Thailand's Biggest Tourism Consultancy Rebrands as QUO

Bangkok-based Keen Media, this week officially rebrands as QUO Keen and announces five new offices around the world, opening by November 2011. The company is positioning itself as the world's first tourism brand creation, communication and representation specialist. The other QUO offices which open in the next few weeks are in UK, India, Germany and Vietnam.

"The skill set our team has built up in tourism branding, design, strategy and marketing is now the cornerstone of a multi-discipline global tourism network," said David Keen who founded Keen in Bangkok in 1997.

Since then leading hospitality brands such as Anantara, Dusit International, Onyx, Outrigger, Sofitel and properties such as The Sukhothai and The Metropole have turned to Keen/QUO for travel industry branding, design, creative and strategy services. As have destinations such as the Maldives and Bhutan and regional tourism entities such as the HICAP hotel trade show in Hong Kong and the Pacific Asia Travel Association.

"Thai design excellence is among the best in the world," said Keen. "Those skills have been nurtured by strong tourism industry branding demand within Thailand and the Mekong region."

QUO's creation and expansion strategy is being built on creation of new offices and the rebranding of current specialist tourism consultancies overseas. The other big rebranding to QUO is of Hills Balfour in London. The company currently represents 24 official tourism boards including New York City, Las Vegas, Portugal, Kenya and Queensland, as well as hotels brands such as Onyx, Heritage and Verandah, and airlines such as Air Asia in the UK.          

"Through acquisition and organic growth QUO aims to open offices in Asia in Singapore, Shanghai, Male, Seoul, Manila, Paris, Milan, Moscow, North and South America before the end of next year," said QUO Global co-founder, Amanda Hills, who created the leading sales and marketing PR specialist Hills Balfour in London in 1999.

The QUO office in Bangkok is central to understanding and servicing the current huge growth in travel in Asia. Unprecedented demand for new niche hotel brands and new holiday experiences are being fuelled by rapid GDP growth, the creation of new urban middle classes who want to spend, not save, and the continued rapid expansion in low cost airline networks.