Letter from Tuscany (State of Mind): Of hermits and princess warriors – what are you?
Once upon a
time, back when humans were allowed to travel, I went on a road trip from
Munich to Florence and found myself spending the night at a friend’s place in a
little town in Tuscany.
After a lovely dinner of pasta cooked with the freshest, most succulent tomatoes imaginable, and severa [...]
How Findmyfare.com redeployed its travel consultants to medical services: “It’s about saving jobs”
In late January, Tushan Shanmugarajah, CEO and co-founder of Findmyfare.com, started seeing drops in sales to markets in South-east Asia. Thinking this was “something like SARS”, that it’d be contained, it switched marketing campaigns to Europe and the Middle East.
In
February, it ran a ca [...]
Green shoots are there, innovate on products and services to capture current need
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
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
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
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”
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
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
“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
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.”
[...]
