WIT Warrior Spotlight: Tujia’s Melissa wants to make travel better for Chinese travelers
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 third article in a series of interviews profiling our WIT Warriors.
Melissa Yang returned to China after a successfu [...]
Expedia sells eLong to Ctrip & others, and now there’s Ctrip and Qunar
It was a short statement, announced today in Bellevue – if you weren’t paying attention, you would have missed it entirely – which would have meant missing possibly the most significant development in the Chinese online travel market.
Here’s what the statement said:
“Expedia has sold [...]
Travel disruption alert and who owns the customer journey
With all the talk in the industry about who owns the customer journey, Yeoh Siew Hoon wonders if travelers want to be owned.
Many things were said at Phocuswright Dublin including how as part of Expedia’s test and learn strategy, 1,500 changes were made in 2014 versus the 200 changes made in to [...]
It’ll get hard for anyone in the middle who isn’t Google, says Ryanair’s Jacobs
Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, who says he has the best marketing job in Europe, is on a mission of digital innovation at Europe's first and largest low fares airline which flew 18 million passengers last year.
Speaking at Phocuswright Europe, he said, “We caught up on [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: How it all started for Rosenstein and “watch out, big shakeout ahead”
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 second article in a series of interviews profiling our WIT Warriors.
Rob Rosenstein’s love affair with the web sta [...]
Buying Abacus means the “Asianisation of Sabre”, says Webb
Just got off a Skype call with Greg Webb, president of Sabre Travel Network, and Robert Bailey, president and CEO of Abacus International, about an hour after the two consummated the deal in which Sabre will buy Abacus outright.
Both men sounded visibly excited and thrilled, jesting they’d [...]
Traveloka claims pole position as Indon market heats up
In the space of one year, it is clear that Traveloka has streaked ahead of its competitors, and that position is no doubt making its rivals nervous and uneasy.
Rumours abound as to what its burn rate is and how much it is spending a month on search and customer acquisition.
Observers point to [...]
Letter from Dublin: From misery to silicon
Walked out this morning towards the Liffey River with a spring in my step. It’s late spring in Dublin but frankly, it feels like winter to me. The hood I am in – Grand Canal Dock, nickname Silicon Docks – represents the new face of Dublin, the home for innovation and start-ups and the new Mast [...]
The sky’s the limit for Booking and Expedia as they ramp up in Asia
Last year, Oliver Hua who had just joined Booking.com from Ebay as managing director for APAC said travel was just at Day 1 of the Internet and ecommerce. And as far as he is concerned, it’s still at Day 1.
“There are so many opportunities still for Booking,” he said at WIT Indonesia. W [...]
Online travel in Indonesia fires up, tourism marketing goes digital
Hiding away in my private villa in Bali after our WIT Indonesia conference, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much travel has changed. Everyone who had flown in to Bali for the event was secreted away for the weekend in their own villas of choice, whether booked directly, OTAs or through private [...]
