Fighting for the Great Cruise Comeback
Cruise lines face vaccination and sustainability battles but “people are splurging again”
ATTENDING my first Cruiseworld conference in Miami, organised by TravelWeekly, I am struck by three things.
One, the cruise industry in the US is massive, and Asia is but a drop in the ocean, to put [...]
New WTTC & Trip.com Group report uncovers latest consumer trends and shift in traveller behaviour
THE World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and Trip.com Group (Trip.com, Ctrip and Skyscanner) have published ‘Trending in Travel’, a new report that provides an outlook on the shift in traveller behaviour and future booking trends in the wake of Covid-19.
The report focuses on booking tr [...]
Etraveli’s B2B strategy pays off as it gets acquired by Booking Holdings for 1.6b Euros
IT was a deal waiting to happen, observers say of the acquisition of Etravel Group by Booking Holdings for 1.63 billion Euros announced this week.
The two companies had been in partnership the last couple of years with the Sweden-based Etraveli Group powering Booking Holdings' entry and [...]
Savouring the now, friendcations, active ecotourism: Trends shaping the travel space in 2022
Amadeus looks into the crystal ball to see what the travel industry can expect for next year.
AFTER almost two years of being grounded people are keen to travel again as borders in many countries reopen to the fully vaccinated, leading to a rise in searches and bookings.
The Amadeus 2022 Tra [...]
RedDoorz CEO on SEA potential, performance marketing lessons and growing up fast
Digitisation accelerated among consumers as well as independent hotel owners
YEOH Siew Hoon interviewed Amit Saberwal, CEO of RedDoorz, Southeast Asia's largest technology-driven hotel management & booking platform at the Phocuswright Conference 2021, where they spoke about the breakout reg [...]
Travelstart and MakeMyTrip: Charting a post-pandemic future
TWO online travel pioneers – Travelstart founded in 1999 in Africa and MakeMyTrip founded in India in 2000 – were at WiT Experience Singapore to share how they are facing the future as they emerge from the dust of Covid.
In a wide-ranging conversation, both companies talked about new service [...]
A change in approach to how travel should tackle pandemics is necessary: Prof Tambyah
THE travel community should take a more active role in overcoming the pandemic – not in the sense of eradicating it, but to figure out how we can more quickly normalise life and travel with it.
Professor Paul Tambyah: “This pandemic has battered the travel industry, and it is not going to be [...]
Inspired by French Riviera, powered by Sweden, taking root in Cape Town
“Magic happens when there is diversity”: Stephan Ekbergh on Innovation City Cape Town
TRAVEL entrepreneur and CEO of Travelstart, Stephan Ekbergh, is embarking on a new project, Innovation City, to transform his adopted home of Cape Town into a thriving, diverse ecosystem of digital talent, [...]
APAC airlines commit to sustainable and smooth recovery of the industry
AAPA pledges to partner governments in rebuilding global air travel
“WE do see light at the end of the tunnel and more and more governments are coming up with roadmaps to reopen their borders and also understanding the importance of sustainability for the airlines,” said Subhas Menon, direct [...]
Travel startups take the spotlight at Phocuswright
AFTER a pandemic-related plunge in funding for travel technology startups in 2020, with investment dropping 56% from the previous year, funding through the third quarter of 2021 has surpassed last year's levels and has already reached levels last seen as recently as 2017.
With purse strings loos [...]
