Stories that go beneath the armour to get under your skin
As someone who tries to exercise regularly, I’ve watched sporting brands come, go and come back, and I’ve watched them expand their space. Today, sports wear is everyday wear.New Balance is an example of a brand that’s made a comeback. Once it made only good running shoes, now it makes shoes t [...]
My four lessons learnt from watching CODE
Last night, I caught a private screening of CODE: Debugging The Gender Code, at The Projector, a cool new movie space booked by Expedia to mark a week of activities around International Women’s Day. It was hosted by Britta Wilson, vice president global diversity and inclusion.The documentary, made [...]
Women – not just one day but everyday
I’ve been getting lots of reminders that today is International Women’s Day – lots of press releases from companies talking about women and how important the feminine sex is to them. TripAdvisor releasing a study that Asian women take the lead in travel decision making; Accor Hotels issuing a [...]
Don’t be a sitting duck, join us in a deep dive into hospitality
In between evening walks, painting and writing, I’ve been preparing the content for our first WIT Hospitality conference in Hong Kong on March 22.It’s our first hospitality-focused event and we really want to do a deep dive into the issues that are holding back hoteliers from fully embracing dig [...]
VR is going to need a woman’s touch to make it real in travel
There’s a by-now famous photo that’s been making the rounds in the digital world – it shows Mark Zuckerberg striding very confidently down an aisle in a room full of people wearing Virtual Reality headsets.What struck me in the photo was not that Zuckerberg looked inordinately pleased with him [...]
Letter from Phoukhuone, Laos: At last, a chance at a future for girls
If you google “Phoukhuone Laos”, not much information appears. There are a couple of posts by intrepid travellers who have to cross the town on their way somewhere in this landlocked country, bordered by Myanmar and China (north), Vietnam (east), Cambodia (south) and Thailand (west). One post ta [...]
Amid food & beverage disruption, Accor launches Table Plus
All part of its digital transformation, Accor Hotels launched Accor Marketplace, a platform to distribute not only its own branded hotels but independent properties. It was clearly a move to regain control of its own inventory and to counter the growing power of the global OTAs.This January, it laun [...]
Expedia’s Greg Schulze on dogs, consumer anxiety and “anything that moves”
If Greg Schulze had his way, the entire travel search process should have dog-friendly filters. The global executive of “anything that moves”, as he calls his portfolio at Expedia, moved to Singapore with his family in January and left their two dogs behind. Clearly missing his best friends, Sch [...]
Letter from Penang: Lessons from the Monkey King
I was sitting in my doctor’s office and browsing through his reading materials, I came across comic books about the Monkey King, a main character in the Chinese classical novel, Journey To The West.Known as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King has been in my consciousness since childhood. Sun Wukong, a mon [...]
Why Travelstart’s Ekbergh decided to get married after 10 years of bacherlorhood
It was around March last year that Stephan Ekbergh, sole owner and founder of South Africa-based Travelstart, was first approached by Amadeus Capital Partners (not related to Amadeus IT by the way).The first meeting with Andrea Traversone took place in ITB Berlin and Ekbergh recalled it didn’t go [...]
