Paul Theroux: Trains, chicks and contradictions
He fired my imagination about trains. “Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.”The opening sentence to “The Great Railway Bazaar” got me on a train from Penang to Singapore, first chance I had.� [...]
How to win in the next wave of travel: Lessons from “Little Big 10”, Part 1
This is my dream. To write in a place like this. A house on the beach. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore. A dog at my feet. I’ve named him Sam. He’s a beautiful husky and he comes and goes on his own. I think he belongs to someone living in a house nearby but clearly he’s a free spi [...]
The View from Students: 10 Key Takeaways from WIT Bootcamp
As part of our WITNext outreach to inspire and mentor young talent, we opened our events to tourism and hospitality students from the UNLV (University of Las Vegas). This is a summary of their learning from the WIT Bootcamp on Oct 27. Constant shifts of trends in businessesIn the past, businesses us [...]
Spacebase, changing the way we meet, wins WIT Start-Up Of The Year
Judges of the WIT Start-Up Pitch 2014 placed their bets on the P2P sharing site for event spaces, Spacebase, while the People’s Choice award, voted by delegates, went to Local Alike – a Thailand-based community-based tourism platform.Julian Jost of Capetown-based Spacebase pipped three other f [...]
Meet the WIT Warriors as “Little Big 10” closes on a high
The WIT Conference ended yesterday with the who’s who of online travel in APAC gathered on stage as WIT, for its 10th edition, created the WIT Warriors circle to recognise the top influencers in online travel in APAC in the past decade.
The 10 Warriors are:
Rob Rosenstein, CEO & C [...]
Letter from the road: The differences between Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and Dubai
At Hong Kong airport, a PA announcement warns us about two viruses – one that sounds like a beer and one that rhymes with beer (Corona-something and MERS) – and advises us to refrain from touching “poultry, birds and camels” on our travels.Having just zipped through Abu Dhabi and Dubai, wher [...]
Tennis stars can cook too – the heady mix of sports and tourism
What do you get when you mix a cocktail of the best ingredients in tourism and sports?This week, Singapore is seeing the results of this heady concoction first hand as it plays host to the largest tennis event in the women’s professional tour after the four grand slams.Eight players are in town to [...]
We’re the last of the Mohicans, says MISA’s new chief
After a two-and-a-half year hiatus away from the industry, Wee Hee Ling, the new CEO of MISA Travel, Singapore, knows she has her work cut out for her but as always, the petite, soft-spoken executive is up for the challenge.Taking over from Kenny Chew, who retired after the acquisition of the agency [...]
Brett Henry on ‘OTAs: The Coming Wave’ – why globals could win the race and what locals have to do
A week before the WIT Conference (Oct 27-29) opens in Singapore, Brett Henry, Abacus’ vice president-commercial who’s spent the last 12 years in Asia watching the online travel space, shares his observations with Yeoh Siew Hoon. ‘OTAs: The Coming Wave’ is one of the 10 trends that will be di [...]
Abacus gives agents “ground-breaking” tools to “defend their turf”
Although traditional agents still control three quarters of the Asia Pacific total travel market of US$322.6 billion in 2013, it’s a share that will inevitably shrink as consumers in Asia Pacific jump channels.According to PhoCusWright’s Asia Pacific Online Travel Overview Seventh Edition, one q [...]
