The WiT Podcast: Unity in Crisis – Episode 19: Greg Schulze, Expedia Group – a farewell letter, as he returns to the US
On July 25, Greg Schulze, senior vice president, Expedia Group, flew back to the US after completing his four-and-a-half year stint in Singapore as the first global head to be based in Asia Pacific.
He brings
home lots of happy memories of a place he and his family have thrived in, as he
says in [...]
Milken talks vaccine, Alibaba’s Tsai talks remote work and travel; “massive digitisation of everything”
With so much bad news in travel I thought I’d tune into the Singapore Fintech Festival Global Launch event this week for a different perspective, and the most promising news came at the end from Mike Milken, chairman of the Milken Institute.
Saying things look promising and he wouldn’t be su [...]
The Wrap: Headout launches ‘Safe Experiences’, Travelport’s new tracker checks airlines’ safety measures, and more …
The Wrap is a round-up of news in the
travel and technology industries, and to keep track of developments in these sectors
as the green shoots of recovery slowly take root.
Headout introduces ‘Safe Experiences’ to build trust and boost travel among consumers
Safe Experiences has verified [...]
The WiT Podcast: Unity in Crisis – Episode 18: The Year of Two Halves That Turned Into “Year Zero.O”
More than halfway into 2020, and still
there seems to be no easy or clear resolution to the Covid-19 crisis that has
grounded travel and pushed economies into free fall.
We had hoped it would be a year of two halves, but at this midway point
into the first year of the new decade, it feels like [...]
Headed for a stellar July and then, wham: TMG’s Kien on steering Ivuvu.com and group through the storm in Vietnam
Tran Trong Kien, who runs Vietnam's largest integrated travel group, covering hospitality, aviation, online and destination management, had been looking forward finally to a July that would show 90% of pre-Covid levels or even surpass 2019 bookings when lo and behold, Covid-19 reared its ugly head [...]
Beauty queens who can cook: How Ivuvu.com used influencers to win domestic hearts
Thien Minh Group found itself having to move really fast the last three months. The mainstay of its business, inbound visitors, had disappeared and it had to pivot to a domestic market. The positive was that Vietnamese consumers, like everywhere else in the world, had moved online and this was an e [...]
“The emails and phone calls suddenly stopped” but MyRealTrip persevered and raised US$36m. Here’s how it did it
MyRealTrip, South Korea’s online travel platform, which had its roots in tours and activities, made headlines on July 29 when it raised US$36m in a funding round led by existing investor Altos Ventures along with IMM Investment and Smilegate Investment. New investors including Korea Development B [...]
Ixigo reinstates salaries, sells Travenues to SpiceJet, weans off Google
“The longterm net gainers are OTAs and airline direct,” says Aloke Bajpai
From the outside looking in, it would seem that the Covid-19 situation is getting worse in India which it is from the rate of infections but somehow one travel company, Ixigo, the Indian e-commerce website for flights, [...]
Asia saving Asia: Visa-free travel for residents, safe travel protocols and new experiences for the times
Ideas collected from the wisdom of the crowd during the WiT Virtual Summit
While it is clear that domestic travel is the
immediate market for recovery at this time, the travel industry in Asia also
needs to look ahead and think of ideas to get more Asians travelling since
intra-regional travel w [...]
Malaysia puts bet on domestic tourism, nature attractions tipped to do well
2020 was meant to put Malaysia on the global tourism map with the ambitious Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign, which the country had hoped would bring in 30 million international tourist arrivals and add RM100 billion (US$364 billion) to the national coffers. Then came the coronavirus, and the campaign [...]
