Centara: 2 new hotels

in southern Thailand

I hear that the Thailand-based Centara Hotels & Resorts has taken on the management of two more hotels in Thailand: the Bhundhari Spa Resort & Villas Samui, A Centara Resort, on Ko Samui, and Centara Pariya Resort & Villas on Koh Pha Ngan – famous (or is that infamous) for the backpackers’ full moon parties. This must mean Ko Pha Ngan has entered the mainstream. It has always interested me how backpackers pioneer destinations and lay the foundation for mainstream tourism. That’s a whole debate right there but if I am to get this post published I have to move on.

The Bhundari Spa Resort has an introductory offer on at the moment for bookings made by 10 May 2009 with prices from THB 2,950 (Currency Converter) – that’s around £56: worth looking at if you can get this rate for the July/August peak.

New Flights Kuala Lumpur to Phuket

Firefly, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines, will launch a daily flight between Kuala Lumpur (Subang) and Phuket from 01 May 2009.

The airline operates out of Penang and flies to Kuantan, Kuala Terengganu, Kota Bharu and Langkawi in Malaysia, and Koh Samui and Phuket in Thailand.

I remember being cheesed off when Thai Airways withdrew their flight that used to operate between Phuket and Penang: it made a great combination for clients. It is good that Firefly has been on that route since April 2007 and now with this new one it is possible to have some interesting local combos: e.g. Singapore/Penang/Phuket/Kuala Lumpur.

New from Tiger Airways

- Singapore/Langkawi and Singapore/Penang

Following on from news that AirAsia will be flying between Singapore and Langkawi (at time of writing I am still awaiting the schedule), Tiger Airways announced this week that the Governments of Singapore and Malaysia have given approval for the low-cost carrier to commence daily services to Langkawi and up to 3 services a day to Penang from Singapore.

Rosalynn Tay, Managing Director of Tiger Airways Singapore, said “Tiger Airways continues to buck the global aviation trend. Over the last four months we have added 7 routes to our group network including daily flights to Kota Kinabalu and Kuching, a new daily service between Singapore and Jakarta, more services on the ever popular Singapore – Kuala Lumpur route, as well as 4 extra flights a week to Guangzhou bringing the total number of weekly services to 11.” The airline has yet to announce the flight schedule to Langkawi and Penang.

Good news for the islands of Penang and Langkawi, and for the independent-minded traveller, but I do wonder where all the passengers are going to come from.

Independent Travellers Buck The Trend?

I drop into forums when I can and help out where I can and I have noticed that, whatever might be happening in the travel industry as a whole, the independent-minded traveller is still planning and still taking the annual (if not more often) vacation. Is it just my imagination or are those that are clued-up making the most of the cheap Asia travel?