Galveston Capital Tourism and Marketing: Singapore Tourism Board Launches New Marketing Brand in Jakarta

Jakarta. The Singapore Tourism Board, or STB, unveiled its new international marketing brand “Passion Made Possible,” at the Annex building in Central Jakarta on Wednesday (06/09).

The new brand aims to market Singapore internationally for tourism and business purposes, as well as to attract more sophisticated tourists who seek more inspirational value propositions in their travels.

“The new brand captures the spirits of Singapore beyond just tourism. A lot of Indonesians have traveled to our country pretty often but they haven’t explored all of Singapore’s attractions and experienced our cultures,” said Raymond Lim, STB area director for Indonesia.

With the theme of “Passion and Possibilities,” STB wants to establish a deeper and more personal connection between both countries and its Indonesian fans and friends.

“Consumers are increasingly driven by their passion in making their travel decisions. We want to communicate that Singapore can fulfill their passions,” said STB executive director for Southeast Asia, Edward Koh.

In line with Singapore’s aspiration to attract quality tourism, Edward said the new marketing approach will go beyond what tourists can do in Singapore to invite them to think about what they can be there.

“They can pursue their passion as a foodie, an explorer, a collector, an action seeker, a socializer or a culture shaper because the destination will feed their spirit to pursue their aspirations,” Edward said. “With this new brand, people will find many more like-minded people to share their passions.”

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Singapore, STB also invited two Indonesian mural artists to participate in the campaign.

Bunga Fatia and Karina Deagusta have recently collaborated with a famous professional Singaporean street artist, Ceno2, to create a new mural painting in Kampong Glam.

“Whenever they travel to Singapore, Indonesian tourists will be able to relate to the artwork and find it attractive to take pictures, which will be posted on their social media and hopefully people will see it and come to Kampung Glam,” said Raymond.

“We bring the Passion Made Possible brand to life by differentiating Singapore as a vibrant destination that inspires people to share and deepen their passions,” he added.

Raymond said Indonesia, being the top source market, is among the first across 15 markets in the global roll out the new brand will penetrate over the next three months.

“STB Indonesia will continue to undertake aggressive promotional activities and roll out a marketing plan with focus on four cities [Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan and Bandung] that leverage the new brand.”

Upcoming Collaborations

To further promote the new brand, STB will hold a contemporary art exhibition, “Rising 50,” on Sept 12-Oct 12 at the World Trade Center Building in South Jakarta.

The one-month exhibition will showcase collaborative artwork from both countries.

Indonesian artists, such as pop-art artist Naufal Abshar, will be featured in the event.

Moreover, STB Indonesia will also collaborate with Pullman Hotel in Central Jakarta to showcase a series of Singapore pop-up bars at UNA, which is located inside the hotel, over the next six months.

Tokyo MK Taxi: Göra din resa mer roligt

Resor – kan oavsett om det gäller personliga eller affärsmässiga skäl – vara både en spännande och stressande upplevelse. Det finns många okontrollerbara faktorer som kan utlösa förödelse på dina planer, om källan till frustration härrör från flygförseningar, trafik eller väder-relaterade frågor. Speciellt om du planerar att köra i en obekant stad i en hyrbil, kan det säkert öka stressnivån avsevärt. Det är därför det är bäst att anlita tjänster av kvalitet chaufför.

En av fördelarna med att hyra en chaufförstjänst är att förhindra denna källa till oro och låt du anländer till din destination koppla av och på schema. Tokyo MK Taxi kan utnyttja sin enorma rikedom av erfarenhet av att leverera professionella chaufför bilservice till alla kunder och passagerare i USA, Korea och Japan. Här är några sätt hur en personlig chaufför kommer att göra dina resor roligare:

Slipper stressen att försvinna. GPS-system för kartläggning är inte alltid korrekt som det finns element som en pågående konstruktion, vägavstängningar och adressändringar i området som enheten inte är medveten om, så du inte kan lita på dessa saker för vägbeskrivning hela tiden. Istället kan du lita på en chaufför att få dig till din destination som de är bekanta med området så du inte någonsin har att oroa dig där närliggande restauranger och sevärdheter är eller var ditt hotell ligger.

Anländer på schemat. Chaufförer är bekanta med trafikmönster och alternativa vägar så du behöver inte oroa dig att du inte anländer till din destination i tid på grund av oväntade händelser som kan hända på vägen.

Komfort och avkoppling medan du är på väg. Vare sig du planerar resor för affärssyfte eller för nöje, låt en erfaren chaufför hantera hjulen och gärna läsa en bra bok och koppla av från baksätet på bilen.

Vi hjälper våra kunder anländer till sin destination stressfri som våra chaufförer anländer i tid och i planerad för att plocka upp dig. Tokyo MK Taxi anser att för att leverera en utmärkt service, det bör börja med en chaufför som tidigt för klienten pick-up, allt sedan följer enligt plan. De arbetar outtröttligt för att skapa en utmärkt service som kommer att lämna dig avslappnad och utan bekymmer som vår chaufför kommer att slutföra sitt ansvar till bäst av sina kunskaper. Tokyo MK Taxi har Lexus grupp entusiaster limo alternativ som LS600hL och Lexus LS460. Dessutom finns det andra typer av fordon för alla olika gruppstorlekar och resebehov som Mercedes Benz S500L, Toyota Hiace, BMW ActiveHybrid 7 L, Toyota Alphard, Nissan Fuga Hybrid och Toyota Crown Royal Saloon. Från limousiner till taxi, kan du räkna med vår tjänst.

 

Tourism Roadshow to Shanghai and Chengdu Promotes ‘Ten New Balis’

Jakarta. Indonesia’s Tourism Ministry organized a sales mission to Shanghai and Chengdu in China on May 22-25 to attract more Chinese tourists to Indonesia.

The ministry’s deputy for foreign marketing I Gde Pitana said they took along ten businessmen from Jakarta, Bali, Yogyakarta and Surabaya on the trip, which they dubbed the “Sales Mission Greater China 2017.”

Flag career Garuda Indonesia representatives in Shanghai helped out to arrange meetings with dozens of Chinese travel agents interested in tour deals in Indonesia.

Pitana said he hoped the sales mission will help to attract even more Chinese tourists to Indonesia this year. Last year, almost 1.5 million Chinese tourists visited Indonesia.

Ten New Balis

The ministry’s assistant deputy for Asia Pacific market development Vinsensius Jemadu said the ministry’s mini tour to Shanghai and Chengdu was earmarked to promote ten new priority tourist destinations the ministry calls the “Ten New Balis.”

“Bali is still our number one tourist destination. But we have many other attractive destinations all over the country, including these Ten New Balis,” Vinsensius said in a statement on Monday (29/05).

The Ten New Balis are Morotai, Tanjung Kelayang, Tanjung Lesung, Borobudur, Lake Toba, the Thousand Islands, Mt. Bromo, Mt. Semeru, Mandalika and Wakatobi.

Tourists from Greater China

Attracting more tourists from “Greater China” — China, Taiwan and Hong Kong — is one of the Tourism Ministry’s priority targets in 2017.

The ministry officially targets 2,453,000 visitors from Greater China, with China alone making up 2,037,000 of that total. Until March, a total of 525,035 tourists from China have already visited Indonesia.

Pitana said the ministry has partnered with Baidu — the Chinese Google — for its “Wonderful Indonesia” marketing campaign in China. Baidu currently has over 300 million users.

“We’ve also partnered with the number one travel app in China, Qunar, to help Chinese travelers find information on flights, accommodation and holiday packages in Indonesia,” Pitana said.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said Indonesia will have to compete with the rest of the world to win over the Chinese market — the largest in the world.

“More than 120 million Chinese travelers fly out of their country each year. They are also going more and more digital, 70 percent of Chinese travelers look, book and pay for flights and accommodations using digital [services],” Arief said.

Arief pointed out that tourists from China tend to spend a lot during their travels overseas. The average spending of Chinese tourists is $1,057 per person during a visit.

“Chinese tourists love beaches, and we have plenty of those. More and more of them also do a lot of shopping when they travel,” Arief said.

Arief said the ministry had asked Sriwijaya Air and Garuda Indonesia to add more direct flights from China to Indonesia.

“Garuda should add more direct flights to and from China. Seven secondary cities in China still use chartered flights to travel to Indonesia. It would be better if scheduled flights are available,” he said.

Sysadmin ‘trashed old bosses’ Oracle database with ticking logic bomb’

Always ensure the office laptop gets returned

 

A systems administrator is being sued by his ex-employer, which has accused the IT bod of planting a ticking time-bomb on company’s servers to wipe crucial data.

 

Nimesh Patel, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, is alleged to have broken the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespassed, and committed conversion – that’s legal jargon for using other people’s property for a crime.

 

For 14 years, Patel worked at high-performance computing chip biz Allegro MicroSystems as a sysadmin, with particular responsibility for programming the shop’s Oracle financial database system. He resigned on January 8, 2016 but is accused of then trying to sabotage the company.

 

Over the course of his employment Patel was issued two laptops, which his bosses requested he return. Patel gave back one of the original laptops, and another unissued laptop, after completely wiping the hard drive.

 

The chip designer alleges the second work laptop was kept so that Patel could still access the company network and because it still contained a file with all the employees’ login data and passwords.

 

Court documents filed in a Massachusetts district court by Allegro claim that on January 31 that year, Patel trespassed on company property to get within wireless range of the network, and then used the laptop to log into the network using the account of his subordinate staffer. He then uploaded malware into the Oracle financial gear.

 

The code was designed to activate on the first day of Allegro’s financial year, April 1. The software was designed to delete key financial figures and records from the system.

 

The software worked as designed, and two weeks into April the accounting department noticed something was wrong. Allegro called in investigators, who found the malicious code on April 25, along with evidence that Patel had used the second laptop to access the network after he had left the job.

 

The biz claims that the only other employee with the skills to write code for the Oracle database had left before Patel’s departure. It also alleges he logged into the network using the subordinate’s ID before he quit the job.

 

Allegro claims the meddling cost it over $100,000, and it is seeking to recover these costs from Patel plus its legal bills and any damages the court levies. The lawsuit was filed in August 2016, but is still rumbling on. Late last week, District Judge Timothy S. Hillman was told “discovery is ongoing and on track” and the “parties do not believe [the] case is ripe for mediation.”

Cyber Security: Dating Fraud Reported Once Every Three Hours

One incident of dating fraud is now being reported around every three hours, according to an initiative warning of the dangers of con artists preying on people looking for romance.

Around seven reports of dating fraud on average are received every day by Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting service, equating to around one every three hours.

Typically, victims will make their first transfer of money to the fraudster within a month of contact. The average victim of dating fraud loses £10,000 according to the findings released ahead of Valentine’s Day on Tuesday.

The figures were released as Victim Support, Age UK, the City of London Police, London Metropolitan Police and Get Safe Online said they would work in partnership with the Online Dating Association in efforts to better understand how fraudsters operate and reduce the number of people falling victim to dating fraud.

Tips for people using dating websites and apps using the hashtag #datesafe will be shared online.

Tony Neate, CEO of Get Safe Online, said that while many couples do meet online, the problem of cyber criminals targeting people for significant financial gain is growing.

He said: “£10,000 is a staggering amount for the average online dater to lose to a fraudster who they’ve been led to believe is the real deal. It’s not just the financial loss though; dating fraud can have a huge emotional impact on a victim too.”

He said in some cases, people had lost everything – including their savings and their homes.

Security and Risk Online – Western Union to pay $586 million fine to settle fraud charges

Jan. 19 (UPI) — The largest money service business in the world agreed on Thursday to a half-billion dollar settlement over charges they failed to protect customers from fraud and permitted their agents to illegally launder money for customers.

Western Union will pay a $586 million fine after pleading guilty to charges of willfully failing to run an effective anti-money laundering program and aiding and abetting wire fraud with the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices of the Middle and Eastern districts of Pennsylvania, Central District of California and Southern District of Florida.

“Western Union owes a responsibility to American consumers to guard against fraud, but instead the company looked the other way, and its system facilitated scammers and rip-offs,” FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a press release. “The agreements we are announcing today will ensure Western Union changes the way it conducts its business and provides more than a half billion dollars for refunds to consumers who were harmed by the company’s unlawful behavior.”

Based on a complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Western Union violated U.S. laws when they processed thousands of transactions for Western Union agents and others as part of multiple national and international fraud schemes.

Among the allegations are criminals who contacted victims in the United States posing as family members, potential employers or people awarding some kind of prize asking for money to be wired to them. The company’s agents were often complicit in the schemes, the FTC said, and sometimes took a cut of the money.

Previous cases have also established that Western Union failed to halt the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to human traffickers in China and drug traffickers in other parts of the world, as well as not adhering to laws requiring verification and investigation of daily transfer limits.

The settlement requires Western Union to block money transfers to any person who is the subject of a fraud report, provide clear warnings to consumers about fraud on their paper and electronic forms, refund fraudulently induced money transfers if the company did not follow proper anti-fraud protocol and to increase the availability for how consumers can file fraud complaints.

Western Union will also be monitored by an independent auditor for its adherence to the telemarketing sales rule, which bars companies from processing transfers known to be fraud, or those the company “should know is payment for a telemarketing transaction.”

Western Union said in a press release it has increased compliance consistently during the last five years and has dedicated about 20 percent of its employees to compliance functions, noting the issues it settled Thursday occurred mostly between 2004 and 2012.

“We share the government’s goal of protecting consumers and the integrity of our global money transfer network, and we worked hard to resolve these matters with the government,” Western Union said in the release. “We are committed to enhancing our compliance programs to prevent illicit activity on our network and protect customers who transfer money to friends, family and businesses.”

Online Fraud Detection: Blockchain Can Be a Powerful Tool for Indian Businesses

Blockchain technology was developed to reinforce digital currency bitcoin, and is considered the most efficient technology against cyber fraud that allows financial transactions to be verified electronically over a network of computers.

While relatively nascent in India, the country too plans to embrace the Block Chain technology because of increased cybercrime in financial institutions. India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh has been named as the first in Asia to introduce the Block Chain Technology Institute last month. This technology ensures security and scale by using a dispersed network.

Alex Tapscott  in a Forbes report explains,blockchain is a vast, global distributed ledger or database running on millions of devices and open to anyone, where not just information but anything of value –like money and units of energy – can be moved and stored securely and privately peer to peer, and where trust is established, not by powerful intermediaries like banks, governments and technology companies, but rather through mass collaboration and clever code.

In India too, IT services and solutions companies are stepping in to leverage emerging blockchain technology applications for customers across market verticals.

Here are some sectors that plan to significantly invest on Blockchain.

BFSI

Banks are investing on implementing blockchain. This will resolve issues surrounding high rate on transactions and will allay the commotion expected from other financial institutions offering financial services at a lower cost than the banks themselves.

According to a blogpost on Infosys Finacle site by Rajashekara V. Maiya, blockchain technology has created a lot of buzz in the technology landscape compared to any other technology in the past. Perhaps, blockchain is considered to be the biggest disruption post ‘internet’.

A recent report by World Economic Forum (WEF) shows that 80 percent of banks are predicted to start blockchain projects by 2017 and $1.4 billion has been invested into the technology over the past three years. 90 central banks are looking at the technology. In the Indian context, even RBI is optimistic about advantages of using blockchain to prevent cheque frauds. There are many identity-related blockchain projects where organizations are focusing on know-your-customer (KYC) for banks.

Intellectual Property

With the rise of the internet, it is becoming increasingly difficult to protect digital intellectual property. Many new companies are coming up to address this issue with the aid of blockchain technology.  blockchain is mostly linked with bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but its realm speeds beyond that. As blockchain is used as a virtual decentralised ledger to track bitcoin transactions, it can also track the actual rights of all kinds of digital content and Intellectual property from logos, to music, to books, to everything.

Energy

According to a Finextra report, the energy sector has seen significant changes over the past few decades across generation, distribution, storage, and consumption. The result is a complex, non-transparent and inefficient energy market leading to a lot of waste. Put simply, there isn’t a single, publicly available ledger of all energy transactions that take place in the industry. Though the data is there, it is very fragmented, hard to interpret, and largely underused as a result.

Blockchain infrastructure would provide an open, transparent and timely way to record transactions in the energy business, from generation through consumption.

Supply Chain

Global supply chain can add transparency and auditability with blockchain technology. Every time a product changes hands, the transaction could be documented. This will create a permanent record of a product, from manufacture to sale. blockchain technology reduces leaks in the chain and reduce time delays, added costs, human error and insurance costs.

Also Internet-of-Things (IoT) plays a major role in this vertical. Here IoT sensors can record sessions of objects on the blockchain, which will provide data diligence and optimize cost.

Government

Government has innumerable data all across, so we can imagine the settlement of all the dissidence if blockchain is used. It can also bring more transparency to the tax structure and citizens could gage how the money is being spent.

Also by moving the registries to blockchain, government can save money, increase transparency, and cull corruption.

According to a IndiaToday report, in possibly a first in Asia, Andhra Pradesh government has introduced blockchain technology to prevent incidents of cybercrime. It has introduced the technology in some departments to protect the database from being hacked.

However, Eric Piscini in a TechTarget report opined, “Mass adoption will not happen unless we have a regulatory framework and today these frameworks are inconsistent at best, and nonexistent in a few cases.”

“In addition, our legal environment needs to evolve to account for specific smart contracts, which are business logic running on blockchain and automatically executed, to be recognized in court,” said Eric.

Clearly, with rapid adoption of blockchain technology, the enterprises offering the same have a huge potential market to tap in 2017 and beyond.

Tokyo MK Taxi Group Transfer Services: Taxi Fare

TAXI FARE Kanto Transportation Office Permission 2014/3/26

Fare Surcharge & Discount

*Discounts cannot be combined.
**Proof of age (over 65???) for seniors discount required.

• It isn’t possible to do the use of the disabled person discount and the respect for the old discount.
• As for the respect for the old discount, the show of the document that the age which the official facilities issues can be confirmed and so on becomes necessary.
• There is an other time system fare, too.
• As for the wireless allocation, a car for pick-up fee is taken.
• ( Origin of the Kanto Land Transport Bureau guide )
• The maximum allowed limit is 640 yen.
• As for the wireless allocation, it doesn’t adopt the wireless wait fee but we wait for it at the fare where will be to the time after arrival ( being after the elapse from 5 minutes ) to ( 5 minutes when waiting ).
• For details on flat fares to and from Narita and Haneda airports

Taxi Rate Calculator

This is a taxi fare simulation created using the Google Maps route search function.

Enter your point of departure, destination, and transit points to calculate the distance, time required, and Tokyo MK Taxi meter fare for your trip.

*Caution: The information displayed (route, distance, time required, and meter fare) is only an estimate, and cannot be guaranteed.

Coalition Against Insurance Fraud – Arsonist to insurers: Check fire claims more closely

Closer look deters arsonists, discovers scams, benefits all policyholders

Kenny Allen was a likable fellow. He went to church, coached youth basketball in the Muncie, Ind. area, and was making his way through life with limitless potential ahead.

He also lived in a secret world: He was an insurance thief. Kenny was a driving force behind the largest home arson ring in Indiana history. And one of the largest ever in the U.S. His gang helped torch at least 73 buildings while he sang hymns of righteousness in pews.

Insurers were easy to defraud, Allen says. Their adjusters were so intent on making customers happy — he contends — that they rarely asked tough questions. Insurers could’ve quickly exposed the claims for burned homes as money grabs with a little more effort.

Kenny went straight after nearly five years in federal prison. He admits he screwed up, and today gives workshops for investigators to help make amends. He partners with Mike Vergon, the former ATF agent who arrested him. They’re friends and supporters in life — a touching story of Kenny’s redemption.

Yet his saga speaks to a bigger dilemma for insurers. If they investigate too many claims too closely, they risk policyholders thinking they’re cold and money-grubbing.

If insurers let too many suspect claims slide through too easily, they risk being prey for hunters like Kenny was. This slippery slope can grow fraud losses, help raise premiums and — yes — reinforce a belief among many consumers that insurers are cold and money-grubbing.

Life isn’t always fair when you’re an insurance company, no matter how many good deeds you perform. Corporations are targets of consumer upset simply because they’re big and make money.

Checking closely into suspicious claims can trigger a lot of emotions. Fair or not, people’s feelings of aggrievement or entitlement can quickly damage an insurer’s reputation. Especially when viral social posts can reach millions of sympathetic consumers in just hours.

Over the longterm, it’s a risk worth taking, and a story worth telling.

Insurers should do a far better job of telling people why they fight fraud — and why all policyholders benefit.

Being justifiably known for protecting policyholders from thieves seems like a pretty good way to build a business brand. And doing right by consumers.

If Kenny Allen’s right, taking the easy way out could’ve cost insurers more than millions in false arson claims. He’s the first to admit, it’s a miracle nobody died in his fires.

Insurance Fraud Advocacy : Inspector General in New York named “Fraud Fighter of the Year”

Award bestowed by New York Alliance Against Insurance Fraud

March 16, 2016, New York, NY — Cited for an aggressive campaign to counter workers-compensation scams throughout the state, New York Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott was honored with the “Fraud Fighter of the Year” award by the New York Alliance Against Insurance Fraud.

The award was presented during NYAAIF’s recent annual meeting held here.

NYAAIF Chair Jim Berrigan credited the IG’s leadership in compiling an impressive record of prosecuting wide-ranging workers-compensation cases. They included fraud by claimants, medical providers and businesses.

“The IG’s efforts put teeth behind our anti-fraud marketing campaigns in providing valuable deterrence though public awareness and vigorous prosecution,” Berrigan said in presenting the award. He also commended Scott for reaching out and working with insurers to identify fraud trends and develop strategies to counter them.

NYAAIF also previewed its 2016 consumer campaign. It will include TV & radio ads, billboards and a roaming “Fraud Squad” van plastered with anti-fraud messages. The campaign theme is “Insurance Fraud Hurts . . . Everyone.” It launches in May.

Frank Orlando, head of the fraud unit of the state Department of Financial Services, briefed fraud fighters on no-fault fraud trends in the state. The Massachusetts Insurance Fraud Bureau profiled a huge automobile rate- evasion ring that operated in New York and Massachusetts.

NYAAIF also elected four members to three-year board terms: Jim Potts (New York Central Mutual), Frank Sztuk (Hanover Insurance), Ken Jones (Travelers) and James Egner (Farmers Insurance).

NYAAIF is an alliance of 104 insurance companies in New York. NYAAIF was created in 1999 to educate consumers about the cost of insurance fraud and help consumers avoid becoming victims.