MARKETS - More Asian Women aged 18 to 35 Travelling Abroad

Asiatraveltips.com, 20 September 2007

Contiki Holidays, a leader in vacations for 18-35 year-olds, has found that more women than men are travelling around the world according to the number of tour bookings made in the first six months of this year.
Seven out of every ten tour bookings at the company were made by a female traveller, an increase of 10% when compared to the same period last year.
Travellers from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore made up the female majority, and of that number, close to 60% travelled as individuals.
Japanese and Korean women proved to be the most independent travellers of the four, embarking on various tours to Australia, Europe, New Zealand and North America.

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JAPAN - Midtown set to steal the scene

TTGasia.com, Jun 29 - Jul 5, 2007

Tokyo has a major new tourist area following the completion of a massive urban redevelopment project.Tokyo Midtown covers 10 hectares and includes the city’s tallest skyscraper, a luxury hotel, two new museums and scores of shops and restaurants. It is less than a kilometre from the popular Roppongi Hills area.The capital’s first Ritz-Carlton property occupies the top nine levels of the development’s highest building, with a total of 248 rooms beginning on the 45th floor. Its presidential suite is said to be the most expensive in Japan at US$20,000 a night. Introductory rates for standard rooms start at about US$473.

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REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS - Asian giants team up to lure visitors

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, 06/26/2007

Japan plans to join forces with the Chinese and South Korean governments to attract more tourists from the United States and Europe, sources said Monday.
Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, minister of land, infrastructure and transport who is also in charge of promoting tourism, will meet his counterparts from Beijing and Seoul on Tuesday in Qingdao, China.
Under the expected agreement, the three governments will encourage Western travel agencies to organize tours to all three nations, taking advantage of international events, such as the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

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AUSTRALIA - Don’t give up on Japan

eTN, 11-6-2007

Amid the continuing underperformance from Japanese tourists, Australia’s tourism industry should remain committed to this market, the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) said Wednesday.
The ATEC was responding to the latest figures from Tourism Research Australia, which showed that Japanese tourist numbers fell 7.7 percent to 582,000 in the year ended March 2007. The figures also revealed that Japanese visitors’ expenditure in Australia also fell nine percent to just over $1 billion, but on a slightly brighter note, nights were up 3.8 percent to 10.9 million as visitors stayed an average additional two nights.

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ENVIRONMENT - Rising Number of Vehicles Feed Deadly air Pollution in Asian Cities

eTN, 14-12-2006

With 600,000 people in Asia dying prematurely from air pollution each year, the continent’s major cities face a key challenge in reducing the daunting figure, according to a new United Nations-backed report: although vehicle emissions are being reduced, the volume of vehicles is rising rapidly.

The UN - study, Urban Air Pollution in Asia Cities, released ahead of the first
governmental meeting on urban air quality opening today in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, reports that while air quality has improved in some, pollution remains a threat to health and quality of life in others. Asia’s growth in population, urbanization, motorization and energy consumption remain major challenges.

One of its key findings is that concentrations of the fine particulate matter PM10, one of the main threats to health and life is, “serious” in Beijing, Dhaka, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Kathmandu, Kolkata, New Delhi, and Shanghai.

“There is as strong an association between fine particulate matter and health issues in Asia as there is in Europe and the United States, but in Asia the concentrations of particulates are much higher,” the study’s lead author Dieter Schwela said.

But the report, focusing on 22 cities, also finds that Bangkok, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo have an “excellent” capacity to manage air quality. Beijing, Busan and New Delhi are rated as having “good” air quality management capability. All these cities have achieved major reductions in key emissions but still need to address fine particulate pollution from vehicle fumes.

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