MakeMyTrip to invest $15 million in HolidayIQ
MakeMyTrip, India’s leading online travel company, has acquired a minority stake in HolidayIQ, a popular Indian travel community and holidays-planning recommendation engine. The company will pick up around 28% stake in HolidayIQ for $15 million. The transaction is scheduled to complete in July 201 [...]
Armed with first funding, Allstay sets sights on dominating South Korea’s travel meta-search space
Allstay, the Korean travel start-up which was one of the finalists in the WIT Japan Start-Up Pitch, is gunning to become the first and largest mobile travel meta-search in South Korea.The company has just raised its first round of financing – 500 million KRW (approx. US$430,000) – led by Venture [...]
WIT Start-Up: Penroads – a social platform connecting travelers
Q: Describe the business, core products and services in one paragraphPenroads is a social travel platform that connects travelers by destination and travel dates. People can communicate with anyone using our direct user-to-user chat in real-time to find travel partners to travel together, plan activ [...]
WIT Start-Up: Backstreet Academy – commissioning locals to craft unique travel experiences
Q: Describe the business, core products and services in one paragraph.Backstreet Academy is a peer-to-peer impact travel platform offering on-demand unique travel experiences crafted by local experts in developing countries. Launched in March 2014, Backstreet Academy now has over 600 travel experien [...]
TripZilla zipping along as it uses content as hook to pull in customers
In start-up years, TripZilla is still an infant. Founded in 2010 by husband and wife team Winnie Tan and Eric Koh, the online portal claims to be South-east Asia’s foremost travel listings site – cornering almost 80% of the Singaporean market alone. I caught up with Winnie to find out how TripZi [...]
Technology is here to disrupt marketplaces, including travel, says ServisHero’s Karl Loo
Tell anyone there’s a new services app in town and eyes will roll and you’ll hear, “There are so many now.” And that’s true. Today, in a world gone P2P, anyone can sell anything to anyone and you can order, with a swipe or a tap, tour guides, chefs, plumbers, contractors, taxis, dates and [...]
Kazakhstan’s Aviata.kz plans launch in Indonesia
Aviata.kz, a two-year-old Kazakhstan flight OTA, is getting set to enter Indonesia through a partnership and will be launching aviata.Indonesia soon. Said CBDO Alexey Li, “We believe we have the technology and we understand travel, and we have found a good local partner.”He also believes that t [...]
Rakuten acquires tours & activities platform, Voyagin
It's official. Rumours had been circulating for a while and today, Rakuten, Inc., Japan’s leading ecommerce site, announced that it has acquired a majority share in Voyagin, Asia’s leading platform to discover and book tours and activities. Cofounded by Masashi Takahashi, Hiroyuki Haya [...]
The crazy world of start-ups – from freelancers to tour guides, smart dog collars and avatar animation
In today’s world of disruption, everybody can do and be anything we want to be. We can be taxi drivers (Uber), hoteliers (Airbnb), bloggers (Wordpress), celebrities (social networks), headhunters (LinkedIn and lately, social recruiting sites like Wantedly from Japan) and, with Freelancer, the glob [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: Fritz Demopoulos – be focused, stay humble and bust stereotypes
At the WIT Conference last year in Singapore, we recognised 11 individuals whom we felt have had the most influence on the development of online travel in Asia Pacific. This is the fourth article in a series of interviews profiling the WIT Warriors. Fritz Demopoulos was one of three co-founders of Q [...]
