Houldsworth: Putting Asia, happiness and all, at the heart of Booking
Every WiT Singapore 2026 speaker was asked to pick a song that captures a new beginning. Laura Houldsworth, Managing Director, Asia Pacific at Booking.com, chose Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life.” A few times in her life, she said, she has had to make critical decisions, and the song speaks to those [...]
Loyalty: Stay benefits and price accounts for 62% of membership choice and subscriber behaviour
Accor Plus releases findings from year-long research on consumer attitudes to travel loyalty subscriptions
Accor Plus has released 'The New Travel Value Exchange’, a new report that examines what consumers value in travel loyalty subscriptions. The year-long research, involving 7,078 consumers a [...]
GetYourGuide drives global momentum as APAC becomes its fastest-growing region
Announced at Unlocked Bangkok, comes with a new Bali partnership and Thailand as its top destination in the region
GetYourGuide, a leading global online marketplace to discover and book the world's best tours and activities, today announced that the APAC region was its fastest-growing region global [...]
Klook withdraws US IPO due to market volatility
Travel experiences platform Klook Technology has decided this is not the right time to proceed with its planned US initial public offering, saying current market conditions make this the wrong time to list.
The company said its strategy and priorities are unchanged. It added that its business conti [...]
Meet the indie obsessives helping teach us who we are
It’s fair to say that when it comes to human qualities, obsession too often gets a bad rap. Some automatically link obsession to struggles with mental health. As Virginia Woolf ominously noted in Orlando: “All extremes of feeling are allied to madness.”
Sadly this likely says more about how [...]
The agents are swarming: Lessons from the bees
Well, well, well, the great Agentic race is officially on. I’ve lost track of the agents coming our way.
At WiT Singapore, there was of course a lot of talk about what all this means for travel. I played with three possible scenarios in my head and tested it, in various conversations.
One is a [...]
An apology from Mews’ Richard Valtr: “We should be 20 times bigger than we are”
Most founders, asked how they feel about what they’ve built, say proud. Or exhausted. Richard Valtr says disappointed.
Not because Mews hasn’t grown. It has, from a Prague start-up in 2012 into one of hospitality’s most talked-about operating systems. But because, in his view, it should be fa [...]
Predatory OTA ads. Singapore booking ahead. SITA acquires Collins. General-purpose AI.
Singaporeans booking regional trips further ahead
Supplementary data from Traveloka’s SEA Index Q3 2026 shows Singapore travelers increasingly planning nearby Southeast Asian getaways at least 30 days in advance. In Q3 2026, the combined share of flight and accommodation bookings made through Tra [...]
GetYourGuide and STB in pact to develop and promote Singapore tours and experiences globally
GetYourGuide, the global marketplace for travel experiences, and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), have signed a two-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen the development, distribution and promotion of Singapore’s diverse tourism tours and experiences to travelers around the world. [...]
Same same, but different: Rod Cuthbert finds his Zen on AI
Viator founder Rod Cuthbert thought he’d confuse the WiT Singapore audience about AI and discovery. Instead, he talked himself and the room into calm.
Rod Cuthbert does not want to be the godfather of tours and activities. “Just for the record, I really hate that Godfather thing,” he told the [...]
