Expedia’s accelerator bet on inclusion and diversity pays off
Final pitch day for 12 finalists set for May
Expedia Group’s bet on launching an accelerator focused on inclusion and diversity last September appears to have paid off, with 12 startups joining its first cohort.
In an interview with WiT, Aditi Mohapatra, vice president, Global Social Impact an [...]
Top of the WiT 16: Dance of the Golden Lion, believing in sustainability, and million-dollar data hubs
Top Of The WiT is a grab of the trendiest news that happened this week in travel, tech and Asia - all condensed into a quick-and-easy nugget-sized podcast.
On this week's episode, we talk about a recent interview with Greenview's Eric Ricaurte and how holding on to a belief in the future of susta [...]
Travel-tech should follow the money, aviation recovery, and travellers making up for lost time
Is travel tech the next stop for out-of-work bankers?
Some of the best-educated, hardest working, multi-skilled talent is being shifted out of the under-pressure global banking sector. But where to next for these workers from Goldman Sacks and Morgan Stanley whose transferable skills range from fin [...]
The dance of the golden lion: We’re all experts by now
As I watched the golden lion perform its dance last night at the Lunar New Year celebration hosted by Sentosa Development Corporation last night, I couldn’t help but relate it to the very similar stunts and manoeuvres we in travel have had to make to survive the pandemic and come out the other sid [...]
New world meets old as an ambitious FREED acquires Connexus Travel
Digital and smart merchandising solutions company, FREED GROUP, has acquired Hong Kong’s oldest travel agency, Connexus Travel (formerly Swire Travel), to expand and extends its reach into travel.
The acquisition, details of which were not disclosed, blends the technology expertise of FREED, wh [...]
Travel-tech group Bookaway invests millions in building centralised transportation hub – here’s why
Bookaway Group says the industry is fragmented and aims to aggregate data for over 100 markets globally
“The centralized hub will be a standardized database for the entirety of Bookaway Group’s network and subsidiaries”, said Omer Chehmer (COO and co-founder, Bookaway Group) when asked by WiT [...]
NE Asia’s rebound: Beefing countries, China’s outbound, and $11.2B in mobile gross bookings by 2025
Smartphone penetration and foundational shifts from outbound to domestic tourism are sending NE Asia in interesting directions during this travel recovery phase
We recently covered digital transformation in Southeast Asia and how a surge of offline - online in travel and hospitality is helping the [...]
Tech In Travel: SITA steps out with travel identity company; revenge is still sweet for some; the chatbot that will change travel; and a tech tip for hoteliers
SITA lays another steppingstone on the digital travel path
The way data management is handled within the aviation industry is at the heart of a partnership between SITA and travel identity company Zamna Technologies.
Zamna’s solution uses a decentralised blockchain based model to transform h [...]
Rise of a region: Digital transformation to supercharge Southeast Asia’s travel recovery in 2023 and beyond
Digital transformation will continue to accelerate rapidly across Southeast Asia, with online bookings more than doubling between 2022 and 2025
It’s no secret that the pandemic hit different regions and their travel sectors in different ways, and there’s no common rulebook on how to recover fro [...]
TrustYou splits from Recruit, buys back ownership
TrustYou has bought back full ownership of its shares from Recruit Holdings, five years after the Japanese travel/media company acquired the German guest feedback platform.
The management buyout was backed and led by technology investor Ventech. TrustYou founder and CEO Ben Jost is also a sig [...]
