The WiT Podcast: Unity in Crisis – Episode 19: Greg Schulze, Expedia Group – a farewell letter, as he returns to the US
On July 25, Greg Schulze, senior vice president, Expedia Group, flew back to the US after completing his four-and-a-half year stint in Singapore as the first global head to be based in Asia Pacific.
He brings
home lots of happy memories of a place he and his family have thrived in, as he
says in [...]
Milken talks vaccine, Alibaba’s Tsai talks remote work and travel; “massive digitisation of everything”
With so much bad news in travel I thought I’d tune into the Singapore Fintech Festival Global Launch event this week for a different perspective, and the most promising news came at the end from Mike Milken, chairman of the Milken Institute.
Saying things look promising and he wouldn’t be su [...]
The WiT Podcast: Unity in Crisis – Episode 18: The Year of Two Halves That Turned Into “Year Zero.O”
More than halfway into 2020, and still
there seems to be no easy or clear resolution to the Covid-19 crisis that has
grounded travel and pushed economies into free fall.
We had hoped it would be a year of two halves, but at this midway point
into the first year of the new decade, it feels like [...]
Headed for a stellar July and then, wham: TMG’s Kien on steering Ivuvu.com and group through the storm in Vietnam
Tran Trong Kien, who runs Vietnam's largest integrated travel group, covering hospitality, aviation, online and destination management, had been looking forward finally to a July that would show 90% of pre-Covid levels or even surpass 2019 bookings when lo and behold, Covid-19 reared its ugly head [...]
“The emails and phone calls suddenly stopped” but MyRealTrip persevered and raised US$36m. Here’s how it did it
MyRealTrip, South Korea’s online travel platform, which had its roots in tours and activities, made headlines on July 29 when it raised US$36m in a funding round led by existing investor Altos Ventures along with IMM Investment and Smilegate Investment. New investors including Korea Development B [...]
Ixigo reinstates salaries, sells Travenues to SpiceJet, weans off Google
“The longterm net gainers are OTAs and airline direct,” says Aloke Bajpai
From the outside looking in, it would seem that the Covid-19 situation is getting worse in India which it is from the rate of infections but somehow one travel company, Ixigo, the Indian e-commerce website for flights, [...]
Malaysia puts bet on domestic tourism, nature attractions tipped to do well
2020 was meant to put Malaysia on the global tourism map with the ambitious Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign, which the country had hoped would bring in 30 million international tourist arrivals and add RM100 billion (US$364 billion) to the national coffers. Then came the coronavirus, and the campaign [...]
Markets stumble, Traveloka raises, Ctrip’s private plans: Keep your eye on the horizon
One moment, I am speaking to Tien Thuy Tien, managing director of Asian Trails Vietnam, who’s at the Lak Tented Camp in the Central Highlands and she’s waxing lyrical about the scenic beauty and the elephant by the lake, and how locals like her were out travelling, and the next, Vietnam goes in [...]
Meet the unsung heroes of Raffles City hotels, Singapore
While most of us were hiding at home during Circuit Breaker in Singapore there were those working in hospitality who had to show up for work to keep their hotels running, and caring for Stay-Home-Notice and Quarantine Control Facility guests in Singapore.
Curious to find out more about these wor [...]
What is it like to manage a “Hotel California”? Behind the scenes of Raffles City hotels with Marcus Hanna
In all his years of hotel-keeping, Marcus Hanna never imagined he’d be running a “Hotel California” type operation where guests “can never leave” their rooms but so it has been for the past months with his hotels, Swissôtel The Stamford (1,252 rooms) and now one tower of the Fairmont Sin [...]
