Old people like iPads, women like cute
My mind’s still buzzing with tech talk from Echelon 2012, the tech start-up event for Asia. So before I lose attention – boy, it’s hard these days when attention has been commoditized and mine’s down to a supergnat’s – here’s a summary of what I learnt.Summary cos I know your attentio [...]
AirAsia sets up in Jakarta to prepare for next decade of growth
AirAsia’s rapid growth in the last 10 years, from an airline with a "fleet" of two ageing Boeing B737 aircraft, six domestic routes and 250 Malaysian staff, calls for a major shift in its perspective, strategy and operations if it is to sustain its trajectory.The airline also needs to pivot to a [...]
Agoda.com launches free Facebook booking button (BE3)
Agoda.com today launched the free Agoda.com Facebook Booking Button (BE3) for Hotels.In 2010, Agoda.com launched a free booking button (BE3) that plugs into a hotel’s existing website, allowing customers to make bookings directly from the hotel’s page.Once installed, the booking button links [...]
Attention now a commodity, loyalty’s about creating social cocaine
To Brian Wong, the 21-year-old founder of Kiip, a mobile rewards platform for people who play games, loyalty 2.0 is about “creating social cocaine”.In other words, get people hooked and wanting more and when the more comes, it is unexpected and “surprises and delights”.Loyalty 2.0 must the [...]
Funds in place, Rome2Rio out to change search
Having secured a US$450,000 round of seed funding “to sustain the business for a year or two”, newly-appointed interim chairman of Rome2Rio, Rod Cuthbert (left), is setting sights on the second goal – to “see our platform integrated on as many third-party sites as possible, as quickly as p [...]
Bolstered by new funding, MTT sets out to expand
Travel technology specialist, Mobile Travel Technologies (MTT), intends to spread to new markets with its latest financing from DFJ Esprit, one of Europe's largest venture capital firms.The US$5 million round of funding will also be used to strengthen the team at its headquarters in The Digital [...]
Abacus, Raja Kamar team up behind hotel wholesale product
The battle for hotel content continues. Abacus International, in partnership with Indonesia-based Raja Kamar International, is rolling out a hotel wholesaler product, RoomDeal, which will give its agents access to the best nett rates firstly in Indonesia and then more markets as the product is roll [...]
TripZilla wants to rule as Singapore outbound one-stop site
Having built its inbound portal, ComeSingapore.com, into a “fairly respectable” size with 300,000 unique visits a month, Travelogy.com is now out to create a one-stop outbound travel site in Singapore and eventually, Malaysia and the Philippines.It has since rebranded its tourpackages.com.sg [...]
Abacus, TravelSky boost hotel content; Air China moves with Amadeus
Seems China’s hot on the radar of GDS this morning. Received two news items, one after the other. Felt like fireworks popping.One, Abacus International signs a joint hotel sharing technology service agreement with TravelSky. This means both parties will share their hotel content to provide a more [...]
ezytravel.co.id makes comeback to claim lead in flights
Not many people know this but the first local attempt to set up an Indonesia OTA was made in 2008. The Dwidaya group, one of the country’s big three travel families, took the first step withezytravel.co.id.Unfortunately, after six months, the site crashed, said founder Eric Tjetjep. “We had too [...]
