Pleasant Holidays and Singapore Airlines plans to announce a partnership to launch and operate a new brand called Singapore Airlines Vacations. The brand, which will begin taking reservations April 1, will be managed and operated by Pleasant, and it represents a move to increase Singapore Airline's presence in the Asia tour market.
“This is a strategic move on the part of Singapore Airlines to become much bigger in the tour Asia market,” said Ken Bright, vice president of marketing USA, for Singapore Airlines, in an exclusive interview with TravelAge West. “We’re focusing on a fairly high-end product with very broad distribution, it makes a lot of sense to go with Pleasant Holidays. They certainly have the distribution network and the high-end product.”
According to Jack Richards, Pleasant’s president and CEO, the new pre-set and custom tour packages will focus exclusively on Singapore Airlines and its five U.S. gateways: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Newark and Houston. Tour destinations will include Singapore, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul, China, the Maldives, Bali, Vietnam and Cambodia. In Europe, there will be packages that include Frankfurt and Moscow which are current airline mid-point stops as well.
The tours will be aimed at the upscale market, and will utilize four- and five-star accommodations. In addition, Pleasant will use new ground operators for this product. All classes of service on Singapore flights, including first class, will be offered as well.
“For us, this was a great opportunity to partner with a world-class airline,” said Richards. “I don’t think we could have selected a better partner. It’s a company that’s garnered most of the awards for an international airline, so for us we couldn't pass up the chance to have a strategic partner of the caliber of Singapore Airlines.”
A new Singapore Airlines Vacations brochure will go out in April and Richards said he expects there to be an extensive program to get the word out to agents, including consortia-wide training seminars, trade-show events, in-agency visits and fam trips. The new brand will also have a presence on the Singapore Airlines Web site.
Operations for the new tour operator will be primarily out of Pleasant’s San Diego offices.
