The Millennial Traveller: Phoning It In
A recent report published by eMarketer has estimated that booking trips via mobile device will be an increasingly popular method for US travellers. Specifically, the report predicts that of those that book online, 51.8% of individuals will do so on their phones, marking a 43.8% increase from this ye [...]
The Lion king’s epic journey from keyboards and cakes to CAPA Legend
Things could have turned out very differently for Rusdi Kirana, recipient of the CAPA Legends Award 2015 if he had listened to a official from the Transportation Ministry when he first applied for a licence to start Lion Air.The advice he got was to start a condom factory instead. “If I had listen [...]
GeoTourist wants to walk with you
Shaon Talukder, a young technorepreneur from London, knows how to pitch. When I first met him at the WIT 2015 conference, he raised an interesting question: what if your business idea puts others out of work? Not that GeoTourist, a location-based social media platform has any dark ambitions. In fact [...]
The best of travel tech: Bag tags and movie downloads
Technological advancement in travel doesn’t always come encased in a shiny new device. Take the humble luggage tag: essential yet largely unchanged since the advent of mass air transit. Recent increases in self-service check-ins and untrained hands handling sticky baggage tags can complicate matte [...]
Future Travel expo reveals ‘magical customer moments’
Imagine effortless travel, aided by technology that anticipates, aggregates and pushes relevant information at the right time. This was the vision presented by a panel of speakers at the Future Travel Experience expo in Singapore this week. According to panelists, technology is not the barrier: i [...]
My Take on Phocuswright’s Battleground
This is a guest article by Douglas Quinby, Vice President, Research at Phocuswright.For eight years Phocuswright's Travel Innovation Summit has assembled travel startups and more established companies to present their innovations to the industry and compete on stage at The Phocuswright Conference. T [...]
As travel consolidates, welcome to the land of giants and specialists
Marriott buys Starwood; Accor in talks with Fairmont; Expedia nabs HomeAway – what’s next as the big gets bigger? Marriott buys Starwood. It came probably in a tweet, a Facebook post or a LinkedIn update. Just three words which mean a lot. A heck of a lot.In fact, you could say, in travel indust [...]
Letter from London: Bacharach, Shakespeare and Southwark reimagined
In London, I caught the musical, “Close To You: Bacharach Reimagined”. Written by young Canadian artiste, Kyle Riabko, it’s a tribute to one of pop music’s most celebrated and prolific songwriters and while I normally eschew musical medleys, Riabko’s clever and contemporary arrangement and [...]
Direct is the future – FlyZilla excludes OTAs in new flight metasearch product
Last month travel portal TripZilla sent out a press release to announce the launch of its new flight metasearch, FlyZilla, with a rather bold headline “FlyZilla, the Flight Metasearch that says No to OTAs”.Current flight metasearch engines are dominated by airfares from online travel agencies (O [...]
Letter from inside a Tesla: Nerds love it, women will love it, what’s not to love?
I am not big into cars but even I know the future when I see it.
My first encounter with a Tesla was about three years ago when Joe Nguyen of comScore said he wanted to show me his latest gadget and took me for a drive in one of the first few models of the electric car invented by Elon Musk.
We co [...]
