Sabre-Abacus integration: Big job ahead for Mendis to make magic happen in the middle
Roshan Mendis, the newly-appointed vice president of Sabre Travel Network Asia Pacific, has a big job ahead of him.He’s got the task of integrating Abacus, Sabre’s newest acquisition, into the Sabre global family and that means not just in technology terms but also people terms – always the mo [...]
TripZilla zipping along as it uses content as hook to pull in customers
In start-up years, TripZilla is still an infant. Founded in 2010 by husband and wife team Winnie Tan and Eric Koh, the online portal claims to be South-east Asia’s foremost travel listings site – cornering almost 80% of the Singaporean market alone. I caught up with Winnie to find out how TripZi [...]
Technology is here to disrupt marketplaces, including travel, says ServisHero’s Karl Loo
Tell anyone there’s a new services app in town and eyes will roll and you’ll hear, “There are so many now.” And that’s true. Today, in a world gone P2P, anyone can sell anything to anyone and you can order, with a swipe or a tap, tour guides, chefs, plumbers, contractors, taxis, dates and [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: Priceline’s APAC champion Adrian Currie salutes early and future entrepreneurs
At the WIT Conference last year in Singapore, we recognised 11 individuals whom we felt have had the most influence on the development of online travel in Asia Pacific. This is the sixth article in a series of interviews profiling the WIT Warriors.As one of the first APAC-based heads for Priceline G [...]
Letter from Melbourne: Can the city of independents fend off Uberisation?
In a world of bad news – terrorism in Tunisia, terrorism in Charleston, USA, economic disaster in Greece (déjà vu), the MERS scare – I am happy to bring you good news from Melbourne. The spirit of the independent is alive and well in this city which I was told repeatedly will become Australia� [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: Ram’s still waiting for breakout pan-Asian online travel brand
At the WIT Conference last year in Singapore, we recognised 11 individuals whom we felt have had the most influence on the development of online travel in Asia Pacific. This is the fifth article in a series of interviews profiling the WIT Warriors.As Phocuswright’s first analyst based in Asia, Ram [...]
Maggie White: She called Australia home and she is now at home
She was the soul of discretion. You can imagine that’d be annoying to a pesky, nosy journalist wanting to find out news about the organisation she worked for almost her entire career, but Maggie White had a way of keeping that bit at a distance and yet drawing you close to her way of being.As long [...]
When a venue becomes a true partner, your event cannot help but fly – thank you, Nikko
For the last four years, we’ve held our WIT Japan at the Hotel Nikko in Odaiba and over the years, I’ve come to regard it as home. That Rainbow Bridge right outside my hotel window inspired the theme for our inaugural event in 2012 – “Building Bridges”. The staff know us. They know our eve [...]
The crazy world of start-ups – from freelancers to tour guides, smart dog collars and avatar animation
In today’s world of disruption, everybody can do and be anything we want to be. We can be taxi drivers (Uber), hoteliers (Airbnb), bloggers (Wordpress), celebrities (social networks), headhunters (LinkedIn and lately, social recruiting sites like Wantedly from Japan) and, with Freelancer, the glob [...]
AccorHotels is a “why not” moment as it throws down the gauntlet in battle for “Iron Throne”
In the finale of Season 5, Game of Thrones, everyone dies. There, no spoiler alert. We know that’s what happens in this TV series which Agoda’s Timothy Hughes compared to online travel at the recent WIT Japan & North Asia.Well, the battle is about to get more brutal.Accor’s announcement th [...]
