Pricing and distribution havoc hits in-destination with rise of OTAs: Klook’s Fan predicts shift to dynamic pricing
Tours, as a category in travel, have been around since the beginning of well, travel. Laurent Kuenzle, CEO of destination management company Asian Trails, subtly reminded delegates attending Arival last week in Bangkok, “We’ve been doing tours since the beginning, tours are our DNA, experiences [...]
Agoda sees Yanolja stake as opportunity to break “wall between booking and on-property experience”
Booking Holdings’ investment into South Korean accommodation startup, Yanolja, its first foray into that market, was motivated by two key factors – the market opportunity as well as Yanolja’s unique model “which includes tens of thousands of hotels installed on its PMS”, said Agoda’s vi [...]
Boosted by General Atlantic deal, Kiwi.com wants to take virtual interlining to new highs
If Oliver Dlouhý, founder and chief executive officer of Kiwi.com, has his way, one day he will be able to fly on an unmanned civilian flight from Brno, the small town where he lives in Czech Republic, to any major European airport and connect to anywhere in the world.
Indeed, that was the reas [...]
Cruise industry gets boost
The cruise industry has received a boost with a cruise-specific mobile solution designed to assess the English language skills of applicants looking to work in the cruise industry.
Singapore-based Boost, a mobile training solutions provider for the hospitality industry, and CTI Group [...]
To win in corporate travel today, you need a tech edge
FCM's chief for Asia Bertrand Saillet speaks to Yeoh Siew Hoon on how it is blending best of online and offline in Asia by investing in new tech to enhance the traveller experience and taking lessons from its parent company's retail model.
There was a time in corporate travel that when you asked [...]
A Bird’s Eye View: What will OTA 4.0 look like?
I guess if someone had been asked 20 years ago what an OTA 1.0 might look like, few people would have the answer – until Booking.com and Expedia did it in 1996 and Ctrip followed in 1999, and showed the way.
It’s a testament to these three that two decades on, they are still on top of their [...]
WiT Seoul 2019: Invest in predictive data and create sticky customer experiences to win in online travel
At WiT Seoul held in early April, a panel of investors discussed what it would take to capture the hearts and dollars of South Korean travellers in an increasingly competitive travel space.
It naturally distilled down to the core
importance of harnessing data and analytics to better understand [...]
Letter from Seoul: Travel market has all the makings of a K-drama like Mr Sunshine
Someone once asked me why WiT was in Seoul. My answers were simple. It is the second largest outbound market in Asia, after China. Consumers are changing faster than traditional travel players. Into that vacuum has entered global OTAs and local startups that are rewriting the rules of the game.
[...]
Grab invests in Singapore’s logistics company Ninja Van, forms partnership
Grab, fresh on the heels of adding four services in a bid to evolve from ride-hailing app to super app, announced it has invested in and formed a "strategic partnership" with Singapore-based logistics services provider Ninja Van.
Terms of
the deal have not been disclosed.
The partnership
see [...]
Grab adds four new services in quest to become “everyday super app”
In a bid to evolve from ride-hailing app to super app, Grab
announced four new services to its platform – trip planning, hotel booking,
on-demand video streaming and movie tickets.
To deliver these services, Grab is
partnering with Booking.com and Agoda for its hotel bookings (no surprises he [...]
