWAYS OPENS PLANE-THEMED RESTAURANT THAI AIRWAYS has transformed a former staff cafeteria at its headquarters in Bangkok into a plane-themed restaurant for flying enthusiasts missing the travel experience. The restaurant seeks to re-create the in-flight experience. Diners enter and exit…

There are many reasons people aren’t flying at the moment. Lockdowns and quarantines make it either difficult or close to impossible to get to many destinations, and airlines – and the travel industry as a whole – haven’t had much luck so far in persuading governments to relax these restrictions. It’s not all bad news: China, for example, saw domestic flights push past pre-Covid levels ahead of its National Day public holiday in October, according to aviation analytics company Cirium – although much of this was leisure travel. From ramping up cleaning to handing out hygiene kits, airlines are exploring ways to lure passengers back Meanwhile, airlines have been using this period to introduce new protocols to reassure passengers that when travel does return, they can travel safely. From ramping…

We at Business Traveller Asia-Pacific frequently give our assessment of airlines and hotels, but our thousands of readers are the real experts. This year, our hugely anticipated results for the 29th Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Awards were announced on our website businesstraveller.com, rather than at a lavish luncheon. Our readers voted for their favourite airlines, hotels and airports during a time when travel was brought to a near standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic. In the past few months, airlines, hotels and airports have adopted a range of new health and safety measures, as well as flexible travelling policies, in an effort to adapt to the “new normal”, in the process creating a completely different travel experience. Although there wasn’t much travelling this year, the results reveal which companies brought our…

What a challenge it was adapting to lockdown, not least in terms of education. My children are grown up so they didn’t need any help, but I found myself on a steep learning curve because the new world order of shared duties means education starts at home. My first lesson was mastering the vacuum cleaner, of which the less said, the better. The second was how to make the bed with elastic cornered sheets that have shrunk (how was I to know that there were different temperature settings on the washing machine?). At least I didn’t need to participate in any exercise videos; vacuuming and bed changing were arduous enough. DRAWN FROM EXPERIENCE So it was an experience in terms of both home economics and home ergonomics. And then there…

BACKGROUND This is the first Hyatt Centric-branded property in the Greater China region, and the second in Asia (the first is in Japan). It was formerly known as Hotel Vic on the Harbour, but was rebranded last year. Hyatt describes the Hyatt Centric portfolio as an upper-upscale lifestyle hotel brand. WHERE IS IT? The hotel is located in North Point on Hong Kong Island. It is part of a mixed-used development which also includes a shopping mall, and is just steps away from the North Point Ferry Pier and MTR station, from where the rest of the city is easily accessible. WHAT’S IT LIKE? The hotel is split between the East and West towers. The entrance has a stylish seating area with a large, glass ceiling that lets lots of…

BACKGROUND Open since 1863, this Leading Hotels of the World member has been owned by the Bertazzoni family for three generations and has welcomed guests ranging from Hemingway and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to composer Giuseppe Verdi and opera singer Maria Callas. WHERE IS IT? On Via Manzoni in the centre of the city, about a five-minute walk from the financial district and a short stroll from La Scala opera house, the Duomo and the fashion area. It’s an excellent location whether you are in Milan for business or leisure, or a bit of both. WHAT’S IT LIKE? Designed in the style of a grand palazzo, the property, like many of Milan’s extravagant and luxurious houses, has an unassuming façade. Once inside, it is elegant grandeur all the…

As 2020 draws to a close, working from home continues to dominate our professional lives but cabin fever is starting to set in for some. Research by Accor has found that 41 per cent of people in the UK feel that their work-life balance has worsened, while 22 per cent feel less productive owing to distractions. So how about a change of scenery? Hotels have lots of empty rooms and are marketing them as clean and safe workspaces that can be rented by the day, week or month. Embracing the “work from anywhere” trend, they are hoping that vacant rooms will be filled, while workers will get the peace and quiet they need alongside access to hotel facilities. Here are some flexible “work from hotel” programmes operating in the UK…

ABOVE AND BEYOND I wanted to drop you a line having just devoured the [September-October 2020 UK] magazine, thank you for that. We travelled to France as soon as the Foreign Office lifted restrictions and travelled back via train from Angoulême and with British Airways from Paris Charles de Gaulle on a redemption flight. We went out from London Stansted on Ryanair, but its return price went from £26 (US$34) to £200 (US$260) in three days so we opted to come home for £1 (US$1.3) and some Avios on BA. Arriving at Angoulême rail station with plenty of time to spare for a direct train to CDG, we faced a delay owing to abandoned luggage at Bordeaux station. As time ticked by, it became clear that we would miss our…

A small but growing number of airlines have begun offering free cover for Covid-19-related expenses in a bid to boost confidence in travel. Emirates was the first, in July announcing that it would provide free global cover for Covid-19 health and quarantine expenses for passengers flying to any of its destinations. The airline said that travellers diagnosed with the disease during their travel within 31 days of taking their first flight would be covered for up to €150,000 (US$177,000), including quarantine costs of up to €100 (US$118) per day for 14 days. (The cover ends once the passenger has returned to the point of origin.) Adam Li, Emirates’ vice president for China, said the carrier had received positive feedback about the cover from travellers and the industry at large and…

For sales meetings or pitching, face-to-face is preferable to remote Business travel reduced because of more videoconferencing Experience of using remote options means I wilI look at travelling less Majority of deals and decisions can be made virtually Most meetings are more efficient and concise when run remotely Would shake hands in a meeting…

There are many tribes in travel, so let’s distinguish between just two of them. First, there are business travellers. Let’s assume that’s you. Second, there are others who look like you, but aren’t. They are frequent travellers, too – maybe even more frequent than you – but they travel not because they have to but because they want to. Many of them aren’t actually business travellers, but instead they make it their business to travel. So who are they? And why has the Covid-19 crisis been so tough on them? ‘For eight long months, Points Addicts have been grounded, abandoned and unloved’ Well, to identify them at their most glamorous, think of the George Clooney film Up in The Air. It’s not quite accurate, because Clooney character had to travel…

BACKGROUND The Mandrake opened in September 2017 and is owned by Rami Fustok. It reopened on July 4 and I stayed a couple of weeks later. Covid-19 precautions were in place. WHERE IS IT? On Newman Street in Fitzrovia, north of Oxford Street and about a five-minute walk from Tottenham Court Road Tube station. It is a quiet street for such a central location. WHAT’S IT LIKE? Very discreet – if you didn’t know the address, you’d struggle to guess that there was a boutique hotel behind the façade of what must once have been a mansion block apartment building. The hotel’s restaurant (closed at the time but since reopened) has its own entrance, and you exited the building via this door to ensure one-way traffic. I was subjected to…

With the profound changes that the past year has brought, you would have been forgiven for thinking that we would never get back to normal. The evidence for a lasting shift in behaviour affecting most aspects of our lives is all around us, and, certainly when it comes to travel, all of the predictions are that it will be many years, if ever, before we return to our pre-pandemic habits. What these headlines obscure, however, is the need for the world to keep trading, and for that trade to be a matter of meeting face-to-face. During July and August, we conducted a survey as part of a wider Future of Business Travel report produced in partnership with travel trend forecasting agency Globetrender (globetrender.com) and American Express Global Business Travel. The…

Before Covid-19 brought almost all travel to a halt, we had a look at the latest in hotel development in New York City: recent openings, renovations, and future arrivals planned for the Big Apple. Welcoming more than 60 million domestic and international visitors per year in normal times, the city was on track to add 20,000 further hotel rooms, taking total inventory close to 140,000 by the end of next year. The future is uncertain as New York deals with the devastating impact of the pandemic. We’re sharing the overview written at the time below, without estimates of opening dates for new arrivals, in the hope that it can perhaps provide some inspiration for when it will be possible to travel again. Note that some properties may be temporarily closed…

1 THE DOME OF LIGHT Your exploration of Kaohsiung’s scenic points of interest begins within one of the city’s main metro stations. This may sound bizarre, but inside Formosa Boulevard Station, the transfer station for the Red and Orange lines, the main concourse is roofed by a 660 sqm dome constructed from 4,500 individual pieces of stained glass – the world’s largest such public art installation. Supported by massive coloured pillars, it was created by Italian-born American artist Narcissus Quagliata, and took nearly four years to complete. A kaleidoscopic panorama that stretches like a vast umbrella over commuters’ heads, the dome contains four themes – Water: the womb of life; Earth: prosperity and growth; Light: the creative spirit; and Fire: destruction and rebirth – meant to bring a message…

Of the many industries hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, aviation has taken a particularly big knock. At the height of lockdown in April, flights were down by 94 per cent across the world compared with April 2019. Thousands of airline jobs have been lost, huge bailouts have been granted by governments, and low demand will persist for some time as travel restrictions and social distancing combine with passengers’ reluctance to board planes and get cosy with strangers. We might wonder when air travel will get back to normal. But given that the impending climate emergency has not gone away, perhaps the better question is whether it should it get back to normal at all. FUEL TO THE FIRE First, back to basics. The lifeblood of aviation and the main source…

BACKGROUND The Ascott Limited’s aparthotel brand, Citadines is a hybrid hotel and serviced apartment concept offering larger rooms than standard hotels, with fully equipped kitchens, but without restaurants and aimed at longer-stay guests. Open since September, this new Islington property is the fifth in the capital for the brand, and is due to be followed next year by Citadines Wembley London. WHERE IS IT? On Islington Square, a new development just off Upper Street that is based around the Grade II-listed former sorting office and yards. There are private apartments, shops, offices, a cinema, and a Third Space gym. The traffic-free Esther Anne Place runs through it, between Theberton and Almeida streets. Angel underground station is a ten-minute walk. WHAT’S IT LIKE? The building has an Edwardian red-brick façade and…