After a 5-year turnaround, Hedlund gets set to take Etraveli into next phase of growth
Mathias Hedlund strikes one as the kind of executive who’d do what it takes to get what he wants done. Since 2014, when he took on the reins of Etraveli Group, he has transformed the company, which had a complex, complicated history, into a major global player, powering meta and flights, and that [...]
Are you happy and dissatisfied? If so, Steve Hafner wants you and it’s why he’s still there
If there’s one question Steve Hafner, co-founder and CEO of KAYAK, gets asked a lot, it is “Why are you still here?”
After all, he and co-founder Paul English founded their meta-search business in 2004 and sold it for $1.8 billion in 2012. And on the surface, Hafner doesn't seem to be the [...]
Letter from Fort Lauderdale: Time shifting as search chokes, funds bloat and brands battle for supremacy in next age of tech
As I wait for the first of three flights that will bring me home from Fort Lauderdale to Singapore via Houston and San Francisco, I have downloaded the Timeshifter jetlag app, one of the startups that presented at the Phocuswright conference. It’s relatively easy to set up, I just hope it works b [...]
How Trip.com intends to execute its way to becoming the top travel brand in Asia in three years
The message is loud and clear – Trip.com Group wants to have the leading international travel brand in Asia in three years and to be the leading international travel brand in the world by 2025.
Those ambitions were declared by chairman James Liang at its 20th anniversary celebrations and the [...]
Immigration, inequality, inclusion – the themes occupying America
It is interesting the amount of soul-searching that’s going on in North America, both on the political and corporate front, as I discovered on this recent trip which started in Las Vegas, continued to New York and now headed for Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for Phocuswright, which begins tomorrow. & [...]
Letter from Explore ’19: Persevere, respect, be mindful – and oh, get more sleep
If I had to sum up the first day of Expedia Group’s Explore ’19 conference in Las Vegas today in three words, they’d be “perseverance, respect and mindfulness”.
The morning opened with a talk by Colin O’Brady who, after nine years of having his legs burnt at a beach party in Thailand [...]
Expedia sets as its “Everest” – a frictionless travel experience
He got burnt badly at a beach party in Koh Tao, Thailand, was told he’d never walk again and ended up climbing several mountains including Everest and walking across the Antarctica. Colin O’Brady opened Expedia Group’s Explore ’19 conference in Las Vegas this morning by asking delegates, � [...]
A tale of three places: Bamboo, Bali and never-ending neon
Travelling straight from the private
island of Cempedak to the mass tourism island of Bali is one thing, but going
on from Bali to Shanghai the day after, well, that’s another. The contrasts are
marked but there’s a common thread that weaves through them – the story of
travel – as Yeoh Siew [...]
Twenty years on, from Ctrip to Trip: From China power to “glocal” giant
It felt like I was going to a rock concert. The night before, on a cruise on the Huangpu river, the city lights were in full blaze but one illumination stood out, the Pearl Tower lights announcing that Ctrip was turning 20 – a city paying homage to its homegrown Internet giant.
This morning, [...]
Transformation of a sacred cow: The flight path of SIA into a digital enterprise, beyond airline seats
Singapore Airlines (SIA) started its digital transformation in 2016. Since then, hundreds of millions have been invested in IT capex with the vision of creating a “future where SIA remains a prestigious proposition but becomes a smaller part of the whole entity, and the other seeds would have bec [...]
