Asia dominates APAC’s tourism boom
International visitor arrivals into Asia Pacific destinations grew by 6% year-on-year in June 2011, reveals a report by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).Southeast Asia: The region saw a growth of 15.5% growth during the month of June, maintaining the positive momentum of the previous [...]
Asia the place to be, says UNWTO boss
Shifting global travel patterns on the back of economic challenges in Europe are delivering new opportunities for Asia.Yet, at the same time, travellers from Asia – and in particular those from Singapore - are more than ever heading in the opposite direction to take advantage of the sickly UK po [...]
Australians love watching videos online
More than 10.7 million Australian Internet users watched nearly 1.2 billion online videos in May, reveals a report on the online video market in Australia by comScore from its Video Metrix service.YouTube is the most popular channel with more than 8.6 million viewers, or three out of every online [...]
AAPA responds: Hong Kong Needs a New Runway
The AAPA (Association of Asia Pacific Airlines) responds to an article in WSJ's Business Asia.The opinions expressed by your columnist Joseph Sternberg ("Runway Inflation in Hong Kong,"Business Asia, July 14) questioning the need for Hong Kong to invest in expanding its aviation infrastructure, are [...]
A touch of Korea on AirAsia X
Tasty airline food, previously the domain of legacy airlines with the (mis)conception that their low-cost counterparts can’t offer passengers much beyond the usual dry sandwiches, muffins, buns and canned drinks or the 3-in-one beverages.Photo: Food tasting with AirAsia X's Azran Osman-Rani (2nd r [...]
A heady brew of exits, passion and Gen Y desires
I think I traded too much beer last night. So forgive me if this post is a little incoherent, but what the heck, it was the last WITNext in Singapore before we begin the countdown to the WIT Conference in October. It was great for Fritz Demopoulos, former CEO of Qunar, to fly in from Hong Kong for [...]
‘Nothing like Australia’ comes to Singapore
Three months after it launched its new “There’s Nothing Like Australia” brand story, Tourism Australia has brought the campaign to Singapore.It is inviting Singapore residents to share their favourite Australian holiday stories, to be posted alongside the 3,500 Australian entries it collected [...]
Wotif, Thien Minh team up to make iViVu leading OTA in Vietnam
Wotif Group has sealed its first joint venture deal in Asia with the inking of a 50:50 partnership in Vietnam with the Thien Minh Travel Group that owns Buffalo Tours and Victoria Hotels & Resorts.Group CEO Robbie Cooke, passing through Singapore on his return from Ho Chi Minh City, did not disc [...]
Wotif posts $25.4m in half-year profit, poised to grow in Asia
Wotif Holdings has announced a half-year after tax profit of A$25.4 million, results that are in line with what it flagged last year and “mirrors the performance we saw in the business in the six months to June 2010”, said group chief executive Robbie Cooke.Some highlights are:· Australian acco [...]
Things heat up in China’s OTA market
As China’s online travel market grows, competition among trip booking sites has heated up, with home-grown providers fighting hard to keep and increase market share. The competition isn’t a simple duel between two market leaders—international players are looking for ways to capitalize on the u [...]
