I remember the first day I started wearing spectacles. I was 10 and kept failing my Math and the teacher thought there could be something wrong with my eyesight. I was so relieved, I thought I was just bad at numbers and was getting a serious complex.
Anyway, the first day I wore it, not only did I see better but I suddenly realised how many people wore spectacles too. You know how that is – you get a dog and suddenly you realise how many people have dogs, and you only notice their dogs, not them.
Same with the “Reimagine” theme we picked for this year’s WIT Conference in Singapore. Soon as we announced it, suddenly I saw how many people were also using it. Etihad with its “Reimagine” trailer starring Nicole Kidman. I saw a few conferences using the same theme. Yesterday, at Starbucks, I saw they were trying to reimagine tea as well. 
You could say we all suffer from a distinct lack of imagination or if you are a New Age believer, you’d say there’s a consciousness in the universe that is calling out for reimagination right now because our world is totally (what’s the word) “trumped” up.
My excuse is simple. I copied it. I was watching the “Close To You: Bacharach Reimagined” musical in London’s West End last December and it so inspired me I stopped imagining and said, this is it, this is the theme for 2016.
As they were singing, “Do You Know The Way to San Jose” in a way I had never heard before, my mind was going “do I know the way forward for WIT?”
If I were to reimagine WIT today, given the state of the online travel market in Asia Pacific, what would it look like? Maybe the essence of it – to be a platform for learning and connections for online travel professionals in Asia Pacific – would be the same, but would the shape of it be different?
The answer is probably yes. Things have changed so much in the last 12 years – should the name “Web In Travel” even be kept, or does the web transcend everything anyway whether it be mobile, the Internet of Things, or cloud? Beyond the name, how can WIT maintain its relevance and value in the changing world?
From one or two markets that were online in 2005, today most of Asia has gone digital and mobile has allowed emerging markets to leapfrog more established countries. In Cambodia, there are more mobile phones than landlines, for instance. China is leading the way in being a mobile first market and in some instances, creating mobile-only ecosystems that keep you in it – chat, plan, book, pay, etc – so that you need never leave.
Mauritius island – a new destination for AirAsia X, making the Indian Ocean island more accessible to Malaysians and their neighbours.
Low cost airlines now make it possible for us in Asia to travel anywhere at the drop of a hat. This month, AirAsia X launched flights to Mauritius, making a longhaul destination affordable to Malaysians and their neighbours. It also launched services to Teheran and Iran has suddenly become the flavor of the month.
The consumer power and appetite in Asia is incredible. I was speaking yesterday to a chief executive of a travel technology company, headquartered in Europe, and he told me the corporate team can’t keep up with the demands of customers in the region and has almost given up. “You guys move too fast over there, they told me,” he said.
Global travel companies that want to capture the Asia market have to rethink the way they are structured and organised. The tail is currently wagging the dog, and that won’t work for too long. Is it time to flip the world around?
As author Parag Khanna, who spoke at WIT two years ago on “The Asia Factor” said in his new book, Connectography, “It is time to re-imagine how life is organized on Earth. We’re accelerating into a future shaped less by countries than by connectivity. Mankind has a new maxim – Connectivity is destiny – and the most connected powers, and people, will win.”
From Tokyo to Jakarta, Asia has some of the world’s most connected cities. Where I live, the entire neighbourhood is being dug up for a new train station as well as a digital superhighway. The convergence of technology, the sharing economy and a new generation of consumers in Asia has created a critical need for reimagination for every business.
The Refinery, an industrial hardware shop, reimagined into a cafe in Singapore
I had lunch today at a former hardware store that has been reimagined into a café, restaurant, bar, event and co-working space. I was told the co-working space has been converted into their own office because the idea didn’t work – hard to work in such a noisy place, I reckon – but it’s given life to an old building in an industrial area of Singapore that would never have attracted the young crowd before.
We are used to putting things in boxes. That box is now wide open. Or to paraphrase the great Bacharach, “What the world needs now is reimagination.”
And oh by the way, those spectacles – they didn’t improve my Math results. Turned out I was bad at numbers, with or without glasses.
See you in Singapore in 10 days time.
* Book tickets for the WIT Conference here.
