From cables to tables
She was in the telco business for 20 years. Then she entered a reality television cooking competition – Masterchef Australia Season 4, emerged a finalist, and that changed her life forever.Audra Morrice decided then that she wanted to follow her passion, which is food, left the corporate world, an [...]
Rimoto wins the WIT Start-Up Pitch
Three starts-ups made it to the finals at the WIT Start-Up Pitch during the annual WIT 2015 Conference in Singapore on October 21, and just one took home the "crown".The winner is Rimoto, a disruptive service that enables international travellers to book a taxi, buy show tickets, or make reservation [...]
Geeks rule the world at the Great WIT Debate
by Mar Pages, luxury travel writerThe Great WIT Debate at the final session of the WIT 2015 conference pit Bobby Healy, CTO of CarTrawler against Stephan Ekbergh, former deejay and CEO of Travelstart. The topic? Whether geeks should rule the world.Bobby's argument is that a geek is defined as a pecu [...]
MakeMyTrip eyes mobile market
Stock prices are no indication of how a company is performing, said Deep Kalra, CEO and founder of Indian OTA MakeMyTrip (MMT) at the opening session of the WIT conference on October 21.Once the disruptor, MMT took the world by storm with a phenomenal IPO listing on NASDAQ in 2010. Despite falling s [...]
Niche properties seek a moment in the sun
By Mar Pages, luxury travel writerTravel experience is the new buzzword. At the final day of the WIT conference, we heard from a wide spectrum of businesses involved in creating unique experiences. At one end, the larger travel OTAs and, at the other, the hoteliers and food experts who are trying to [...]
When mega marketplaces hop on the travel bandwagon
By Alisha SomanasEveryone’s jumping on the online travel industry bandwagon, and the mega marketplaces like Alibaba and Rakuten are no exception. But when you see what they’ve got on their hands, it’s no surprise they want to wield what they’ve got. They’ve found a way to differentiate in [...]
The secret to direct hotel bookings
By Jack Tan, Independent Hotel ConsultantRetailing hotel rooms has never been as complicated as it is today, with a myriad of channels, tools and services now available. Direct is every hotelier’s pipe dream and for some, it remains a pipe dream as the market becomes more complex and the consumer [...]
Online travel giants on building loyalty and differentiation
By Alisha SomanasWith massive shifts in the terrain of the online travel industry, how are the big players responding? When quizzed on their response to newcomers and changes in the online travel industry such as meta and mobiles, and how they will differentiate themselves from others who seek to di [...]
Embracing the Airbnb experience
By Carl GriffithIt was interesting for me listening to Julian Persaud of Airbnb simply for the number of times he used the word ‘experience’. He had a lot to say, of course, about the company and his last role with Google. But that word kept cropping up – he even used the phrase ‘touching th [...]
Make Singapore an ideas hub, invites Minister
Security is priority for a smart nationUse Singapore as test bed for new technology. That was the invitation Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, gave to the packed room of 550 travel professionals and technology en [...]
