Online travel giants set new record for marketing spend in ’23
Financial figures from Expedia Group, Booking Holdings, Airbnb and Trip.com Group – four of the largest online travel agencies in the world – show the companies spent a record amount of money to promote their brands and attract customers in 2023, as pent-up demand from the pandemic is stil [...]
Swiftonomics leaves Singapore with post-concert gains
More than any other entertainment event, The Eras Tour brought with it invaluable lessons for the APAC hospitality scene
After six spectacular nights of the highly anticipated Eras Tour in Singapore, pop icon Taylor Swift has left the Lion City for Los Angeles, where she’ll rest for a couple of m [...]
I&CO expands in Asia, forms design capital alliance with Trambellir
I&CO, a global design agency, has officialsed a strategic alliance with Trambellir, a Malaysia-based online medical tourism booking platform. The collaboration entails enhancing Trambellir's user interface (UI) and overall business assets through I&CO's design expertise.
Trambellir serves [...]
Koreans’ top picks for value-for-money travel
Tourvis x Consumer Insight analysis on cost-effective travel trends
Key points:
Japan: #1 destination for first six months of 2024, consecutively
March and April focus on Tokyo, Osaka and other Japanese cherry blossom destinations
May and June strong for Cancun and Honolulu, du [...]
TravelAI rescues Casai. Women in the workforce. Jeeves the Snackbot. Hotelbeds of the Caribbean.
Women in the workforce: The Economist crunches the numbers
To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, The Economist has released its annual glass-ceiling index, its measure of the role and influence of women in the workforce.
The publisher looked at 10 indicators—from labour-force partici [...]
Wayra and HBX Group unveil winning startups to join TravelTech Lab
B2B platform HBX Group and Wayra, Telefónica's Corporate Venture Capital arm, have announced the winners of the second TravelTech Lab challenge. The announcement comes after a rigorous evaluation of 120 companies hailing from 25 countries, including Spain, France, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Sing [...]
WiT Podcast: Cooking up AI and product love with Booking.com’s Adrienne Enggist
“You've got to make your mistakes differently”, says Enggist
As a student, Adrienne Enggist, Senior Director of Product, Customer Experience and Platforms for Booking.com, had an epiphany, not a hallucination, when she listened to Timothy O’Leary, the late American psychologist and author kno [...]
Mews secures $110 million investment, focused on propelling cloud tech in hospitality
Hospitality cloud solutions provider, Mews, has announced a fresh funding injection of $110 million. Led by Kinnevik, an existing investor, alongside Revaia, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Notion Capital and newcomer LGVP, this latest round brings Mews' valuation to $1.2 billion.
This funding arrive [...]
Bolder and better funded: Takaya plans global growth path for Reiwa
Former Relux founder takes lessons from India’s startup scene
Fresh from his first trip to India, Takaya Shinozuka, founder of Japanese online travel company, Reiwa Travel, is blown away by the dynamism of the market and the ambition of the travel startup founders he met.
“I spent five days, [...]
Growing regulations, shift towards online and AI driving change in experiences sector
The response by authorities to over-tourism and environmental concerns by either the introduction of fees and limiting tourist numbers are posing a challenge to the experiences industry, said Arival CEO and co-founder Douglas Quinby at the opening of Arival in Berlin this week.
“In some popul [...]
