APAC air passenger demand drops slightly, global demand grows
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for July 2026 global passenger demand:
Total demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), was up 0.2% compared to July 2025. Excluding the Middle East, demand grew by 1.2%. Total capacity, measured in available seat [...]
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 [...]
Kiwi legends: What fear, wonder and connection have in common
Five leaders of some of New Zealand’s most recognisable tourism brands – ski fields, jet boats, bungy jumping, conservation cruises and Māori-owned experiences – sat down with WiT founder Yeoh Siew Hoon to unpack what actually makes an experience iconic. The consensus, delivered from five ver [...]
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 [...]
Guardians of place: Lee Ann Muntz on culturalising commerce, not commercialising culture
A couple of months before my coffee chat with Lee Ann Muntz, a board member of the Māori Tourism Board, a line she had said in the Zoom call had stuck with me. “We don’t commercialise culture. We culturalise commerce.”
I wanted to get deeper into that during our conversation. But first, I wa [...]
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 [...]
Banks see travel as a path to high-value loyalty, but trust is tricky.
Agoda's Damien Pfirsch on why travel is no longer a side perk for financial and loyalty brands, but one of the most valuable, and hardest to get right, customer relationships in their portfolio.
Travel used to be the reward you cashed in your points for. Now it's shaping up to be one of the most po [...]
