Anime, otaku, Love Plus, Atami, augmented reality

I am feeling increasingly redundant these days. First, bloggers took away my livelihood – now, everyone can write. Second, Twitter took away the need for breaking news – now, everyone can report from the trenches. Third, TripAdvisor took away my job of travel writing – now, everyone is a reviewer.

And just when I have just about reinvented myself into a mashup “I can do everything” kind of person, along comes news that I could be replaced as a travel companion for men.

A new dating sim or simulation game called 'Love Plus' allows men to bring virtual girlfriends with them on holidays. The game, that is played on handheld Nintendo DS consoles and has “augmented reality” application for iPhones, is apparently very popular with Japanese men.

Seems they’re all heading down to a beach resort called Atami where they go straight for a bronze statue of a couple from an old love story set in the town.

“The focus of the men’s attention – and of their smartphone cameras – was a tiny black and white square, a two-dimensional barcode that, thanks to AR software, brought to life the object of their desire,” said the report.

Virtual girlfriends are nothing new in Japan, the land of the wackiest trends. The creator of Love Plus, Konami Digital Entertainment, has “long thrilled young men obsessed with high-tech, manga and anime, known as “otaku”, by letting them chase virtual girls in the alternate universe of their digital dreams”.

But now they are taking these virtual girls on the road. They have selected 13 romantic locations in Atami which can be overlaid with images of these virtual girls. (I can hear the sound of destinations in Asia queuing up to see how they can cash in on this trend already.)

According to the Konami spokesperson, Kunio Ishihara, Love Plus is an open-ended communication game with basic voice recognition and a screen clock that keeps real time to make players feel like they are really sharing them with a girlfriend.

“That means that the girl can get moody when neglected by a player who is not sufficiently committed or she demands attention when she feels unwell.”

The difference is, “Love Plus is fun because the relationship continues forever.”

Now how can any girl compete with that?

Those of us who have travelled with non-virtual lovers/partners know that even the best of relationships can be broken on the road.

How does he pack? If he’s too organized, could he have OCD? If he’s too sloppy, is he a PIG?

How does he tip? If he is over-generous, is he a show-off? If he tips too little, is he a meanie, meaning he’ll be mean with gifts and love?

How does he treat service staff? If he is over-obsequious, could it mean he is insecure? If he is over-rude, does it mean he’s a PIG?

Virtual girlfriends would never have such doubts. I think I’ll go reinvent myself as a mashup “otaku”.

			Wanderlust, Loh Lik Peng, New Majestic, Hotel 1929

You could be forgiven for thinking you have walked into a music store. Or is it a funky bar with its eclectic furniture? Or a Peranakan-themed French restaurant? Whatever it is, it’s hard to put Loh Lik Peng’s newest hotel in Singapore, Wanderlust, into any box.

Which is how the hotelier, now with five hotels to his name, wants it. “I thought design hotels were taking themselves too seriously, so I wanted to make this one fun and whimsical,” said Loh, who started his foray into hotels with Hotel 1929 in Chinatown, followed by New Majestic. Wanderlust is his third in the city.

Facing the reception desk is a giant sign that reads, “Giant surface music falling to earth like jewels from the sky”. That’s the title of the debut album from the Portland-based space-drone quartet Yume Bitsu.

Like all his other hotels – this year, he also opened Waterhouse in Shanghai and Town Hall in London – Wanderlust is a conversion. The shophouse sits on Dickson Road, at the edge of Little India, which has seen a boom in budget hotels lately.

When the taxi driver dropped me off, she asked me if I was going to a Peranakan restaurant. The exterior of the building  is decorated with Straits Chinese motifs. I said, “French.”

She laughed, “French in Little India? Crazy.”

The lobby is a little crazy. There’s a wall that’s covered with colourful pop art. There’s a pool table in the middle of the lounge area. Two dentist chairs take centrestage – these are Loh’s signature, he collects them as he does other things which are all displayed in the hotel. It’s a great lobby to spend time in because there are plenty of things to catch the eye.

He gave each floor of the hotel to different local designers to do their thing. His only brief was, make it fun and whimsical.

The lobby level, themed Industrial Glam, is by Asylum. Level 2, called Eccentricity, is by :phunk Studio. Lots of neon lights and colour here, it has the smallest rooms. I was shown the Purple Haze room in honour of Jimi Hendrix. I can imagine singing, “'Scuse me while I kiss the sky”, in my sleep.

Level 3 by DP Architects, themed “is it Black and White”, features Pop-Art works and Origami. The origami rooms, which play on folds, are the most feminine of the lot.

Level 4 is all about “Creature Comforts” by fFurious and the loft rooms are designed to fulfill fantasies. I like the “Tree Monster” room because the ceiling is covered with brown and green leaves and made me feel like I was Little Red Riding Hood without the big bad wolf in tow. There’s also one called “Rusty Typewriter” – there’s a themed sofa that made me feel like I could dance on the keys.

Loh’s favourite is the “Space Room” – it’s got red space ships in it, and the ceiling ha twinkling lights to help you dream of space as you sleep. “It’s for the inner child in me,” the former lawyer-turned-hotelier said.

Its French restaurant, Cocotte, is already getting rave reviews in local blogs. The food is rustic and unpretentious, the setting communal and friendly. The homemade Croque Monsieur was sinfully good, by the way.

At 29 rooms, Wanderlust brings Loh’s total room count in Singapore to a grand 91. “I’d rather do lots of small hotels than a few big ones. I love converting old buildings and creating hotels with character.”

The economics of this third one however is very different from when he first developed Hotel 1929. He got that building for a song. That will never happen again, he said. “The largest limiting factor is cost of land. If you’re rational about it, you wouldn’t do it.”

The higher cost of land, coupled with high construction costs which kept creeping up because it was being built at the same time as the two Integrated Resorts, meant Wanderlust cost “way, way more” than either New Majestic or Hotel 1929. “We cannot afford to make mistakes on this project; that’s why you need to make mistakes on smaller projects,” he said.

More hotels also give him some economies of scale. In his hotels, food & beverage play a large part in positioning them with the local community. Each of his hotels are known for their signature restaurants – Hotel 1929 with Ember, New Majestic with its Chinese restaurant and Wanderlust with Cocotte.

In his hotels, f&b revenues are usually higher than room revenues but GOP, of course, is lower for f&B (about 25-30%) than for rooms (60%). “Food is a critical element if you want to be in the lifestyle space,” said Loh.

And while each of his hotels are different from the other, Loh said what’s interesting is they all appeal to a similar customer segment, “people who want hotels that are different, have a sense of context and story”. (His hotels, with the exception of Hotel 1929, are all part of Design Hotels.)

“No one has really done a design hotel in Little India. There are lots of backpacker places. The Western tourists love it – the streets here are more colourful than in Chinatown. It’s real here, the spices, the smells, the sounds.”

His hotels in Shanghai and London, again different in their own right, also appear to appeal to a similar type of customer. Waterhouse, located on the Bund, is a small hotel (19 rooms) with a huge events space (10,000sqft) and has been doing pretty well given the Shanghai World Expo and Town Hall with 98 rooms, located in London’s East End, attracts mainly corporate clients.

Opening a hotel in Shanghai has been tough. “Finding a good general manager there is like pulling teeth,” he said. “The operating environment is tough especially when you come from a place Singapore. But it’s unavoidable – you have to do the China thing. Just like India in a few years, you have to do it.”

Having now built a collection of eclectic hotels appealing to a similar customer type, Loh now wonders if the time is right for him to create and nurture a community using social media or to create an umbrella brand.

“We’ve always operated the hotels independently, there’s no association between one or the other but maybe at some point, we may think about an umbrella brand – but we are in no hurry.”

His hotels are also talked about in social media but Loh has not actively engaged with the channel. “Virtually nobody books the hotels through Facebook but we do get people who book our restaurants through Facebook.”

Web bookings account for 30% of his hotels’ business. Hotel 1929 gets the higher share of direct web bookings. “The Internet is all about price and Hotel 1929 does well on it, but not so much our higher-priced hotels. It’s hard to sell character and context on the Internet,” said Loh.

Well, the image of “travelling in tour groups” has taken a severe battering of late. 

First, there was the Hong Kong tour guide rant at a group of Chinese tourists for not shopping enough, which makes you wonder how long these zero-commission tours should be allowed to continue.

Then, we watched in horror as a bungled attempt to rescue a group of tourists from the Hong Thai bus in Manila unfolded before our very eyes this week.

The Philippine police has admitted that mistakes were made by a team that was inadequately trained, armed and led. “We saw some obvious shortcomings in terms of capability and tactics used, or the procedure employed, and we are now going to investigate this,” said Manila’s police commander Leocadio Santiago.

Too late for the eight Hong Kong people who lost their lives.

The image of the Hong Thai bus as it was surrounded, hammered, prodded and shot at by Manila police will last a long time in our mind’s eye. Just as the airplanes flying into the Twin Towers on September 11 changed our image of leisure aircraft, so too will this change the image of a tour bus from pleasure-on-wheels to a sitting duck for mayhem.

You also have to wonder how much the highly public coverage of the hostage crisis as it unfolded had a part to play in the tragic outcome. This was reality TV at its worst.

I watched it for about 20 minutes but found myself unable to continue. It was too much for the imagination to bear – as you watched the police doing goodness knows what and wondered what was happening inside the bus.

It is often said there is safety in numbers but sometimes, travelling in groups can make you obvious targets – and when you are in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong country, well, then you’re extremely unlucky indeed.

Never having been much of a group traveller, I raised the point about tours getting a bad name, citing the Hong Kong tour guide rant, with Nicholas Lim of Contiki Asia recently – this was before the hostage tragedy.

He was talking to me about how well his group tours were selling, particularly to places like Greece and Italy. 

His answer is, there are group tours and then there are group tours. Buy the quality ones and you have a good experience. Buy the cheap ones where everything is subsidized and so someone has to make money somehow and the experience can be a shoddy one. Group tours are cheaper, more convenient and deemed safer for a particular segment of travellers.

Yet in today’s world where everything is more or less accessible – to shop online, to search, to buy and then to move around on the ground – I believe more and more people will opt to travel independently.

It’s in line with how technology is changing customer behaviour, making us more empowered, more independent, more expressive (at least in virtual terms) and now with location-based devices, well, making us more confident about not getting lost in foreign lands.

In the latest Visa-Pacific Asia Travel Association Travel Intentions Survey 2010 released today, it was found that almost half of all those surveyed (47 %) said they arranged their trips themselves by booking directly with hotels and airlines.

According to the survey, based on 6,714 respondents across Asia Pacific, self-organized travel was the top travel style for respondents from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia. Flexible individual tours which allow travelers to choose their own activities were the next most preferred way to travel (22%). Packaged group tours were most likely to be booked by travelers from Mainland China (33%), Chinese Taipei (29%) and Thailand (28%).

As travel markets in Asia mature and a generational shift in travellers occurs, the trend towards independent travel will surely grow.

Meanwhile, as Hong Kong mourns its dead, the Philippines will have to deal with this latest blow to the country’s image, not just as a destination but as a nation.

			Dawn, new, romance, travel, Asia

The empowerment of the customer in Asia is the biggest change that’s taken hold in the regional travel market in the last decade, said Kathleen Tan, group head of commercial for AirAsia.

“There’s the empowerment to fly and there’s the empowerment to buy. Low cost airlines and the Internet have changed buying behaviour in Asia. There’s more virtual planning – people can do a lot more search – and they book instantly.
 
“When we put Yangon on sale recently (the airline launched Kuala Lumpur-Yangon flights in July), we sold 50,000 seats.”

At the same time, there’s a generational shift happening with travellers in Asia. “As they are empowered to fly and buy, they have also become more empowered as travellers and the smarter travellers now do not need tour guides or buy package tours – they search for information on the web, and they share information with each other on social networks.

“People are more experimental now and are seeking new kinds of travel experiences.”

This is why she believes vendors and operators have to change not only the way they market but also the way they serve these new travellers.

“I urge the industry not to always look to the West, the spending power is in Asia, and we have to change the way we engage with the new Asian customer.

“Younger people are more savvy now, do you still sell them the same packages? Do you still take them to gems stores and get commissions? People know where they want to eat. They can find the best places to get a tattoo in Bali,” said Tan.

“For me, the romance in travel is in the exchange that’s happening between students and young people, something that’s been facilitated by low cost airlines. Mainland Chinese are now coming to Malaysia to study; before it was only Singapore, but the less wealthy Chinese are opting for Malaysia.

“We have Malaysians going abroad to study and search for jobs. There’s labour mobility, medical mobility. In Malaysia, nurses are hard to come by and so we have lots of nurses from south India working in the country. And Malaysians are going to India for beach surfing at half the price they’d pay in Bali.

“In Bandung, Indonesia, there are 20 universities – imagine the opportunities for youth travel from that market.”

As a marketer, Tan is proudest of the airline’s annual “one million free seats” promotion. Having run it for the last five to six years though, the customer is getting smarter at it. “It’s become a game to some now. They know it’s hard to get, and so if they get it, they feel good and tell their friends about it.

“They have become marketers for us. There’s a Chinese customer who managed to book 30 free tickets and apparently, he studied our route map and our website for a month and when the day came, he did it with such speed, got 30 and told all his friends about it.”

Sometimes, promotions can bomb. “Every route has different characteristics – Yangon is different from Taipei for instance. India is what I call a “marathon” market. The purchasing process is much longer, they discuss a lot before they buy. They also like to travel in groups, so they talk a lot among themselves first.

“With Taipei, it explodes but in India, it’s a slow burn – you can’t take your budget and spend it in one go.”

The travel agency channel is not something that excites Tan. “I refuse to pay commissions to travel agents in Singapore; I don’t want to get into legacy business. To service agents, you also need manpower.

“When we first entered China, we depended on travel agents but now our brand is more established, and people know how to book us online. We are also seeing more FIT travel from China.

“India is challenging – people are still reliant on travel agents – but I see a tipping point taking place this year as our brand gets more established.”

Consumers however need a physical presence from time to time to reassure them that the airline is actually run by people and not computers. “We held an AirAsia travel fair in Jakarta recently and we had people coming up to us who thought we were run by computers, so you need to be present physically for people to feel your brand.

“We have a long way to go still in some markets,” said Tan.

Community marketing is a personal passion of Tan. She watches with interest how Zouk Club of Singapore has managed to stay relevant to its customers despite it being probably the oldest club in the city. “They are constantly revamping to stay relevant and has held on to their customers.”

Another company she watches is Apple – “they way it upsells and cross-sells”. She said, “They think out of the box and they keep everything within the community.”

One market that has surprised her is the luxury market and how people are still paying a lot of money for luxury products. “LV has remained so relevant that a mother and her teenage daughter can carry the same brand. It’s an old brand but has engaged hot new designers like Marc Jacobs, brought out limited editions and clearly beaten the pirates.

“There’s a new generation of kids too who don’t buy pirated stuff and get a kick out of it.”

* AirAsia recently released its second quarter results, ending June 30, 2010, which showed a profit after tax of RM199 million. Revenue rose 26% year-on-year from RM748 million to RM941 million. Passenger growth was 11 percent, rising to 3.9 million passengers. Load factor rose to 77 percent in 2Q2010 from 75 percent in 2Q2009.

			Following, successful, IPO, , MakeMyTrip, hunt, for, acquisitions

Armed with a new and bulging war chest following its successful debut on NASDAQ last week, MakeMyTrip is on the lookout for “strategic acquisitions to boost our leadership position”, founder and CEO Deep Kalra told WIT.

India’s biggest OTA launched onto NASDAQ last week, with shares closing at 88.93% above its listing price of $14. It closed at $26.45 per share on the day it made its debut. During the day, its share price went up to $26.81, around 91.5% higher above the listing price. It has continued its strong performance throughout the week.

Not only did it herald a momentous moment for the online travel market in India, and Asia, it was also India’s first IPO on NASDAQ in three years, according to the MakeMyTrip blog.

Asked if the success of the IPO exceeded expectations, Deep said, “Based on the overwhelming interest and demand from the roadshows, we were pretty sure the IPO would be successful. This successful of course was a pleasant bonus.”

Calling the future “future bright” for MakeMyTrip, he said the success underscored investors' interest in the booming indian consuming class and the belief that MakeMyTrip’s management would retain the lion share in the market.

Asked if going public would change how the company is operated, Deep said, “More focus on quarterly results, actually sharpens the vision.”

Deep started MakeMyTrip in 2000 from a small office in Okhla, New Delhi. Formerly the vice president for business development for GE Capital Land, Deep saw the potential of how the Internet could lend itself to travel.

He decided at the time that the Indian market wasn’t yet ready for an online travel agency and so he concentrated on the US-India travel sector. In 2005, with the emergence of the low cost carriers, Deep turned his attention to India and launched its website for the Indian travel market in September that year.

In its first year of operation, it became India’s largest e-commerce company. According to MakeMyTrip’s Company Profile, “the company is on track to achieve sales of INR 2500 crores (approximately US$ 500 million) in the financial year ending March 2010, making it India’s largest travel company.”

Its Wikipedia page lists financial Investors as SAIF Partners, Helion Venture Partners, and Sierra Ventures. Independent Members comprise Philip C. Wolf, President and CEO of PhoCusWright Inc.), and Frederic Lalonde, Founder and CEO of Openplaces.org.

On debut day, MakeMyTrip also released information about its performance in the first quarter of this fiscal year (the second quarter of the year), ending June 30 2010. 

• The company reported revenue of $33.7 million, up 49.0% over revenue of $22.6 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2009.¨

• MMYT reported a profit of $1.3 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2010, from a loss of $(5.6) million in the quarter ended June 30, 2009.

• Revenue from its air ticketing business increased by 27.8% to $10 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2010 from $7.8 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2009, primarily due to a 63.6% growth in gross bookings to $146.5 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2010 from $89.5 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2009. The increase gross bookings was due to a 68.5% increase in the number of transactions by customers.

• Net revenue margins declined from 7.9% in the quarter ended June 30, 2009 to 6.8% in the quarter ended June 30, 2010. This was due to reduction in service fees MMYT charged on domestic air ticketing business in order to attract more customers.

• MMYT also pre-purchased $0.9 million in air ticket inventory in the quarter ended June 30, 2009.

• Revenue from hotels and packages business increased by 59.5% to $23.2 million in the quarter, up from $14.6 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2009. This was because of a 74.8% increase in hotels and packages gross bookings to $28.2 million, from $16.1 million for the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

• Revenue less service costs from MMYT’s hotels and packages business increased by 52.8% to $3.4 million from $2.2 million in the same quarter the previous fiscal. This was due to an increase in gross bookings, partially offset by a reduction in net revenue margins to 11.9% in the quarter ended June 30, 2010, from 13.6% in the corresponding quarter last year. MMYT reduced margins in domestic hotels and packages business offered through its website in order to increase our sales of such packages.
 

			Montmarte, Paris, Tanjong Rhu, Singapore, Marina Bay

I have a friend who lives in the middle of Montmarte, Paris. When I visit him, I always wonder what it's like to live in the middle of a tourist attraction.

Each morning, he wakes up to the sounds of footsteps walking up the steps to the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur. He hears the voices and happy laughter of tourists.

He hears different languages and over the years, he’s noticed them change – from European to East European, from Japanese to Chinese – with the socio-economic shifts of the world.

There is no let-up in the tourist traffic – all day, all week, all month, all year. This is, after all, one of the most visited attractions in the world’s most visited city. The Basilica at the top of the hill, art galleries, bars, cafes and nightclubs, the very touristy Place du Tetre where you can get your portraits painted – it all lives up to everything we imagine Paris to be.

What I particularly like about it is the way residential life is interwoven into the tourist areas so that Montmarte is not just a tourist place (like parts of Chinatown, Singapore, or Lijian, in Yunnan, or Luang Prabang, Laos) but an organic, dynamic, lively part of a city that just happens to be highly attractive to tourists.

Often, tourists would peek into his window which overlooks the steps, curious to see how a local Parisian lives out his daily life, little knowing that behind curtains everywhere round the world, probably the same life rituals play out, no matter where.

There are exceptions though. One day, he told me, he was standing at his open window – it was a brisk spring morning – and he was having his first cigarette of the day.

He noticed a group of youths showing particular interest in him. They were laughing and pointing at something behind his back. He then realised that in the mirror on the wall behind him, his bare butt was being reflected in full display.

I can imagine the kids going home and telling their friends, these French men, they are so sexy.

I recall this because last Sunday, I realised that I too am now living in the middle of a tourist attraction.

When I first moved into the Tanjong Rhu neighborhood, the only attraction was the Kallang River/Canal, which was a pretty dirty stretch of water that connects the canals of the east to the Singapore River.

The only things of interest in the water would be the occasional dead rat, cat and, one time, a headless dog.

A couple of years ago, the Marina Barrage was built as part of Singapore’s plans to transform the whole Marina Bay (and the Kallang river basin) into a reservoir. The difference is tangible. Today, the water is cleaner and fresher and even the air smells sweeter.

Last Sunday, I saw boatloads of tourists cruising further down the Kallang river than they’ve ever done. I heard the tour guide commentary on both the Captain Explorer and Duck Tours’ cruises.

I can imagine their commentary.

"This area used to be the sea but now it's full of over-priced apartments. Local people like to take their wedding photos here on the bridge. A lot of local TV shows use this as a location for their productions and the Bollywood movie, Kriish, was filmed here. The apartment over there was where Bollywood star Hritik Roshan stayed during the filming.

"See the women walking the children and dogs and wheeling the elderly in their wheelchairs. Those are the maids. Nearly 200,000 maids, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, work in Singapore. They walk the young, look after the old and walk the dogs so that their masters and madams can go to work to make money to pay them to do these things.

"Last month, a 47-year-old Filipino maid inherited a S$6 million apartment after her employer died, as well as S$4 million cash. She had been looking after her employer for years. She called herself the ‘luckiest maid in the world’.

“This area that’s hoarded up now will be the future Gardens by The Bay – it will be the biggest botanical gardens in a city and will link this area to the Marina Bay – which means residents here can walk or kayak to the casinos.”

I know. It’s not quite Montmarte. There is no little floral shop that was featured in the movie “Amelie”. There are no seedy bars that were shown in the movie "La vie en rose" about the life of Edith Piaf.

But thankfully, tourists will not be able to peek into my window to see how "the locals live". My, what stories they’d be able to share with their friends back home.