Letter from AlUla: In a land of stories, the real influencers rise
On my flydubai flight to AlUla, at the unearthly hour of 6:50am, I felt like my Instagram feed had come to life.
As it turns out, I’d arrived in this ancient desert kingdom in Saudi Arabia at the same time as 50 influencers gathering for the first-ever Instagram-AlUla Summit. This, I discovered [...]
Trump, tariffs and travel: How will the turbulence play out in Asia?
Could intra-Asia travel provide a soft landing?
Travel industry leaders around the world are bracing themselves for the fallout of the Trump tariffs announced yesterday, and even more so in Asia, where most countries have been lumped into the “worst offenders” bucket and are facing what BBC de [...]
White Lotus, White Noise
Okay, I’m just going to say it and risk being pelted with coconuts: White Lotus doesn’t make me want to visit Koh Samui. It makes me want to run the other way — preferably to a place without Wi-Fi or smug characters in linen suits.
But clearly, I’m in the minority.
The internet is fr [...]
Letter from Cape Town: Of luxury living, butts and dogs
“You stopping off in Johannesburg?” asked the Singapore Airlines stewardess. “No, I am getting off in Cape Town,” I replied. “Good,” she responded. “Better. Safer.”
Clearly a woman of few words, she captured the essence of what makes Africa travel so different from everywhere else [...]
Klook’s $100M fund raise signals confidence in the travel experiences sector
Reactions from industry insiders were swift and varied when news broke that Klook had raised another $100 million, this time from Vitruvian Partners. Responses ranged from admiration – “Wow, they’re a fundraising machine” – to concern – “Oh dear” – to outright battle cries: “It� [...]
OpenAI’s “Operator” and DeepSeek: Marking two auspicious moments in AI
Year of Snake heralds “the biggest travel shift” and “the biggest shift in AI”
Forget about sliding into the Lunar New Year tomorrow – the snake is leaping into the next era in Artificial Intelligence that signals the beginning of a shift in consumer behaviour as to how they book travel, [...]
Slow and slithery into the New Lunar Year: Navigating the “firehose” of changes
At the Lunar New Year celebrations hosted by Sentosa Development Corporation this week, I noticed the words “spring into prosperity” on the screen, right next to an animated image of a snake.
I suppose the word “spring” works better than “slither” – the latter doesn’t quite convey [...]
Pass the “mala” please: Asia demand for China travel surges
Recently, a headline in Bloomberg, “China’s Biggest-Ever Bid For Foreign Tourists Is Falling Flat”, caught my eye.
It reported that despite the extension of visa-free entry access to 38 countries, “the influx of foreign tourists and the billions of dollars in spending they could have brou [...]
Your Guide to 2025 – Problems to be fixed and trends no one is talking about yet
Happy new year. Everyone had a good break, all ready to take on the new year, whatever it may bring?
The good news is, travel is alive and well. All over the world, people were going places, experiencing new adventures and finding escape in new scapes and climes while the work world hibernated f [...]
Letter from Penang: Some repetitive tasks should not be replaced by AI
When Eric Chong of Green Acres, Penang, suggested we spend a morning harvesting cloves, I jumped at the chance to detach from the wired world – if only for a little while. It wasn’t just for me, though. I was also looking for something to get two Gen Alpha kids out of their YouTube bubble and in [...]
