Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Edition January - February 2020

Welcome to our first issue of the new decade. For those of you who live in a country that offers days off for Chinese New Year, you may be planning your leisure travel for this period, or if you’ve just picked up this magazine in February you’re likely to be planning your Easter or even summer holidays. Our Destination features in this issue therefore have a distinctly leisure focus: we take you to the Maldives (page 22) to check out some of the best resorts there, to the vibrant Croatian capital Zagreb (page 28), and to the Caucasus country enjoying a timely renaissance, Georgia (page 32). 2020 is set to be an exciting year for new hotels. On page 40 we give you a round-up of some of the hotels we are…

4 HOURS IN HONG KONG We show you the best things to see and do when you visit Hong Kong’s East meets West neighbourhood of Sai Ying Pun THE GREAT ESCAPE From spas to surfing to meetings, there is something for everyone in the beautiful island nation of the Maldives BUSINESS CLASS REVIEW Taking a flight in Virgin Atlantic’s new Upper Class suite on the new-generation Airbus A350-1000 widebody HOW TO BEAT JET LAG Jet lag is the bane of every business traveller’s life, but there are many ways you can mitigate its impact on your trip…

APRIL HUTCHINSON April is editor of TTG Luxury, the UK’s foremost B2B premium travel magazine. She has worked with brand owner TTG Media for 12 years, part of a 24-year career in travel publishing, and is regularly called on as an expert in luxury travel trends – including those in the Maldives, where she has visited more than 20 resorts. See her recommendations for all manner of breaks on its islands on page 22. DEREK PICOT Veteran hotelier Derek has worked in senior positions on five continents, most recently as regional vice president for Jumeirah’s hotels and resorts in Europe. He now consults for hotel owners and luxury developers, advising on design and trends in hospitality. In his regular column on page 58, he argues that it’s time to find a new way…

QANTAS has selected Airbus’s A350-1000 over Boeing’s delayed B777X as the preferred aircraft for its ultra long-haul, non-stop research flight programme, dubbed Project Sunrise. The Australian flag carrier wants to be able to operate regular non-stop commercial flights from the east coast of Australia to London and New York, and said that it will now make a “final go/ no-go decision” in March 2020 on whether to operate the flights. The Project Sunrise research flights are also being conducted to test ways to improve the health and wellbeing of passengers and crew on such ultra long-haul flights. The A350-1000 uses the Rolls Royce Trent XWB engine, which is used exclusively on the A350 and, according to the airline, has a “strong reliability record” after being in service with airlines for more than two…

EL AL has released more details regarding its first non-stop flights between Israel and Australia, with the trial set to take place in April and May this year. The carrier plans to operate the flights “as part of a commercial trial for regular operations between Tel Aviv and Melbourne, to be decided upon in the coming months”. Flight time on the Melbourne-bound flight is 16 hours and 15 minutes, while the return flight, from Melbourne to Ben Gurion Airport, is expected to take 17 hours and 45 minutes. The schedules for the route have now been loaded into El Al’s online reservation systems, with flight LY087 departing Tel Aviv on April 2, April 23 and May 14, and the return leg LY088 leaving Melbourne on April 4, April 25 and May 16. The service,…

FINNAIR has collaborated with chef DeAille Tam to bring modern Chinese flavours to the plates of business class passengers flying on all Finnair routes from Greater China to Helsinki. The dishes started being served in the carrier’s business class cabin on all long-haul flights from Greater China to Helsinki from December 5, 2019. Finnair began its Signature Chef programme in 2013 and has since worked with a number of chefs from Finland, Japan, China, Korea and the United States, who have all created their own signature menus for Finnair’s business class. The airline flies to seven major airports in Greater China: Beijing Capital, Beijing Daxing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Xian and Hong Kong. finnair.com…