As AI changes how we book travel, iWander bets on how we actually explore
iWander co-founder and CEO Marius Nigond on building AI-guided walking tours for a generation of travelers who want spontaneity, not a fixed itinerary
Travel planning is being influenced by AI faster than almost any other part of the industry. Google just moved agentic hotel booking out of pilot mo [...]
Google AI books hotels. Eurovision taps Agoda. Heat influences travel decisions. Acai Desk launched.
Google AI Mode adds direct hotel booking, flight price tracking
Google has fully launched agentic hotel booking in Search's AI Mode in the U.S. (following a recent pilot), with inventory partners including Expedia, Booking.com, Hilton, Hotels.com, Choice Hotels, IHG, Priceline, Marriott, Wyndham an [...]
What the big OTAs are betting on as the next frontier
True to his financial roots, Adrian Currie, former Booking Holdings executive, opened his panel on “OTAs: The Next Frontier”, with numbers to illustrate the size of the four companies on his panel. Booking.com, Expedia Group, Trip.com Group and, in spirit, Katrina Barry’s former employer Webje [...]
Klook expands Kreator Shops feature to all creators on its platform
Klook has rolled out an upgraded version of its Kreator Shops feature to all 30,000-plus creators on its platform across 88 markets. The announcement was made at KREATORVERSE 2026, the company's annual creator summit, held this year in Phu Quoc, Vietnam.
Kreator Shops allows content creators who pa [...]
72% of APAC rail bookings now happen online | Report
Car rental lags behind at 47%, but OTAs and AI are closing the gap fast across Asia's ground transport market
Rail is crushing it online in APAC with 72% of gross bookings going digital in 2025, and state-owned operators are keeping most of that traffic in-house through their own apps rather than h [...]
Why empathy, not argument, is Airbnb’s approach to short-term rental regulation
Mich Goh on listening her way through hostile hearings, and what governments across APAC actually want when they talk about short-term rentals
Every APAC market wants something different from tourism, and that's the challenge Mich Goh (Director of Public Policy, APAC, Airbnb) has built her career a [...]
Would you relocate for a job if your pet couldn’t come with you?
The $2.4 billion reason companies are rethinking mobility, employee care and relocation packages in a holistic way.
For a growing number of employees, the answer to the question above is ‘no’. As companies compete for specialist talent across Asia-Pacific and beyond, one of the biggest sticking [...]
Tourvis Select wins big. Surge in refund protection. Spotnana buys TROOP. eviivo and Dida’s new channel.
Tourvis Select wins 2026 Virtuoso 'Best Agency Culture Award,' first for North & Southeast Asia
Tourvis Select, the luxury hotel platform run by Korean travel tech company Tidesquare, won the "Best Agency Culture Award" at the 2026 Virtuoso Travel Week gala in Las Vegas, the first time an agenc [...]
Destinations: How to keep the heart of travel beating strong amid AI disruption and hallucinations
Rod Cuthbert opened his panel on “Destinations: Demand, Sustainability, Tech” at WiT Queenstown, with a confession: he’d asked his own AI system to name the world’s single best destination at marketing itself. The answer came back New Zealand, “by a country mile.”
The Tourism Tasmania [...]
Serko’s Darrin Grafton: “It’s open season right now in corporate travel”
To introduce Serko’s co-founder and CEO, Darrin Grafton, in a way that would summarise this Kiwi entrepreneur’s nearly-four-decade journey to trying to solve corporate travel’s pain points, I prompted AI.
The result – that he runs Serko “like a jazz band,” part CEO, part roadie, “10 [...]
