Japanese food platform byFood raises $2.24m to expand in Japan and Asia
The paths of Serkan Toso and Kaoro Joho first crossed when they found they were doing something similar with their food startups – Toso was running Tokyobyfood.com, a website to help foreign travellers find Japanese food while Joho was operating Tablecross, a restaurant reservations app.
Both h [...]
From reseller to global bedbank: How technology “became a weapon” for DidaTravel
Dida expands, gets into flights and tours & activities
The first time you meet Rikin Wu, founder and CEO of Chinese hotel bedbank DidaTravel, you immediately sense his pride in his Teochew roots.
This dialect group, hailing from the Chaoshan region in Guangdong Province, China, is known fo [...]
From Thailand to Singapore to Malaysia: Of farming tips, colonial tales and curated experiences
I don't know much about farming or gardening. The closest I came to either was listening to my father talk about his time hiding amongst the sweet potatoes during the Japanese invasion of then-Malaya and oh yes, just to name drop, when Prince Charles (soon to be King) took me on a tour of his garden [...]
GT Pay: From Covid baby to Finalist in Business Innovation awards
GlobalTix’s new payments product allows merchants to accept different digital wallets across Asia
You could call it a Covid baby but GlobalTix’s latest product, GT Pay, which allows merchants to accept up to more than 30 digital wallets across Asia, took a while to grow into its own.
Said CE [...]
GHS doubles down on Alex to arm hoteliers in chat-heavy markets
One key characteristic of the pandemic is how travel technology companies which doubled down on product development during the lean years have come out looking rather different from their BD (Before Covid) selves.
Global Hospitality Solutions, a hospitality tech company focused on South-east Asia [...]
Travel startups: End of the boom, or beginnings of a renaissance?
With the second edition of WiT and Phocuswright’s Global Startup Pitch still open for entries, Mike Coletta, manager of research and innovation, Phocuswright, analyses the state of travel startups in this report. The deadline to apply is April 30.
Travel startups have enjoyed a good run. Pho [...]
No longer blazing trails, Mr Nice Guy yearns for Asia’s hidden gems
Still a role for DMCs who stay two steps ahead of customers, says veteran
Bob Guy, the "Mr Asia" of the DMC industry, shares his insights on the changes in the travel industry and why DMCs still have a role to play in the digital age. Despite the disruption caused by the pandemic, Guy believes that [...]
Psst, here’s a prompt – want to be an AI Whisperer?
If only I had known then what I know now
Doing my Marie Kondo bit the other day – but instead of saying, “thank you for the joy”, I said, “good riddance” – I came across a letter written by my secondary school teacher. I must have been around 16 and I wanted to apply for a scholarship [...]
Content, tech, sustainability – Singapore charts its voyage into a “Quality Tourism” future
Face hard truths, ask tough questions – tourism captain urges industry to “make it so”
Entertainment content, technology and sustainability are the three key pillars around which Singapore plans to take its “Quality Tourism” strategy to the next level – that takeaway was evident from [...]
Phare Circus implements “breakthrough” payments solution; Dara Huot “still amazed by struggles to go online”
Partnership between Siem Reap Tourism Club and Sathapana Bank to solve digital payment woes in Cambodia
Phare, The Cambodia Circus, has become one of the first Cambodian travel businesses to take advantage of a partnership agreement signed between the Siem Reap Tourism Club and Sathapana Bank of Ca [...]
