It has that certain feel and texture about it that lets you know it’s a place that keeps different hours to most people – a lot of those hours when most people should be tucked up in bed.

But despite being an unusual venue for an early evening event, it wasn’t long before the atmosphere at WITNext built to a level that might rival some club nights. 

Indeed, one participant talked about queuing at the door to get in. It might only have taken a couple of surly six foot beefcakes telling him he had the wrong shoes on to complete his experience.  

Soon we had a lot of people packed into Velvet Underground enjoying the velvety atmosphere (to match the upholstery) and benefiting from the insights and sharing of a great line up of panelists.

It was Ali Yilmaz of Google up first being asked questions by Siew Hoon. 

It was an opportunity to see the human face of this ubiquitous behemoth and Ali got the evening off to an insightful start sharing some of his initial impressions of both Singapore and the region.

Particularly interesting was his observation that, whilst public transport in Singapore is full of people glued to the latest handheld devices (compared to say, London, where you still see a lot of books and newspapers), the technology and innovation (in Singapore) for consumer interaction offered by companies and institutions lags significantly behind.

Conversely, in the land of newspaper and book readers, companies and institutions are more advanced with their adoption of consumer interface technology.

Ali offered the example of banking – something I have noticed myself.  I was transacting with my bank via mobile in the UK 11 years ago but despite the explosion of smartphones and application driven interfaces, I’m still limited to only very basic interactions with my bank here in Singapore.

Brett Henry from Abacus followed up by introducing us to two travel journeymen.  Amit Saberwal from MakeMyTrip joined the fledgling Indian OTA in 2005 that, five years later, is worth more than US$800,000,000. 

Graham Hills who is now at Wego spoke of his journey back and forth between his native Australia and his adopted Indonesia and his transition from government-based tourism marketing to the commercial cutting edge of travel transactions.

It was perhaps Amit who came up with, at least for me, the most interesting insight of the evening.  When asked by Brett about what happened in the years following his arrival at MakeMyTrip, Amit described two key things that contributed to the company’s subsequent huge success. 

One was the sudden uptake of online transactions by the Indian public as a consequence of the one and only Indian train company moving online.  The second (my favorite insight of the evening) was Amit’s revelation that none of them at MakeMyTrip having any travel industry experience had been a real advantage!

Expertise has its place, of course, and no one is suggesting that the absence of key industry knowledge and experience is beneficial in all cases.  But, in the fast changing environment in a developing market where Amit and his colleagues were working, the liberation to innovate and create without the shackles and confines of knowing how their business ‘used (ought?) to be done’ might just have been hugely empowering, if not a little frightening, at the time. 

Our final panel consisted of three young and successful people working in quite contrasting roles in the industry.

Running through the three of them though was the clear thread of a passion for what they do. 

For Charmaine Wee (General Manager, New Majestic) the opportunity to encourage and foster her ethos of a work life balance within her team at New Majestic is important.

Whereas for Blanca Menchaca (Digital Marketing Manager, Wego), the job opportunity at Wego affords her the right mix of marketing and technology in her role whilst Shawn Low (Asia Pacific Travel Editor, Lonely Planet) has chosen a path where remuneration comes, in part, from large doses of new friendships and the sights and sounds from simply ‘traveling’.

From being responsible for hospitality through marketing it to writing about it, the panel couldn’t fail to spark some thoughts in the audience for first (or new) career possibilities and what they might involve and how they could be rewarding.

Along with a healthy mix of networking gently oiled by the extremely free-flowing refreshments, we were all treated to an evening of personalities who represented the broad spectrum that is the travel industry. 

From ubiquitous behemoths through to those who just love to travel to a GM looking after the wellness of her staff, there was no shortage of inspiration in addition to a clear and exciting illustration of the opportunities out there and what it can take to be part of them.

And, according to one bloke from India who’s doing pretty OK, you might not even need to know too much about it when you start.