Seaside inspiration for THack@WIT
Developers taking part at THack Day@WIT, the 24-hour hacking event held in conjunction with the WIT Conference, will be able to take inspiration from the ocean breeze and palm trees, plus work on an API made available exclusively to participants for this event.The hackathon, which will kick off Oc [...]
Sleepy Luang Prabang wakes up to a mega dilemma
One of Southeast Asia's most charming cultural heritage destinations, Luang Prabang in Laos, is fast approaching a tipping point and facing a dilemma as huge projects invade its space.According to the new Luang Prabang Hotel Market Update (download full report here) by leading hospitality consulti [...]
How Asia’s travel start-ups got their names
Ahead of the WIT Bootcamp: Entrepreneurship & Innovation on Oct 17, we thought it'd be interesting to find out the history behind some of the names of Asia’s travel start-ups. “Many years ago, like many search engine focused marketers, we marketed our hotel product t [...]
GetFlight offers Australians one site for sale airfares
Airfare search in Australia just got more competitive with the launch of GetFlight.com.au, claiming to be “the first and only site dedicated to sale airfares for Australians” and allowing Australians to search for and subscribe to direct-from-airline sale airfares on just one site.GetFlight.com. [...]
Starwood’s chief leads team to live in China for a month
It was a question that had been raised at the WIT Conference last year – when will any of the American and European-based “global” brands which are doing business in Asia move its headquarters to the region, specifically China?So my ears perked up recently in Las Vegas at the Global Travel &am [...]
Stellar year for Phuket as records smashed
Thailand’s popular resort island of Phuket had its best year in 2010 with tourist arrivals topping 3.5 million, smashing all previous records. Representing a 22% hike over the previous year, the growth was mostly driven by new markets such as Russia and China.Consultancy firm C9 Hotelworks' latest [...]
3 Jamaicans in Geneva
I had been craving a Frappuccino all morning. Walking around Geneva Lake, past the beautiful Parc du Chateau Banquet and La Perle du Lac, passing several small cafes that served wonderful European cappuccinos, and all I could think of was the Starbucks I had passed earlier on, and my Frappuccino.� [...]
The New World of Google’s New Brave Ali Yilmaz
When I met Ali Yilmaz, the new Head of Travel for Google in South-east Asia, he had just been in his new role five and a half weeks. “That’s four weeks short of the movie,” I said. “So if you were making a movie about those five and a half weeks, what would it be called?”Pausing a moment [...]
Mobile shopping on the rise, sales volume to reach US$9bil in 2011
Mobile Internet users are shunning laptop and personal computer in favour of a mobile device when shopping online, reveals a new study from global mobile advertising network, InMobi.The survey of 15,000 mobile users in 14 countries on their shopping habits revealed mobile shopping is especially pop [...]
More master classes planned, new management centre launched at TripAdvisor
More than 800 hospitality business owners in Indonesia and Thailand attended the first TripAdvisor Master Classes to be conducted in Asia Pacific. “We were pleased with the response in every destination we went to - from Jakarta to Bali and Bangkok and Phuket,” said Alvin Ch’ng, commercial di [...]
