Headed for a stellar July and then, wham: TMG’s Kien on steering Ivuvu.com and group through the storm in Vietnam
Tran Trong Kien, who runs Vietnam's largest integrated travel group, covering hospitality, aviation, online and destination management, had been looking forward finally to a July that would show 90% of pre-Covid levels or even surpass 2019 bookings when lo and behold, Covid-19 reared its ugly head [...]
Beauty queens who can cook: How Ivuvu.com used influencers to win domestic hearts
Thien Minh Group found itself having to move really fast the last three months. The mainstay of its business, inbound visitors, had disappeared and it had to pivot to a domestic market. The positive was that Vietnamese consumers, like everywhere else in the world, had moved online and this was an e [...]
“The emails and phone calls suddenly stopped” but MyRealTrip persevered and raised US$36m. Here’s how it did it
MyRealTrip, South Korea’s online travel platform, which had its roots in tours and activities, made headlines on July 29 when it raised US$36m in a funding round led by existing investor Altos Ventures along with IMM Investment and Smilegate Investment. New investors including Korea Development B [...]
Ixigo reinstates salaries, sells Travenues to SpiceJet, weans off Google
“The longterm net gainers are OTAs and airline direct,” says Aloke Bajpai
From the outside looking in, it would seem that the Covid-19 situation is getting worse in India which it is from the rate of infections but somehow one travel company, Ixigo, the Indian e-commerce website for flights, [...]
Markets stumble, Traveloka raises, Ctrip’s private plans: Keep your eye on the horizon
One moment, I am speaking to Tien Thuy Tien, managing director of Asian Trails Vietnam, who’s at the Lak Tented Camp in the Central Highlands and she’s waxing lyrical about the scenic beauty and the elephant by the lake, and how locals like her were out travelling, and the next, Vietnam goes in [...]
Meet the unsung heroes of Raffles City hotels, Singapore
While most of us were hiding at home during Circuit Breaker in Singapore there were those working in hospitality who had to show up for work to keep their hotels running, and caring for Stay-Home-Notice and Quarantine Control Facility guests in Singapore.
Curious to find out more about these wor [...]
What is it like to manage a “Hotel California”? Behind the scenes of Raffles City hotels with Marcus Hanna
In all his years of hotel-keeping, Marcus Hanna never imagined he’d be running a “Hotel California” type operation where guests “can never leave” their rooms but so it has been for the past months with his hotels, Swissôtel The Stamford (1,252 rooms) and now one tower of the Fairmont Sin [...]
O’ restless warriors, find your solace at home
One of the earliest literary pieces I read and that left a big impression on me was “Lady Precious Stream”, written by S.I. Hsing.
To cut a long play short – it was a Chinese play written in
English circa 1933 – it’s about the adventures of a restless warrior who, in
the end, after all [...]
Trust the new currency for loyalty, says Sabre
When travel resumes, the new currency for loyalty will be trust, says Frank Trampert, managing director & chief commercial officer, EMEA & APAC for Sabre Hospitality Solutions.
“The new currency for loyalty is more around trust. In the past, people would collect points. Now, people wan [...]
Lessons from French philosophers applied
Tasked with finding applications for the WiT community from French philosophy, D’EDGE’s CEO Pierre Charles Grob brought up the importance of education, team work and collaboration at WiT’s Virtual Around the World Summit.
You can or create experience. You must undergo it. – Albert Camus [...]
