Art & Culture; Batubulan, village of stone carving

In Bali History, creating art was not seen as a real profession. Art was mainly created for temple decorations and religious festivals to honour the Hindu Gods. And actually, producing arts nowadays is still necessary to serve these Gods, but because of the growing tourism, works of art created in Bali are receiving more and more appreciation. The know-how and skill of creating Balinese art is gained from inside the families and is passed on through many generations. This way, specialized villages were formed with an expertise on a specific form of art. One of these villages is named Batubulan, which means “Moon Stone” and is located in the district of Gianyar. Batubulan is famous for it’s stone carvings.

What’s Cooking; Café Sendok

One of the most popular streets in Bali is Jalan Legian; the long main road that leads to Kuta on one side and Seminyak on the other. This street is loaded with shops and restaurants and is obviously a great spot for the tourist to wander around on.

One of the restaurants located on Jalan Legian is the old time favorite Café Sendok (sendok = spoon). Whenever we walk or drive by this place it is always lively. Happy tourists are sitting at the bar, enjoying a cold Bintang beer or sitting at the tables, chatting and laughing about their adventures. Though this place is German oriented, the tourists are from every corner of the world. I guess this is because the restaurant looks inviting.

So this time I get to be that happy tourist (again). Though living in Bali feels like a permanent holiday, somehow you just don’t hang around in the tourist areas that often anymore.

Are Websites and Their Cost The Twin Evils of Small Hoteliers?

Interestingly, my last hotel ecommerce articles provoked a number of calls from small hoteliers who thought that their website was just a necessary evil and not worth any real investment. That being said, this weeks article contains an overview of my thoughts and comments on their concerns.

First, look at the Web sites of major hotels which now contain vital sales collateral and real-time online reservation systems. Web site visitors are now recognized as potential guests. Even visitors who are not booking are now perceived as often being in the important "research" phase of the shopping process. One only has to view the changes and upheaval due to e-commerce in the retail industry to understand and recognize how extensively the Internet has and will affect the hotel industry.

The number of reservations flowing to hotels through the electronic distribution channels, the global distribution systems (GDS) and the Internet is growing steadily. Once a minor contributor of bookings, they are now primary business sources and grow more important with every passing month.

This growth has heightened emphasis throughout the hotel industry on using the electronic distribution channels effectively and maximizing their potential. Every hotelier now faces the challenge of understanding, prioritizing and managing these electronic outlets on behalf of his or her property.

Ask yourself how many of your friends or relatives refer to the Internet while planning a trip? How many are influenced by what they see on the hotel and travel websites? How many buy online? And how many of those who buy online today did not a year ago? This informal survey by yourself of online growth will readily support the many published professional surveys conducted by the hotel industry.

Because, with the maturing of the Internet there needs to be an increased awareness of the "overhead" associated with each distribution channel and such expenses must come under closer and closer scrutiny by hoteliers.

You must strive to control the number of rooms that are offered and sold through each channel if you are aiming to fill your property while simultaneously achieving your lowest practical distribution-related costs.

I agree, and it is quite understood that any hotelier’s immediate goal is selling rooms, yet, while recognizing that the cost of generating that business varies from channel to channel, it should also be noted that a reservation arriving direct to a hotel’s own Web site may be the least expensive while the one from a travel agent using a GDS may be the most.

Thus, when considering the Internet as a necessary evil and the temptation to limit consideration of the Internet to how it only impacts the sale of guest rooms, actually denies the array of other areas where the Internet is having a significant impact on costs, efficiencies and improved margins, such as: Decreased distribution costs, low or no-cost communications, sales material, room descriptions and photos, distribution of marketing collateral, copies of advertisements, access to telephone directories, menus, e-mail accounts and much more.

Finally with regard to investment, apart from the aforementioned advantages, a number of Application System Providers (ASPs) are becoming increasingly visible in the hotel systems marketplace. They offer appealing propositions, such as, monthly rental or purchase of online reservation software systems where the system itself operates remotely and is accessed via an Internet screen.

At issue with the ASP approach is the fact that you continue to pay for a lifetime on a monthly/commission basis. As with any software, purchasing and owning a copy outright can reduce the overall long term costs of ownership dramatically.

Rooms, rates, etc., are controlled easily online by hotel staff, and visitors to the website can readily select, reserve, confirm and pay online. There is no doubt in my mind that the current negative perception by some hoteliers of their hotel website will undergo radical change as they better understand its increasing importance in their distribution strategy and the possibilities offered by the purchase approach to resolving their investment concerns.

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John Shenton - September, 2002

Virtual Tour of HAWAII

by ALOHA DEAN

Welcome to the Hawaiian Islands Virtual Tour and QTVR Tour Hawaii. Hundreds of virtual reality panoramas of the beautiful islands of Hawaii.
JAVA 360 scene allows you to look all the way around, hidden places, exotic landscapes, world renowned beaches, it's the next best thing to being there. At this moment we have Virtual Reality Tour from Oahu, Kauai, Big Island Hawaii, Maui, Molokai and Lanai with 1160 VR scenes. We are especially proud of our QuickTime VR with over 1000 full screen movies.

History

Skilled Polynesian navigators from the Marques as and Society Island were probably the first visitors to Oahu in about 750 A.D. In the sturdy twin-hulled canoes they sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific in search of new lands, bringing with them pigs, plantings of taro, coconut, sugarcane and bamboo, as well as seeds of ginger and hibiscus.
More than a thousand years later in 1778, the English sea captain James Cook sighted Oahu, but high winds forced him to land at Waimea on island Kauai. Captain Cook named his discovery the Sandwich Island after the Earl Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty. A year later Cook was killed on the Island of Hawaii, but his crew brought the information about the existence of the islands to the western world.
In 1795 Kamehameha, a powerful chief from the island of Hawaii, conquered Oahu and Maui and later brought the whole island under one rule. This was a major turning point in Hawaiian history, all of the islands under one rule. Another notable turning point in Hawaiian history came after Kamehameha's death 1819. The old kapus (religious taboos) were set aside and shortly thereafter American missionaries arrived, bringing Christianity and culture of New England.

Map of Honolulu City

Honolulu City, with its suburb of Waikiki, is as much a tourist town as a business centre alongside a beautiful waterfront with lovely beaches..
Modern Honolulu boasts several impressive high rise buildings. The city is set alongside the waterfront. Wharf at Downtown Honolulu, a good place to organize a fishing or whale

Map of Oahu Island

Oahu, the main island of Hawaii, dominated by Waikiki Beach in the south and world class surfing in the north ...
View along the Koolau Range, a razor back 1000-metre mountain ridge that extends along the entire east coast of Hawaii. Kailua is a sprawling beachside suburbia with several golf

Hawaii Maps Guide

The map of Hawaii shows the six main Hawaii Islands with tourist appeal. There are another dozen small islands to the north that are protected wildlife parks. The main island of Hawaii is Oahu, with the international airport at Honolulu on the dry leeward south side of the island, backed by fantastic rainforest mountains. The second most popular holiday destination in Hawaii is Maui, about a 45-minute flight to the south of Oahu. Maui has several large beach resort destinations along the sunny west coast including the grand resorts of Wailua, the popular seaside town of Kihei and the old whaling port of Lahaina. The Garden Island of Kauai is a 40 minute flight to the north of Oahu. Kauai is the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands and is renowned for its dramatic scenery, excellent hiking, sea and river kayaking and has the most picturesque beach locations in the State. The largest Hawaiian Island is Hawaii, better known as the Big Island. Dominated by two massive volcanic peaks which are snow capped in winter, the Big Island is the most dynamic of the Hawaiian Islands with gorgeous beaches and world champiomnship golf courses on the west coast, dramatic valleys and waterfalls on the north and east coast, and the active Kilauea Volcano in the south.