No Series B clinched yet, but founders of HalalBooking undeterred in goal to reach $1b target
“Being largely self-funded forces you to make tough choices”
TO raise venture capital or not to – that’s the question the two co-founders of HalalBooking, the UK-based search and booking website for halal-friendly travel, have wrestled with at various points of their eight-year startup jour [...]
Spotnana’s Sarosh vows not to be distracted by new $75m fund raise
20-year corporate travel veteran stays focused on three priorities – hire the right talent, deliver on product, grow customer base
“IT's only the beginning, there’s so much to do,” said Sarosh Waghmar, CEO and founder of Spotnana, laughing and shaking his head, when I congratulated him on [...]
Hello, Adele, zombies in travel and dragons – Eddie’s got you covered with his electric cab
EVER tried getting on a boat in stormy conditions and you feel it rocking and rolling under your feet as you scramble to clamber onboard without falling into the raging sea? Well, travel in Europe feels a bit like that these days.
Everything seems to be creaking at the seams in Europe and ex-Euro [...]
How going off the beaten path helped Ariane Gorin rise to the top at Expedia
President of Expedia For Business on her belief in B2B, secret sauce to resilience and staying robust in APAC
Yeoh Siew Hoon catches up with Ariane Gorin on the sidelines of Phocuswright Europe in Amsterdam where they have a wide-ranging conversation covering her rise up the corporate ladder, her [...]
Can’t bear to leave your pets alone while travelling? Find a house sitter
Marketplace for “holiday pet sitting” raises $10m to spread the love, alpacas included
IMAGINE you’re leaving for a holiday and you don’t know what to do with your pets – be they lizards, snakes, dogs, cats, goats or even alpacas? You’d rather not leave them at a boarding place (who kno [...]
Letter from Schiphol: Anyone who’s in customer service should read this
It has rekindled my faith in chatbot-meets-human-intelligence
WHEN my boarding pass blipped at the gate for my KLM flight from Amsterdam to London, my heart jumped. “What’s wrong? Are they going to deplane me?” I immediately thought.
Such is the paranoia of travelling in Europe these days [...]
Around Asia In One Hour: Talking wallets, mobile videos and open-ness to weed
FROM fintech to e-commerce, fuel prices and open-ness to weed, much has fast forwarded in the time travel stood still in Asia, a region that accounts for close to 60% of the world’s population, and where the biggest market, China, remains close and another major market, Japan, is still not fully o [...]
“Mountain Kid” Le Masurier wants to build Dek Doi resort for those seeking “new era of community”
From renting one room on Airbnb to building a brand
FROM helping his mother rent out the top floor of their holiday home in Chiang Dao on Airbnb six years ago, William Le Masurier now has plans to develop a resort that will capture the essence of his “Dek Doi” (which means mountain kid) brand. [...]
No contenders to fight big 3 anytime soon, and net zero by 2050 “a big lie”
Pundits make predictions at Phocuswright Europe
IT’S hard to see any challengers emerge in the post-pandemic landscape to take on the big three travel giants – Booking, Expedia and Trip – which control 75% of the global OTA market, predicted pundits at Phocuswright Europe in Amsterdam this [...]
With $100m fund, 777 Partners eyes tech startups to “democratise” aviation
Top 1% control 75% of global aviation traffic – “we want to change that”, says Adam Weiss
AVIATION investment firm, 777 Partners, recently acquired two travel technology companies – AeroCRS and WorldTicket. The two companies join a growing portfolio of airlines and travel tech firms, includ [...]
