South Korea domestic stays resilient, Tidesquare cautiously preparing for return of outbound by Q3
SOUTH Korea may still be averaging more than 600 Covid cases a day but the domestic travel market has stayed resilient throughout.
In an update from Seoul, Min Yoon, CEO of Tidesquare and co-founder of WiT Seoul, said, “People have started travelling again domestically. Some specific destinati [...]
VFS Global brings visa expertise and govt experience to health passports
Synergies between pass providers, tech companies and governments needed to open borders: Jiten Vyas
IN 2019, VFS Global processed 30 million visa biometric enrolments across 144 countries. In 2020, that number plummeted by 70% and it would have been much worse without the first three months when [...]
Fortified by Tin Men, GlobalTix doubles down on tech roots
Fresh $3m funding is not survival money, it’s to go full force on digitisation mission
THE new funding round of S$3 million raised by GlobalTix from Tin Men Capital and SEEDS Capital is not “survival or rescue money” but fresh capital to build up its arsenal of tech tools and to fortify it [...]
The Wrap: Surge in holiday bookings with opening of trans-Tasman travel bubble, Malaysia Airlines’ new fly pass aims to spur domestic travel, and more …
THE
Wrap is a round-up of news in the travel and technology industries, and an
update on how businesses in these sectors are adapting and resetting as they prepare
for travel recovery.
Opening of Australia-New Zealand travel bubble sparks spike in holiday bookings
New Zealand's Queens [...]
DayAway may be built in Covid times but founder Martha Waslen says it will last long beyond pandemic
“Not just another OTA” as local experiences platform rolls out to help hotels sell ancillaries
IF you haven’t heard of DayAway, you may soon. Within five minutes of meeting Martha Waslen, founder of the Singapore-based local experiences startup, two things are clear. One, that she do [...]
Guest Post: Runway to a smart, sustainable and safe restart
The trans-Tasman travel bubble opened on 19 April, fuelling hopes of more borders opening and hastening travel recovery. Subhas Menon, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA), shares his views on travel bubbles and how the Asia Pacific aviation industry can restart in a [...]
Latest wave dampens Phuket’s hopes of reopening; Trisara stays on course of wellness and mindfulness
LIKE other hotels in Phuket, the award-winning luxury resort Trisara had been looking forward to closing April on a healthy note because domestic travel in Thailand had been gathering steam but then, came the third wave of infections, the largest outbreak in the country since last March.
Said Ki [...]
25 years on, Expedia flips “green screen” again to become the traveller’s companion
“It matters who you travel with” falls on shoulders of new brand custodian, Shiv Singh
SHIV Singh, the new senior vice president and general manager of Brand Expedia, was sitting in front of an impressively-stacked bookcase when I spoke to him on Zoom. I had to ask, “Is that fake or are th [...]
Covid has tested global-local models in travel, says KKday’s Liu
“Curated experiences” marketplace embeds deeper local roots, launches Fine Day for luxury and scales Rezio
WHEN Weichun Liu told her parents she was giving up investment banking to join KKday in 2016, they thought she was joining KKBox, the “Spotify of Taiwan”. “I didn’t want to tell [...]
Trip.com Group first global travel group to be dual listed in Hong Kong and US
TWENTY two years after its founding, and 14 months after its business was crushed by the pandemic, Trip.com Group officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today (9961.HK), becoming the first global travel group to be dual listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as well as the NASDAQ stock e [...]
