The Icelandic startup connecting the dots for air travellers, Asia next on radar
David Gunnarsson does not waste words. The CEO of Dohop, the Icelandic travel technology company that has spent two decades solving one of aviation’s most stubborn problems – how to connect passengers across airlines that do not talk to each other – speaks the way he thinks: directly, precisel [...]
How OceanAir’s Essam Al Salah built his experiences from the desert
Essam Al Salah remembers the moment it clicked. It started with building a small website to start selling tours. In the early days, like most operators, he worked with the companies already in the market, the ones selling seat-in-coach packages. He booked through them, sold through them, and watched [...]
Turning tourists into conservationists, RealNZ’s one ‘sound of silence’ at a time
“You can't help conservation and help the planet if you're not profitable. You've always got to have that balance.”
Two years into his role as chief executive of RealNZ, Dave Beeche is applying lessons from a career in major sports events to New Zealand's tourism industry. “Our purpose is to [...]
Saudi travel’s new shape: Domestic, westward and betting on Itself
The interview with Muzzammil Ahussain, CEO of Almosafer, at WiT Phocuswright Middle East started with a provocation. Saudi Arabia is reportedly projecting a $44 billion deficit for 2026. Construction contract awards fell 72% year-on-year. NEOM wasn’t even mentioned in the national budget. So: is t [...]
Vio Travel could automate 99% of bookings. Its CEOs explain why they won’t.
It’s also the first DMC in Asia to pass a 100% sustainability audit
Vio Travel has spent the last few years trying to fix a problem most travel agents know all too well, which is building multi-country itineraries by hand is slow, messy, and inconsistent. The company has combined direct supplie [...]
The leaps made and those to come: Stephan Ekbergh on building in Africa
25 years in, Travelstart’s founder is still restless, still betting, and still asking the question: what’s next?
It probably comes from having lived the last 25 years amid the natural landscapes of Cape Town, South Africa. In his interview at WiT Phocuswright Middle East in Barcelona, Stephan E [...]
Japan’s secondary cities in the search bar: Why alternative corridors are winning next-gen discovery
The travel search interface has officially fragmented. Discovery is no longer about generating links; it is about answer generation. Driven by AI-curated "Zero-Click" context and vertical video validation across TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, travelers are trading traditional keywords for contextual, wi [...]
From Mykonos to Red Sea, from beach vibe to luxury hospitality: The building of Nammos
Carolyn Turnbull on luxury with personality and why she didn’t run a mile when the war started
Carolyn Turnbull grew up four hours south of Sydney, in a small country town where, she says with a grin, the sleeves stay rolled up.
She has since led luxury hotels across Asia for Aman, run destina [...]
The country you think you know (but don’t): Florian Sengstschmid on marketing Azerbaijan
Before my interview with Florian Sengstschmid, CEO of the Azerbaijan Tourism Board, at WiT Phocuswright Middle East, I asked Claude, give me three good reasons to visit Azerbaijan.
Claude, having apparently tracked my recent interest in Dylan Thomas’s birthplace in Wales, came back with three a [...]
The Ground Shift: 10 things we now know
Gathering the key takeaways from WiT Phocuswright Middle East 2026
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” I simply had to open WiT Phocuswright Middle East last week in Barcelona with the opening line from Charles Dickens’ The Tale of Two Cities.
It felt apt – an event t [...]
