No alarm bells here, Huston wants to stay humble with more heart
It’s hard to feel sorry for Darren Huston. After all, he runs the world’s biggest travel company which shows no signs of stopping and which has been gobbling up almost everything in its path.Let’s do the numbers first before we get to the sorry part. According to its latest financial results, [...]
Monsters, copycats and start-ups – “siege mentality” needed in 2015, says Agoda’s Rosenstein
The year may be winding down but not for Rob Rosenstein, CEO & co-founder of Agoda. It was a public holiday in Thailand but the entrepreneur behind Asia’s top hotel booking brand was jam-packed with meetings, with people popping in and out of his office, all wanting time with him, including me [...]
Why Tujia had to take a different approach with vacation rentals in China
When Melissa Yang returned home from the US to start a new vacation rentals site for China, she knew she had to do it differently. While the experience she had had working with Escapia, a vacation rental bookings site which was acquired by HomeAway in October 2010, came in handy, she knew a differen [...]
Letter from Bangkok: Secrets of successful, happy people
I woke up this morning. Wondered where I was. But took a deep breath and stayed calm.This is after all the advice from what is apparently the most influential post on LinkedIn, which has unknowingly or knowingly to some of us become not only a job marketplace but a media platform.Dr Travis Bradberry [...]
We need to create “Interstellar” moments
Watched Interstellar, the movie, on IMAX last weekend and I left thinking, it’s film makers like Christopher Nolan who will keep people coming back to the big screen.Sure, the IMAX, which is being hailed as the future of cinema, makes the experience even more mind-blowing but what’s a fancy piec [...]
Desktop: Out of sight, out of mind – at least in Asia
“In US, we think of desktop as legacy. There, they don’t even think of it.” That quote from Barney Harford, CEO of Orbitz, at Phocuswright probably sums up best how Asia has leapfrogged from offline to mobile. Here's how. After having completed what I call my conference trilogy – WIT, follo [...]
Letter from Taipei: Seeking “moments of secured happiness”
I leave a Taipei on the cusp of change. Yesterday I spent a day wandering the streets, popping into cafes, eating at roadside stalls, and exploring the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, the enclave for Taiwanese artists.While I was doing that, the people of Taipei were voting. Their decision, in [...]
The secret’s out – Taiwan is hot and a new generation is ready for change
These days, it seems that everyone I speak to is travelling to Taiwan for their holidays. My niece, my neighbour, my masseur, all due to visit this year end – and that’s just my immediate circle.It’s like Taiwan has become the new Hokkaido for South-east Asians and all across Asia, travellers [...]
Letter from Antwerp: Dear hotels, it should be about me, not you
Having completed a round-the-world trip in under 14 days – Singapore to LA, New York and ending in Antwerp, Brussels – I feel I have enough material to write a trilogy but I will confine myself to one column about something that really stood out for me during my travels – the difference be [...]
Ctrip vs Qunar: Difference is not only in business model but also in leadership style
It was interesting to see the contrasting styles of China’s top two online travel leaders on display at the Phocuswright conference in Los Angeles – Ctrip’s James Liang’s soft spoken, assertive, almost professorial-like tone vs Qunar’s CC Zhuang’s confident, aggressive and “we will sol [...]
