WiT Singapore 2018: Singapore Tourism Board shares lessons in Destination Marketing 2.0: it’s about being agile, bold, and creative
Destination marketing no longer looks or works like what it did before. It is no longer about year-long campaigns that remain predominantly static, with maybe slight tweaks to highlight certain events through the year. It is certainly no longer about bringing the media and travel agents to your shor [...]
WiT Singapore 2018: Split fights all the way to the top to nab WiT Startup of the Year award
Split, with its brand proposition built around instalment payments for travel, fought all the way through three rounds of judging and finished Startup of the Year at this year’s WiT Startup Pitch.
Already with Amazon Web Credits in hand after advancing to the semi-final round at the WiT Bootcam [...]
WiT Singapore 2018: A new age of travel with futuristic ambitions, but people still key
After a pulsating opening that was both visually and aurally stimulating, attendees at the award-winning WiT Singapore 2018 conference at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, were taken through the looking glass into a world of travel that at times looked like science fiction.
But discussions [...]
Welcome to the blue ocean of cruising in Asia, massive market yet to be disrupted
Last week, I took a dip into the blue ocean of cruising – and it really is a blue ocean. Firstly, according to CLIA (Cruising Lines International Association), Asians are discovering cruising in a big way – for the first time, the number of cruisers in Asia crossed the four million mark (4,052,0 [...]
Through The Looking Glass: Using blockchain and fin tech to elevate the next billion users in emerging markets
In our continuing series of articles around our WIT Singapore Conference theme of “Through The Looking Glass”, where we look outside travel in search of different stories and lessons, we look at how a new startup is aiming to use blockchain and fintech to address the base of the pyramid in emerg [...]
Letter from Shanghai: Ctrip pushes on, global brands and lessons learnt in China and holy places, here we come
Things are at a different scale in China and this fact was hammered home when on my walk to the venue for the 12th TravelDaily Conference & Digital Travel Show (CDTS), I encountered a giant giraffe at the road crossing.
Whatever its purpose is, it served as a great landmark and over my two da [...]
Plug & Play Travel plans launch in Singapore to bridge gap between innovators and corporations
Plug & Play Tech Center, the Silicon Valley-based company that bridges the gap between innovators and corporations, is looking to launch its Travel & Hospitality vertical in Singapore to plug into what it feels is a market gap waiting to be addressed.
It held its first event last week in [...]
TripAdvisor unveils the next big thing – the world’s most “personalised and connected” travel community
When Steve Kaufer was last in Singapore this time last year, he spoke to us about his vision for TripAdvisor to offer “the complete package to enable our 400 million users to experience much better vacations”.
“In five years’ time, with the TripAdvisor app, you will book and search in way [...]
ZEN Rooms expands to leasing and management model
Fresh from its US$15 million investment round by Korea’s Yanolja, ZEN Rooms, which started in 2015 with a partial inventory model, and moved to a franchise/revenue management model early last year, is progressing to leasing and operating its own hotels.
Shohita Choudhry, country manager, Singap [...]
Mystifly blends Indian, Japanese and Chinese leadership in new bid to scale and make air shopping better
The biggest promise that the Internet brought was access to content anywhere and anytime. “Why should airfare booking be any different?” This thought gave birth to Mystifly back in 2009. Ten years on, the business, which started as an India-based B2B airfare marketplace to provide a corporate tr [...]
