No pivot for Portier as it sticks to its guns and focuses on helping hotels earn more from fewer customers
While many companies, whether legacy or startup, have been considering pivoting as a strategy to get through this crisis, Portier Technologies’ co-founder Deniz Tekerek feels differently.
“I have
thought a lot about this. If a travel company, because of this crisis, becomes
an e-commerce co [...]
Living life from the waist up and, in the absence of bubble tea, I will dream of bubble travel
This week,
I got an email from fashion brand, Theory, telling me how to “dress from the
waist up”, and showcasing a series of really cool jackets. Of course, the
models were dressed beautifully waist down too, which is more than I can say
for most of us now living life from the waist up.
I [...]
Journalists in the hot seat: Learning to cover a crisis, step-by-step restarts and reporting on a post-Covid world
Like the business it covers, travel trade media has also been caught in the crosshairs of Covid-19 and journalists are grappling with their own roles and existential questions, as editors from the Northstar Travel Group shared during a WiT Virtual event on Tuesday.
As Jay Boehmer, editor in [...]
South-east Asia seeing huge direct-to-consumer shift in e-commerce, says Shopify’s Verma
The biggest trend happening in e-commerce in South-east Asia is the direct-to-consumer shift, accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis that has seen mass migration of consumers online in the region, said Arun Verma, who’s leading Shopify’s growth in South-east Asia and China.
How this translates t [...]
In every crisis, an opportunity – travel companies show how to seize them
Although this favourite of Western political leaders and motivational speakers has been widely debunked – the one that explains that the Chinese word for crisis is made of characters that mean both opportunity and danger – we still like it.
And we are
certainly seeing evidence of it during [...]
All eyes on steps being taken by “Covid-safe” bubbles in APAC: Will they signal the slow restarting of travel?
While more companies shed jobs, the latest being TripAdvisor which cut some 900 jobs this week, some countries in Asia Pacific (APAC) are taking tentative steps to restart their economies and save jobs, and the long weekend coming up, and subsequent weeks after, will be watched closely by the rest [...]
Chatbots, contactless travel, blockchain & crypto: Korean companies dig deep into tech to ride out Covid-19
From automation of the back end to chatbots and tech solutions to facilitate contactless travel as well as the introduction of blockchain and cryptocurrency, online travel companies in South Korea are being spurred by the Covid-19 crisis to innovate.
Speaking during WiT Virtual: Spotlight on the [...]
Now everyone’s in the same boat as Expedia secures $3.2b financing and names a new captain
Even before Covid-19 struck, it had been rocky seas for Expedia Group. The 3,000 layoffs and cost cuts it did, which was played out in full glare on social media, pre-empted the pandemic to come. Little did we know at the time that the same fate was to befall thousands upon thousands of more people [...]
Exploring Experiences wants to dance to a different beat in tours & activities
It didn’t take long even for a software engineer (who is also a dancer) who had never been involved in travel to realise that the co-dependent relationships between large OTAs and small independent businesses, such as those in the tours and activities space, were unhealthy and imbalanced.
His [...]
To everyone feeling “cosmically lonely”, here’s to what we miss and doing it again
There’s a point in the book “Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold” by Stephen Fry when he writes about Zeus complaining about being “cosmically lonely” – sitting on his throne like the God that he is and all he does is grant wishes to people and listen to their problems.
He then brainstor [...]
