India, the next big thing for Australia
Australia is pinning high hopes on India to boost its visitor arrival numbers in a new tourism strategy – “The India 2020 Strategic Plan” – from 148,200 in 2011 to 300,000 by plan’s end. Pictured above L-R: Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson, Tourism Australia's Francess-Anne K [...]
Hanoi cheapest, London most expensive, Singapore not-so-cheap either
TripAdvisor's TripIndexTM 2012, a cost comparison of an evening out for two people in 48 key tourist cities around the world, rates Hanoi as the cheapest and London as the most expensive city, with Singapore ranked among top 10 most expensive. The TripAdvisor TripIndex is tracked against the US [...]
MakeMyTrip: Keeping a start-up culture as it scales
To Amit Saberwal, Employee 62 at MakeMyTrip, India, the biggest achievement of the company is not the successful NASDAQ listing in 2010 but that it’s been consistently rated among the best places to work in India and its talent management practices are recognized by peers.For three years in a ro [...]
Priceline’s fleet of fighter jets continues to soar
At more than 425,000 room nights booked a day, of which 325,000 come fromBooking.com, you’d be forgiven for likening the Priceline Group to an A380 but Adrian Currie prefers to think of it as a fleet of fighter jets, each winging its own way to success. Currie, Priceline Group Board Management M [...]
Rate parity is biggest dilemma for hoteliers
A new study by Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne and RateTiger reveals rate parity is the dominant factor affecting hotels’ distribution and revenue strategies today.This has also resulted in hotels neglecting the fundamentals of revenue management but has also opened their eyes to alternative distr [...]
Old people like iPads, women like cute
My mind’s still buzzing with tech talk from Echelon 2012, the tech start-up event for Asia. So before I lose attention – boy, it’s hard these days when attention has been commoditized and mine’s down to a supergnat’s – here’s a summary of what I learnt.Summary cos I know your attentio [...]
AirAsia sets up in Jakarta to prepare for next decade of growth
AirAsia’s rapid growth in the last 10 years, from an airline with a "fleet" of two ageing Boeing B737 aircraft, six domestic routes and 250 Malaysian staff, calls for a major shift in its perspective, strategy and operations if it is to sustain its trajectory.The airline also needs to pivot to a [...]
Agoda.com launches free Facebook booking button (BE3)
Agoda.com today launched the free Agoda.com Facebook Booking Button (BE3) for Hotels.In 2010, Agoda.com launched a free booking button (BE3) that plugs into a hotel’s existing website, allowing customers to make bookings directly from the hotel’s page.Once installed, the booking button links [...]
Attention now a commodity, loyalty’s about creating social cocaine
To Brian Wong, the 21-year-old founder of Kiip, a mobile rewards platform for people who play games, loyalty 2.0 is about “creating social cocaine”.In other words, get people hooked and wanting more and when the more comes, it is unexpected and “surprises and delights”.Loyalty 2.0 must the [...]
Funds in place, Rome2Rio out to change search
Having secured a US$450,000 round of seed funding “to sustain the business for a year or two”, newly-appointed interim chairman of Rome2Rio, Rod Cuthbert (left), is setting sights on the second goal – to “see our platform integrated on as many third-party sites as possible, as quickly as p [...]
