Social
The Symphony of Humans and Machines: A travel CTO’s balancing act
07/05/2024 by Timothy O'Neil-Dunne
At the Phocuswright WiT Middle East summit in Dubai, held May 3, 2024, a panel of four senior CTOs discussed the critical issue of AI’s interface to humans. Timothy O’Neil-Dunne provides this summary.   In the ever-evolving world of travel technology, CTOs stand at the precipice of a [...]
Hostels are already relatively sustainable – so why not make it official?
26/04/2024 by Arvindh Yuvaraj
Asian hostel bookings represent 25% of Hostelworld’s traffic, second only to Europe, with Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia doubling year-on-year. Hostelworld, in collaboration with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), recently launched a new sustainability framework called the 'Staircase [...]
New Booking.com survey finds travellers feel weary, disillusioned about sustainability
24/04/2024 by Mitra Sorrells
Booking.com has conducted its annual global sustainability survey, and this year’s results indicate travelers have a tinge of weariness and disillusionment about their attitudes and decisions related to sustainable travel. The online survey was conducted in February and gathered insights from [...]
Google spotlights more sustainable ways to travel
19/04/2024 by D.J. Catron
Google is launching new and expanded features in its Maps and Search functions to help travelers find more sustainable ways to get around — displaying walking routes alongside driving directions, offering cleaner rail alternatives to air travel and identifying the most convenient locations for el [...]
Noh Master Kawamura wants to keep 14th century art form alive by sharing with travellers
18/04/2024 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
Third-generation performer to open WiT Japan & North Asia 2024 Compared with most Noh families, whose roots can go back to the 14th century, Noh Master Kawamura Haruhisa, who runs Kyoto’s Kawamura Noh Theatre, is a relative newcomer. His Noh roots go back a mere three generations. And [...]
Gamifying a storytelling product and redefining tours | Changemaker Chat
04/04/2024 by WiT
In this new WiT Studio video series, we catch up with winners of the 2023 WiT Travel Changemakers Awards, supported by ATTIA, and dive deeper into the work they do and what drove them to 'build back better'. In this episode, Yock Song, Head of Partnerships at Tribe Tours, joins us to talk about [...]
Fritz Demopoulos on new frontiers in travel & beyond 
26/03/2024 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
Where others see bad traffic and chaos, this entrepreneur sees opportunities. It was with this thinking that he fearlessly co-founded the first travel metasearch company in China in 2005, Qunar, which is now part of the Trip.com Group. Since his exit, he’s been keeping a watchful eye on travel tec [...]
Letter from Cape Town: Of diamonds, dassies and naked surprises
14/03/2024 by Yeoh Siew Hoon
As the Singapore Airlines flight came in for a landing in Cape Town Monday morning and I watched the beautiful vistas of the Western Cape unfold before my eyes, the first question that popped into my head was, “Why has it taken me so long?” I first came to South Africa when I was still living [...]
Swiftonomics leaves Singapore with post-concert gains
13/03/2024 by Arvindh Yuvaraj
More than any other entertainment event, The Eras Tour brought with it invaluable lessons for the APAC hospitality scene After six spectacular nights of the highly anticipated Eras Tour in Singapore, pop icon Taylor Swift has left the Lion City for Los Angeles, where she’ll rest for a couple of m [...]
Koreans’ top picks for value-for-money travel
12/03/2024 by Tidesquare
Tourvis x Consumer Insight analysis on cost-effective travel trends   Key points: Japan: #1 destination for first six months of 2024, consecutively March and April focus on Tokyo, Osaka and other Japanese cherry blossom destinations May and June strong for Cancun and Honolulu, du [...]