Focus on customer needs pays off for Airbnb as Q2 revenues jump 300%
LONGER stays, rural places, virtual Olympic tours – all part of strategy in APAC to keep engaged
Focusing on what it can control and responding quickly to customer and host needs has clearly paid off for Airbnb which reported a 300% year-on-year jump in revenues in its second quarter to US $1 [...]
The Wrap: Amadeus accelerates NDC adoption in APAC, Etihad trials travel verification solution for Covid-19 tests, and more …
THE Wrap is a
round-up of news in the travel and technology industries, and updates on how businesses in these sectors
are resetting as they prepare for post-pandemic travel.
Amadeus steps up NDC adoption with airline and travel partners in APAC
Amadeus is helping its airline and travel [...]
AirAsia’s Teleport buys delivery platform Delivereat in US$9.8m deal
TELEPORT, the cargo and logistic arm of AirAsia Group, is expanding its delivery service in ASEAN with the acquisition of 100% stake in Malaysian online food delivery platform Delivereat for US$9.8 million (RM41.52 million).
Teleport, a unit of airasia Digital, said the transaction in both cas [...]
New virtual travel exchange platform to boost business opportunities for ASEAN tourism players
THE Asia Pacific region was the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic with international visitor spending falling by 74.4% as many countries across the region closed their borders to inbound tourists, while domestic spending witnessed a sharp decline of 48.1%, according to the WTTC 2021 Economic Tre [...]
ixigo’s road to profitability and IPO – how it did it and the future of bus and rail
FROM the start when Covid first struck, it was inevitable the road ixigo would take to raise future funds – via an IPO. CEO and Co-founder Aloke Bajpai hinted at this during a wide-ranging interview with WiT around this time last year.
When asked what was one of the positives that had emerged [...]
And you thought Covid-19 was bad? What’s coming could be worse – life on Mars
What if Apple built a hotel, streamed it like Netflix,
designed it like Airbnb?
By Philip Schaetz and Martin Reiher
FORGET Covid-19. What if you woke up in Elon Musk’s dream? We have conquered the Red Planet. Through terraforming, we built an atmosphere and a liveable ecosystem. Shuttling [...]
Dream Cruises’ Michael Goh talks cruising trends, new gen cruisers and sustainability
“Rethink, rebuild, reconstruct” was how Michael Goh, president of Dream Cruises, one of the three brands under Genting Cruise Lines, summed up the company’s strategy in sailing through the Covid storm.
Genting Cruise Lines’ World Dream was the first ship in the world to resume cruises du [...]
Mystifly extends flights platform to non-travel brands, creates new call centre business
“We survived, now ready to thrive,” says Rajeev Kumar on 12th (no, second) anniversary
IT may be Mystifly’s 12th anniversary but to founder Rajeev Kumar and co-founder Bharat Goyal, it feels more like its second year “because we went back to zero” when the pandemic devastated its B2B f [...]
AirAsia’s BigPay secures US$100m from South Korea’s SK Group to grow its financial businesses
BigPay, the fintech unit of airasia Digital, has raised up to US$100 million in financing from SK Group, the third-largest conglomerate in South Korea by asset size.
This is the first time any
portfolio company within airasia Digital has secured financing of this size.
BigPay said the funding [...]
Tentative recovery lifts Q2 results for major travel brands, except for APAC
WHILE things remain glum in Asia Pacific, with almost all cross-border travel within the region halted and countries undergoing new waves of infections, it is good to see financial performance of major travel companies on the mend – although admittedly, recovery remains fragile.
Second quarte [...]
