Past & Future Events
June 2011 BALI, INDONESIA
Asia Pacific On Board Travel (APOT) Sanur Beach Hotel Bali Report by Adrian Drinkwater Over 150 delegates from across the Asia Pacific region gathered on the wonderful island of Bali for the inaugural Asia Pacific OnBoard Travel Conference and Tradeshow at the Sanur Beach Hotel. The theme for the event was the new tagline for this association: “In Asia Pacific we do things differently“, and thanks go to the two major sponsors, Korean Air and Alpha. Chaired by Heather Cho from Korean Air, the
event attracted a range of caterers, suppliers and airlines from the region including Korean Air, Air Asia, Garuda Indonesia, Malaysian, Air China, Thai and Etihad. The event was organised and co-ordinated by renowned chef, Keerthi Hapugasdeniya, known to all us as Happy. The Conference and Tradeshow ran over three
days with a golf tournament on the first day together with a chefs’ competition followed by a traditional Balinese welcome drinks and dinner event in the grounds of the hotel . Day Two was devoted to education following
the formal welcome speech from the Governor of Bali, Heather Cho talked about the goal of the Association which is to share and collect ideas from various fields to advance the broader goals of the travel industry. Specifically she stated that it was not the goal of APOT to compete with other organisations and the aim was to invite participation from all interested parties. The first keynote speech was made by Mr Prijastona Purwanto vp service planning and development for Garuda Indonesia entitled “The Journey to be a relevant Indonesian Airline”. He
spoke at some length of the goals of Garuda to significantly improve their service and onboard offering with the dual targets of meeting the Skytrax and Skyteam global standards. Garuda intends to focus its service approach on the five senses, sight, sound, scent, taste and touch with safety and security as overriding requirements for all activities. He and his team are seeking to make Garuda an airline where Indonesians feel at home and visitors experience the best of Indonesia. From a completely different perspective Azron Asman-Rani ceo of Air Asia X then provided a very lively discussion on the growth of this exciting low cost long haul airline, a partner of the regional airline Air Asia. Azron’s motto is to continuously focus on changing the same and ensuring that Air Asia X has a single focus in fulfilling a specific customer need and sticking to it.
“The goal of the Association is to share and collect ideas from various fields to advance the broader goals of the travel industry. We invite participation from all interested parties.”
Above: Formality and fun at the APOT conference and tradeshow in Bali, Below: APOT organiser, Happy with Heather Cho , Korean Air, APOT’s conference chairman
Jason Lo ceo of 2 Talk then spoke of his
company’s goals to develop a roaming sim for the Asia region that can be targeted at frequent travellers and the broader Air Asia customer base. In the afternoon the focus turned to caterers
and airlines with a presentation from Sarath Fernando, ceo of Sri Lankan Catering on the Mercurys award-winning food recycling programme adopted by Sri Lankan Catering. Werner Kimmeringer spoke of the growth plans for Etihad and its clear focus as a luxury brand focused on the individual. Leonard Hammersfeld from Buzz Products spoke of some key trends emerging in design that have implications for the travel industry including greater use of handmade concepts and trends, heritage look and feel and a desire to source locally. The issue of connectivity and the growth
of cloud and other internet based media and applications was a focus in a speech from Thales Group which spoke on the airlines, desire to replicate ground connectivity in the air. A lively panel discussion followed chaired by Pat Osborne from Alpha Flight Services.
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