Marketing
Everyone wants to be an Experience Maker – lessons from Coca-Cola and ONE Championship
23/08/2018 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
It seems everyone wants to be in the experience business these days, whether you’re selling bottles of sugared water, body lotion, education or sports. At the Adobe Symposium, held in Singapore this week, they call themselves experience makers. As I listened to speaker after speaker talk about [...]
Bringing GRRRL Power to Asia – how Olson built a women sportswear brand out of a social movement
20/08/2018 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
In our continuing series of articles around our WIT Singapore Conference theme of “Through The Looking Glass”, where we look outside travel in search of different stories and lessons, we look at how Kortney Olson built a women sportswear brand out of a social movement around giving women self-co [...]
Travelport and IBM introduce AI platform to manage corporate travel spend
16/08/2018 by WiT
Corporate travel is on the rise, and with annual global business travel spend to reach a record US$1.2 trillion this year, as projected by the Global Business Travel Association, travel managers are continuously looking for new ways to reduce costs. To get a full picture of travel patterns, [...]
The Wrap: Blacklane’s new service assists travellers bypass immigration/security lines at 500 airports
15/08/2018 by WiT
In the news: Blacklane launches new airport concierge service, Amadeus NDC programme has a new partner, Wego and Airbnb team up Ground Transport: Blacklane’s new service assists travellers bypass immigration/security lines at 500 airports  Travellers can now skip security and immigratio [...]
AirAsia sells remaining 25% stake In Expedia JV, its last non-core investment
14/08/2018 by WiT
Malaysia-based low cost airline, AirAsia, announced Tuesday (August 14) that it has divested its remaining 25% equity interest in joint venture unit, AAE Travel Pte. Ltd., to Expedia Group for US$60 million (RM240 million) cash. “The cash consideration is US$60 million, net of AirAsia’s [...]
How an island boy and his team grew Klook into a ‘fast fish’ which now wants to swim in world’s ocean
14/08/2018 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
Eric Gnock Fah still remembers the day he presented at the WiT Startup Pitch in Tokyo in June 2015. It was barely a year after he and co-founder Ethan Lin had started Klook, their “discover and book fun-things-to-do at exclusive prices” business, in Hong Kong. “We were nervous but we though [...]
Amadeus agrees to buy US-based TravelClick for US$1.52 billion
13/08/2018 by WiT
Travel technology giant Amadeus is buying TravelClick, which offers marketing and revenue generating solutions for hoteliers, from private equity firm Thoma Bravo for US1.52 billion. Thoma Bravo acquired TravelClick in 2014 from venture capital firm Genstar for US$930 million. The acquisition [...]
The Wrap: Swissôtel The Stamford gets ‘smart’ with new technology
08/08/2018 by WiT
In the news: Swissôtel The Stamford implements smart hotel management system, Sabre has four launch partners to its Beyond NDC programme, TripAdvisor launches new photo feature Hotels: Swissôtel The Stamford gets 'smart' with new technology Giving guests the ultimate in experience and ma [...]
South Korea’s MyRealTrip joins hands with Naver to launch “Naver Tour”
07/08/2018 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
South Korea’s leading travel platform, MyRealTrip, has launched a new service called “Naver Tour” in partnership with Naver, the country’s largest Internet company. Naver Tour was co-designed and developed by the two companies, said MyRealTrip’s CEO Donggun Lee. Naver offered the platfo [...]
Armed with $200m more, Klook eyes global domination as it steers course to hit $1b in bookings this year
07/08/2018 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
It seems there is no stopping Klook which will go down in Asia’s travel history as the startup that has raised the most in the shortest time. Today, it announced it has closed $200m in Series D funding, bringing its total financing to date to US$300 million. This latest round makes the in-destinat [...]