Northstar

10 | www.travelweekly-asia.com COVER STORY: FAMILY TRAVEL Travelling with kids can be a fun yet harrowing affair, there is the tendency to pack more than what is needed and I know of countless parents who have squeezed in a tin of milk powder into their luggage and hoped it'll get by Customs. There is always the little one piping in the inevitable "Are we there yet?" and the older ones demanding that we stay in a hotel with wifi. Increasingly, there are also more families travelling with grandparents making it a multi-generational trip. This is true for adults born in the 1970s to travel with both their parents and children, while millennials are in the age bracket to travel with their young kids with more discretionary income to spare. Sojern, an organisation that has helped brands to more efficiently and meaningfully engage with travellers to drive conversations, loyalty and monetisation has found that 30% of all travellers in the region consisted of families. This figure would be higher, said Stewert Hunter, director of Sales & Partnerships, APAC, Sojern if package tours with travel agents FAMILY TRAVEL IS A BURGEONING MARKET By Natalie Chen were taken into account. Sojern only measures trips booked online with its hotel and airline clients. Families are indeed a segment that travel agents should pay attention to as they are more likely to travel on package tours or on customised trips. Said Crystal Sim, CEO, Albatross World Travel & Tours, "The trends are definitely for more families to travel together. I imagine that the up market family travel can be as profitable as the other segments. Depending on how imaginative the travel agency is they should be able to attract more family travel. "It all depends, if the families are accustomed to travelling together for their holidays then they are more likely to go for customised travel. If not, they will try to travel whenever they can and wherever they can for short trips during the school holidays." Short getaways are the norm So it's little wonder that families like a stint in nearby destinations over the weekends or shortbreaks. These would be destinations like Bintan, Bali and Malacca. Bintan boasts several resorts catering to the family like Bintan Lagoon Resort that has a new extensive kid's club to Club Med Bintan Island which is a haven for families. Over In Malacca, hotels see a spike in business over the weekend as families from Singapore and Malaysia make a quick getaway. Increasingly, more multi-generational family travel is seen and that is set to rise with recent developments. Said Adrian Chung, general manager of Hotel Equatorial Melaka, "Malacca is developing rapidly. Currently plans are in place to create more attractions such as "Gateway to Malacca" which is a mixed development consisting of entertainment, shopping and marina. "Malacca airport will be extending its runway to cater to bigger planes. Currently flights are available to and from Penang and Indonesia. By year end flights from Guangzhou will be initiated as Guangzhou and Malacca were recently declared twin cities." At the Grand Nikko Bali, the spend by a family can go up to US$3000 as they book two rooms and stay an average of 7 nights said Jean-Charles Le Coz, general manager of Grand Nikko Bali. Key features of Grand Nikko Bali are family rooms, a safe and always manned kids club called Jungle Camp, several pools of various depths, including a man-made sand pool and also one of the longest waterslides in an hotel in Bali. More families stay in luxury resorts Families are also travelling in luxury and staying at high-end resorts. At The St. Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort, the percentage of its guests who travel with family is around 63.2% this year. Said William Gai, executive assistant manager, The St. Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort, "As a show of filial piety, they also want to take their parents overseas. More and more people are also starting to recognise the value of travel in expanding children's mind and that's why we are seeing an increase in the number of guests from this segment." Another luxury resort that caters to families is the The Andaman, Luxury Collection Resort, Langkawi. The resort has a Coral and Marine Conservation programme which aims at educating both children and adults thus offering a programme for the whole family. Said Christian Metzner, general manager of The Andaman, Luxury Collection Resort, Langkawi, "We are trying to position ourselves as a family resort. The activities the resort offers are specifically targeted to families. We are committed to educating children on the importance of marine and coral conservation thus the young generation is the one we target to bring this message forward. Cooking class at St Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort. Families are a segment that travel agents should pay attention to as they are more likely to travel on package tours or on customised trips.

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