An airport start-up and incubator: YVR’s scaling BorderXPress
Ever heard of an airport that’s acting like a start-up and incubator? Well, meet Vancouver International Airport (YVR), which invented BorderXpress, described by its CEO Craig Richmond as “the iPad of the airport world”.BorderXPress is the world’s first self-service border control solution t [...]
Klook Travel secures US$5 million funding, plans to expand business globally
Hong Kong-based travel activities booking start-up, Klook Travel (Klook), has secured US$5 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners, along with China Growth Capital and Francis Leung Pak To. Matrix Partners is a venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, Beijing and Shang [...]
Ctrip boosts tours and activities with BeMyGuest partnership
China’s largest OTA Ctrip has teamed up with Singapore-based tours and activities platform BeMyGuest to offer Ctrip customers access to the site’s 10,000-strong inventory, spread over 600 destinations across Asia. The partnership is achieved through integrating BeMyGuest’s API (Application Pro [...]
Almaty eyes the future as an innovation and start-up hub
Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital, sits on the foothills of the Tian Shan mountain range, known for wild apples, seismic activity and – if the government has its way – an innovation hub.Home to just under 1.5 million inhabitants, this is the cultural and financial heart of the country. The c [...]
Very Local Trip links travellers to local friends and local experiences
By Alisha Somanas After five years in Thailand a French pharmaceutical consultant is pushing ahead with his travel start-up, based on the realisation that many travellers want to feel like a local rather than a tourist when visiting a destination.Maxime Besnier, CEO and founder of Very Local Trip, s [...]
RedDoorz aims to crack budget hotel market, gets backing from Jungle Ventures
RedDoorz has received an undisclosed amount of pre Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures, whose fund has seen good exits from its early stage investments in two travel start-ups, Travelmob and Voyagin, which were acquired by HomeAway and Rakuten respectively. Described as South-east Asia's first a [...]
Building the ‘Amadeus Empire’: Expect intensity in M&A activity and investments
With its vision of becoming the focal point in the travel eco-system, expect Amadeus to continue with its intense pace of Mergers & Acquisitions activity as well as drive innovation within the group by investing in start-ups through its Amadeus Venture Fund.Visiting Bangkok last week, Alex Luzar [...]
WIT Start-Up Pitch: GoWonder – A safe route for women travellers
Isadora Sun is a millennial with a dream. She believes in a world where woman can travel the world freely, and has always believed in following her wanderlust. After graduating from Edinburgh university, she spent 14 months backpacking across Central Asia, South East Asia and North America. This jou [...]
WIT Start-Up Pitch: Kaligo wants to solve the loyalty gap in OTAs
Feel you're not being rewarded properly when you book your hotel room? One OTA is trying to address that. Kyle Armstrong, CEO & co-founder of Kaligo, tells WIT their plan.Q: Describe the business, core products and services in one paragraphKaligo.com is an online booking platform that rewards cu [...]
Coin-Back makes progress, new kiosk boasts simple UI for travellers to donate
Caught up with Naoe Miyata and co-founder Jasnam Sachdev of Coin-Back, our WIT Indonesia 2015 Start-Up winner, in Bangkok this week – I was curious to find out how his project which encourages travellers to drop coins, pick their cause and track their donations was getting on.Well, he came to Siam [...]
