Beyond the gallop: Why the future belongs to the herd
We’re midway through the Lunar New Year celebrations (which, in case you didn’t know, stretch a full 15 days) and I swear if I see the word “gallop” in one more press release, I may well leapfrog into the nearest lake — which would have been rather dramatic two weeks ago when I was in New [...]
Travel platforms that survive won’t choose between AI and people. They’ll need both.
New “Hosted Trips” product deepens monetization for creators and travel agents, unlocking incremental demand across TourRadar’s global operator network. Listings with user-generated video convert 29% higher.
TourRadar is launching Hosted Trips, a product that gives creators and travel agents [...]
AI adoption is widespread, but developer confidence is still catching up
Developers across Southeast Asia and India are using AI at scale, but confidence in its reliability has yet to fully mature, according to findings from Agoda’s AI Developer Report 2025. While AI has become a regular part of software development workflows, many engineers remain cautious, treating i [...]
Letter from Tokyo: Ramen ritual, love robots, a dog and an eel
One of the reasons I love visiting Tokyo is that in a single day, you can be transported to the future – catching a glimpse of what the world might become – and then, just hours later, be pulled gently back in time, into a place of exquisite taste, deep tradition and unexpected warmth.
This [...]
74% of Asia Pacific consumers use AI to shop, but trust decides the checkout
Findings from Visa’s State of Digital Commerce in Asia Pacific study, commissioned by Visa and conducted by YouGov, surveying 14,764 consumers across 14 markets.
Visa has released new survey findings on the state of digital commerce in Asia Pacific, revealing that while consumers are increasing [...]
Roamio wants to fix travel’s most expensive drop-off between inspiration and booking
Travel inspiration has never been more abundant. Execution, on the other hand, is still broken. That gap, the moment when excitement gets lost somewhere between tabs, emails and unanswered enquiries, is exactly where Roamio is positioning itself.
“Honestly, it hurts everyone but in different ways [...]
Sabre releases whitepaper mapping trustworthy AI in travel
Sabre Corporation has released The Secure AI Advantage, the third installment in its whitepaper series aimed at decoding how agentic AI, autonomous, decision-making artificial intelligence, will reshape the travel technology landscape. The paper zeroes in on how trust and security must be redesigned [...]
Me, my avatar and I: Can travel keep it real in an AI-built world?
What happens to travel when so much of what we see online – destinations, experiences, even people – may have been created by AI? That was the question at the heart of the “Me, My Avatar and I” session at TOURISE 2025, which I moderated.
How do we keep it real online and manage traveller [...]
Relive the Unconference with The Next Generation Leaders recap
Next Generation Leaders: The Unconference, powered by Booking.com, set the tone for WiT Singapore: The Next 20 with a room full of under-35 rising leaders prepared to challenge how travel will be built, led and governed in the decades ahead. Held alongside WiT Singapore, the Unconference moved quick [...]
Booking Holdings’ Rob Ransom on disruption, distribution and the next travel unicorn
At Phocuswright, in a conversation that oscillated between realism and optimism, Rob Ransom, Chief Strategy Officer of Booking Holdings, laid out how the world’s largest online travel company is thinking about the most consequential shift since the dawn of online travel: the rise of AI-powered dis [...]
