Asia Vacations - Travel, Tourism - Info & Review

A view of Cambodia's famous Angkor Wat temple. Q. I am a runner and I am going to be travelling around Southeast Asia for a few months, leaving in December. I have no idea of what gear I need to take and there is nothing to be found on the internet! Is anywhere cold in Southeast Asia and where do I need to cover up? A. December is an ideal time to travel to Southeast Asia – you're in for some lovely dry, hot weather. The mornings are the best time to be out and about as by midday the heat can be quite intense. Make sure you remain hydrated and carry bottled water with you at all times. Higher altitudes such as northern parts of Thailand will be cooler, especially overnight when the temperature can drop significantly, so make sure you bring an extra warm layer of clothing for the evenings. If you wish to run outdoors, use local parks or public running tracks where possible as the chaotic city streets can be quite hazardous. Your House of Travel consultant c

LUXURY PARTNERS Win a Luxury African Safari Worth US$10,000Help caption this photo and you could win a luxury African Safari worth US$10,000 to the enchanting Maasai Mara and Chyulu Hills in Kenya.       Villa Sabai Jai - Koh Tao, ThailandThree exclusive, boutique pool villas for rent on the small island Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand -- the perfect place for those seeking privacy, luxury and tranquility.     The Mission Inn Hotel & SpaEmbark on a European vacation in Southern California at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, an icon of breathtaking architecture, timeless beauty and old world charm.     Mead Brown Costa RicaA boutique vacation rental firm offering extraordinary private villas and homes plus premium condominiums for those who expect excellent value, personal service and supremely comfortable accommodations.     Eden Roc at Cap CanaOffering exclusive luxury in the Dominican Republic, Eden Roc at Cap Cana, the only Relais & Chateaux hot

Malaysia has led winners at the World Travel Awards Asia & Australasia Gala Ceremony 2015 in Hong Kong. During a red-carpet event at Intercontinental Grand Stanford, Tourism Malaysia was recognised as Asia's Leading Tourist Board, while Malaysia itself took the title of Asia's Leading Destination. Hong Kong was also among the winners, walking away with the trophies for Asia's Leading City Break Destination and Asia's Leading Meeting & Conference Destination. In a special presentation, Dr Lui Che-Woo, Chairman of K Wah International Holdings, was recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Travel and Tourism Industry. World Travel Awards President Graham Cooke said: "It is an honour to recognise the leaders in Asian and Australasian hospitality here in Hong Kong this evening. "InterContinental Grand Stanford has been a wonderful host for our Gala Ceremony this year, while it has been a privile

© CAPA The CAPA/ACTE Southeast Asia Corporate Travel Innovation Day will take place in Singapore at the Capella on 23-Nov-2015. Corporate travel is thriving in Singapore, as more multinationals use it as a hub for global and regional programmes. While the city state's location and the buoyant regional economy are attractive, there are technological and cultural challenges. Like other markets, the focus of travel management in Singapore has shifted from cost reduction to duty of care, data consolidation and accommodating the growth of mobile devices. Singapore travel managers are also coming to terms with a changing airline environment, with enlightened organisations adopting best-fare policies which incorporate low-cost carriers. However, many find it hard to shake off old loyalties to the flag carrier. In the corporate market, experts see challenges and opportunities in technology adoption, especially self-booking, and also identify the need for more sophistica

Gospel for Asia is participating in the Combined Federal Campaign going on now. This campaign allows federal employees to give via their paychecks to charity. For some charities, this is a windfall; for others it brings in enough to make it worth doing. I give GFA credit for not including the ECFA seal on the recent promotional literature aimed at federal employees (see a part of it below). However, the rest of it is brazenly and tragically misleading. If GFA operated with the highest standards of financial integrity, the organization would not have been kicked out of the ECFA. GFA's leaders would answer donor and media questions. Financial matters wouldn't be shielded behind excuses. GFA's CEO K.P. Yohannan would be available for comment. Celebrity pastors (yes, you Francis Chan) would state publicly what your position is regarding GFA. You have removed your endorsements from the GFA webpage, but you told Christianity Today you are still on the GFA board. GFA n

Report Theodore Koumelis - 26 October 2015, 00:10 Considering the brand evaluations of domestic travellers at both foreign and domestic brand luxury hotels, Professor Cathy Hsu of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University shows that any previously perceived differences in quality between the two no longer exist. Domestic travellers in China are equally satisfied with foreign and domestic luxury hotel brands, according to Professor Cathy Hsu of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in a recently published research article. Considering the brand evaluations of domestic travellers at both foreign and domestic brand luxury hotels, Professor Hsu shows that any previously perceived differences in quality between the two no longer exist. Chinese hotel guests, she writes, are now "just as satisfied" when staying at domestic brand hotels as they are when staying at their

The golden Shwezigon Pagoda, built by King Anawrahta in the early 11th century, in Bagan, Myanmar. For Herald Travel story. Photo, Peter Glenn. Photograph by: Peter Glenn , Calgary Herald In a land of 500,000 Buddhist monks, you'd expect to run into a few pagodas. In Myanmar, the tiered towers and domes spring up everywhere and are the beating heart of this devout nation bordering China and India to the north, and Thailand to the south with coastline along the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. The country is once reverent to its ancient traditions while racing headlong into modernity after decades of repressive military rule. At dawn I'm in the middle of Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda as it comes alive for another day. Monks and nuns shuffle by, having passed shopkeepers setting up on the stairway into the complex. While we tend to think of becoming a monk as a lifelong commitment, here men (and women) often enter a monastery for a finite period (even just a y

Related Items Visa Visa Global Travel Intentions Study Vivian Pan Travellers from Asia Pacific are filling up their passport pages at a faster rate than their global counterparts and are now leading the world in leisure travel, according to Visa's Global Travel Intentions Study 2015. The Study shows that APAC travellers took more leisure trips in the past two years than any of the other countries surveyed, with more than eight in 10 (84 per cent) having travelled solely for leisure in that time, well ahead of the global average of 76 per cent, including the Americas (79 per cent) and Europe (81 per cent). The Study also found leisure travel to be most prevalent among the affluent (88 per cent) and among 36 to 44 year olds (80 per cent). On average, APAC travellers who took part in the Study made six international trips in the past two years, three of which were for leisure. In addition, according to the Study findings, APAC travellers are the most likely to mix busi

SINGAPORE – Travelers from Asia Pacific are filling up their passport pages at a faster rate than their global counterparts and are now leading the world in leisure travel, according to Visa's Global Travel Intentions Study 2015. The Study shows that travellers from the Asia Pacific region took more leisure trips in the past two years than any of the other countries surveyed, with more than eight in 10 (84 percent) of those in the region having travelled solely for leisure in that time, well ahead of the global average of 76 percent, including the Americas (79 percent) and Europe (81 percent). The Study also found leisure travel to be most prevalent among the affluent (88 percent) and among 36 to 44 year olds (80 percent). On average, Asia Pacific travelers who took part in the Study made six international trips in the past two years, three of which were for leisure. In addition, according to the Study findings, Asia Pacific travelers are the most likely to mix business with

Romesh Ranganathan and Anslem De Silva searching for crocodiles in BBC3's Asian Provocateur. Photograph: Benjamin Green/BBC/Rumpus Media Whenever the Indian subcontinent is featured on a travel series – comedically played or not – the same bingo card of cliches is inevitably ticked. The presenter will have "gone on a journey", found some "hidden beauty" and had their "eyes opened" by the experience. In a tale as old as time, the second that cameras hit the ground in south Asia, the Empire-tinted lenses emerge. The locals are pored over like animals in a nature documentary, a source of cheap laughs at, rather than with, them. There are only so many times you can watch Rick Stein sitting cross-legged on the floor, sweating profusely from every gland imaginable and eating with his hands, before the whole thing starts to get old. Thankfully, that is where Romesh Ranganathan comes in, with his Sri Lanka-based series Asian Provocateur. It is full of m

by Matt Alderton | October 20, 2015 Ian Wainwright has been appointed event director of Australia's Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME), organizer Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) announced last week. A global events marketing specialist for over 13 years, Wainwright most recently was Events Team manager at PwC Australia. He also has held senior meetings and events positions at IHS Inc., International Conferences and Events, and Tulips Meetings Management. "With strong relationships with numerous industry stakeholders, including convention bureaus and tourism, government, and private bodies, Ian is well positioned to drive Asia-Pacific's leading business events trade show," Sallie Coventry, director of RTE's IBTM events portfolio, said in a statement. "We have great confidence in Ian to deliver the very best AIME: one that engages the industry, inspires visitors, and most importantly provides a platform for exhibitors and hosted buyers to

People wear face masks to protect against air pollution in Palembang, Indonesia's South Sumatra province, on October 8, 2015 The haze suffocating Southeast Asia could last for another month, Malaysia's environment minister warned Monday, while a forestry expert said it could even take until year-end to clear the air. Indonesia earlier this month agreed to accept international help after failing for weeks to douse fires from slash-and-burn farming that have shrouded angry neighbours Malaysia and Singapore in smoke. But Malaysian Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said those efforts will have no impact and that only the expected onset of the rainy season in November will help. "Unless there is rain, there is no way human intervention can put out the fires," he told AFP on the sidelines of Malaysia's parliament session. He warned that the blazes were spread across "huge areas" of Indonesia and even the mult

KUALA LUMPUR: Low-cost airline AirAsia is offering three million promotional seats to over 20 countries across Asia and Australia from Oct 19-25. In a statement here today, it said the special fares were targeted to drive domestic and international travel within the extensive regional networks for both AirAsia and AirAsia X airline groups. For domestic travelling within Malaysia, guests can fly to Penang and Kota Baharu with all-in-fares from as low as RM29 one-way; Langkawi from RM39 one way; Kuching from RM89 one-way while Kota Kinabalu is RM109 one way, all departing from Kuala Lumpur. Guests can also fly further from Kuala Lumpur to destinations such as Pattaya, Thailand with all-in-fares from as low as RM99 one way; Goa, India from just RM229 one way; Busan, Korea from just RM249 one way while the very popular Sapporo, Japan is only from RM359 one way. The promotional all-in-fares quoted are for one-way travel only inclusive of taxes. Booking for these promotional seats can be

Tour operators from around the world are set to bring more tourists into the country from December following improved security. Tour operators and travel agents from Europe, US, Asia and Africa, who participated in the Magical Kenya Travel Expo at Leisure Lodge in Diani, Kwale County, were impressed by the significant improvement of security in the country. UK tour operator Ainslie Buck said British tourists were now interested in coming to Kenya for holidays after their government lifted travel advisories against coastal counties of Kilifi, Kwale and Mombasa. She said the lifting of the advisory had made it easier for tour operators and travel agents to bring more British holidaymakers to Kenya for both leisure and safari. "We are glad the Kenyan government addressed security concerns which were raised by the UK which culminated in the lifting of travel advisories against coastal resort towns," she said. "In January next year, we have p

Photo Migrants arrived by train at Botova, Croatia, on Friday. Credit Laszlo Balogh/Reuters A sense of normalcy has returned to Budapest's Keleti rail station. The tent camp and thousands of migrants who jammed the area in September are gone — all that remains is an empty Migration Aid office. But while steps have been effective in controlling the flow of migrants who flooded parts of Europe from war-torn areas in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, some restrictions remain in place and the situation is constantly evolving. On Friday, for example, Hungary announced it would close its border with Croatia to migrants although border crossings will remain open. Precisely what that means for travelers remains to be seen. Air travel has not been affected by

The number of trophy hotel assets changing hands in Asia Pacific has surged in 2015 to levels unseen before, according to JLL's Hotels & Hospitality Group, which last month successfully closed Asia Pacific's largest ever single hotel transaction, the US$929 million InterContinental Hong Kong. As at the end of September, there have been six recorded transactions of single assets trading in 2015, each with a value exceeding US$300 million, according to JLL.  Mike Batchelor, Managing Director of Investment Sales, who led the landmark InterContinental transaction, said, "Historically we see one to two transactions a year in this 'mega category' due primarily to the ownership profile of trophy hotels across the region, which have often been built and, in many cases, still owned by the original family or a related entity. Assets tend to be passed from one generation to the next and are rarely offered to the market." Hotel operators have been an excepti

[HD video below] The Global Tourism Economy Forum • Macau 2015, hosted by the Secretariat for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macau Special Administrative Region Government, held its opening ceremony at the Venetian Macau on Monday morning.  The event is initiated and co-organized by the China Chamber of Tourism under the authorization of All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC), coordinated by the Global Tourism Economy Research Centre (GTERC) and in collaboration with the UNWTO.  Unveiling its fourth edition today, the Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF) is meeting under the theme "Belt and Road Initiative: Unleashing the New Dynamics of Cultural Tourism", with the aim to embrace the magnificent vision of the Belt and Road Initiative, foster cultural tourism, actively explore development opportunities as well as enhance regional and international cooperation in all directions. GTEF 2015 boasts a strong lineup of close to 60 distinguished speakers in