Letter from Fort Lauderdale: Pongy pooches inflight, and an underdog at his best
Hopper to reach profitability next year, doubling down on B2B and lodging
I am writing this on Delta Airlines from Fort Lauderdale to New York where I will catch that epic 18-hour flight back to Singapore. It’s been quite a week. In New York, it was unseasonably warm, and I was able to spend a lo [...]
Letter from New York: Sleep tourism’s the next big thing
From Booking.com’s “Reboot Retreaters” prediction to sleep suites in hotels, travellers are yearning for a good snooze
I suppose it is ironic that I am writing about sleep in a city that doesn’t sleep but travelling to New York on that epic 18-hour flight from Singapore has a tendency to se [...]
Letter from Samarkand: Forget alien encounters, this happened for real
I’ve been to many events in my life but never have I had an experience where a woman was vacuuming the stage, three minutes before the scheduled starting time, and in the middle of my delayed-by-an-hour panel, we were interrupted by a helicopter taking off on the lawn outside the venue.
That it [...]
Letter from Samui: Great balls of fire and long live The Human Revolution
Key takeaways from WiT Singapore 2023
I am writing this from Rocky’s, a resort in Samui, a Thai island I haven’t visited in at least a decade. There’ve always been other destination distractions and somehow, Samui had lost its appeal to me – the over-building in Chaweng, the main beach stri [...]
Will AI make us less or more human? To be answered next week
“It will force humans to think more about what it is that actually makes us human”
Next week, the WiT Singapore conference will close on our Great Debate with the question, Will AI make us less or more human?
I’ve been mulling over the question for a while and there are days when I believe [...]
Cultural knowledge cannot be codified – that is travel’s human edge in this revolution
I recently attended the book launch of George Yeo’s “Musings”, the former Singapore Minister of Trade and Industry’s third in a series of essays capturing his thoughts on politics, economics and life.
Held at the Victoria Concert Hall, it was opened by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Kiat [...]
Asia Pacific corporate travel in strong rebound, technology and digitization will drive future
It was a strong start to the GBTA (Global Business Travel Association) Asia Pacific Summit this week in Singapore as the industry body shared data that showed, all things being equal, the slowest recovering region will reach 92% of pre-pandemic levels by year end.
Suzanne Neufang, CEO of GBTA, ca [...]
From mooncakes to hungry ghosts: The things AI and tech have not replaced
I received my first gift of mooncake last week, from the Pan Pacific Hotels Group. The white leather case it came in was truly gorgeous, probably cost more than the mooncakes in it. I will have to think of another use for the case after I devour the four round-shaped delicacies of lotus paste, ginge [...]
What AI can do, and what it can’t do
Indie travel businesses grapple with possibilities in the age of generative AI
On the night before WiT Indie, the edition of Web in Travel dedicated to creatives and independents, opened in Penang, Cinewav, the Singapore startup that offers “Event Audio in your Pocket”, held a first-time immers [...]
How my dog led me here – and now hail, the first inclusive/accessible tour guided by PWDs
Tribe to launch tours of Enabling Village with three local heroes
There is a place in Singapore that is little known even to locals. I only got to know of it after I enrolled my dog in a canine therapy programme run by EQUAL, a Singapore charity Institution that strives to transform lives through A [...]
