How changing its sales pitch helped iFLYflat take off
Working for Macquarie Bank, Hong Kong-born Steven Hui used to fly a lot. And he appreciated especially being able to fly flat, ie, in business class.
And being a financial planner, he started to think about all those lost frequent flyer points as assets that could be managed in particular f [...]
Trilogy of cities, Pt 2: Chasing the Guinness story and the perfect pint
Growing up, I’d always heard that “Guinness is good for you”. Dang it, I can still sing the jingle although I now learn that it was created in 1929.
Even though I wasn’t their target customer (at least I hope I wasn’t), I found myself humming along whenever I saw big, burly, bea [...]
Letter from Dublin: The best lessons are from taxi drivers and digital players
In the 20 minutes it took me to get from airport to hotel, I got an instant crash course on the state of things in Dublin (left).
The economy’s still bad, there’s a homelessness crisis, as a result of the severe property bust, which has gripped Ireland the last couple of years, and ther [...]
Meet the Expedia duo out to reinvent travel with technology
In the history of music, the best hits have come from songwriting partnerships – think Leiber and Stoller, Lennon and McCartney, Bacharach and David, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Morrissey and Marr …
It may seem weird but these collaborations came to mind when I met Aman Bhutani (left) [...]
Letter from Singapore: Excuse me, do you grab a lot?
“Do you grab a lot?” the taxi driver asked me as I got into his taxi.
It was a rainy Tuesday morning, a bad time for taxis in Singapore, and I had used GrabTaxi, the new app that’s been grabbing attention in this tiny city state that still manages to chalk up 700,000 taxi trips a da [...]
We couldn’t tow an A380 so a Heritage Race it became
I am one of those people that if you throw me a challenge, I will worry away at it until I come up with something.
So when I was first challenged by Abacus International – about 18 months ago now – to come up with a travel industry-led fun event to raise funds for a good cause, I though [...]
Trilogy of Cities, Pt 1: Tokyo rises to the global challenge and call of a new generation
In Tokyo, I had my fill of sake. In Dublin, I had more Guinness than I’ve ever had in my life. And in Belfast, I learnt about the history of a city that’s always in the news for the wrong reasons.
Covering these three cities in a span of two weeks, I found interesting parallels in a w [...]
Stiff upper lip maybe but Olympic excitement is palpable
Waking up every morning at the Royal Garden Hotel to the sun rising over Kensington Gardens is glorious. At first, a pale glow tinges the dawn sky and then like one of those slow switches, it turns orange, throwing the blueness of the sky into stark relief.
I’ve been incredibly lucky with the [...]
So who’s sleeping with you tonight?
Other than the fact that not much went right upon my arrival in Heathrow – mix-up with transfer and booking – it’s been a good first day in London.
I have a room overlooking Kensington Gardens and as I write this, the sun (a very weak version of the one I left behind in Singapore) is vali [...]
Forget about the endings, live in the present
So the big question before us is, what’s this year going to be like for the Asian travel market given the Greek Tragedy, Arab Spring which is becoming a four-season affair, ongoing economic woes in the US and possibilities of bubbles in China and India (this comes up every year of course as it d [...]
