From sake tourism to temple stays, ESG to metaverse, North Asia waits patiently for rebound
“KIKO No Ikioi” – Japanese saying for “no choice but to carry on” – and travel companies in North Asia have certainly carried on even though cross-border travel remains at a standstill, two years into the pandemic. Global to local OTAs have carried on investing in tech, team and product [...]
WiT Japan & North Asia 2022 – time to rebuild bridge and “open eyes to the world again”
Hybrid event returns to Tokyo on Jan 14-15
WiT will kick off its first event of 2022 with a “Homecoming” to Tokyo for its ninth edition of WiT Japan & North Asia. The hybrid event, on January 14-15, is expected to be attended by up to 150 on-site delegates, complemented with a virtual au [...]
Cruising to nowhere getting somewhere, as domestic cruises resume in Malaysia Dec 22
Cross-border cruising on table, Singapore-Penang-Phuket itinerary being planned
IT is ironic that even though air travel in Asia is going nowhere, the only sector that seems to be going somewhere even though it is mostly to nowhere, is cruising.
On December 22, domestic cruises from Penang, [...]
Pace, The Atlas, Spotnana – fuelled by experience, passion and funding
Three startups, helmed by seasoned entrepreneurs, the ones to watch
IF there is one
trend we’ve seen in the startup world, it’s that seasoned entrepreneurs are
returning to solve problems they’ve either been working on for a long time or
turning their eye to new and hot spaces they hope to [...]
Lessons from WIT Africa: Collaboration can be a reason for celebration
No fear, young Africans are treading new paths to entrepreneurial success
ONE continent fascinated 19th century explorers more than any other: Africa.
Explorers like the Scot, David Livingstone; Henry Stanley, who recorded
his journeys for the New York Times, and British scholar Sir Richard B [...]
Travelstart and MakeMyTrip: Charting a post-pandemic future
TWO online travel pioneers – Travelstart founded in 1999 in Africa and MakeMyTrip founded in India in 2000 – were at WiT Experience Singapore to share how they are facing the future as they emerge from the dust of Covid.
In a wide-ranging conversation, both companies talked about new service [...]
Japanese travel in transition to better times ahead as curbs eased and Go To Travel campaign may restart
JTB’s president sees “bright future”, Reiwa wants to shake up outbound travel market
JAPAN’S battered tourism industry is hopeful that it
may be turning the corner on the pandemic. At the end of September, the state
of emergency covering Tokyo and 18 other prefectures was lifted and an i [...]
Reading between the lines, Klook and Go City are going places
Attractions business looks even more attractive as Covid forces travellers to go local.
IF Covid has offered something positive to the travel trade, it is the
extra time given to people to reassess their businesses, to contemplate next
steps, to read books and draw inspiration from the words of [...]
WiT Experience Singapore: On-site speakers share their perspectives
A TOTAL of six overseas speakers flew from the US and Europe into Singapore under specially-facilitated Safe Travel Passes to take part in WiT Experience. Three of them share their comments on the hybrid experience, and their views on virtual vs hybrid vs physical.
Frederic Barou (extreme right [...]
Royal Caribbean tells traditional travel agents: ‘Don’t be afraid of the digital space’
Travel partners who are digitally selling cruises have been able to recover business faster than those who have not yet entered the space successfully.
THERE are not many people selling travel who can claim that the Covid pandemic has been good for their business.
Angie Stephen, vice-presiden [...]
