Huge incumbents in travel are hard to dislodge but Bao Bean sees opportunities around solving specific problems
William Bao Bean, general partner at SOSV, named the world’s most active seed investor by TechCrunch Crunchbase, has his eye on travel but is aware that the potential for new technology to really disrupt the industry is hard.
“Travel is a closed insular industry, there’s a lot of histor [...]
Post-restructure, IHG’s Barr says it’s about brand, scale and tech as it prepares to launch new reservations system
It was the Friday of the 10th Formula 1 weekend in Singapore. One assumes all visitors coming to town that weekend are here for the race but no, not the new group CEO of Intercontinental Hotels Group, Keith Barr. Barr was making a lightning visit to Singapore and the region to “spend time with the [...]
Fried scorpion may not be his thing but helping travellers have better vacations is: Steve Kaufer on TripAdvisor’s great end game
Steve Kaufer, CEO & founder of TripAdvisor, could hardly remember what he ate for dinner the evening before. “It was something interesting,” he said. I was curious because he kept talking about how TripAdvisor wants to help travellers have awesome experiences in destinations – from tours t [...]
Writing about failures taught him, “be a person of character, not a personality”
My first question to Vincent Ng, the co-author of “Why You Should Fail”, was, of course, “have you failed?” To which his eyes lit up with glee and he said, “Yes.”
“I’ve been doing entrepreneur things since I was 16,” he said proudly. “I sold candy to my schoolmates. The money [...]
From Scottish herring to unicorn: 12 lessons from Gareth Williams’ Skyscanner journey
Gareth Williams and his two co-founders, Barry Smith and Bonamy Grimes, built the first prototype for Skyscanner in 2001/2002 in the docks area of Edinburgh and launched it in 2003. That means almost a 15-year journey before it was acquired by Ctrip for US$1.7 billion last November, proving there’ [...]
Kurdas’ own journey takes root – from football to travel
In the course of empowering women in Australian Rules Football, ex-ARF player Chyloe (pronounced shy-lo) Kurdas, may have also found a calling to empower young people going through life’s transitions.
Combining that with her passion for travel, Kurdas has launched a new travel venture – Own J [...]
Okerstrom steps into Khosrowshahi’s “big” shoes in transition likened to water flowing down snow-packed mountain
In a transition described by chairman Barry Diller “as natural as water flowing down a snow-packed mountain”, Mark Okerstrom, executive vice president of operations and chief financial officer, has been made the new CEO of Expedia.
Okerstrom, who has worked at outgoing CEO Dara Khosrowshahi� [...]
Skyscanner’s Gareth Williams on how its bet on Asia led to its big win, being a CEO and the future of apps
The first thing Gareth Williams, CEO & co-founder of Skyscanner, says to me with a grin when I caught up with him yesterday evening was, “I deny all rumours that I was offered the Uber job.”
Wishing Dara Khosrowshahi well (the Expedia Inc CEO has indicated he will accept the job as Uber C [...]
The day when Hurricane Dara lashed travel – imagine what he could do with Uber and Asia
Just as Hurricane Harvey was battering Texas and severe tropical storm Pahkar was lashing Hong Kong over the weekend, another kind of storm was being unleashed in the tech and travel industry– the news that Expedia Inc CEO Dara Khosrowshahi had been picked as the candidate to head Uber.
As soci [...]
How “Passion Made Possible” was made possible: The story of the new SG unified brand
A new unified brand for SG was rolled out this evening. “Passion Made Possible” is the combined rallying cry of the Singapore Tourism Board and the Economic Development Board. Here’s the story of how and why it became possible.
The new unified brand, “Passion Made Possible”, rolled [...]
