Letter from WIT Indonesia: Welcome to Day 1 of the Internet and be a Calculated Mad Man
As far as Oliver Hua (right), managing director of booking.com, Asia Pacific, is concerned, we are just at “Day 1 of the Internet” in terms of the potential of online travel in the region.
In his first appearance at a travel conference, the former eBay executive, who joined Planet Earth [...]
Can travel take lessons from Hello Kitty? Sanrio MD to share success story at WIT Japan
She’s a phenomenon that has sparked riots on streets in Hong Kong and Singapore. People queue up for hours just to get special pieces of her. She’s everywhere – on bags, purses, T-shirts, even a Fender guitar, cars and oh yes, even on aircraft.
She turns 40 this year but really is age [...]
As with Middle East, youths will drive change in Indonesia – are you ready?
Getting rather excited about our second WIT Indonesia coming up in Jakarta (left) next Thursday – as I do my homework for it, I am struck by the similarities between what’s happening in the Middle East and this archipelago (I love how that word just rolls off the tongue).
It’s easy to [...]
How Acromobile, ‘WordPress for apps’, solved Nikoi’s mobile challenge
One of the biggest pain points for hoteliers, particular independent properties, is how to deal with the mobile challenge. Mobile optimized website or native app? And if native app, you’d have to develop for both Android and iOS and then how do you cope with the constant updates to operati [...]
Make Olympics 2020 participative and go for smart money, start-ups told
And so the hospitality tech grab continues as the IHS Group announced this week its acquisition of InnLink LLC, a provider of central reservations solutions, and TravLynx, a travel and hospitality services technology company, both US-based.
In this interview with WIT, chairman and CEO of [...]
The Age of Lost Innocence
I can’t help but think that the age of innocence in social networks is over.
Remember that first day you set up your Facebook account? It was so cool. A way to connect with real friends, to share with them what you liked, what you were doing.And then it grew and people you didn’t really kno [...]
Fresh, visceral take on an old theme – food, sex and intimacy intertwined
Shame opens with the protagonist Brandon (Michael Fassbender) lying in bed half-naked with one hand under the sheets. Immediately, one of those faux Confucius sayings came to mind, “Man who goes to bed with hard problem, wakes up with solution in hand.”
After reading some reviews on Sha [...]
Declaring ‘year of the brand’, Worldhotels steams ahead with growth
The Euro zone may be on the brink of crisis – how many brinks are there before one blink brings it down – but Worldhotels remains bullish for the year ahead and in fact, is anticipating its best year.
At its annual global conference in London, in between downing cups of “Shrek’s ear [...]
Labour woes not going away, S’pore hotels told to rethink design and business model
Hoteliers who came to Monday's Tourism Industry Conference hoping to get some relief from the tight labour crunch in Singapore walked away disappointed but resigned to the fact that they have to live, or die, with the situation.
Lionel Yeo (left), chief executive of the Singapore Tourism Boar [...]
Not just all about ME but all about Mobile as Dubai gets Smart
I am writing this in my room at Lanson Place overlooking what may not be a very attractive view but yet what is to me quintessentially Hong Kong. Foggy morning, tall narrow buildings packed next to each other like sardines, the constant hum of a city that never sleeps.
This is the weekend i [...]
