New players giving new spin to the term ‘accommodation’
Talking to my hotelier friends in Asia, I am amazed by how many of them are still unaware of players like Airbnb and 9flats and not to mention, the rest that came along in the new wave of businesses offering different styles of accommodation for travellers.Across Asia now, we have Roomorama w [...]
Tourism Australia bets big on social media, 25% of digital budget goes on Facebook channel
The numbers from Tourism Australia are staggering – 3,184,016 “Likes” with 395,424 talking about it on its Facebook page(as at time of writing), 1,400 photos posted on its (Facebook) wall per week and 500 to 1,000 photos uploaded via Instagram per day.Throw in its official Pinterest page� [...]
You feeling stressed? Take the Travel Stress Index test
According to the United Nations International Labour Organisation, over 40% of employees suffer from stress on a worldwide basis.Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) said as the company’s continued focus is on the business traveller, the CWT Solutions Group developed the CWT Travel Stress Index to [...]
RDX claims to be game-changer in online distribution technology
The Room Distribution Exchange (RDX), an industry platform, allows hotel systems and online booking channels around the globe to connect directly over the web without needing to use third party distribution intermediaries.Mike Ford, managing director of SiteMinder, who launched RDX in Baltimore, [...]
How to get that dream job and build a career with purpose
One of the most common refrains I heard from tourism professionals who attended the WITNext Summercamp was, I wished there’d been an event like this when I was just starting out in my career.And thank goodness for my team and I, the 250 of you who attended over the two days seemed to agree and no [...]
Burufly packs curated content and social sharing to fly in Indonesia
Burufly, a new Indonesian travel start-up launched yesterday, wants to make it easy for everyone to plan their next holiday in Indonesia – and that means going beyond Bali. Founder Pete Goldsworthy shares the business case.Q: Describe the business, core products and services in one paragraph
Cr [...]
MAS to sweat it out to revive fortune
Beleaguered Malaysia Airlines, bogged down by its biggest ever net loss of RM2.5 billion last year, has delayed its profitability target by a year - from 2013 to 2014 - and will focus on an aggressive revenue boosting campaign while striving to keep cost down.Its group CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya (p [...]
How the top travel websites performed in May
Expedia Singapore rules as the top online travel agency in Singapore for May, while Jipiao.trip.taobao.comleads the pack in Hong Kong and Wotif.com maintains the top spot in Australia.Below is a summary of how the regions’s top travel websties performed for May according to data from Experian Hit [...]
Demand for corporate travel stabilises, air fares ruled by economic unknowns
While airfares across the Asia-Pacific region saw domestic fares increase just 1%, fares to the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region fell 1% and intra-Asia fares remained flat in the first quarter of 2012, fares to the Americas rose 2%. According to the recently released 2012 American [...]
Webb tips something “big and good” from Red App Centre, sees Asia at inflexion point
Greg Webb, president of Sabre Travel Network, believes “something big and good” will come out of the Sabre Red App Centre, its B2B marketplace which is open for developers to develop apps and sell them to its travel agents.Since its launch, it’s had 1,000 app downloads from 42 countries and m [...]
