Digitisation, sustainability, new design thinking – there’s no turning back for hospitality, says Park Hotel Group’s Shin Hui
A new generation hotelier, Shin Hui Tan brings fresh perspectives to hospitality. The grand-daughter of renowned banker Wee Cho Yaw (United Overseas Bank), she spent four years in finance and private equity before joining Park Hotel Group in 2009, where she leads commercial and brand strategy. [...]
As business events claw their way back, APAC to lead the way in digital innovation and adoption
Studies show stronger appetite in region for virtual and hybrid
ONE-and-a-half years into Covid, and attending a conference in person still feels like a novel activity. Even the driver who dropped me off at Marina Bay Sands this Monday was curious. “You going to an event? How many people? Got [...]
Breaking barriers and breaking records; the pivot to virtual of Phare, The Cambodian Circus
24 hours; 31 shows; 160 staff and volunteers. That’s just some of what went into the attempt to set a Guinness Record for the longest circus performance that Phare, The Cambodian Circus staged in March this year.
While Phare is waiting to have the record validated, WiT caught up with Osman Kh [...]
Not quite the sensory internet but Wok ‘n’ Stroll’s Karni Tomer creates virtual experiences so real you can taste them
IN the last 18 months our minds have been forcibly opened to the concept of virtual experiences of all kinds. From virtual concerts to virtual weddings, we’ve all become used to feeling one degree removed from our events.
Even with our newfound facility online, going virtual with food tours mi [...]
A generation to watch; Gen-Z’s know what they want and aren’t afraid to ask for it
ONE of the thematic focuses of the WiT Travel roadshow episode 3, was talent. According to a UN policy brief, more than 100 million travel jobs were lost last year due to Covid-19, and 63 million of those job losses were in APAC.
As travel haemorrhaged jobs last year it is not inconceivable tha [...]
Thorsen: Covid could produce well-funded corporate travel startups to go after long-term opportunity
TRAVEL tech evangelist Johnny Thorsen, who has his own vision of a “Traveltopia”, is watching to see if Covid will give the industry a new generation of well-funded startups “that are able to go after the long term opportunity, and really become a threat to the established environment”.
[...]
Massive opportunity in alternative payments as e-wallets soar in Asia and BNPL gains ground
Multi-currency payments; fraud; how many payment methods should you offer – key headaches addressed
WITH 1.7b unbanked adults in the world, according to Findex Database,
Worldbank, the opportunities to address this market with alternative payment
methods are immense. The potential is biggest i [...]
Travel product chiefs on tech that works, those that didn’t and those that should
IN the last year, tech teams have built platforms that went unused and scrapped projects only to repurpose them later in new incarnations; as Thomas Edison said once upon a time, “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
Tech and product c [...]
The chase for tech talent – go to where they are and hire ‘A’ players to attract others
IT is
ironic that even as the travel industry has shed millions upon millions of
jobs, one sector that has expanded and remains voracious for talent is on the
tech side.
Almost all
travel businesses have used the down-time of Covid to invest in their tech
stack, whether consumer-facing or back- [...]
The rise of social chat apps in Asia: Consumers showing preference for virtual agents
SOCIAL chat apps have developed faster in Asia than in any other part of the world, and “in Asia you can't talk about social chat apps without going into super apps and how they are essentially like remote controls for our lives,” said Shyn Yee Ho-Strangas, director, global product management a [...]
