Letter from Japan, via Sydney
I have to admire our Japanese friends for their fortitude and resilience in facing what their Prime Minister said is their worst crisis after World War Two – and which is still unfolding.It was good to see so many of them at the Australian Tourism Exchange in Sydney (pictured is the opening lunch [...]
Asiatravel launches Roadundee, first Singapore agency on wheels
Asiatravel.com Holdings Ltd (“Asiatravel”) today announced its travel agency on wheels service model branded as Roadundee!It will be the first travel agency on wheels model in Singapore and most likely in Asia Pacific too. The first pilot vehicle will take to the roads in November 2014.Each Road [...]
Wego goes local quirky in video commercials in Indonesia
It being 1.45am in the morning and nothing else to do but to go to bed, I decided to watch Wego’s new commercials on YouTube – six of them back-to-back takes 2 mins 15 seconds, I had been told by CEO Ross Veitch.It’s the first of a series of television and YouTube commercials the travel search [...]
Local Measure promises instant gratification for social hotel guests
Imagine you’re sitting at a pool bar at a hotel and you take a selfie with mojito in hand and place it on Instagram, saying, “What a grand way to celebrate my birthday.”You then return to your room and find a dark chocolate walnut cake with a card from the hotel general manager, saying, “Hap [...]
Burning Man – a personal experience, Part Two
So where were we? – Edward and I. (Part One here if you missed it) We’d turned off the two-lane blacktop and were heading down one of the six lanes constructed on the playa towards the entrance of Burning Man (BM). The sight of our first Mutant Vehicle had had us laughing and we were on [...]
Business travellers want it personal and mobile these days
The majority of business travellers not only want to receive location-specific offers at their destinations, but they also want to use their mobile devices to shop and book hotels.Here are the results of the latest study on mobile use among business travellers by Sabre Travel Network. • 72 perc [...]
Cleartrip starts year with new purpose
Cleartrip, one of India’s top three online travel companies, kicked off 2011 with a new purpose.It launched a new television campaign on January 10, anchored around the theme “Every Trip Has A Purpose”. (View commercial below)CEO Hrush Bhatt shares the inspiration behind the campaign. “While [...]
Compelling storytelling techniques from an LA screenwriter
Yesterday I went to a talk by David Freeman. The session was called ‘Powerful Storytelling Techniques For Creating Compelling Entertainment, Branding, Advertising, Architecture, and Design’Dave (as he introduced himself to me) is a Screenwriter and lectures in the subject but, perhaps more inte [...]
Coping with my absence of daily Grooviness
So, it’s Thursday - the day after 2 days of WIT and I’m on a a bit of down. For me the buzz, the atmosphere and the new friendships at WIT are a highlight of the fourth quarter of the year. I was just looking at some of the tweets around the hashtag #wit2011 and I saw this: “3 word [...]
Direct and social will drive Japan in 2011: Shibata
Kei Shibata, President & CEO, Venture Republic Inc, JapanQ: What are the three things you think will happen in the travel distribution, marketing and technology space in Japan in 2011?Distribution: Direct channels bypassing travel agents (including OTAs) will emerge. Players like LCCs and hotels [...]
