South China Morning Post
June 18, 2002
The best of Asia - Features, p. 5
HOW DOES HONG KONG RATE AS A TOURIST DESTINATION PETA TOMLINSON REPORTS ON AN ONLINE SURVEY OF 42,000 TRAVELLERS
If an exotic beach in Thailand tops your holiday wish list, you're in good company. Voted overwhelmingly as the favourite destination in Asia in a survey of over 42,600 travellers from 162 countries, "the land of smiles" also scored highly for friendliness of hotel staff, and quality of restaurants.
Hong Kong, ever a land of contrasts, scored both bouquets and brickbats in the survey conducted by online hotel guide and reservation service, www.asiahotels.com.
The Peninsula in Hong Kong took two awards of best hotel in Asia and best business hotel in Asia, while Hong Kong overall was the second most popular place to visit. However, the SAR also had some of the worst value hotels in Asia, behind Japan and Singapore.
The Customer Hotel Awards and Travel Habits survey aimed to sort out the good hotels from the bad in the eyes of the travel customer across the Asia-Pacific region, the online company's chief executive officer Jon Stonham say.
"During our travels, both my partner Riyaz Moorani and I had found some pretty poor so-called five-star establishments, and some fantastic three-star hotels - every trip seemed to be either a risk, or a missed opportunity, " Mr Stonham say.
"We intended to glean recommendations from our customers who seemed to know every nook and cranny in Asia, and where all the gems were."
The survey was "a natural step" for the dotcom travel company the pair founded in 1997, and they aim to repeat it annually. "We feel customer feedback is more important than any industry monitor, and this is reflected in the survey where 'customer comments' was the third most important hotel selection influence after price and location," Stonham says. "The hotel's raison d'etre is the customer - so why not find out what they think and give them a voice?"
The survey resulted in 115,820 nominations for 3,813 hotels in 24 countries. On average, each voter made 7.1 round trips a year. Only those hotels with 50 or more nominations were considered in the voting, amounting to 408 properties.
Thailand, the most popular destination, leading with 25 per cent of the votes cast, followed by Hong Kong with 15 per cent, and Japan and Singapore with 12 per cent each.
When it came to choosing the best hotels, a slightly different picture emerged. Thai hotels again received the lion's share of nominations (16.7 per cent), in close contest with Singapore (14.2 per cent), Malaysia (14 per cent), Hong Kong (13.6 per cent) and the Philippines (12 per cent). Stonham says this indicated that Hong Kong and Singapore on average have better hotels than other countries. "People might like Thailand as a destination, but nominate Raffles in Singapore as their favourite hotel," he says.
In the resort category, all but one of the top 25 were beach resorts (the exception being the Regent Chiang Mai in Thailand). The Banyan Tree Phuket was voted Asia's top resort followed by the Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay in Bali and the Banyan Tree Bintan, on Bintan Island, Indonesia. The Grant Hyatt, Bali, was fourth followed by the Datai on Langkawi island, Malaysia.
The resort destinations were dominated by Malaysia with nine hotels in the top 25, then Thailand (seven) and Indonesia (five). One property each from Vietnam, the Maldives, Macau and the Philippines made up the rest. Shangri-La resorts led the resort voting with five in the top 25, while three Banyan Tree resorts in Asia also made the top list.
The top leisure hotel in Asia was the Oriental in Bangkok, just beating the Peninsula in Hong Kong. The Banyan Tree Phuket was voted third followed by The Peninsula Bangkok, Raffles Hotel in Singapore and Makati Shangri-La, Philippines.
Runners-up for best hotel, behind the Peninsula Hong Kong, were the Oriental Bangkok and the Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore.
In the "staff attitude" category, Thai hotels scored highly, averaging 8.8 out of 10. Topping the bill was the Regent Chang Mai with a score of 9.47.
The most child-friendly hotels were found to be in Malaysia (7.09), Singapore (7.06) and Indonesia (7.01), in contrast with Hong Kong at the lower end of the scale (6.78), often due to small room sizes, and China (6.46), whose hotels generally scored poorly.
Hong Kong hotels scored well for location (8.88), but were also considered expensive and received some of the worst value for money ratings in the region (7.85) - Singapore (7.80), India (7.71) and Japan (7.42) in this category.
Singapore's Changi International Airport and national carrier Singapore Airlines outstripped Hong Kong's second-placed Chek Lap Kok and Cathay Pacific by a long margin in the best airport and best airline categories.
Together, Singapore Air and Cathay Pacific were the preferred airlines of more than 50 per cent of voters.
The survey also showed that 76 per cent of travellers still prefer to use travel agents, with Hong Kong residents relying on travel agents more than any country in Asia (88 per cent). There was a significant variation in travel purchase habits between Asian and non-Asian residents: 82 per cent of Asians using agents, against 67 per cent of non-Asians. Britons were the most likely to book travel on the Web (48 per cent), then United States residents (42 per cent) and Germans (41 per cent).
Hong Kong, of the developed countries in Asia, was the least accepting of online travel bookings. "Hong Kong is unusual in its buying practice as phone calls are free, and Hong Kong travel agents put very little margin on their products," Stonham says. "There is also the whole relationship thing, which is the way of doing business in Hong Kong. People get to know their travel agent, then just pick up the phone and leave the problem with them."
Japan leads Asia in its preference for online travel bookings (40 per cent), followed by Australia (30 per cent), Singapore (29 per cent) and Korea (28 per cent). "Only 22 per cent of Hong Kong residents use online travel bookings. The only countries lower than Hong Kong were ones with little IT infrastructure, such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines," Stonham says.
"In terms of buying habits, I think it shows the Internet has a long way to go to match the knowledge and service of travel agents, but has made a huge impact in just a few years."
Stonham was surprised by how many people responded to the survey, and was also pleased at variety of hotels nominated. "We were consistently finding very good, small hotels being recommended that even we didn't know about - nice family-type hotels with less than 50 rooms and definitely not five-star, which people like because they are quaint, intimate and often run by the owner."
Although many of the small hotels did not make it to the report - receiving less than 50 votes - Stonham says they would be included on the asia-hotels.com Web site. However, a number of gems did. "Places like Lu Song Yuan in Beijing, the De Syloia in Hanoi, the Keong Saik in Singapore and Ankor Village in Siem Reap (Cambodia) scored well, even though they appear to have been elbowed out for the top awards by the large hotel chains. Hotels like these are the ones to watch. They don't have huge facilities but offer an intimacy that people want, without the five-star prices."
Top of the class
Preferred destination: Thailand
Best airline: Singapore Airlines
Best airport: Changi International Airport, Singapore
Best hotel: The Peninsula, Hong Kong
Best business hotel: The Peninsula, Hong Kong
Best leisure hotel: The Oriental, Bangkok
Best resort: Banyan Tree, Phuket
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