Postcard from Bali: Riding the social media surf
I had the pleasure of presenting at the inaugural Asia-Pacific TripAdvisor Master Classes in Jakarta and Bali with Alvin Ch'ng, Commercial Director APAC for TripAdvisor, and Siew-Hoon Yeoh, Producer of Web In Travel (WIT).We did two classes per day per location, and along with local hoteliers lik [...]
Powerful line-up of speakers at ITB Asia
Messe Berlin (Singapore), organiser of ITB Asia, has added four new conferences to this year’s show that will be held from October 19-21 in Suntec Singapore.These include panel discussions on loyalty programmes, boutique hotels, women in action and a business travel plenary session.The conference [...]
Raja Kamar makes first acquisition in bid to become ‘king of rooms’
Signalling its serious intent to be the number one B2C hotel portal in Indonesia, PT Raja Kamar International, Indonesia’s recently formed hotel distribution company, has acquired 100% of MG Holiday, Indonesia’s leading hotel wholesaler, with immediate effect. Scott Blume (left), Group CEO of R [...]
Reaching more airlines with Amadeus
Amadeus has improved travel agents’ access to the inventory, schedules and fares of nine low-cost and hybrid carriers with a total inventory of over 74 million seats sold annually.The company has signed distribution agreements with Air Arabia (Maroc), Air Méditerranée, flydubai, Porter Airlines [...]
Request flights on Skyscanner Facebook, Lufthansa introduces iPad app
Skyscanner has launched a new system which allows users to post a flight request onSkyscanner’s Facebook "wall" and receive a price quote and flight details within seconds.The system does not require the user to navigate away from the Skyscanner's Facebook page or install any apps; users must fi [...]
Rise of smartphone and iPad fuel demand for mobile travel content
The Frommer’s Unlimited 2011 Digital Travel Content and User Experience Consumer Survey revealed that of the 1,700 respondents in its survey, 52% said they were most likely to access travel information on their mobile devices when travelling compared to 27% in 2010.Frommer’s Unlimited, the B2B [...]
WITNext: How cool, I get paid to be on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
Julia Lim is a Gen Y working as the Assistant Director of eCommerce for Royal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore. In this blog, she shares the journey of her career with WITNext. I love to travel.As a traveller, I saw the Receptionist, the Bellman and the Housekeeping Attendant. How did my booking [...]
50+ generation searching for new adventures
The over-50s travellers are more mobile and more active than ever before, and are expanding their holiday options to beyond the traditional beaches, excursions and city tours.Between 2005 and 2010 vacation travel by Europeans, aged 55 and above, expanded by 17% or 78 million (27%) holiday trips abro [...]
Singaporeans, Chinese work the hardest; Indians like their gyms
Business travellers surveyed in the Accor Asia Pacific Business Traveller Survey 2011 are a hard-working lot, with folks from Singapore and China topping the hard-working charts.The survey found that 75% worked in the hotel at some point during their trip, increasing to 82% for respondents travell [...]
Skyscanner brings its local approach to Asia
Caught up with Skyscanner’s Frank Skivington (left) and Ewan Gray this afternoon, their last day of a hectic week recruiting staff and finding office space for their new operations in Singapore.They both looked surprisingly fresh, considering they have had 40 meetings in a week, and definitely up [...]
