The story of Asia’s online travel industry has never been simple. It has been a tale of scrappy entrepreneurs, ambitious global players, fast-changing technology, and travellers whose habits shifted as quickly as the markets themselves. Online Travel in Asia: The Untold Story is a documentary two decades in the making.
“It’s a beautiful homage to the digital travel revolution in Asia.”
~ Rob Rosenstein, Founder, Agoda
It’s a front-row seat to the rise of an industry – how it all began, the people who sparked it, the moments that shaped it, and where it stands today. The one about late nights, wild ideas, and dreams coded into websites by people who didn’t always know what they were doing – but knew why they were doing it. The story of revolution. Of resilience. Of reinvention. “Online Travel in Asia: The Untold Story”, chronicles the evolution of online travel, as witnessed by us at the frontlines.
Watch the full documetary:
For the past few weeks, we’ve released the film in parts – first Chapters 1–4, then Chapters 5–8, and most recently, Chapters 9 through the Epilogue. Each segment peeled back a layer of the industry’s history, from its humble beginnings to the massive ecosystem it has become.
“A crash course on the entire sector in Asia from its genesis to what’s next.”
~ James Chen, Head of Communications, Klook
The early chapters trace the pioneering days, when booking a flight online was still a novelty and few believed Asia could ever catch up to Western markets. They spotlight the entrepreneurs who took the risks, the investors who bet on them, and the cultural and logistical challenges of building digital businesses in diverse, fragmented markets. The middle chapters show how scale came with both opportunity and growing pains – consolidation, competition, and new entrants that forced incumbents to adapt or perish.
“It’s really inspiring. Makes me more determined to overcome challenges and make a difference in the community.”
~ Chan Chee Chong, CEO, GlobalTix
The final chapters and epilogue push the story into the present day; what the industry dubs the “third wave” of online travel. This wave is less about simply selling flights or hotel rooms and more about creating seamless, tech-driven ecosystems powered by AI, cloud, and social commerce. As the film shows, the traveller of today expects everything to be connected: inspiration, planning, booking, sharing, and even rebooking when plans change.
“This is one heck of a real story.”
– Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, Principal at T2Impact,
As for the ‘Untold Story’, we wanted to make it compelling by not just focusing on the chronology, but more importantly, the voices. The documentary weaves together reflections from entrepreneurs, hoteliers, technologists, and investors who were on the frontlines. Their accounts reveal the grit, failures, and serendipity that shaped the industry. Taken together, they show how Asia didn’t just follow global online travel trends, it created its own, often setting the pace for the rest of the world.
But this is just the beginning. The stories that will shape “The Next 20” are still being written.
“Sitting in the dim light of Wego’s Singapore office, watching the results of six months of research and editing – and two decades of industry growth – I felt humbled. One reason was context. As a regular writer for WIT Singapore, the annual show is often my ‘top-up’ on a year’s worth of travel technology news and ideas. This movie was my “two-decade top-up”: a brief look at the big winners [and occasional victims] of two remarkable decades of change. And equally humbling: the impacts on established “titans” of online travel when the planes stopped flying. The way that those used to growing businesses, now became as creative and intent on saving rice bowls.
And ultimately, the way that some of the successful companies [like Wego] used that downtime as a stage on which to innovate and iterate: so that the recovery would in turn be one punctuated by new product releases, and a return to growth. Lastly, I was humbled too, by the fact that deep down, despite all the focus on yield and REVPAR, on fast clicks and killer IPOs – even on owning travel’s “connected trip” – ultimately what we are still busy doing is something innately good for people. That our products are still the stuff of bucket lists and dream fulfilment. And in a world where darkness too often dominates the public discourse, that too, is humbling.”
~ Luke Clark, CEO, CP5
