PROGRAMME
Episode 5, The C-Spot Revisited: The Sweet Spot of Customers In The Age of Covid
Every disruption brings with it shifts in customer behavior, often seismic. In 2010, right after the Global Financial Crisis, WiT Singapore marked the theme of “The C-Spot” to examine how traveller behavior would change after that Black Swan event. Ten years on, after this Blackest of Swan events, it’s time to revisit “The C-Spot” to once again put the spotlight on customers and their changing needs, tastes and preferences. Some changes may be short-term for as long as we live under the cloud of the pandemic, but some changes may be here to stay. There’s just one key question to be asked – how do businesses adapt to hit the sweet spot of customers in the age of Covid? Get the answers in this episode.




WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.




WiT




Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.




Travelstart
Interviewer:






Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.






Travelstart




Lucid Ventures
Gidon is the founder of Lucid Ventures. He is also well known as the founder of kulula.com. His recent project is Lift Airlines, the first airline in Africa coming out of covid. He spent twelve years in the tough airline industry, where he innovated and redefined the airline space. He also launched the SLOW Lounge Concept. After leaving the airline industry he spent three years at Discovery as the CEO of Vitality and Head of Digital. He is a qualified CA(SA) and has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management.




Lucid Ventures
Before Covid (BC), there was already a flight of capital to quality and it looked like heady days were over for companies chasing unprofitable growth. Then Covid came along and stopped global unicorns in their tracks. What happened to the investment ecosystem During Covid (DC), and how are investors viewing the changed landscape After Covid (AC). We put the spotlight on investors.
Moderator:




Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.




Travelstart




Acuity Ventures
Lexi Novitske is a venture investor driving growth in the companies that form the foundation of sub-Saharan Africa’s robust digital marketplace. After becoming jaded of the New York hedge fund scene, Lexi moved to Lagos, Nigeria—Africa’s largest city, and home to the continent’s most active startup ecosystem. In search of a greater impact, she launched private-capital backed Singularity Investments in 2014. Lexi supports entrepreneurs building Africa’s growth companies, which span fin-tech, AI, logistics, and health-tech companies, including market-leaders such as Flutterwave and mPharma. Lexi is currently Managing Partner of Acuity Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early to growth-stage technology companies in Africa. Lexi is a Chartered Financial Analyst and Kauffman Fellow.




Acuity Ventures




and Founder, Nire Capital
20 years seasoned tech investor. Founder / Partner at Base capital. Head quartered in Cape Town. Invest globally across all stages, from seed to listed shares, with a focus on marketplace and software businesses.
Previous head of investments and M&A at Naspers Africa and MENA.




and Founder, Nire Capital
There is no doubt that there’s pent-up demand for travel, especially to the much-loved parts of Africa. How can destination marketers read the signals and act on customer intent? Hear the latest first-party data from Expedia Group Media Solutions that shows the latest travel shopping and booking behaviours that will help you as you plan your 2022 marketing strategies.




Expedia Group Media Solutions
Myriam Younes is a director of business development at Expedia Group Media Solutions, where she is responsible for driving business development in EMEA and India. Along with her team, Myriam oversees client business and partnerships for travel brands and non-travel brands, and provides strategic guidance to help them reach audiences across the vast network of Expedia Group travel brands and global sites.
Prior to joining Expedia Group Media Solutions in 2012, Myriam worked for JacTravel, where she was responsible for travel agency sales internationally. She has a wealth of international, tourism and hospitality career experience, and has worked with brands such as Atout France, Moroccan National Tourism Board, Egyptian Tourism Authority, Air France, Hilton and Accor.
Myriam is a graduate of Toulouse Business School in France, with a Master’s in Management, and currently is based in Madrid.




Expedia Group Media Solutions
How did Yanolja, which started out 17 years ago as an aggregator of small and medium-sized accommodation in South Korea, grow into one of travel’s most successful unicorns, now expanding globally? In July, it received a US$1.7 billion investment from Softbank to fuel its expansion and it has identified Africa as a new market of opportunity. We have a conversation with the executive, responsible for the transformation and expansion of this hospitality tech startup, to go under the hood and take lessons from its scaleup.
Interviewer:




WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.




WiT




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud
Jong Yoon Kim is the CEO of Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud, leading all strategic management of businesses regarding domestic/international accommodation and leisure activity platforms and cloud-based hospitality solutions. He also oversees the company’s ongoing expansion efforts with responsibility for investment attraction & corporate acquisition strategies.
As a digital professional and business strategy expert, Kim is leading the company to grow 2X bigger per year while spearheading the digital transformation of travel and leisure industry.
Prior to joining Yanolja in 2015, Kim worked across several innovative brands and sectors including 3M, Google, and McKinsey & Company




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud
Interviewer:






Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.






Travelstart




Amadeus
Entrepreneur, Experienced Managing Director, Experienced board member, Non Exec Board Member experience, Digital expert, International and multicultural mind-set, People management, Strong networking, M&A Expertise, P&L Management, change management, restructuring, results driven.
Over my 25 years senior leadership tenure working for multi-billion euros market cap companies – in local, regional and global roles – I take pride to have successfully helped businesses transform and adapt to the digital space, driven year on year growth above market average as Head of Business Unit for Amadeus, developed and internationalized a subsidiary we bought in 2006 to become market leader in the UK, Spain and France, and successfully founded and sold my company to Amadeus in 2004 after making it the number one IT solution provider for independent hotels chains in France.
The professional experience, which I benefit from to deliver results, encompasses over 18 years in the digital and online space, with a proven track record. Turning or setting up organizations into a start-up and sales development mindset and general management of organizations with complex governance.
The individual skills which helped me succeed are: a true multicultural background (having lived and worked in Lebanon, UK, France, Cyprus, United Stated, Germany and Switzerland), anticipating industry trends, digital expertise, entrepreneurial behavior and an efficient reader of people.




Amadeus
There’s no doubt that fintech and payments have been a breakout sector during Covid. It happened across South-east Asia and it’s happening across Africa, two regions that share a lot of common characteristics, especially in the size of of its unbanked population. We uncover the key trends and opportunities in this sector.
Moderator:




Travelstart
Paulina is the Group Chief Commercial Officer at Travelstart, a leading OTA in Africa and the Middle East with 10 years experience in travel technology and 16 years in e-commerce in Africa. Paulina has held numerous executive titles including CTO, CDO and Managing Director, with a focus in online marketing, travel technology and air supply.




Travelstart




Stitch
Andrew is the Chief Operating Officer at Stitch. Having graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor’s in Economics, Andrew has dedicated his career to building and rebuilding. He started his career in the public sector, on the post-conflict recovery team with the United Nations in Iraq, after which he joined Bain & Company to advise Fortune 100 companies in the United States. Over the past three years, he’s worked to build a number of startups in emerging markets, including Yalelo, a fish farm based in Zambia, and JUMO at which he operated as the Head of Strategy to lead the business’ expansion into new markets. Today, he leads distribution and business development at Stitch, a data and payments API company enabling fintechs and fintech-embedded businesses to build novel products such as one-click bank transfers on their platform.




Stitch




Nightsbridge
Theresa started NightsBridge in 2004 with her husband and business partner, Neil. The channel manager, property management system and payment solutions NightsBridge offer filled a gap in the market for independent, smaller establishments, which are a feature of the Sub-Saharan travel landscape. Her previous experience in desktop publishing and design; economic & policital research; as well as entrepreneuship development & consultancy across Africa stood her in good stead to develop the critical tools to assist small and medium tourism businesses.




Nightsbridge




Mastercard Middle East Africa
Virginia Reinecke is a seasoned Commercial payments expert having worked in the industry since 2003. As the MEA Commercial lead, she is responsible for defining and executing the overall Product strategy for Commercial and critical segments such as SME, T&E, and B2B. The responsibilities include the go-to-market approach, pricing, distribution, and portfolio optimization. Commercial Products Solutions presents a significant opportunity for MEA region. The program has experienced substantial growth in the last few years, being one of the leading segments for Mastercard.
Since joining Mastercard in 2013 Virginia (“Jimi”) has served as the Commercial lead for South Africa and more recently Southern Africa. During this time Virginia was instrumental in defining and executing the Commercial strategy for SA that is differentiating us in the market and helping us gain market share in the division. Prior to joining Mastercard, Virginia spent most of her working life with the Citi EMEA Commercial card business serving in roles across Implementation, Product and Sales with key achievements being launching their local card operations in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. Virginia started her career at Westpac Bank in Australia. She is married with two children, and enjoys playing team sports.




Mastercard Middle East Africa
Highlighting the best of Africa’s travel startups that had their breakout moment during the pandemic, and how they see the future.
Moderator:




Innovation City Cape Town
Kieno Kammies was born on June 7, 1974 in Cape Town South Africa. He is a South African radio presenter who hosts a breakfast talk show on 567 Cape Talk, having previously hosted shows on some of the top stations in South Africa.
Kieno started out in this industry making tea and coffee at Reuters International, a skill that eventually saw him becoming a cameraman, video editor, producer, working for the likes of Reuters, Worldwide TV News and the SABC.




Innovation City Cape Town




Treepz Inc.




Treepz Inc.




Afriktrip




Afriktrip




Conservation Club




Conservation Club
Interviewer:




Innovation City Cape Town
Kieno Kammies was born on June 7, 1974 in Cape Town South Africa. He is a South African radio presenter who hosts a breakfast talk show on 567 Cape Talk, having previously hosted shows on some of the top stations in South Africa.
Kieno started out in this industry making tea and coffee at Reuters International, a skill that eventually saw him becoming a cameraman, video editor, producer, working for the likes of Reuters, Worldwide TV News and the SABC.




Innovation City Cape Town




Future Advisory
Professor Herman Singh is the CEO of Future Advisory, an international firm specialising in digital transformation projects in corporates, and startup acceleration. Previously Group Chief Digital Officer for the MTN Group. Before that Herman was the Managing Executive for Mobile Commerce at Vodacom. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Beyond Payments, the Innovation and New Business Incubator division of the Standard Bank Group. Herman has an MBA degree from the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) and a BSc. in Engineering from the same institution. Herman lectures at Wits and GIBS (Gordon Institute of Business Science) on their MBA and Executive Development programmes.




Future Advisory
Featuring “My Dream Trip” by




Marina Bay Sands
As the Senior Vice President – Marketing for Marina Bay Sands, Maunik leads the marketing organization in developing and delivering a strong brand proposition and alignment to the service culture for Marina Bay Sands. Data, analytics and technology are at the core of the personalized and seamless customer experience he is charged with developing for the brand. Maunik started his career in revenue management for hotels, working with brands such as Taj Hotels, Le Meridien and Starwood, in India, Bahrain and Dubai, before moving to Macau to join the pre-opening team for the Venetian Macau and other Las Vegas Sands properties. With the experience of the casino industry, he moved to Singapore where he is based now, as part of the pre-opening team at Marina Bay Sands with the remit of extending the revenue optimization practice across the casino as well, before transitioning to lead the marketing function at the Integrated Resort.
Maunik holds an MBA in International Hospitality Management from IMHI in Paris, a program jointly administered by Cornell University, USA and ESSEC, France. His personal interests lie in travel and he has always had a desire to live and work in different parts of the world, learning about different cultures. He also serves on the HSMAI Asia Pacific Digital Marketing Advisory Board and has been involved with the organization for several years.




Marina Bay Sands
He’s one of travel’s most colourful and outspoken leaders and personalities, and he’s also proven his longevity in the business. After all, it was back in 1973 when he and two mates bought a couple of double-decker buses in England and began Top Deck Travel. Armed with that experience, he returned home to Australia in 1981, established Flight Centre and grew the business into a global travel empire. You can thus bet that no virus is going to knock “Skroo” down. In this episode, the Australian entrepreneur takes centrestage to talk about the biggest crisis ever to hit travel, how he’s steered his group globally through the crisis and his outlook on the future.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Flight Centre Limited
Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner was raised near Stanthorpe, and trained as a veterinary surgeon. In 1973, he and two mates bought a couple of double-decker buses in England and began a holiday travel company, Top Deck Travel. With only a bus load of energy, entrepreneurship and youthful exuberance, they organised bus tours to the continent and parts of North Africa. By 1980 the business had a fleet of seventy to eighty buses. Old Top Deckers still look back on those times with enormous pleasure, celebrated in the book Top Deck Daze.
In 1981, Skroo returned to Australia and established the Flight Centre travel business. It was an opportune moment as the airline ticketing industry had recently been deregulated, allowing the sale of discounted tickets for the first time. Under Skroo’s dynamic leadership Flight Centre took off, providing the cheapest possible pricing, deriving profits from the volume of sales.
Skroo floated the company in 1995, as much to allow employees to become part owners of the business as to raise capital. Fifty percent of the staff bought shares.
Graham Turner – In recognition of creating Australia’s leading domestic and international travel sales business through outstanding entrepreneurship and innovation.
Graham Turner is not your usual corporate leader. He remains down to earth without the need to surround himself with the trappings of his success. The financial bottom line at Flight Centre is important, but it has been achieved because Skroo also believes in empowering employees, rewarding initiative and fostering the spirit of a large tribe throughout the company. There are no extra perks for senior executives at Flight Centre unless everyone gets them.
Flight Centre has prospered, despite the Global Financial Crisis: in August 2010 its market capitalisation was $1.9 billion. The company is now truly international, operating approximately two thousand agencies and businesses in eleven countries, with 8000 staff. While Flight Centre is the flagship brand, the company has expanded into specialised markets under a range of brand names.
Shareholders will be more than pleased that Graham Turner hopes to continue at the helm of the business for years to come. His nickname, Skroo, acquired as a school boy, derives from the then famous Turner brand of screw drivers. In making an outstanding contribution to business in Queensland and Australia, Skroo has demonstrated great vision, high energy and entrepreneurial spirit.




Flight Centre Limited
In a world gone local, where your home is has come to mean a lot. Travel brands based in huge domestic markets, with strong domestic play, have thrived better than those that relied on cross-border travel. And 18 months into the pandemic, we are seeing the shift towards homegrown brands solidifying and strengthening their positions at home, and giving them a solid base on which to expand. Not to mention new funds – in the past month, South Korea’s Yanolja has raised US$1.7b, India’s Ixigo, after securing US$53m in funding, is headed for an IPO and Vietnam’s VNLife, which owns VNTravel, garnered $250m in Series B funding. We go under the hood of this development.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panellists:




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud
Jong Yoon Kim is the CEO of Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud, leading all strategic management of businesses regarding domestic/international accommodation and leisure activity platforms and cloud-based hospitality solutions. He also oversees the company’s ongoing expansion efforts with responsibility for investment attraction & corporate acquisition strategies.
As a digital professional and business strategy expert, Kim is leading the company to grow 2X bigger per year while spearheading the digital transformation of travel and leisure industry.
Prior to joining Yanolja in 2015, Kim worked across several innovative brands and sectors including 3M, Google, and McKinsey & Company




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud




ixigo
Aloke Bajpai is the Co-Founder & Group CEO of ixigo. A travel industry veteran, he has worked in various product and technology roles at Amadeus, France, prior to launching ixigo in 2007. A big supporter of entrepreneurship, Aloke is a key investor and advisor for several startups and accelerators and a charter member of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE). Aloke is an IIT Kanpur alumnus and an MBA graduate from INSEAD.




ixigo
It’s been called the year of the roadtrip. In countries and regions with big drive markets and where domestic and regional tourism have been allowed, consumers are favouring the road over air. According to Expedia Group, comparing search dates in Jun/2021 vs May/2021, for car rental pickup dates in July, searches are up just over 135% MoM. In this session, we speak to entrepreneurs who have made the road their home and have made roadtrips possible for customers, whether locally or globally.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panellists:




Road.Travel
Nikita Dedik is the Founder and CEO of Road.Travel. Prior to starting his first company Timescenery in 2015, he had been involved in various high-load projects – media projects, online platforms and social networks, first as a systems programmer and later as a CTO. A passionate traveller and a big believer in technology, he wasn’t satisfied with the state of online trip planning apps, so he decided to take the next step in the evolution of travel tech.




Road.Travel




Dream Drive (WiT Startup of the Year 2020)
Jared is the founding member of Dream Drive which is bringing vanlife to Japan.
Dream Drive builds premium campervans in Tokyo, the campers can be owned or rented fully equipped with everything you need to travel Japan freely.
Japan has the perfect infrastructure for campervan travel, with great roads, hot spring bathhouses and free parking for vans all through out Japan, Dream Drive believes that supply of great campers will be the key.




Dream Drive (WiT Startup of the Year 2020)




Singapore Sidecars
Simon Wong is Co-Founder of Singapore Sidecars, a Social Enterprise that gives heritage tours on a fleet of Vespa Sidecars, many of them hand restored vintages made in Singapore in the 1960’s. The company supports any cause that comes knocking, including Children’s Cancer Foundation, National Cancer Centre, Dolma Foundation for Nepal’s earthquake recovery, and recently the Red Cross’ international efforts to overcome the pandemic. This also includes a local Sidecar Food Aid initiative where Sidecars dropped food donations to medical frontliners throughout April-May 2020 and again during the recent soft lockdown.
Simon is also a T’ai Chi practitioner whose training began over 30 years ago. Along the way he has experienced T’ai Chi to be a potent self-transformational medium – and a perfect self-healing and recuperative modality. Simon’s martial arts skills have been applied to stage and screen – while in the UK he did two professional tours with Polka Theatre in Wimbledon Broadway and Soho’s Yellow Earth Theatre, as a lead and supporting physical theatre actor making use of his T’ai Chi skills in live performance. He recently Co-Founded Ji Academy with Sherwin Loh, where he teaches Tienji Method, a style of practise inspired by his late T’ai Chi Grandfather Yang Tienji who lived enjoying perfect health until the age of 94, often seen pulling off 3 fingered push ups all the way into his 80’s.
Current plans include a new motorsport event with STB: the Sidecar Grand Prix, together with Greg Thornton, a 3 time Historic Formula 1 World Champion, TV Personality and Sports Host Nikki Muller and the events veterans of Imagine+.
He believes in living harmoniously, expressing one’s authentic self all along the way.




Singapore Sidecars
What happens when the world shuts down and suddenly, the world you knew, the markets you counted on to attract visitors become out of bounds? And the only market left is your home, which had no natural domestic market? How do you flip thinking, re-orchestrate strategies, roll out tactical campaigns to stoke demand from customers to whom home is familiar territory? This is a story of a destination that had to save itself at home, create a market at home and yet not lose ground in a competitive world when the world opens up again. How do you market a destination in a pandemic?
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Singapore Tourism Board
As Assistant Chief Executive (Marketing Group) of the Singapore Tourism Board, Ms Lynette Pang is responsible for building the Singapore destination brand globally and helms the international marketing efforts, driving the consumer-centric and yield-driven approach to marketing.
Her role as ACE Marketing gives her responsibility for brand strategy and global campaigns, corporate and consumer communications, marketing partnerships, digital and content, industry marketing, agency management and marketing capability development.
In her previous role as Executive Director, Arts & Entertainment, Lynette was responsible for the strategic development of the Arts and Entertainment sectors for tourism contribution. She also held a concurrent position as Executive Director, F1 & Sports, overseeing the growth of sports tourism. Lynette had also managed the Enrichment (Healthcare and Education) portfolio in STB previously.
Before joining STB, Lynette was General Manager at leading theatre company, Singapore Repertory Theatre and held marketing leadership positions at Yahoo! Asia and at film distributor, Warner Bros. Theatrical. She started her marketing career at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising where she worked on the Singapore Tourism Board account.
Lynette graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Sociology and completed an Honours in English Literature. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Singapore International Film Festival and Arts House Limited.




Singapore Tourism Board
With an end, a beginning. As we come to the end of our Travel Roadshow series, it’s time to take a pause, huddle around the campfire, recall special moments on this journey, share key learnings and prepare for the next leg of the journey – yes, the Road to WiT Experience SG 2021 starts here. Welcome Home.
Featuring:




Marina Bay Sands
Mr Ong Wee Min serves as the Vice President of MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions & Exhibitions) at Marina Bay Sands.
In this role, he is responsible for the overall management of the Sands Expo & Convention Centre to ensure its continued success as the top business events and MICE venue in the region.
Prior to his promotion, Weemin was the Executive Director of Sales at Marina Bay Sands and is responsible for Marina Bay Sands’ sales and marketing processes and activities for the various market segments in Association Meetings, Tradeshows and Events both locally and internationally.
In this role, he is responsible for bringing in various first-to-Asia trade shows and exhibitions to Marina Bay Sands. These include iconic events such as Maison & Objet Asia, Lions Club International Convention, Tax Free World Association Asia Pacific and Milipol Asia.




Marina Bay Sands




GEVME & GlobalSign.In
Veemal founded GSI in 2006, architected and coded the very first software platform of the company. GSI is today a leading event tech company with offices in Singapore, Australia, India, Myanmar and the US. Having graduated from the National University of Singapore with a degree in Computer Science, Veemal remains at the forefront of technology and spearheads the software products being crafted at GSI. GSI’s core SaaS product is GEVME, the award-winning enterprise event ticketing & marketing platform.




GEVME & GlobalSign.In




WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.




WiT
Few journalists have visited, scrutinised and written about as many boutique hotels and luxury resorts, all the while pondering their positive impact as much as Juliet. A freelance travel journalist, editor and broadcaster in the mainstream media in the UK, founding editor of Mr & Mrs Smith and founder of consultancy bouteco.co, an independent authority on sustainable design-led hotels, she celebrates the power of travel to do good. Her book, Travel: Easy Tips for the Eco-friendly Traveller, was recently published by Ebury, an imprint of Penguin. In this conversation, she shares her views as a traveller and the changes Covid will bring to travel.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Condé Nast Traveller/ BoutecoLoves.com




Condé Nast Traveller/ BoutecoLoves.com
Yes, we all know there will be pent-up demand and that will carry us through into recovery but surely we can do better than that and truly offer “beautiful travel” to the customers willing to get back on the road. We speak to those who are in the frontline, reading customer sentiment and creating new products and experiences and find out how they are thinking about the sweet spot.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panelist:




Solo Female Travelers




Solo Female Travelers




Asian Trails
Laurent Kuenzle, 52, was born with a pioneering spirit of travel in his blood.
Born, raised and educated in Zug, Switzerland, Kuenzle started his travel career as a 20-year-old trainee at Kuoni Travel Ltd in Hong Kong in 1988 before taking up his first management post at Kuoni Travel in Seoul, Korea. Three years later he was transferred by Kuoni Travel to Osaka, Japan as operations manager.
During his time in Japan, he developed an interest in Indochina and Myanmar, a region which, after decades of war, civil unrest and closed door policies, was opening up to foreign visitors.
He took the opportunity in 1995 to join Bangkok-based Diethelm Travel as the managing director of their offices in Cambodia. He also became the Honorary Consul of Switzerland to the Kingdom of Cambodia.
In 1997 he moved to Yangon to head the offices in Myanmar. He quickly built a reputation as a pioneer by opening up many new areas of the Indochina and Myanmar region to tourism. He became an advisor to government bodies and tourism organizations.
In 1999, he co-founded a new Destination Management Company (DMC), Asian Trails Ltd, which opened for business on 9.9.99 in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar followed by Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia and China. www.asiantrails.travel and www.asiantrails.com.
In 2006, Kuenzle became the Group Managing Director based in Bangkok and in 2014 the CEO Asian Trails Group, a position he holds to the current time.
Under his leadership Asian Trails has become one of the leading DMCs in Asia operating 33 own offices in 8 countries with a staff force of 700 managers and staff. Asian Trails prides itself on its extensive specialized knowledge and expertise that has been the cornerstone of a ‘yes, we can’ attitude.




Asian Trails




Booking.com
Nuno Guerreiro joined Booking.com in 2007 and was appointed Regional Director for South Asia, Oceania & Chains in October 2020. Based in Singapore, Nuno leads on operations, business development and strategy for South Asia and Oceania – vibrant and emerging markets across the region.
Nuno has served in a variety of regional leadership roles across his native Portugal, France, Brazil and Canada. Most recently he was Regional Manager for Global Chains based in Singapore. Prior to this role, he was the Regional Manager for Canada based out of Toronto.
Nuno graduated from the University of Algarve with a Licentiate Degree in Hospitality Management. With his passion for soccer, he was also an official referee for 10 years with the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol in Portugal.




Booking.com
With its plethora of premium lifestyle offerings, conference facilities, and attractions catered for both the business and leisure crowd, this resort destination was not spared the impact of COVID-19. The past year has thus been one of transformation – quick adaptation of offerings and reinvention of experiences for the local market, as well as embracing virtual and hybrid events through leveraging technology with a personal touch. We speak to one of the leaders behind the transformation.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Resorts World Sentosa
Since joining Resorts World Sentosa close to a decade ago, Xue – as she’s affectionately known to her team members – has played many a role along the resort’s road to becoming Asia Pacific’s Best Integrated Resort. From managing the full spectrum of marketing for Universal Studios Singapore to building the brand equity of Halloween Horror Nights in its crucial formative years. Following the award-winning rise of the attraction and its events during her years in Resort Marketing, Xue joined the Partnerships & Events team, where she was pivotal in the creation of numerous lifestyle events. Today, as Assistant Vice President of Business Innovation, Xue brings the same energy and enthusiasm to the team, focusing on the integrated resort’s next phase growth in a post-COVID world.




Resorts World Sentosa
Brand new research by Expedia Group in partnership with Wakefield, detailing insights into what travelers value when shopping for and booking travel, and how the pandemic has shifted their perspective.




Expedia Group
Greg Schulze is the Senior Vice President and General Manager for Strategic Travel Partners at Expedia Group, representing some of the best brands in travel, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, Wotif, and Expedia Cruises. His team manages leisure and corporate relationships with Expedia Group’s travel partners, covering hotel, air, car rental, rail and cruise. He spent five years in Singapore before recently relocating back to the United States. Greg served as a director for Air Asia Expedia and is currently on the board of directors of Traveloka and the US-ASEAN Business Council. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Northwestern University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of North Carolina.




Expedia Group
Genting Cruise Lines’ World Dream was the first ship in the world to resume cruises during the pandemic, starting with Taiwan in July 2020 followed by Singapore in November 2020; and soon in Hong Kong at the end of July 2021. It’s seen interesting new trends emerge, as well as a new set of customers. How will these new customers change the way cruises are sold, packaged and operated in the future in a region that’s fairly new to cruising but heralds a new ocean of opportunity and growth?
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Dream Cruises
With over 30 years of experience in the Asian hospitality, travel and tourism industry, Michael was named President of Dream Cruises & Head of International Sales, Genting Cruise Lines in July 2019 to lead Dream Cruises into its next chapter of growth. A Genting Cruise Lines veteran, Michael has been instrumental in developing the company’s three cruise line brands and also the Asia Pacific cruise tourism industry in the last two decades. He first joined the company in 2000 as the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Star Cruises and as General Manager for the Singapore sales and marketing division, before expanding his portfolio in 2008 as the Senior Vice President of International Sales for Star Cruises and subsequently for Dream Cruises and Crystal Cruises’ sales and marketing in Asia – reflecting the company’s brand expansion over the years.




Dream Cruises
This was one event that made everyone think about their health and sales of fitness equipment soared through the roof worldwide, as did nature walks and wellness experiences. Pundits believe this trend is here to stay. Find out how businesses on the island of Sentosa, Singapore collaborated and created a whole array of new offerings with the new health-conscious consumer in mind, products that will last way after Covid.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panelist:




Sentosa Development Corporation
Mira is the Divisional Director/Head of Marketing & Guest Experience for Sentosa, Singapore’s own State of Fun.
Raised in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia & educated by way of Boston, Mira discovered her true calling as a Marketer in her very first job, where the rush of peddling shampoos for Procter & Gamble, quickly put to bed previous ideas of being a diplomat making better use of her degree in International Relations.
For over a decade at Procter, Mira’s work included the biggest brands in beauty, feminine care & fine fragrances, touching consumers and building businesses from Shanghai to Sydney. Closer to the Red Dot, she has spent stints at NTUC Enterprise overseeing overall corporate branding, and at Loreal Singapore in a general management role for luxury cosmetics.
At Sentosa, Mira immerses herself in driving island visitorship and enhancing experiences on this iconic Singapore destination, for locals & tourists alike. Not to be deterred by a global pandemic, her team has elevated campaigns, reputation building and partnerships to reinvent the island’s brand equity & business growth.




Sentosa Development Corporation




Resorts World Sentosa




Resorts World Sentosa
One good way to get customers back on the road is to get them back in the air – get them to book flights with confidence and pay with ease. You’d think that’d be easy but as our speaker believes, “Flights are complex to do well and we are willing to do the dirty and cumbersome job to make it look easy at the front end.” Let’s find out “the dirty and cumbersome” things he and his team have been building and working on to make it possible for consumers to still have the most content/options and most competitive pricing, which is becoming increasingly difficult given all the industry dynamics, fragmentation and different biz models that currently co-exist.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Etraveli Group
Mathias Hedlund become CEO of Etraveli Group in 2014 but was a board member from 2010. Prior to joining Etraveli, he held executive positions at companies in the financial, gambling and e-commerce sectors.




Etraveli Group
It’s been a breakout moment for the company which was down on its knees when Covid hit and then turned around to produce a spectacular IPO. It also took the opportunity to make 100 new changes and updates to its platform, focused on the big theme of flexibility – flexible dates, destinations and listings. In this conversation, we focus on the customer trends and behaviours being seen by this company not only in Asia but also globally.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Airbnb
Parin Mehta is regional director for the Asia-Pacific region. In this role, Mehta leads Airbnb’s Homes and Experiences and is responsible for the long-term growth of the company in APAC.
Mehta was previously director of Airbnb Experiences for APAC and was responsible for launching the Experiences business across the region, including Online Experiences in 2020.
He has been based in Singapore for 10 years, previously serving as head of strategic partnerships for South-east Asia at Google, and also previously lived in Japan.




Airbnb
In December, travel brand Klook came up with a study that said travellers had gone from “wanderlust” to “wonderlost”. Six months on, the symptoms must be even more advanced. For this Lifeline, we call on a traveller to spill the beans about his Period of No Travel. Not just any traveller but one of Singapore’s most-loved stage and screen actors, who’s appeared in productions such as “Dim Sum Dollies” and most recently created a digital interactive play, The Curious Case of The Missing Peranakan Treasure.




Hossan Leong is an actor, comedian, director, television and radio host, motivational speaker and entertainer. He is also the co-founder and director of Paul Carr Consultancy, a communications agency. In 2013, he also established Double Confirm Productions, which stages some of his shows and provides entertainment services for clients.




An overview of the key changes that have happened in online travel across the world with our Northstar family of commentators and editors.






WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.






WiT




PhocusWire
Kevin May has covered technology, distribution and the digital economy in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry since 2005, in roles prior to PhocusWire as editor of both Travolution and Tnooz.
He began his career as a reporter at the Police Gazette in London, before moving to local newspapers as deputy editor of the Essex Enquirer and then the web editor of business title, Media Week (UK).
Kevin holds a degree in criminology and is also the co-author of a biography about British electronic band, Depeche Mode, due to be published in March 2020.




PhocusWire




Phocuswright
Mr. Comeau is responsible for overall strategic and operational leadership at Phocuswright. Pete oversees all aspects of Phocuswright’s commercial activities including product, sales and service, and marketing. He also plays a key role in product development and business development strategy for Phocuswright research, events and media businesses globally. Pete is a frequent speaker at industry events and heads Phocuswright’s coverage of startups and innovation.
Mr. Comeau’s travel industry career spans over two decades. Previously, he managed strategic partnerships at Orbitz in Chicago, where he assisted in growing and managing accounts for the Orbitz Partner Network. Prior to Orbitz, Pete was the sales leader at Moguls Mountain Travel, a ski tour wholesaler in Boulder, CO. He helped design, implement and maintain four reservation systems during his tenure and managed and mentored a team of successful sales agents.
Based in the Denver, Colorado area, Pete holds an M.B.A. from Daniels College of Business and graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin College with a degree in government and economics.




Phocuswright
A new generation hotelier, Shin Hui brings fresh perspectives to hospitality. The grand daughter of renowned banker Wee Cho Yaw (United Overseas Bank), she spent four years in finance and private equity before joining Park Hotel Group in 2009, where she leads commercial and brand strategy. In particular, she is known for her views on environmental and community issues and is actively driving the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit for PHG. Let’s find out how the year of upheaval has influenced her thinking.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Park Hotel Group
Shin Hui is the Executive Director of the Park Hotel Group (PHG). PHG’s core business is in the development, ownership, and management of hospitality assets in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining PHG in 2009, Shin Hui spent 4 years in finance and private equity.
At PHG, Shin Hui is responsible for general management as well as leading the commercial and brand strategy of the organisation. In this capacity, she drives commercial excellence across PHG’s sales, revenue management, marketing communications and digital infrastructure. She also oversees the development of the brands within PHG’s portfolio which currently comprises of Grand Park, Park Hotel, Destination as well as Park Rewards loyalty programme. Shin Hui is also a key member of the Investment Committee that oversees M&A and asset enhancement strategies.
Shin Hui currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Hospitality Development Council under the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Asia-Pacific as well as a member of the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) of ULI Singapore.
Shin Hui is passionate about environmental and community issues and is actively driving the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit for PHG through various sustainability and community initiatives.




Park Hotel Group
Four online travel companies, four markets/regions, one common story – all are emerging from the pandemic differently. What has each done to seize opportunities surfaced by Covid? And how different will their business look AC (After Covid) from before? We examine the different paths being embarked upon by these players in their respective spaces and markets.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panelists:




PT Global Tiket Network (tiket.com)
Gaery is the Co-Founder of tiket.com, pioneer Online Travel Agency (OTA) in Indonesia. He is currently taking the role as also the Chief Marketing Officer overseeing the Brand Marketing and the Performance Marketing.
Before founding tiket.com with his four friends, he worked professionally as IT Analyst and Developer eBusiness for IBM Canada. During his tenure at IBM, he was involved in several influential projects such as Canadian Healthcare, National Airlines & Telecommunications. Gaery also has experience working with HSBC Canada as Business Analyst.
He graduated from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada with Computing Science and Business Administration Bachelor’s Degree.
His interests and expertise include in e-commerce, business development, performance marketing, branding, management information system, online travel and technology.




PT Global Tiket Network (tiket.com)




Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.




Travelstart




LINE TRAVEL jp & Trip101
Kei co-founded Venture Republic in 2001 and has been serving as CEO since the foundation. The company runs a group of online travel websites and services worldwide including LINE TRAVEL jp, Japan’s largest online travel metasearch/media (Over 35 million monthly uesrs. Formerly known as Travel.jp (http://www.travel.co.jp/), Trip101, Singapore based “travel enthusiasts’” generated” global online travel media (https://trip101.com/) and allstay, leading mobile accommodation search services in Korea (http://www.allstay.kr/). In 2018, he led the company to bring in LINE Corporation, the leading global mobile messaging company as a strategic investor.
In 2008, he led the company to IPO (2177. JASDAQ) after 7 years of inception and to LBO by management in 2012. In its history, company had built one of the leading online comparison shopping businesses in Japan through running “coneco.net” which was acquired by Yahoo! Japan.
Frequent speaker at travel & technology events and conferences. Among them are ITB, Google Travel Executive Forum, Phocuswright, TBEX, WiT and Digital Travel.
Angel investor in TravelTech. Serving as a board of director for various startups including BeMyGuest and TravelMassive.
Kei also served as co-founder/organizer of WiT Japan & North Asia, largest international business conference in North Asia focusing on tech & travel, Chairman of Keio University’s alumni association for startup founders/CEOs, Executive Committee Member of Harvard Business School Club of Japan and co-chapter leader of Travel Massive in Singapore and Tokyo.




LINE TRAVEL jp & Trip101




Etraveli Group
Lisa is heading Strategy, M&A and Strategic Partnerships for Etraveli Group, one of the leading global flight platforms. The Group is backed by CVC Capital Partners and has offices in Sweden, Greece, Canada and India. The Group operates in 70+ countries through brands such as Gotogate, Mytrip, FlightNetwork, Trip.ae, Trip.ru, and Supersaver and enjoys top positions in Europe and North America with growing presence in LatAm, the Middle East and APAC. It also operates flygresor.se, the #1 metasearcher in Sweden and Tripstack a content aggregator offering LCC/airline direct content and creating complex flight itineraries (virtual interlining). We are a team of more than 1000 professionals.
Lisa has been working in the travel industry since 2011. She joined e-Travel, a leading South East European OTA in 2012. As part of e-Travel’s management team she helped grow revenues 3x and the business from a team of 60 to c.250 employees until the company joined forces with Etraveli in 2017 and was welcomed into the CVC family. Prior to joining e-Travel she was a venture capitalist investing in e-commerce. She started her career in advertising.
Whether it’s being the link between the creative and the customer, software engineers and customer needs, or between investors and entrepreneurs she has been performing “translation” duties for 17 years. She holds a BSc in Economics from LSE and an MBA from INSEAD.




Etraveli Group
Before Covid (BC), only 10% of the 20 million visitors to Sentosa, Singapore’s island destination, came from its home market. During Covid (DC), businesses on the island had to quickly shift to a local market. How did these businesses manage to do it, how did they transform their thinking and processes to ride out the pandemic, what lessons have they learnt that will hold them in good stead for the future, even when inbound travel returns?
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panelists:




Sentosa Development Corporation
Mr Chew Tiong Heng assumed the position of Divisional Director, Business & Experience Development in Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) on 1 March 2021. This Division oversees the sales and development of products, events and experiences that are aligned with the “One Sentosa Experience” brand. Prior to joining SDC, Tiong Heng was the Executive Director, Infrastructure Planning and Management in Singapore Tourism Board, where he oversaw the Integrated Resorts and development of infrastructures to support the Cruise and MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions) industries.
Having held various key positions in his years with STB, which include Business Tourism Development, Precincts & Tourism Concept Development, Destination and International Marketing, Tiong Heng brings with him a wealth of local and overseas experience in the tourism and travel industry.
Tiong Heng graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in 1994. He also holds a Master of Management in Hospitality from the Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management.
Tiong Heng was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Bronze) in 2011.




Sentosa Development Corporation




SkyPark Sentosa by AJ Hackett
Luke leads the commercial and operations team at SkyPark Sentosa and is responsible for driving business growth strategies while maintaining the overall financial stability and profitability of the company. Before moving to Singapore, Luke was the General Manager of SkyPark Cairns having worked there for 20 years.
Luke’s experience has taken him all over the world working with bungy sites in France, Russia, Macao and Singapore. He joined the company as a member of the operations team at the age of 20 and worked his way up to be one of the youngest GMs of the group at 25 years old.
Under his leadership as the GM of SkyPark Cairns, Luke lead his team to several tourism awards in Australia and positioned the site as a must visit destination. In his first year at SkyPark Sentosa, Luke has transformed the business during the COVID pandemic to attract the locals to live outside their comfort zone and enjoy the awesome experience at SkyPark Sentosa, making it one of the success stories in the Singapore attractions space.




SkyPark Sentosa by AJ Hackett




Steward's Solution Pte Ltd
Founded in 1998 as a company which provided rental of tableware, Michael Lian joined his brother, Jerry Lian at Steward’s Solution in 2007 and has been leading the business ever since. Over the past 23 years, driven by a sole mission to provide a one-stop solution for the food and beverage industry, Steward’s Solution has expanded under Michael’s stewardship and has grown to become an integrated business solutions provider.
With a 100-man team of operations and events specialists who are experts in providing turnkey F&B project management and event management solutions, Michael and his award-winning teamwork with clients on the conceptualisation, structural build and execution of any temporary or permanent setup.
In 2021, Michael and his team will venture into the operating of Southside, a fully integrated waterside lifestyle and events venue at Sentosa, which will feature an array of new-to-market F&B concepts, attractions and flexible MICE spaces.




Steward's Solution Pte Ltd




Mount Faber Leisure Group
Tracy Lui has spent many years in Marketing and Communications in the tourism and hospitailty industry. She is currently the Senior Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications at Mount Faber Leisure Group (MFLG), overseeing the functions of Marketing, Communications, Guest Relations and Events and Programming. Her key responsibilities are to drive awareness and revenue targets across MFLG’s suite of leisure and lifestyle services including attractions, guided tour experiences, the management of event venues, souvenirs and lifestyle merchandise as well as food and beverage (F&B).
Prior to joining MFLG in July 2016, she brought over 20 years of experience in Public Relations in both agency and in-house positions. She spent the first 10 years of her career in leading PR agencies working with clients in the private and public sectors. Following that, she pursued her passion for the hospitality industry and spent 9 years with Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, overseeing Public Relations for Southeast Asia. She then moved to international hotel management company Radisson Hotel Group, to drive Public Relations for the Asia Pacific region.
In her spare time, Tracy likes watching movies and travelling. She holds a Bachelor of Business, major in Marketing from Monash University in Australia.




Mount Faber Leisure Group
Who’d launch a travel startup during Covid? Martha Waslen did. Her business model of offering hotels an opportunity to sell beyond rooms came at the right time. When heads-in-beds are no longer possible, you need to offer ancillary activities and experiences to local customers to grab whatever cash you can. We catch up with the entrepreneur who comes from a fashion and luxury retail background and ask her, why did she take the plunge into travel, among other questions.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




DayAway
Martha is the Founder and CEO of Singapore based hospitality tech startup, DayAway, a revolutionary B2B2C platform helping the hotel industry to monetise underutilised ancillary space for daytime use by non-hotel guests. Launched in March 2021, DayAway provides inventory management and revenue optimisation tools to hotel partners, and an online destination for prospective guests to browse hotel experiences by the day and book in real time. DayAway’s goal is to radically disrupt the global hospitality industry by designing its own market category around the optimisation of hotel facility space – and dominating it.
Originally from New York, Martha has over 10 years of experience working with both globally recognized brands as well as regional tech startups in brand marketing and digital strategy with a successful track record in go-to-market execution and international expansion. She has a passion for innovation and brings a unique perspective and skillset to paving a new path forward for hotels in a Covid and post Covid economy.




DayAway
We jet off to North America where we catch up on the goings-on in a market that seems to have taken off as swiftly as the eagle can fly.




Expedia Group
Hari leads Expedia Group’s Global Account Management business across lodging, vacation rentals and activities. In this role, he works with supply partners to make them successful on the Expedia Group platform and stay ahead of digital innovation.
Hari joined Expedia Group in 2002. In his twenty year tenure with the company, he has built a unique B2B, B2C and media advertising knowledge that can benefit all supply partners as they charter the complexities of the travel ecosystem. Previous to this role, Hari was the Global SVP Expedia Group Media Solutions, the digital advertising arm of Expedia Group where he oversaw all facets of the business including product development and execution, engineering, operations, marketing, media sales and business development for destination marketing organizations. Before this, he focused on two B2C brands as Vice President and General Manager of Orbitz.com and CheapTickets.com, subsidiaries of Expedia Group, and was responsible for overseeing retail operations and profitability of the business, brand strategy, marketing efficiency and customer lifecycle management.
Prior to joining Expedia, Hari worked in corporate training and food and beverage operations at Oberoi Hotels, a leading luxury hotel chain that owns and manages thirty hotels and five luxury cruisers across six countries under the ‘Oberoi’ & ‘Trident’ brands.
Hari holds a master’s degree in Hotel Management from Cornell University. In his spare time, he is an avid runner, not shy of displaying his Bollywood dancing skills and a regular visitor to India, his beloved native country.




Expedia Group
Two of Asia’s premier resort destinations are ready to cast off the shackles of Covid to emerge into the sunlight. Phuket and Bali are preparing for reopening to the international traveller. What will reopening look like? How are hoteliers in these two islands preparing for the rebound? What opportunities are there to build back better?
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panelists:




Phuket Hotels Association
Born in Sydney, Australia, Anthony has spent his entire working life at the very highest end of hospitality, from his young trainee days at Sydney’s fabled Wentworth hotel, then as senior front office manager at the opening of the Regent (now Four Seasons) hotel on Sydney Harbour. Personally hired by legendary Amanresorts founder Adrian Zecha, Anthony opened Amanpuri in 1988 as general manager and went on to open and lead three more Aman properties in Indonesia and Myanmar before spearheading the design, masterplan, operations, sales & marketing and residential villa sales for the multi-award-winning Trisara resort on Phuket from 2000 to 2020.
His name synonymous with Asian luxury hospitality, Anthony now brings to clients the benefits, insights and expertise of his three decades at the helm of some of world’s most successful resorts and hotels.




Phuket Hotels Association




Originally from France, he graduated from Institut Paul Bocuse Hotel School in 2000.
Mr. Jean Hélière began his career at IHG in 2013 at InterContinental Tahiti Resort and Spa as an Executive Assistant Manager. Treading his path at one the world’s largest international chain hotel groups—where he demonstrated his skills in leadership, effectiveness and efficiency in managing all aspects of hotel’s operations—his career quickly rose as he was promoted to a General Manager position at InterContinental Moorea Resort and Spa in 2015. He was awarded as GM of The Year in 2018 by InterContinental Hotels and Resorts Southeast Asia and Korea.
Mr. Hélière also has considerable experience in food and beverage, having undertaken growing roles in the area at 5-star properties across Italy such as Rome Cavalieri Hilton, Hotel Hassler Rome, Hilton Sorrento Palace, Radisson Blu es. Hotel Rome and participate to the Grand Opening of The Rome Marriott Park hotel.
With his long-standing career in the hospitality industry, which spanned over two decades, and extensive knowledge and experience of luxury brand, Mr. Jean Hélière is now General Manager at Hotel Indigo Bali Seminyak Beach and Chairman Bali Hotels Association.
He is married, has one kid, appreciate music, running and rugby.




What happens when the place you are living in, which is usually packed with tourists, suddenly empties? What is it like to live with no tourism? What’s happened to these places after “The Great Travel Upheaval”? We ask our letter writers to tell us their stories in 3 minutes each.
Letter from Siem Reap:
Craig Dodge
Director of Sales & Marketing
Phare Performing Social Enterprise, Cambodia
Letter from Amsterdam:




McKinsey & Company
Anchit is a Manager in McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics and Infrastructure practice, based in Amsterdam. He currently coordinates McKinsey’s research and partnerships in travel. As a consultant, he advised hotels, hotel investors, airlines and public sector clients on investment, expansion and digital strategies. Prior to joining McKinsey, Anchit worked with Enterprise Singapore in the government, as the Director of the office in Sao Paulo, facilitating Singaporean companies market expansion into South America. As someone who moved to Amsterdam just before the lockdown in 2020, he took refuge in the offerings of Malaysian / Singaporean restaurants near his new home, and is currently eagerly awaiting easing of lockdown restrictions.




McKinsey & Company






WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.






WiT
Founded in 1998, this Thailand-based OTA has had to behave with the agility of a young startup to get through Covid. Confined to a local world, it swiftly developed a range of tech and products to embed itself deeper into the domestic market across certain countries in Asia, leveraging partnerships with governments and like-minded partners. It is also keen to solve one long-standing problem in hospitality. In this one-on-one, we find out how this chief executive is thinking anew about tech, talent and travel.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Agoda
John W. Brown was promoted to CEO of Agoda on June 1, 2018. He was COO since 2014 and prior to that, he held the role of Chief Product Officer.
He had a brief stint as advisor to Minister of Commerce in Afghanistan from June 2009 to May 2008 and prior to that, worked with Boston Consulting Group for nearly six years.




Agoda
The future is unwritten, Joe Strummer (The Clash), may have said, but if these folks are writing the tech that will help rebuild travel, we need to know what they are working on. We put the spotlight on leaders, in tech and product, and find out what they’ve been working on, what’s keeping them excited about the future and how they sleep soundly at night, given the exciting times they live in and the challenges they face.
Setting The Stage:
Mieke De Schepper
Executive Vice President, Online Travel Companies
& Managing Director Asia Pacific
Amadeus
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panel:




Klook
As Chief Product Officer, David is responsible for driving Klook’s product innovation and user experience. He joined Klook in 2016 as Vice President of Product and UX.
Under his leadership, the team has scaled and achieved multiple milestones, including the launch of Klook’s iOS App Clip and best-in-class merchant solutions, as well as localizing platforms into a total of 14 languages supporting over 40 currencies and various payment methods. He also oversaw and evolved the app interface, expanding from experiences and services to other categories such as entertainment, mobility and staycations. David and his team have earned major accolades, including the Klook mobile app being featured over 100 times as the go-to app for trip planning and awarded “Best of the Year” by both Apple App Store and Google Play.
Prior to Klook, David was instrumental in building up multiple e-commerce, messaging and social network products for Tencent and Yahoo, with valuable experience in technology development and product management from both Greater China and the U.S.




Klook




GlobalTix
Chee Chong is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of GlobalTix Pte Ltd, a leader in ticketing technology in Southeast Asia’s tourism industry.
As GlobalTix’s lead visionary and architect, Chee Chong drives key relationships and provides the overall strategic direction of the startup-up. He is fully committed to developing a global distribution system (GDS) to enhance the overall experience of travel partners, merchants and end consumers.
Since the inception of GlobalTix in 2014 when the first ticket was sold, Chee Chong and the team have grown the business exponentially. Now, it sells one ticket every 10 seconds and hosts more than 80,000 products in 120 cities on its marketplace. Under his leadership, GlobalTix has won numerous industry accolades, including being named Top Partner in 2017 by Resorts World Sentosa and Wildlife Reserves Singapore. Its roll call of partners include major names such as Singapore Airlines, National Gallery Singapore, TripAdvisor and niche operators such as Boon Teng Kee chicken rice restaurant chain.
Chee Chong holds a Bachelor of Engineering (2nd Upper) degree from the National University of Singapore.




GlobalTix




Wego




Wego




Accor
From France and then from Singapore, Khang has 20+ years of tech leadership in digital native companies and more traditional companies going for deep digital transformation. A strong advocate of “Management 3.0 | Agile Leadership Practices” and of “Tech for Good”, what makes him wake up in a good mood every day is to work and share with like-minded leaders on how to:
– Ideate, Design, Build, Operate products and platforms at scale
– Architect and turn tech organizations & people into a strategic and high performing contributor to the company,
– Execute the digital | agile | secdevops agendas and transformation from C-level to operational level,
– Re-invent large companies by fostering a startup and “intrapreneurial management” mindset.
He also enjoys advising startups which need to scale up in their tech management practices.
He is currently Group Chief Technology Architect at Accor, the world-leading augmented hospitality group. He is also an investor and contributor to Time for the Planet, the first open source and crowdfunded investment company to fight climate change.




Accor
For close to 30 years, she worked with Accor and until last December, was the Deputy CEO of Accor Asia Pacific. Now the CEO of Future Now Ventures, an Australia-based fund backed by Microsoft, she’s fully immersed in the world of tech investments. She’s also an investor and board member of several startups in the fields of payments, loyalty, food and entertainment. Let’s find out how she’s viewing her new world with new lenses and how those fresh perspectives can be applied to travel and hospitality.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Future Now Ventures




Future Now Ventures
Different perspectives on different tech and their applications to travel
Customer Service: Virtual agents vs Human agents – Now or in the Future?
One of the big lessons of Covid is that customer care has to be automated as much as possible and major travel brands moved fast to scale on this technology. Some have completely removed the hotline. But can virtual agents really handle customer queries at scale? Has the tech come far enough or do we still need the human touch? More importantly, what do customers prefer?
Shyn Yee-Ho Strangas
Director, Global Product Management
Expedia Group
Digitisation: How An Ancient Heritage Site Thinks About Tech
Dating from the 8th and 9th centuries, the famous temples of Borobudur, located in central Java, is one of the most visited tourist sites in Indonesia. It typically records around five million visitors a year. We get an update on the impact of Covid on this UNESCO World Heritage Site, how it is thinking about the redistribution of tourism in the Borobudur Tourism Area and digitisation of its operations.
Bisma Jatmika
Director of Industry & Institutions
Borobudur Tourism Authority
Blockchain: Has Its Time Finally Arrived for Travel?
It’s been talked about a lot – the application of blockchain technology to travel processes – but it has yet to fully take root. But has Covid accelerated its adoption as it has everything else? We hear from a practitioner who’s gone beyond thinking to incorporating blockchain into an OTA model.
Paulina Klotzbücher
Group Chief Commercial Officer
Travelstart
Yes, the pandemic has caused massive hurt to this multi-billion dollar sector but this tech evangelist believes some good will come out of it. In this presentation, he shares his thinking about the solutions that will facilitate this good, down to micro-services that will help corporates plan and measure better, and recommend some opportunities for you in this dynamic and changing space that’s currently in full disruption.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




American Express Digital Labs
Johnny Thorsen is the “VP of Strategy and Innovation” for American Express Digital Labs after they acquired Mezi, in January 2018 where he was the head of strategy and partnerships since May 2017.
Prior to joining Mezi in 2017 Johnny was the co-founder and CEO of conTgo, a UK-based startup founded in 2007 and acquired by Concur in March 2013 – after the acquisition by Concur he remained with the company until they were acquired by SAP in 2015 when he joined SAP Mobile Services.
Prior to founding conTgo in 2007 Johnny held senior positions with companies such as Travelport, Sabre, GetThere, HRG and CWT. Johnny has served as a global board member with ACTE from 2017 until the association was closed in May 2020, and he serves as a strategic advisor and board member for multiple startups within the wider travel industry.
Business Travel News named Johnny Thorsen one of the 25 most influential people in the business travel industry in 2018 and 2010.




American Express Digital Labs
A serial entrepreneur, he’s built several tech businesses, including Qunar, China’s first travel metasearch. Now an active and keen investor in tech startups, including travel, he knows the importance of identifying, hiring, retaining and motivating A players to create amazing performances for your startup. We ask him to share some of the lessons he’s learnt over the years.




Queen's Road Capital




Queen's Road Capital
Why I Would Not Work in Travel Tech Right Now & Lessons From The Gaming World
George Mitchell
Senior Engineering Manager
Riot Games, US
Why I Choose To Work in Travel Tech Right Now
Pin Tsin Go
Head of Partnerships
DayAway
The View From Gen Z-ers
Born after 1996, this is the generation that will influence travel, both as workers and travellers. According to Pew Research Center, this is the generation most hard hit by the pandemic. How has living and learning through a pandemic changed their thinking about careers and travel as a lifestyle? We ask the questions that matter so you know what matters to them.
Mesbaul Islam Anindo
Economics Major, Life Sciences Minor
Yale-NUS College, Singapore
James Ong
Business Undergrad
Nanyang Technological University
Sandra Sarah Mathew
Major of Business Analytics
Singapore Management School of Computing and Information Systems
See you, Episode 4, June 24, 6.00-8.30PM SG Time (GMT +8)
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Montara Hospitality Group
Kittisak (Kitt) Pattamasaevi is the Chief Executive Officer for Montara Hospitality Group. Montara owns and manages Phuket’s most exclusive pool villa beach resort TRISARA, Bangkok’s only river mansion boutique hotel PRAYA PALAZZO, and the innovative movie house-turn-hotel PRINCE THEATRE HERITAGE STAY in Bangrak.
In his previous role at Montara, Kitt leveraged his private equity and investment banking experience to facilitate the acquisition of boathouse, a critically acclaimed Phuket beach resort and restaurant, which Montara also currently owns and manages.
Kitt received his MBA from Harvard Business School. At HBS, he served as COO for Hospitality & Travel Industry Club. Prior to that, he graduated Cum Laude from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research. Outside of his work at Montara, Kitt serves as a director of Niyom Pattamasaevi Foundation, which sponsors scholarships and supports rural elementary schools in Northern Thailand.




Montara Hospitality Group




Fairmont Singapore and Swissôtel The Stamford
Marcus moves over from the Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay, where he has been the General Manager since 2015. Marcus has been with AccorHotels for 13 years and brings with him a wealth of experience, having held various management positions, initially at Sofitel Melbourne, then as the opening General Manager at Pullman at Sydney Olympic Park; this was later followed by General Manager assignments at Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach and Sofitel Brisbane Central. He was also Project Manager for AccorHotels’ management of the Qantas First Class Lounges. The RC Hotel complex comprises the Fairmont Singapore, Swissôtel The Stamford Singapore and Raffles City Convention Centre.




Fairmont Singapore and Swissôtel The Stamford




As the Senior VP of Accommodation at Traveloka, Nelly is responsible for the growth of the accommodation business at all Traveloka markets. She leads overall strategy formulation to accelerate business growth while improving profitability. Throughout the pandemic period, Nelly has successfully architected numerous innovations that help accelerating the tourism industry recovery, such as a livestream program called Traveloka LIVE, Traveloka CleanAccommodation, Buy Now Stay Later, Pay Upon Check-ln. and Online Check-ln.
Prior to joining Traveloka in 2018, Nelly spent 10 years of her career as a strategic consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where she fostered her innovative thinking.
With a passion for the education field, Nelly is also volunteering in a series of edu-based initiatives such as LaunchX (Young Entrepreneurs Summer Program at Cambridge, US) and Indonesia Mengajar (Indonesia Teaching Movement)




What happened to brands with global dreams in the Year of No Travel? How are they thinking about the future? What happened in 2020 that made them rethink their business models, their organizational structures and their view of the future? What are they doing to prepare for an AC world?
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panelists:




OYO
Rohit is currently the CEO for OYO India & South East Asia [INSEA] across businesses which includes key leading markets – India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. Started in 2013, OYO Hotels & Homes today is the world’s leading technology and revenue growth platform for small hotels and homeowners. He joined the company as CEO of real-estate business and in less than a year he took the charge to lead India & South Asia business and has recently taken on the larger mantle of driving growth in the South-East Asia region. He led OYO India during the once in a lifetime pandemic year transforming the business across financials, partner and customer NPS. He has contributed to the efforts of building OYO as a top talent destination while delivering supply and revenue growth goals. He is also a partner with other leaders on handling brand, PR and communications for the group across OYO global.




OYO




Expedia Group
Catherine SO is currently Managing Director of Expedia Group’s APAC business, responsible for the region’s overall performance, business strategy and operations, covering major brands including Expedia, Hotels.com. Vrbo/Homeaway and Stayz.
SO has over 20 years of experience in the digital and e-commerce space, working across Asia Pacific, Greater China and the United States, at both large corporations and growth companies; With extensive experience in P&L management, partnership development, sales and operations, SO possesses proven track record in transforming businesses and delivering high performance.
Prior to joining Expedia Group, SO was Managing Director of Groupon, leading the Hong Kong business, covering three verticals- Groupon Local, Groupon Goods and Groupon Travel. SO also held regional leadership positions at the REA Group, News Corporation and AOL Time Warner prior to Groupon.
During her personal time, SO enjoys playing tennis, biking and paddle boarding. She is also passionate about student initiatives and served as Program Director for the Hong Kong-Shanghai Future Young Leaders Internship Program and Mentor for the Harvard Alumni Association.
SO is currently a Board Director of the Hong Kong Travel Industry Authority (TIA), Committee Member of the Hong Kong Travel Industry Association (TIC), Committee Member of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC), and Honorary Vice President of the Hong Kong-Shanghai Youth Association (HKSHYA).
Based in Hong Kong, SO speaks fluent English, Cantonese and Mandarin, and holds a B.A with honors in economics from Harvard University.




Expedia Group




KKday
Liu Weichun, co-founder and Executive Vice President of KKday, is in charge of KKday’s marketing and operational strategies in the Southeast Asian region.
Before taking on the role as Executive VP, Liu served as Chief Operating Officer at KKday, where she oversaw KKday’s global product management and customer services. She led groundbreaking achievements, including the build-up of KKday’s SCM (Supply Chain Management) system, the development of QR code redemption, and API (Application Programming Interface) integration with large tour providers, such as Taipei 101 and Hong Kong TurboJET.
Liu joined KKday as one of the founding members and subsequently held the position of Chief Financial Officer before her promotion to COO. Prior to KKday, she held the role of a supply chain manager at Dell and also served as an investment banker upon graduation from New York University.




KKday




As the Senior VP of Accommodation at Traveloka, Nelly is responsible for the growth of the accommodation business at all Traveloka markets. She leads overall strategy formulation to accelerate business growth while improving profitability. Throughout the pandemic period, Nelly has successfully architected numerous innovations that help accelerating the tourism industry recovery, such as a livestream program called Traveloka LIVE, Traveloka CleanAccommodation, Buy Now Stay Later, Pay Upon Check-ln. and Online Check-ln.
Prior to joining Traveloka in 2018, Nelly spent 10 years of her career as a strategic consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where she fostered her innovative thinking.
With a passion for the education field, Nelly is also volunteering in a series of edu-based initiatives such as LaunchX (Young Entrepreneurs Summer Program at Cambridge, US) and Indonesia Mengajar (Indonesia Teaching Movement)




In March this year, Singapore-based growth equity investment firm Asia Partners closed its inaugural fund Asia Partners I LP at US$384 million in commitments. In 2019, the year of its founding, founding partner, Oliver Rippel, told WiT South-east Asia could produce between 20 and 30 unicorns. And he believes that in travel, local heroes can win over global players. We catch up with him to find out if his views have changed DC and how he sees the AC tech startup space in the region.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Asia Partners
Mr. Rippel joined Asia Partners as a Founding Partner. Previously he was the CEO of B2C e-commerce for Naspers, which included all e-tail, marketplace, and travel operations globally. Mr. Rippel led all of Naspers’ investments in Flipkart, where he served as Naspers’ appointed Director to the Board for six years. In August 2018, Flipkart’s exit to Walmart was one of the very largest exits ever in the Internet and e-commerce space, and India’s largest ever exit of a technology company. Walmart invested US$16 billion to obtain an approximate 77 percent shareholding at closing. As part of this transaction, Naspers exited fully, selling its 11.2% percent stake for $2.2 billion. The investment was a $1.6bn or 3.6x return over six years, at an estimated 29% IRR.
Mr. Rippel joined Naspers in January 2009 as head of business development in South-east Asia before managing e-commerce in Africa and Middle East shortly after. From 2011 to 2014 he oversaw e- commerce in Southeast Asia, India and Africa, after which he was managing online services segments including e-tail outside of Europe, travel, real estate, and mobile services.
Before working for Naspers, Mr. Rippel spent nine years at eBay – first in his home country Germany and then as part of the Asia-Pacific region in China, Korea, and South-east Asia. There, he mostly focused on strategy, business development, as well as category management and marketing operations. Mr. Rippel is of dual Asian and European ancestry. He studied economics in Berlin, Germany and holds the INSEAD Certificate in Corporate Governance. He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization Singapore Chapter.




Asia Partners
It is widely believed that domestic travellers are more difficult, demanding customers. Was this borne out in hotel reviews in 2020 when most travel was local? Did negative reviews outnumber positive ones? Does culture have something to do with it? We ask someone who’s paid a lot of attention to this space to do an analysis and share her insights.




Accor
Emilie has been engaged in the ACCOR adventure for the past 19 years with different roles in the Sales & Distribution, Guest Experience and more recently as head of the Digital Marketing for Asia Pacific. Her passion for travel has led her from Paris to Asia where she settled 15 years ago. Bangkokian at heart, she now calls Singapore home.




Accor
As part of our “Bridging China with Asia” series in collaboration with TravelDaily, we put the spotlight on China’s second largest hotel company by number of rooms, HUAZHU Group (NASDAD:HTHT), which has made moves into the luxury and upscale segment. Once on an expansion path, has Covid changed its plans? How is it thinking differently about its products and future? What secrets can it share about winning AC, whether locally or globally?
Interviewer:
Joseph Wang
Chief Commercial Officer
TravelDaily
Speaker:




HUAZHU Group
Mr. Nong Xia is a well‐respected leader in China’s hospitality industry. Prior to joining China Lodging, Nong Xia built a dynamic career as he held integral roles over the past 20 years in multinational hotel companies including the China JV of PVCP Group, the leading resort and tourism real estate company in Europe (Groupe Pierre et Vacances ‐ Center Parcs, Paris: PAC) where he was the President and Chief Executive Officer, Starwood Hotels & Resorts where he served as the Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Development for Greater China, and Hyatt Hotels Corporation as Senior Vice President of Real Estate & Development.
Over the past a few years, Nong Xia has been focusing on the leisure and tourism industry where he developed the Chinese version of the European family resort including the brands of Sunparks and Pierre et Vacances, which have successfully entered into a dozen beautiful countryside locations and tourism destinations. In the field of luxury hotels, Nong Xia has been responsible for the development of various renowned international brands. His impassioned talent has helped him orchestrated nearly 200 hotel development deals including award‐winning landmark of Park Hyatt Beijing Hotel & Residence, Andaz Shanghai and Park Hyatt Sanya Sunny Bay Resort & Spa.
Nong Xia’s contribution to the China’s hospitality industry has been widely recognized. His award accolades include “Best Hotel Development Executive of Asia”, “World Hotel Top 10 Influential Figures” and “Top 10 Hoteliers of the Year”. With his intensive education and profession background, Nong Xia not only puts all his heart into hotel development but also shares a very unique insight both into building world‐class hotel brand and innovations in hospitality operation.
Nong Xia graduated from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan with a B.A. in Economics; and holding an M.B.A degree from the Booth Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. Nong Xia gained valuable experiences in the financial industry by working for Asian leading investment banking firm, Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.
On his spare time, Nong Xia is an enthusiastic runner and has completed six full marathons.




HUAZHU Group
What happened to travel searches when the world went local? What signals can we glean from this quick analysis of search patterns on how consumers are dreaming and thinking about travel? Could it give us clues as to which light is coming on first, at the end of the tunnel? We go searching for the answers with the world’s biggest search engine.




Hermione is a leader with 15 years’ experience in sales, marketing, strategy and business development in the technology & travel sector.
Hermione leads the APAC Travel team for Google’s Large Customer Sales business, working with leading online travel agents, airlines & hotel chains to develop digital business strategy & products for Asian consumers. Additionally she oversees the APAC Vertical search team, who help clients adopt our more technical solutions such as Hotel Ads, and work with our Product & Engineering team to build products for our region. Prior to this, Hermione worked in Google’s Sydney office managing major Retail clients.
Before her time at Google, she worked in the TV industry for 4 years, working for 7media West running the Key Accounts team. When she launched her career she started in Creative Advertising working initially for M&C Saatchi and then TBWA in Sydney.
Hermione was educated in Sydney Australia, completing a degree in Economics & Social Sciences from Sydney University and was awarded the Young Citizen of the Year (2009) by the Woollahra Mulinciptilty.
Hermione now lives in Singapore, and has done so for six & a half years. She is a mum to three young children and a Red Kelpie, and is an incredibly passionate traveler.




The shophouse is to Penang as the ryokan is to Japan and villas are to island destinations such as Phuket. All represent authentic experiences in their respective destinations and were desired by inbound travellers. Their stories of heritage and culture resonated with foreign guests and in the last few years, ryokans in Japan opened their doors to foreign guests in line with Japan’s inbound tourism boom. How did each of these entrepreneurs adapt DC, and how are they preparing for an AC world? Should they adjust their experience for a local and regional customer, because longhaul may take a while to return? Plus, we take a bird’s eye view of the impact on local economies in tourism-dependent destinations.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Setting The Stage:
Margaux Constantin
Partner, Dubai/Public & Social Sector Practice
McKinsey & Company
Panelists:




Georgetown Heritage & Hotels, Malaysia
Investment banker turned international hotelier Chris Ong, first ventured into the hospitality business together with his then partner, Karl Steinberg, when they moved to Sri Lanka in 2003. He bought a 17th-century Dutch mansion in Galle and restored it into a 12-suite heritage boutique hotel and named it “Galle Fort Hotel”. In 2007, Galle Fort Hotel was one of the recipients of the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award of Distinction in recognition of the conservation work done on it. In 2011, it was sold to a Sri Lankans public company and remains to this day as one of Sri Lanka’s top hotels.
Upon returning home to Penang in 2007 due to family reason, in 2007, he purchased a decrepit Anglo-Indian bungalow in Clove Hall Road on what was once the Sarkies Brothers estate. Chris lovingly restored it and turned it into a 5-suite cozy heritage boutique hotel. Clove Hall was his first project in Penang, which was later sold when the purchaser made him an offer he could not refuse.
George Town, Penang, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008 which spurred Chris on to save more heritage buildings in the core heritage zone. In 2009, two more properties were added to his portfolio, namely Muntri Mews. and Noordin Mews. Noordin Mews was sold during its first month of operation when once again, Chris was made an offer he could not turn down. Chris then used the gains from the sale to save more crumbling buildings.
Where others saw decay and neglect, Chris could visualize grace and beauty. Very shortly after that, more properties were acquired namely,Seven Terraces. and Muntri Grove. and the latest addition to the list is Jawi Peranakan Mansion. which started operations in January 2017. Each hotel showcases a range of 19th-century architecture, integral to Penang’s history and heritage, with interiors which are hip and yet comfortable for today’s living.
George Town Heritage & Hotels (GTHH) is now a portal for Chris Ong’s portfolio of hotels to better serve guests with seamless bookings, reservations, and inquiries for each of the hotels in the group. In the near future, GTHH will also serve as an information hub for Penang’s cultural events.
George Town Heritage & Hotels is at your service and invites you to experience the uniqueness it has to offer.




Georgetown Heritage & Hotels, Malaysia




Co-founder & CEO, PerkUP, Japan
Aya Aso is the Founder & CEO of SAVVY Collective Co., Ltd, and co-founder & CEO of PerkUP, Japan.
Prior to her new venture, she was the founder & ex-CEO of AGORA Hospitalities Co., Ltd., founded in 2007 with a strong vision to establish “A Collection of Beautiful Japan”, a collection of boutique hotels and Japanese traditional ryokans throughout Japan. She has been actively expanding it’s portfolio comprises of 13 boutique hotels and traditional Japanese ryokans. Prior to AGORA, she was a Senior Vice President of Business Development for ISHIN Hotels Group.
Her hospitality career began at the Sheraton Grande Los Angeles, from which she moved to the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel. Returning to her roots, she later joined Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Japan, and then PricewaterhouseCoopers BPO Japan K.K. as financial accountant, after which she took on the role of Executive Director of Operations at Space Design Inc. to develop and operate 14 serviced apartments in Tokyo.
Aya graduated from the University of Southern California (USA) with a Bachelor of Music from Thornton School of Music, Piano Performance. She is also a Certified Public Accounting (CPA) and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from University of Wales (UK).




Co-founder & CEO, PerkUP, Japan




Montara Hospitality Group
Kittisak (Kitt) Pattamasaevi is the Chief Executive Officer for Montara Hospitality Group. Montara owns and manages Phuket’s most exclusive pool villa beach resort TRISARA, Bangkok’s only river mansion boutique hotel PRAYA PALAZZO, and the innovative movie house-turn-hotel PRINCE THEATRE HERITAGE STAY in Bangrak.
In his previous role at Montara, Kitt leveraged his private equity and investment banking experience to facilitate the acquisition of boathouse, a critically acclaimed Phuket beach resort and restaurant, which Montara also currently owns and manages.
Kitt received his MBA from Harvard Business School. At HBS, he served as COO for Hospitality & Travel Industry Club. Prior to that, he graduated Cum Laude from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research. Outside of his work at Montara, Kitt serves as a director of Niyom Pattamasaevi Foundation, which sponsors scholarships and supports rural elementary schools in Northern Thailand.




Montara Hospitality Group
Imagine. You have 1,252 rooms in one hotel and 778 rooms in the other. Throw in 70,000 square feet of event space. Oh, and wait, your hotel is situated in small city state of 5.89m people where there is almost zero domestic market, and you’re mostly about corporate travel and MICE business? How do you survive a global pandemic which shuts down borders, where your staff are at the frontline, where all your revenues dry up almost immediately? Yes, it’s been quite a ride for the Raffles City Convention Centre and its two hotels, Swissotel The Stamford and Fairmont. Let’s dig into the case study of how this city property rode it out, adjusted its business and the cool things it’s done in the past 12 months, from farming to IT.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Fairmont Singapore and Swissôtel The Stamford
Marcus moves over from the Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay, where he has been the General Manager since 2015. Marcus has been with AccorHotels for 13 years and brings with him a wealth of experience, having held various management positions, initially at Sofitel Melbourne, then as the opening General Manager at Pullman at Sydney Olympic Park; this was later followed by General Manager assignments at Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach and Sofitel Brisbane Central. He was also Project Manager for AccorHotels’ management of the Qantas First Class Lounges. The RC Hotel complex comprises the Fairmont Singapore, Swissôtel The Stamford Singapore and Raffles City Convention Centre.




Fairmont Singapore and Swissôtel The Stamford
In this session, where anything goes, we throw out our lifeline to a foreigner trapped in paradise as he shares the joys and pains of being confined to a local world when once he roamed freely like the global soul he is.




Agoda
Timothy Hughes is the Vice President Corporate Development of Agoda (a Priceline Company). Timothy is a “retired” blogger and pundit. Previously he was the editor and publisher of one of the top online travel industry blogs (the BOOT: the Business Of Online Travel) and a writer at Tnooz.
Tim is a former lawyer and venture capitalist. As a venture capitalist and consultant he helped a number of start-ups (inside and outside travel) secure funding, set up online media companies, managed investments in public companies and held regular client briefing sessions for a brokerage house. As lawyer he represented technology, new media, Internet, telecommunications and broadcasting clients in Australia, Europe and Hong Kong.
He first joined the online travel industry in 1999 and has worked for top tier online travel companies in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Tim has a Bachelor of Commerce and Hons Law Degree from the Australian National University.




Agoda




WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.




WiT




Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.




Travelstart
Interviewer:






Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.






Travelstart




Lucid Ventures
Gidon is the founder of Lucid Ventures. He is also well known as the founder of kulula.com. His recent project is Lift Airlines, the first airline in Africa coming out of covid. He spent twelve years in the tough airline industry, where he innovated and redefined the airline space. He also launched the SLOW Lounge Concept. After leaving the airline industry he spent three years at Discovery as the CEO of Vitality and Head of Digital. He is a qualified CA(SA) and has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management.




Lucid Ventures
Before Covid (BC), there was already a flight of capital to quality and it looked like heady days were over for companies chasing unprofitable growth. Then Covid came along and stopped global unicorns in their tracks. What happened to the investment ecosystem During Covid (DC), and how are investors viewing the changed landscape After Covid (AC). We put the spotlight on investors.
Moderator:




Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.




Travelstart




Acuity Ventures
Lexi Novitske is a venture investor driving growth in the companies that form the foundation of sub-Saharan Africa’s robust digital marketplace. After becoming jaded of the New York hedge fund scene, Lexi moved to Lagos, Nigeria—Africa’s largest city, and home to the continent’s most active startup ecosystem. In search of a greater impact, she launched private-capital backed Singularity Investments in 2014. Lexi supports entrepreneurs building Africa’s growth companies, which span fin-tech, AI, logistics, and health-tech companies, including market-leaders such as Flutterwave and mPharma. Lexi is currently Managing Partner of Acuity Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early to growth-stage technology companies in Africa. Lexi is a Chartered Financial Analyst and Kauffman Fellow.




Acuity Ventures




and Founder, Nire Capital
20 years seasoned tech investor. Founder / Partner at Base capital. Head quartered in Cape Town. Invest globally across all stages, from seed to listed shares, with a focus on marketplace and software businesses.
Previous head of investments and M&A at Naspers Africa and MENA.




and Founder, Nire Capital
There is no doubt that there’s pent-up demand for travel, especially to the much-loved parts of Africa. How can destination marketers read the signals and act on customer intent? Hear the latest first-party data from Expedia Group Media Solutions that shows the latest travel shopping and booking behaviours that will help you as you plan your 2022 marketing strategies.




Expedia Group Media Solutions
Myriam Younes is a director of business development at Expedia Group Media Solutions, where she is responsible for driving business development in EMEA and India. Along with her team, Myriam oversees client business and partnerships for travel brands and non-travel brands, and provides strategic guidance to help them reach audiences across the vast network of Expedia Group travel brands and global sites.
Prior to joining Expedia Group Media Solutions in 2012, Myriam worked for JacTravel, where she was responsible for travel agency sales internationally. She has a wealth of international, tourism and hospitality career experience, and has worked with brands such as Atout France, Moroccan National Tourism Board, Egyptian Tourism Authority, Air France, Hilton and Accor.
Myriam is a graduate of Toulouse Business School in France, with a Master’s in Management, and currently is based in Madrid.




Expedia Group Media Solutions
How did Yanolja, which started out 17 years ago as an aggregator of small and medium-sized accommodation in South Korea, grow into one of travel’s most successful unicorns, now expanding globally? In July, it received a US$1.7 billion investment from Softbank to fuel its expansion and it has identified Africa as a new market of opportunity. We have a conversation with the executive, responsible for the transformation and expansion of this hospitality tech startup, to go under the hood and take lessons from its scaleup.
Interviewer:




WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.




WiT




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud
Jong Yoon Kim is the CEO of Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud, leading all strategic management of businesses regarding domestic/international accommodation and leisure activity platforms and cloud-based hospitality solutions. He also oversees the company’s ongoing expansion efforts with responsibility for investment attraction & corporate acquisition strategies.
As a digital professional and business strategy expert, Kim is leading the company to grow 2X bigger per year while spearheading the digital transformation of travel and leisure industry.
Prior to joining Yanolja in 2015, Kim worked across several innovative brands and sectors including 3M, Google, and McKinsey & Company




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud
Interviewer:






Travelstart
Stephan Ekbergh married father of 4, lives in Cape Town. Ex professional DJ for 10 years. Entrepreneur in Travel. Started the E-commerce revolution in Scandinavia 1999. Is now doing the same in Africa. Passion for releasing gifts and entrepreneurship with people. Writes and speaks about business, life and taking risks. Investor and active boardmember, also works with and finances non profits organization Thembalitscha foundation.






Travelstart




Amadeus
Entrepreneur, Experienced Managing Director, Experienced board member, Non Exec Board Member experience, Digital expert, International and multicultural mind-set, People management, Strong networking, M&A Expertise, P&L Management, change management, restructuring, results driven.
Over my 25 years senior leadership tenure working for multi-billion euros market cap companies – in local, regional and global roles – I take pride to have successfully helped businesses transform and adapt to the digital space, driven year on year growth above market average as Head of Business Unit for Amadeus, developed and internationalized a subsidiary we bought in 2006 to become market leader in the UK, Spain and France, and successfully founded and sold my company to Amadeus in 2004 after making it the number one IT solution provider for independent hotels chains in France.
The professional experience, which I benefit from to deliver results, encompasses over 18 years in the digital and online space, with a proven track record. Turning or setting up organizations into a start-up and sales development mindset and general management of organizations with complex governance.
The individual skills which helped me succeed are: a true multicultural background (having lived and worked in Lebanon, UK, France, Cyprus, United Stated, Germany and Switzerland), anticipating industry trends, digital expertise, entrepreneurial behavior and an efficient reader of people.




Amadeus
There’s no doubt that fintech and payments have been a breakout sector during Covid. It happened across South-east Asia and it’s happening across Africa, two regions that share a lot of common characteristics, especially in the size of of its unbanked population. We uncover the key trends and opportunities in this sector.
Moderator:




Travelstart
Paulina is the Group Chief Commercial Officer at Travelstart, a leading OTA in Africa and the Middle East with 10 years experience in travel technology and 16 years in e-commerce in Africa. Paulina has held numerous executive titles including CTO, CDO and Managing Director, with a focus in online marketing, travel technology and air supply.




Travelstart




Stitch
Andrew is the Chief Operating Officer at Stitch. Having graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor’s in Economics, Andrew has dedicated his career to building and rebuilding. He started his career in the public sector, on the post-conflict recovery team with the United Nations in Iraq, after which he joined Bain & Company to advise Fortune 100 companies in the United States. Over the past three years, he’s worked to build a number of startups in emerging markets, including Yalelo, a fish farm based in Zambia, and JUMO at which he operated as the Head of Strategy to lead the business’ expansion into new markets. Today, he leads distribution and business development at Stitch, a data and payments API company enabling fintechs and fintech-embedded businesses to build novel products such as one-click bank transfers on their platform.




Stitch




Nightsbridge
Theresa started NightsBridge in 2004 with her husband and business partner, Neil. The channel manager, property management system and payment solutions NightsBridge offer filled a gap in the market for independent, smaller establishments, which are a feature of the Sub-Saharan travel landscape. Her previous experience in desktop publishing and design; economic & policital research; as well as entrepreneuship development & consultancy across Africa stood her in good stead to develop the critical tools to assist small and medium tourism businesses.




Nightsbridge




Mastercard Middle East Africa
Virginia Reinecke is a seasoned Commercial payments expert having worked in the industry since 2003. As the MEA Commercial lead, she is responsible for defining and executing the overall Product strategy for Commercial and critical segments such as SME, T&E, and B2B. The responsibilities include the go-to-market approach, pricing, distribution, and portfolio optimization. Commercial Products Solutions presents a significant opportunity for MEA region. The program has experienced substantial growth in the last few years, being one of the leading segments for Mastercard.
Since joining Mastercard in 2013 Virginia (“Jimi”) has served as the Commercial lead for South Africa and more recently Southern Africa. During this time Virginia was instrumental in defining and executing the Commercial strategy for SA that is differentiating us in the market and helping us gain market share in the division. Prior to joining Mastercard, Virginia spent most of her working life with the Citi EMEA Commercial card business serving in roles across Implementation, Product and Sales with key achievements being launching their local card operations in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. Virginia started her career at Westpac Bank in Australia. She is married with two children, and enjoys playing team sports.




Mastercard Middle East Africa
Highlighting the best of Africa’s travel startups that had their breakout moment during the pandemic, and how they see the future.
Moderator:




Innovation City Cape Town
Kieno Kammies was born on June 7, 1974 in Cape Town South Africa. He is a South African radio presenter who hosts a breakfast talk show on 567 Cape Talk, having previously hosted shows on some of the top stations in South Africa.
Kieno started out in this industry making tea and coffee at Reuters International, a skill that eventually saw him becoming a cameraman, video editor, producer, working for the likes of Reuters, Worldwide TV News and the SABC.




Innovation City Cape Town




Treepz Inc.




Treepz Inc.




Afriktrip




Afriktrip




Conservation Club




Conservation Club
Interviewer:




Innovation City Cape Town
Kieno Kammies was born on June 7, 1974 in Cape Town South Africa. He is a South African radio presenter who hosts a breakfast talk show on 567 Cape Talk, having previously hosted shows on some of the top stations in South Africa.
Kieno started out in this industry making tea and coffee at Reuters International, a skill that eventually saw him becoming a cameraman, video editor, producer, working for the likes of Reuters, Worldwide TV News and the SABC.




Innovation City Cape Town




Future Advisory
Professor Herman Singh is the CEO of Future Advisory, an international firm specialising in digital transformation projects in corporates, and startup acceleration. Previously Group Chief Digital Officer for the MTN Group. Before that Herman was the Managing Executive for Mobile Commerce at Vodacom. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Beyond Payments, the Innovation and New Business Incubator division of the Standard Bank Group. Herman has an MBA degree from the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) and a BSc. in Engineering from the same institution. Herman lectures at Wits and GIBS (Gordon Institute of Business Science) on their MBA and Executive Development programmes.




Future Advisory
Featuring “My Dream Trip” by




Marina Bay Sands
As the Senior Vice President – Marketing for Marina Bay Sands, Maunik leads the marketing organization in developing and delivering a strong brand proposition and alignment to the service culture for Marina Bay Sands. Data, analytics and technology are at the core of the personalized and seamless customer experience he is charged with developing for the brand. Maunik started his career in revenue management for hotels, working with brands such as Taj Hotels, Le Meridien and Starwood, in India, Bahrain and Dubai, before moving to Macau to join the pre-opening team for the Venetian Macau and other Las Vegas Sands properties. With the experience of the casino industry, he moved to Singapore where he is based now, as part of the pre-opening team at Marina Bay Sands with the remit of extending the revenue optimization practice across the casino as well, before transitioning to lead the marketing function at the Integrated Resort.
Maunik holds an MBA in International Hospitality Management from IMHI in Paris, a program jointly administered by Cornell University, USA and ESSEC, France. His personal interests lie in travel and he has always had a desire to live and work in different parts of the world, learning about different cultures. He also serves on the HSMAI Asia Pacific Digital Marketing Advisory Board and has been involved with the organization for several years.




Marina Bay Sands
He’s one of travel’s most colourful and outspoken leaders and personalities, and he’s also proven his longevity in the business. After all, it was back in 1973 when he and two mates bought a couple of double-decker buses in England and began Top Deck Travel. Armed with that experience, he returned home to Australia in 1981, established Flight Centre and grew the business into a global travel empire. You can thus bet that no virus is going to knock “Skroo” down. In this episode, the Australian entrepreneur takes centrestage to talk about the biggest crisis ever to hit travel, how he’s steered his group globally through the crisis and his outlook on the future.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Flight Centre Limited
Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner was raised near Stanthorpe, and trained as a veterinary surgeon. In 1973, he and two mates bought a couple of double-decker buses in England and began a holiday travel company, Top Deck Travel. With only a bus load of energy, entrepreneurship and youthful exuberance, they organised bus tours to the continent and parts of North Africa. By 1980 the business had a fleet of seventy to eighty buses. Old Top Deckers still look back on those times with enormous pleasure, celebrated in the book Top Deck Daze.
In 1981, Skroo returned to Australia and established the Flight Centre travel business. It was an opportune moment as the airline ticketing industry had recently been deregulated, allowing the sale of discounted tickets for the first time. Under Skroo’s dynamic leadership Flight Centre took off, providing the cheapest possible pricing, deriving profits from the volume of sales.
Skroo floated the company in 1995, as much to allow employees to become part owners of the business as to raise capital. Fifty percent of the staff bought shares.
Graham Turner – In recognition of creating Australia’s leading domestic and international travel sales business through outstanding entrepreneurship and innovation.
Graham Turner is not your usual corporate leader. He remains down to earth without the need to surround himself with the trappings of his success. The financial bottom line at Flight Centre is important, but it has been achieved because Skroo also believes in empowering employees, rewarding initiative and fostering the spirit of a large tribe throughout the company. There are no extra perks for senior executives at Flight Centre unless everyone gets them.
Flight Centre has prospered, despite the Global Financial Crisis: in August 2010 its market capitalisation was $1.9 billion. The company is now truly international, operating approximately two thousand agencies and businesses in eleven countries, with 8000 staff. While Flight Centre is the flagship brand, the company has expanded into specialised markets under a range of brand names.
Shareholders will be more than pleased that Graham Turner hopes to continue at the helm of the business for years to come. His nickname, Skroo, acquired as a school boy, derives from the then famous Turner brand of screw drivers. In making an outstanding contribution to business in Queensland and Australia, Skroo has demonstrated great vision, high energy and entrepreneurial spirit.




Flight Centre Limited
In a world gone local, where your home is has come to mean a lot. Travel brands based in huge domestic markets, with strong domestic play, have thrived better than those that relied on cross-border travel. And 18 months into the pandemic, we are seeing the shift towards homegrown brands solidifying and strengthening their positions at home, and giving them a solid base on which to expand. Not to mention new funds – in the past month, South Korea’s Yanolja has raised US$1.7b, India’s Ixigo, after securing US$53m in funding, is headed for an IPO and Vietnam’s VNLife, which owns VNTravel, garnered $250m in Series B funding. We go under the hood of this development.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panellists:




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud
Jong Yoon Kim is the CEO of Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud, leading all strategic management of businesses regarding domestic/international accommodation and leisure activity platforms and cloud-based hospitality solutions. He also oversees the company’s ongoing expansion efforts with responsibility for investment attraction & corporate acquisition strategies.
As a digital professional and business strategy expert, Kim is leading the company to grow 2X bigger per year while spearheading the digital transformation of travel and leisure industry.
Prior to joining Yanolja in 2015, Kim worked across several innovative brands and sectors including 3M, Google, and McKinsey & Company




Yanolja & Yanolja Cloud




ixigo
Aloke Bajpai is the Co-Founder & Group CEO of ixigo. A travel industry veteran, he has worked in various product and technology roles at Amadeus, France, prior to launching ixigo in 2007. A big supporter of entrepreneurship, Aloke is a key investor and advisor for several startups and accelerators and a charter member of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE). Aloke is an IIT Kanpur alumnus and an MBA graduate from INSEAD.




ixigo
It’s been called the year of the roadtrip. In countries and regions with big drive markets and where domestic and regional tourism have been allowed, consumers are favouring the road over air. According to Expedia Group, comparing search dates in Jun/2021 vs May/2021, for car rental pickup dates in July, searches are up just over 135% MoM. In this session, we speak to entrepreneurs who have made the road their home and have made roadtrips possible for customers, whether locally or globally.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panellists:




Road.Travel
Nikita Dedik is the Founder and CEO of Road.Travel. Prior to starting his first company Timescenery in 2015, he had been involved in various high-load projects – media projects, online platforms and social networks, first as a systems programmer and later as a CTO. A passionate traveller and a big believer in technology, he wasn’t satisfied with the state of online trip planning apps, so he decided to take the next step in the evolution of travel tech.




Road.Travel




Dream Drive (WiT Startup of the Year 2020)
Jared is the founding member of Dream Drive which is bringing vanlife to Japan.
Dream Drive builds premium campervans in Tokyo, the campers can be owned or rented fully equipped with everything you need to travel Japan freely.
Japan has the perfect infrastructure for campervan travel, with great roads, hot spring bathhouses and free parking for vans all through out Japan, Dream Drive believes that supply of great campers will be the key.




Dream Drive (WiT Startup of the Year 2020)




Singapore Sidecars
Simon Wong is Co-Founder of Singapore Sidecars, a Social Enterprise that gives heritage tours on a fleet of Vespa Sidecars, many of them hand restored vintages made in Singapore in the 1960’s. The company supports any cause that comes knocking, including Children’s Cancer Foundation, National Cancer Centre, Dolma Foundation for Nepal’s earthquake recovery, and recently the Red Cross’ international efforts to overcome the pandemic. This also includes a local Sidecar Food Aid initiative where Sidecars dropped food donations to medical frontliners throughout April-May 2020 and again during the recent soft lockdown.
Simon is also a T’ai Chi practitioner whose training began over 30 years ago. Along the way he has experienced T’ai Chi to be a potent self-transformational medium – and a perfect self-healing and recuperative modality. Simon’s martial arts skills have been applied to stage and screen – while in the UK he did two professional tours with Polka Theatre in Wimbledon Broadway and Soho’s Yellow Earth Theatre, as a lead and supporting physical theatre actor making use of his T’ai Chi skills in live performance. He recently Co-Founded Ji Academy with Sherwin Loh, where he teaches Tienji Method, a style of practise inspired by his late T’ai Chi Grandfather Yang Tienji who lived enjoying perfect health until the age of 94, often seen pulling off 3 fingered push ups all the way into his 80’s.
Current plans include a new motorsport event with STB: the Sidecar Grand Prix, together with Greg Thornton, a 3 time Historic Formula 1 World Champion, TV Personality and Sports Host Nikki Muller and the events veterans of Imagine+.
He believes in living harmoniously, expressing one’s authentic self all along the way.




Singapore Sidecars
What happens when the world shuts down and suddenly, the world you knew, the markets you counted on to attract visitors become out of bounds? And the only market left is your home, which had no natural domestic market? How do you flip thinking, re-orchestrate strategies, roll out tactical campaigns to stoke demand from customers to whom home is familiar territory? This is a story of a destination that had to save itself at home, create a market at home and yet not lose ground in a competitive world when the world opens up again. How do you market a destination in a pandemic?
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Singapore Tourism Board
As Assistant Chief Executive (Marketing Group) of the Singapore Tourism Board, Ms Lynette Pang is responsible for building the Singapore destination brand globally and helms the international marketing efforts, driving the consumer-centric and yield-driven approach to marketing.
Her role as ACE Marketing gives her responsibility for brand strategy and global campaigns, corporate and consumer communications, marketing partnerships, digital and content, industry marketing, agency management and marketing capability development.
In her previous role as Executive Director, Arts & Entertainment, Lynette was responsible for the strategic development of the Arts and Entertainment sectors for tourism contribution. She also held a concurrent position as Executive Director, F1 & Sports, overseeing the growth of sports tourism. Lynette had also managed the Enrichment (Healthcare and Education) portfolio in STB previously.
Before joining STB, Lynette was General Manager at leading theatre company, Singapore Repertory Theatre and held marketing leadership positions at Yahoo! Asia and at film distributor, Warner Bros. Theatrical. She started her marketing career at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising where she worked on the Singapore Tourism Board account.
Lynette graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Sociology and completed an Honours in English Literature. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Singapore International Film Festival and Arts House Limited.




Singapore Tourism Board
With an end, a beginning. As we come to the end of our Travel Roadshow series, it’s time to take a pause, huddle around the campfire, recall special moments on this journey, share key learnings and prepare for the next leg of the journey – yes, the Road to WiT Experience SG 2021 starts here. Welcome Home.
Featuring:




Marina Bay Sands
Mr Ong Wee Min serves as the Vice President of MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions & Exhibitions) at Marina Bay Sands.
In this role, he is responsible for the overall management of the Sands Expo & Convention Centre to ensure its continued success as the top business events and MICE venue in the region.
Prior to his promotion, Weemin was the Executive Director of Sales at Marina Bay Sands and is responsible for Marina Bay Sands’ sales and marketing processes and activities for the various market segments in Association Meetings, Tradeshows and Events both locally and internationally.
In this role, he is responsible for bringing in various first-to-Asia trade shows and exhibitions to Marina Bay Sands. These include iconic events such as Maison & Objet Asia, Lions Club International Convention, Tax Free World Association Asia Pacific and Milipol Asia.




Marina Bay Sands




GEVME & GlobalSign.In
Veemal founded GSI in 2006, architected and coded the very first software platform of the company. GSI is today a leading event tech company with offices in Singapore, Australia, India, Myanmar and the US. Having graduated from the National University of Singapore with a degree in Computer Science, Veemal remains at the forefront of technology and spearheads the software products being crafted at GSI. GSI’s core SaaS product is GEVME, the award-winning enterprise event ticketing & marketing platform.




GEVME & GlobalSign.In




WiT
Yeoh Siew Hoon is the founder of WIT, launching it in Singapore in 2005 and going on to launch WIT editions across Asia Pacific. In 2016, WIT Europe made its debut in London, days after the Brexit vote.
WIT has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year from the Singapore Tourism Board and in 2014, Siew Hoon was recognised Tourism Entrepreneur of The Year. A journalist by profession and passion, she’s also a speaker and facilitator at events around the world.
She’s also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries” and children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon”.




WiT
Few journalists have visited, scrutinised and written about as many boutique hotels and luxury resorts, all the while pondering their positive impact as much as Juliet. A freelance travel journalist, editor and broadcaster in the mainstream media in the UK, founding editor of Mr & Mrs Smith and founder of consultancy bouteco.co, an independent authority on sustainable design-led hotels, she celebrates the power of travel to do good. Her book, Travel: Easy Tips for the Eco-friendly Traveller, was recently published by Ebury, an imprint of Penguin. In this conversation, she shares her views as a traveller and the changes Covid will bring to travel.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Condé Nast Traveller/ BoutecoLoves.com




Condé Nast Traveller/ BoutecoLoves.com
Yes, we all know there will be pent-up demand and that will carry us through into recovery but surely we can do better than that and truly offer “beautiful travel” to the customers willing to get back on the road. We speak to those who are in the frontline, reading customer sentiment and creating new products and experiences and find out how they are thinking about the sweet spot.
Moderator:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Panelist:




Solo Female Travelers




Solo Female Travelers




Asian Trails
Laurent Kuenzle, 52, was born with a pioneering spirit of travel in his blood.
Born, raised and educated in Zug, Switzerland, Kuenzle started his travel career as a 20-year-old trainee at Kuoni Travel Ltd in Hong Kong in 1988 before taking up his first management post at Kuoni Travel in Seoul, Korea. Three years later he was transferred by Kuoni Travel to Osaka, Japan as operations manager.
During his time in Japan, he developed an interest in Indochina and Myanmar, a region which, after decades of war, civil unrest and closed door policies, was opening up to foreign visitors.
He took the opportunity in 1995 to join Bangkok-based Diethelm Travel as the managing director of their offices in Cambodia. He also became the Honorary Consul of Switzerland to the Kingdom of Cambodia.
In 1997 he moved to Yangon to head the offices in Myanmar. He quickly built a reputation as a pioneer by opening up many new areas of the Indochina and Myanmar region to tourism. He became an advisor to government bodies and tourism organizations.
In 1999, he co-founded a new Destination Management Company (DMC), Asian Trails Ltd, which opened for business on 9.9.99 in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar followed by Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia and China. www.asiantrails.travel and www.asiantrails.com.
In 2006, Kuenzle became the Group Managing Director based in Bangkok and in 2014 the CEO Asian Trails Group, a position he holds to the current time.
Under his leadership Asian Trails has become one of the leading DMCs in Asia operating 33 own offices in 8 countries with a staff force of 700 managers and staff. Asian Trails prides itself on its extensive specialized knowledge and expertise that has been the cornerstone of a ‘yes, we can’ attitude.




Asian Trails




Booking.com
Nuno Guerreiro joined Booking.com in 2007 and was appointed Regional Director for South Asia, Oceania & Chains in October 2020. Based in Singapore, Nuno leads on operations, business development and strategy for South Asia and Oceania – vibrant and emerging markets across the region.
Nuno has served in a variety of regional leadership roles across his native Portugal, France, Brazil and Canada. Most recently he was Regional Manager for Global Chains based in Singapore. Prior to this role, he was the Regional Manager for Canada based out of Toronto.
Nuno graduated from the University of Algarve with a Licentiate Degree in Hospitality Management. With his passion for soccer, he was also an official referee for 10 years with the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol in Portugal.




Booking.com
With its plethora of premium lifestyle offerings, conference facilities, and attractions catered for both the business and leisure crowd, this resort destination was not spared the impact of COVID-19. The past year has thus been one of transformation – quick adaptation of offerings and reinvention of experiences for the local market, as well as embracing virtual and hybrid events through leveraging technology with a personal touch. We speak to one of the leaders behind the transformation.
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Resorts World Sentosa
Since joining Resorts World Sentosa close to a decade ago, Xue – as she’s affectionately known to her team members – has played many a role along the resort’s road to becoming Asia Pacific’s Best Integrated Resort. From managing the full spectrum of marketing for Universal Studios Singapore to building the brand equity of Halloween Horror Nights in its crucial formative years. Following the award-winning rise of the attraction and its events during her years in Resort Marketing, Xue joined the Partnerships & Events team, where she was pivotal in the creation of numerous lifestyle events. Today, as Assistant Vice President of Business Innovation, Xue brings the same energy and enthusiasm to the team, focusing on the integrated resort’s next phase growth in a post-COVID world.




Resorts World Sentosa
Brand new research by Expedia Group in partnership with Wakefield, detailing insights into what travelers value when shopping for and booking travel, and how the pandemic has shifted their perspective.




Expedia Group
Greg Schulze is the Senior Vice President and General Manager for Strategic Travel Partners at Expedia Group, representing some of the best brands in travel, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, Wotif, and Expedia Cruises. His team manages leisure and corporate relationships with Expedia Group’s travel partners, covering hotel, air, car rental, rail and cruise. He spent five years in Singapore before recently relocating back to the United States. Greg served as a director for Air Asia Expedia and is currently on the board of directors of Traveloka and the US-ASEAN Business Council. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Northwestern University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of North Carolina.




Expedia Group
Genting Cruise Lines’ World Dream was the first ship in the world to resume cruises during the pandemic, starting with Taiwan in July 2020 followed by Singapore in November 2020; and soon in Hong Kong at the end of July 2021. It’s seen interesting new trends emerge, as well as a new set of customers. How will these new customers change the way cruises are sold, packaged and operated in the future in a region that’s fairly new to cruising but heralds a new ocean of opportunity and growth?
Interviewer:
Yeoh Siew Hoon
Founder
WiT
Speaker:




Dream Cruises
With over 30 years of experience in the Asian hospitality, travel and tourism industry, Michael was named President of Dream Cruises & Head of International Sales, Genting Cruise Lines in July 2019 to lead Dream Cruises into its next chapter of growth. A Genting Cruise Lines veteran, Michael has been instrumental in developing the company’s three cruise line brands and also the Asia Pacific cruise tourism industry in the last two decades. He first joined the company in 2000 as the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Star Cruises and as General Manager for the Singapore sales and marketing division, before expanding his portfolio in 2008 as the Senior Vice President of International Sales for Star Cruises and subsequently for Dream Cruises and Crystal Cruises’ sales and marketing in Asia – reflecting the company’s brand expansion over the years.




Dream Cruises
This was one event that made everyone think about their health and sales of fitness equipment soared through the roof worldwide, as did nature walks and wellness experiences. Pundits believe this trend is here to stay. Find out how businesses on the island of Sentosa, Singapore collaborated and created a whole array of new offerings with the new health-conscious consumer in mind, products that will last way after Covid.
Moderator: