The Wrap: WebBeds launches destination index in support of Hong Kong’s travel industry
News Roundup: WebBeds’ new destination performance tool launched, SITA's latest report on airlines and airports reaping benefits from IT investments, mobile app for booking tours and activities in Malaysia, ANA reducing single-use plastics from 2020
Distribution:WebBeds launches destination i [...]
Omio acquires travel planning engine Rome2rio
Omio, Europe's leading booking platform for multi-modal travel has acquired Rome2rio Pty Ltd, bolstering its transportation discovery and planning capabilities and taking an important first step towards a global offering.
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Rome2rio enables consumers to search and d [...]
South-east Asia a “melting pot of trends” in online travel
It’s an interesting time in the travel industry in South-east Asia.The middle class is growing very fast, 90% of the region’s 360 million internet users are connecting through mobile devices, brands already in travel are expanding their offerings and other e-commerce entities are forging partn [...]
In The Big Chair – Ross Veitch of Wego
Ross Veitch and Craig Hewett founded flight and hotel marketplace Wego in 2005 in Singapore. It has raised about $59 million and expanded beyond Southeast Asia into the Middle East, North Africa and India.
The company crossed $1 billion in gross merchandise volume in December 2018, and an IPO is [...]
The Wrap: TAT, Expedia launch global sustainable tourism initiative in collaboration with UNESCO
News Roundup: "Industry-first” global initiative in sustainable tourism launched in Thailand, Malaysia Airlines' and Singapore Airlines' wide-ranging partnership agreement, AirAsia’s enhanced mobile app, American Express Global Business Travel’s new online booking tool Neo
Environmen [...]
Twenty years on, from Ctrip to Trip: From China power to “glocal” giant
It felt like I was going to a rock concert. The night before, on a cruise on the Huangpu river, the city lights were in full blaze but one illumination stood out, the Pearl Tower lights announcing that Ctrip was turning 20 – a city paying homage to its homegrown Internet giant.
This morning, [...]
Grab launches ride-hailing service on Booking.com mobile app
As
an extension of its current partnership, Booking.com and Grab have incorporated
Grab’s ride-hailing service into Booking.com’s mobile app. The collaboration
will allow international travellers visiting South-east Asia to make real-time
transport bookings via the Booking.com app, in their pre [...]
Transformation of a sacred cow: The flight path of SIA into a digital enterprise, beyond airline seats
Singapore Airlines (SIA) started its digital transformation in 2016. Since then, hundreds of millions have been invested in IT capex with the vision of creating a “future where SIA remains a prestigious proposition but becomes a smaller part of the whole entity, and the other seeds would have bec [...]
Letter from the South China Sea: Time for unusual thinking, unorthodox partnerships and old-fashioned making money
Yeoh Siew Hoon gets stranded on a coral
reef off Cempedak and ponders the secrets of the travel universe as they were revealed
at last week’s WiT Singapore 2019.
The sun was about to call it a day when we set out on a boat from Cempedak Island off Bintan, Indonesia. Our destination was a coral [...]
Corporate investors in travel: Deciphering strategy and knowing the limits
Three of the travel industry’s most active corporate investors have shared tips for startups on how to attract their attention.Speaking on a panel at WiT Singapore, moderated by Agoda vice president of corporate development, Timothy Hughes, Amadeus Ventures’ head Suzann [...]
