The Great Destination Redistribution: Moving tourism from where it is to where it should be
Data, mindsets, resident sentiment and the uncomfortable truth about who really wants redistribution
The question of how to spread tourism more evenly across Japan, away from the overcrowded golden triangle of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka and into the rural towns, regional communities and hidden landscap [...]
Hotels losing to AI. Agents collapsing travel funnel. Video platforms impacting booking.
Trransfer Technologies and LINE GO team up to focus on enterprise travel in Taiwan
Trransfer Technologies, a global B2B ground transportation platform serving corporate travelers across 80+ destinations, has officially launched a partnership with LINE GO, Taiwan's leading MaaS platform, following a [...]
A global OTA view on the next frontier: AI, India and the battle for independent hotels
Booking.com’s Nuno Guerreiro on closing the trust gap, the India boom and how alternative accommodation is now mainstream
The conversation with Nuno Guerreiro, regional director for North and South Asia Pacific at Booking.com, covered three key questions – whether AI will actually change how pe [...]
Bridging two worlds: Mayumi Nakamura Birt on reinvention, resilience and the art of the imperfect
Veltra’s chief transformation officer returned to Japan six months ago. What she found was a country on the edge of something, if it can tolerate the mess of getting there
Mayumi Nakamura Birt spent more than two decades running a SaaS company in the US. She learned to fail fast, move on, and t [...]
The demand for travel is there. Affordability is what’s broken.
What does it actually take to get more people across Southeast Asia traveling, and is the industry doing enough to make it happen?
Nadia Omer, CEO of AirAsia Move, spoke to WiT about how AI is reshaping the platform while pointing to data hygiene as an essential part of MOVE's process. "We realized [...]
Middle East disruptions and high fuel prices halve airline industry profitability
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released its latest financial outlook for the global airline industry showing a halving of profitability as a result of war-related Middle East disruptions and high fuel prices. The regional landscape, however, is highly differentiated. At the geogr [...]
Letter from Tokyo: Samurai power, love robots, AI storm in a teacup
Key takeaways from WiT Japan 2026
A Samurai performance at the start, love robots at the end and in between one-and-half-day of conversations about “The Next 20: Precision, Reinvention and Quiet Power”.
Only in Japan could the precise sit comfortably with poetry, the quiet power of a centuri [...]
Toggle tax costing hotels. Wasted ad budgets. Juniper Group acquires DerbySoft. Cover Genius and Traveloka team up.
Cover Genius and Traveloka team up to embed travel protection across APAC
Insurtech Cover Genius has partnered with Southeast Asia's leading travel platform Traveloka to deliver embedded protection products across multiple markets. Australian customers can now access Cancellation Protection — cov [...]
An Agoda case study: What it takes to combine flights, hotels, and activities into a single transaction
Agoda has rolled out a multi-product booking engine that lets travelers bundle hotels, flights, and activities into a single transaction — no separate checkouts, no juggling multiple confirmation emails. The feature, called One Checkout, went live on May 13 and is accessible via Agoda.com and its [...]
Trust, data and the sovereign traveller: Lufthansa and Trip.com on co-creating value
If there was one message that came through at the Trip.com Airline Global Conference in Amsterdam, it was that the willingness is there to “co-create value with intelligence, trust and partnership” but numerous obstacles stand in the way.
The closing panel featuring CT Ooi, CEO of Flights, Tr [...]
