Letter from County Wicklow: Like roses in Ireland, Asia is blooming
On the drive from Dublin airport – minus my baggage – I asked the driver if County Wicklow was where the water came from to make Guinness.He laughed and said, “The things tourists believe.”Thing is, it does take a certain suspension of disbelief to travel. That just the day before I had been [...]
Alitrip wants to innovate and disrupt travel – here’s how
What do a discounted hotel room, a tube of lipstick and a frying pan have in common? They’re all available for purchase on the Alibaba platform, the Chinese e-commerce site that’s bigger than Amazon and eBay combined.Alitrip, formerly Taobao Travel, was established as an independent, one-stop on [...]
A modest proposal: travel technology dominance
This is a guest blog by Arnie Weissmann, editor in chief, Travel Weekly.The question that Singapore’s minister of foreign affairs put to attendees at the Web in Travel conference last week seemed a little silly: “How many of you are in the travel industry?”Every hand went up.And the followup s [...]
For Asia, the real story is only just beginning
Richie is a 27-year-old orang utan living in the Semenggoh Wildlife Reserve of Sarawak. Philip Yong, CEO of Borneo Adventure, found him living in a cage as a baby, paid to free him and now he’s hanging out at the sanctuary, which rehabilitates apes and returns them to the wild.Obviously Richie is [...]
MakeMyTrip eyes mobile market
Stock prices are no indication of how a company is performing, said Deep Kalra, CEO and founder of Indian OTA MakeMyTrip (MMT) at the opening session of the WIT conference on October 21.Once the disruptor, MMT took the world by storm with a phenomenal IPO listing on NASDAQ in 2010. Despite falling s [...]
Niche properties seek a moment in the sun
By Mar Pages, luxury travel writerTravel experience is the new buzzword. At the final day of the WIT conference, we heard from a wide spectrum of businesses involved in creating unique experiences. At one end, the larger travel OTAs and, at the other, the hoteliers and food experts who are trying to [...]
When mega marketplaces hop on the travel bandwagon
By Alisha SomanasEveryone’s jumping on the online travel industry bandwagon, and the mega marketplaces like Alibaba and Rakuten are no exception. But when you see what they’ve got on their hands, it’s no surprise they want to wield what they’ve got. They’ve found a way to differentiate in [...]
The secret to direct hotel bookings
By Jack Tan, Independent Hotel ConsultantRetailing hotel rooms has never been as complicated as it is today, with a myriad of channels, tools and services now available. Direct is every hotelier’s pipe dream and for some, it remains a pipe dream as the market becomes more complex and the consumer [...]
Online travel giants on building loyalty and differentiation
By Alisha SomanasWith massive shifts in the terrain of the online travel industry, how are the big players responding? When quizzed on their response to newcomers and changes in the online travel industry such as meta and mobiles, and how they will differentiate themselves from others who seek to di [...]
Embracing the Airbnb experience
By Carl GriffithIt was interesting for me listening to Julian Persaud of Airbnb simply for the number of times he used the word ‘experience’. He had a lot to say, of course, about the company and his last role with Google. But that word kept cropping up – he even used the phrase ‘touching th [...]
