Posts by Yeoh Siew Hoon
Green shoots are there, innovate on products and services to capture current need
27/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
From hand sanitisers to drive-throughs and meal deliveries with K-dramas included, travel suppliers in Asia are innovating to meet current customer needs. Meanwhile, governments are collaborating with the private sector to innovate in mobile to contain Covid-19. Vera Lye reports on the first WiT Vi [...]
Solo travelling: The social distancing we craved even before Covid-19 made us do it
24/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
It did not seem so long ago that all talk was about connectedness, globalisation, borderless travel, the seamless journey. But how quickly life can go on reverse. These days, we speak of quarantines, closing borders, and social distancing. But even before Covid-19 forced us to, in a sense, disco [...]
China showing green shoots of recovery
24/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
Buried in a daily digest of bad news, China has emerged with a positive outlook with signs of recovery definitely on the horizon. Similar reports are coming through from several corners. The number of unique travellers for both domestic and inbound international searching for flights to China h [...]
Running an event in a pandemic – worse than bungy jumping but it gets you thinking about the future of meetings
23/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
I’ve done many things in my life – bungy jumped, tandem skydived, climbed Mount Kinabalu, trekked many trails, ran into armed gunmen in Thailand, rolled down a jeep in Namibia, contended with a scorpion sting in the middle of the night in Bostwana – but I’ve never ever run an event in the m [...]
European Tour Operators Association CEO pronounces: “It’s a bloodbath in the jungle”
18/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
There is no way to sugar-coat a situation so dire. During a recent online panel organised by Arival with four key European figures in the tour operator business on the panel, Tom Jenkins, CEO of the European Tour Operators Association said, “Everyone’s being very sweet and nice, but this is [...]
Jane Sun on how Trip.com weathered the mother of all disruptions and her plans to lead recovery
17/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
With cities across China trying to get back to normal, some tourist attractions reopening and some travel restrictions being loosened, there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, as far as China's domestic travel market is concerned. Companies are also getting back to work, and if there i [...]
As Planet Earth goes into lockdown and our right to travel removed, here are some ideas to survive
16/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
“We’re on the brink of a new world as the old world comes to a hard stop. Fortify and brace yourself” I got back 11.30pm, March 15 from Penang, Malaysia, 24 hours, before the deadline when the Singapore government issues 14-day stay-home notices to “people who enter Singapore with r [...]
Preparing for life in a cookie-less world: ADARA’s Garner on building identity graph and an alternative data co-op
05/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
The first question I asked Scott Garner, executive vice president and chief commercial officer of ADARA, how he felt being in Singapore when it’s in Dorscon (Disease Outbreak Response System Condition) Orange Alert, he said, “I’d be okay if it wasn’t for the people around me worrying.” [...]
MMT’s Kalra aims to keep busy with product, M&A and expansion: “I’m not going anywhere”
03/03/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
If you think that the move of Deep Kalra from group CEO to executive chairman of MakeMyTrip marks the end of an era, he’d be the first to pooh-pooh the notion. For him, it marks the beginning of a new chapter in which he can “spend more time doing the things I wanted to do”. “It’s a f [...]
Expedia job cuts, Booking braces for “significant impact”, “winter is best time” – learn from cockroaches
28/02/2020 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
I’ve been mulling over what I heard William Bao Bean of SOSV Capital say in a Techsauce Global podcast, “It is the cockroaches, the survivors, who can really take advantage of this tough environment that will build the next generation of leaders.” Curious about cockroaches and inspire [...]