“As for the next stage in meta-search, companies in Europe are also struggling for an answer. Kayak has moved to a transaction model with its announcement that it will take bookings on mobile this year but Seaney as well as Gareth Williams, CEO of SkyScanner, are not convinced that's the answer for them.”
Yeoh Siew Hoon
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The talk at WIT, Day 1A lot was said and shared at the first day of WIT. Yeoh Siew Hoon distills the essence. Well, the first day of WIT is over and what a day. It was a lot to get through but we got there in the end. So what were the key messages that came through the first day? The first of the morning – it’s time for the Western world to truly pay heed to Asia, in particular, China, and stop looking at it, and reporting on it, with a jaundiced eye. KP Ho, executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, was quite clear on that. He said Western media tended to be biased in their reporting about anything China to the extent that he no longer read Western media reports about the mainland. He called it a “clash of civilizations” and he said “rainbow tourism” was going to transform the travel landscape. Simon Nowroz, president and managing director Asia Pacific, Travelport GDS said we were seeing “green shoots of a re-order” – a new order that would see Asia dominate the global economy. Brands from Asia, particularly China, would rise to the fore and indeed, Travelsky China could indeed become a global GDS brand. And while all this has been said before, I felt there was some earnestness to what was being said – perhaps we truly have reached inflexion point and in the new world order, post Global Financial Crisis and in the world being shaped too by a more outward-looking American president, we could be seeing the day when global companies pay more than lip service to their Asian plans and local businesses rise to the challenge. Indeed, Ram Badrinathan, general manager-Asia Pacific for PhoCusWright wished there were more entrepreneurs in the region so that they would truly transform the tourism landscape. And he got his wish yesterday because Bluewalks, one of our Start-Up Pitch finalists, won the competition and from what I hear, the cool mobile application started by a university student, Francis Li, will be getting access to funds. Indeed, one of our finalists actually sealed an investment deal last night when they were approached by a company attending WIT who apparently put their money where their mouth is. So hail the new entrepreneurs of Asia. Another key message, again planted by Ram, was that of fluff value vs intrinsic value – and that everything we did boiled down to that. “You can’t define it but you know it when you get it,” he said. And for the next few sessions, panelists were challenged on what their intrinsic value was. What other thoughts surfaced during the day?
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Congratulations! You have managed to secure a most impressive list of speakers and panelists for WIT, the most complete coverage of all aspects of Travel Distribution, Marketing, Technology and E-Commerce I have seen so far. I wish you success!