When you get to the ripe young age of 20, you’re bound to collect lots of stories – not only about the past but lessons for the future.
As WiT marks its 20th year in 2025, we turn the spotlight on our community, our tribe pioneers and leaders, to tell their stories and share their views on the evolution of online travel and technology.
We ask them to look back on the past and their early days, reflect on the present and why this moment is pivotal for online travel and get them to imagine the future, the next 20.
This special WiT Studio series, “Conversations On Turning 20”, is the collective story of WiT.
As a Chinese saying goes, 以古为鉴，可以知兴替
“By using history as a mirror, one can understand the rise and fall of things.”
Episode 1: Ross Veitch, CEO and co-founder, Wego
“If the name doesn’t fit, get rid of it. If the market is not ready, switch markets.”
In 2005, the same year as WiT was established, a young product engineer from Yahoo!, thought he’d take a crack at travel, banking also on his past experience with Tourism Australia.
Inspired by the metas setting up in the US, China and India, and the growth of low-cost airlines in South-east Asia, Ross Veitch and his co-founders decided to set up a meta site for the ASEAN region.
The original name was Bezurk which clearly didn’t fly, and so Wego was born. A few years later, it realised the South-east Asian market wasn’t ready to fly as well – and so it switched geography and took a bet on the Middle East. The rest is history.
