Here’s grabbing your attention. Are you suffering from LFS? List Fatigue Syndrome
I got into a GrabCar Economy for the first time this week. The driver, a 60-something, is a senior executive working in manufacturing full-time but bought a car for his son and now wants some income to pay off his road tax and insurance.This is the more affordable version of GrabCar, the private car [...]
Sabre-Abacus integration: Big job ahead for Mendis to make magic happen in the middle
Roshan Mendis, the newly-appointed vice president of Sabre Travel Network Asia Pacific, has a big job ahead of him.He’s got the task of integrating Abacus, Sabre’s newest acquisition, into the Sabre global family and that means not just in technology terms but also people terms – always the mo [...]
Technology is here to disrupt marketplaces, including travel, says ServisHero’s Karl Loo
Tell anyone there’s a new services app in town and eyes will roll and you’ll hear, “There are so many now.” And that’s true. Today, in a world gone P2P, anyone can sell anything to anyone and you can order, with a swipe or a tap, tour guides, chefs, plumbers, contractors, taxis, dates and [...]
GDS jostling for the road ahead – Sabre boosts Asia, Amadeus scoops Navitaire, Travelport buys MTT
It is clear that the traditional giants of travel, once called Global Distribution Systems (GDS), are positioning themselves for the future battle ahead.Sabre Corporation is betting on Asia – in May, it acquired the remaining 65% stake in Abacus, the Asian GDS, from its shareholder airlines for a [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: Priceline’s APAC champion Adrian Currie salutes early and future entrepreneurs
At the WIT Conference last year in Singapore, we recognised 11 individuals whom we felt have had the most influence on the development of online travel in Asia Pacific. This is the sixth article in a series of interviews profiling the WIT Warriors.As one of the first APAC-based heads for Priceline G [...]
Letter from Melbourne: Can the city of independents fend off Uberisation?
In a world of bad news – terrorism in Tunisia, terrorism in Charleston, USA, economic disaster in Greece (déjà vu), the MERS scare – I am happy to bring you good news from Melbourne. The spirit of the independent is alive and well in this city which I was told repeatedly will become Australia� [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: Ram’s still waiting for breakout pan-Asian online travel brand
At the WIT Conference last year in Singapore, we recognised 11 individuals whom we felt have had the most influence on the development of online travel in Asia Pacific. This is the fifth article in a series of interviews profiling the WIT Warriors.As Phocuswright’s first analyst based in Asia, Ram [...]
Rakuten acquires tours & activities platform, Voyagin
It's official. Rumours had been circulating for a while and today, Rakuten, Inc., Japan’s leading ecommerce site, announced that it has acquired a majority share in Voyagin, Asia’s leading platform to discover and book tours and activities. Cofounded by Masashi Takahashi, Hiroyuki Haya [...]
Maggie White: She called Australia home and she is now at home
She was the soul of discretion. You can imagine that’d be annoying to a pesky, nosy journalist wanting to find out news about the organisation she worked for almost her entire career, but Maggie White had a way of keeping that bit at a distance and yet drawing you close to her way of being.As long [...]
When a venue becomes a true partner, your event cannot help but fly – thank you, Nikko
For the last four years, we’ve held our WIT Japan at the Hotel Nikko in Odaiba and over the years, I’ve come to regard it as home. That Rainbow Bridge right outside my hotel window inspired the theme for our inaugural event in 2012 – “Building Bridges”. The staff know us. They know our eve [...]
