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2026 Programme
Innovation Day
Venue:
Pan Pacific Singapore
The Next Generation Leaders Powered by Booking.comBy Invite Only
Location:
Pacific 2-3, Level 1
A New Beginning: Building Purpose and Impact In Your Journeys
21 – the age when you stop being defined by where you came from and start being defined by where you go from here. It’s the age where you ask big questions of yourself: who you want to be and what you want to do.
Travel is at that age too – a moment in time when the rising stars in travel should be asking big questions of themselves too: what is my purpose, what impact do I want to have, and what kind of industry do I want to belong to? One acts as your internal compass, the other as your external navigator – often the two may not want to move in the same direction and that’s the tension that makes every career journey interesting.
This third edition is as much about marking this milestone in travel – a moment of technological, generational and societal change – as it is about preparing ourselves for the future, to become better versions of ourselves, better leaders, and better custodians of our industry. It’s about building both purpose and impact in your journeys.
Because A New Beginning starts with you.
Minimal structure, maximum participation. This two-hour closed-door roundtable for rising stars under 35 comes with a cast of coaches who will guide the room through the paces – but ultimately, it’s about you and how you seize this opportunity.
9.30AM
Checking In
Take your seat among the next generation of travel leaders.
10.00AM – 10.10AM
The Beginning
Speaker:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
10.10AM – 10.40AM
Purpose vs Impact: The Live Wire
Is your purpose driving your impact – or has chasing impact quietly started defining your purpose for you? What big questions should travel be asking to prepare for the future? What big questions should leaders be asking of themselves?
We put four leaders to the test, and throw in some personal questions as well.
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Managing Director, Asia Pacific
Booking.com

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo

Head of Commercial
HeyMax

Deputy General Counsel
Airbnb
10.40AM – 11.40AM
Coach Breakout: Purpose & Impact Lenses
Coaches:

Vice President, Global Marketing
Klook

CEO & Co-founder
Seek Sophie

Managing Director, Asia Pacific
Booking.com

Co-founder, The Reset Practice /
Adjunct Lecturer, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Director of Public Policy APAC
Airbnb
11.40AM – 11.50AM
Report Back
11.50AM – 11.55AM
The One Commitment: Where Purpose Meets Impact
Everyone walks away with a commitment to the “one thing” over the next 12 months and we revisit the year after.
11.55AM – 12.00PM
The Ending – But It’s Only The Beginning
12:00PM – 1.00PM
The Next Generation Leaders Networking Lunch
An opportunity to connect with fellow Next Generation Leaders and coaches over lunch.
The WiT Bootcamp
Location:
Pacific 2-3, Level 1
21: A New Beginning
21 years ago, WiT was a startup idea, an acorn. Today, it’s grown into a thousand oak trees across the world and did you know, Asia is home to the highest species diversity of oak trees in the world?
21 – the age of liberation and independence, when you get your own keys to determine your own future.
Travel tech is at that moment – the opportunity to be liberated from legacy tech and old mindsets, a time to plant new seeds.
A New Beginning demands we ask new questions, or old questions in a new way. What are the questions startups and investors should be asking to ride on this wave of change? We raise the questions, prompt the answers and connect the dots in this room where travel innovation for the next 21 begins.
12:30
Checking In
Settle in and get ready to roll up your sleeves.
Note: Lunch is not included for WiT Bootcamp attendees. We recommend having lunch before arriving.
12.45PM – 12.55PM
The Beginning Of The New Beginning
12.55PM – 1.05PM
Travel Turns 21: Five Shifts Defining Its Next Chapter
A look at five forward-looking shifts shaping travel, from the center of gravity moving east and the increasingly diverse Asian traveller, to fragmented demand, the changing roles of suppliers and OTAs, and the impact of AI. A perfect note to prepare us for Main Stage tomorrow.
Speaker:

Senior Manager, Research & Market Intelligence
Phocuswright
1.05PM – 1.30PM
The Secret Life of Travel Tech Investment
Investors, with different perspectives and from different regions, give an unvarnished view of where the money is going in 2026 and where it isn’t. What themes are getting funded? What mistakes have they made? What are investors tired of hearing? What do they secretly want to hear? And what are the big questions startups and investors should be asking of each other for a fresh start?
Speakers:

Venture Partner
Thayer Venture Investments

Managing General Partner
Orbit Ventures

Partner
Velocity Ventures
Moderator:

Chair
North Ridge Partners, WebBeds & Technoloy Queenstown
1.30PM – 1.50PM
Made in Fire: Hard-Won Lessons for Believers, Builders and Future Founders
The book is out, now it’s time to hear the story straight from the co-author’s mouth. For the two builders behind Ixigo, the real challenge isn’t starting; it’s keeping that fire alive while everything around you tries to put it out. Competitors. Doubt. Scale. Sometimes even your own success. We’ll get an honest account of what building a travel tech startup actually costs – the mistakes, the near-deaths, the pivots and what does it mean to continue to build, when you’ve already been at it for nearly two decades.
Speaker:

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
1.50PM – 2.10PM
Brothers & Futures: Unlocking Tours, Activities & Attractions in Asia
We get into the story of how two siblings got together – one, a banker and the other, an airline executive – to start a technology business in tours and activities. They’ve been building diligently for more than 13 years, a discipline that has won them recognition as one of Singapore’s most innovative tech startups. But in every business cycle comes a moment of reckoning. Even as their sector is ablaze with opportunity, it is also ablaze with competition. We find out how they are strengthening their business, building longevity into their B2B business model and proving their importance in the tours and activities ecosystem in Asia.
Speakers:

Co-founder & CEO
GlobalTix

Co-founder & COO
GlobalTix
Interviewer:

Board Member, Tourism Tasmania /
Founder, former CEO & Chairman, Viator
2.10PM – 2.20PM
Reset At 21
The High-Performance Traveller’s Guide to Energy and Recovery: A practical and participatory 10-minute reset designed for entrepreneurs and frequent travellers. Learn simple ways to restore movement, manage fatigue and protect your energy on a flight, in a hotel room and at home.
Speaker:

Founder & Recovery Atelier
RAPIDÉ
2.20PM – 2.45PM
Prompt Time: The Honest Answers
In this fast and furious interactive session, we prompt our startups, some of whom are just beginning and some halfway (perhaps) into their journey from seedling to sapling, with questions for which there may be no easy answers. The toughest question, we will save for the last – expect audience engagement.
Speakers:

CEO & Founder
DayAway

Co-founder & CEO
Lumitics

CEO & Co-founder
Belli

CEO & Co-founder
Seek Sophie

Co-founder
Tour Hero
Prompter:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
2.45PM – 3.00PM
Agentic AI Hackathon: The Prelude
A review of the first Agentic Hackathon organized by Alibaba Cloud and Atlas to surface the most innovation solutions in Agentic AI.
Speakers:

CEO & Founder
Atlas

VP, International Business / Regional GM
of ASEAN, Alibaba Cloud
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
3.00PM – 3.20PM
Agentic AI Hackathon Finals: Meet The Top Three
Presenting the three finalists of the first Agentic Hackathon organized by Alibaba Cloud and Atlas to surface the most innovation solutions in Agentic AI. A live panel of judges will determine the winner and the runner-ups, to be announced at the closing on Main Stage on October 2.
Finalists:

Founder & AI Systems Lead
GlobalPlanner

Founder
Northstar AI

Co-founder
YuanFen
Judges:

Principal
T2Impact

CEO & Co-founder
Wego

CEO & Founder
Atlas

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo

CEO
AchieveGo

Technical Evangelist Lead
Alibaba Cloud
Facilitator:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
3.20PM – 4.05PM
Global Startup Pitch Showcase: Meet The Seedup Winners
Following an intense Grand Finals held at Phocuswright Europe in Barcelona in June, these winners of the Global Startup Pitch (Seed-ups) get their four minutes of fame, followed by three minutes of commentary from our dragons. You get to vote for your People’s Choice, who goes on to win a spotlight at the Phocuswright Conference in Fort Lauderdale, November 17-19. The winner will be announced on Main Stage at the closing on October 2.
Facilitator:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Seedup Winners:

Founder & CEO
BizTrip AI

Founder & CEO
BookAfrica

Founder & CEO
Lobby

Co-founder & CEO
SPUN Global
(Honorary) Wild Cards:

Co-founder
Conxi

Founder
Talk to Magpie AI
Dragons:

Chair
North Ridge Partners, WebBeds & Technology Queenstown

Venture Partner
Thayer Investment Partners

Managing General Partner
Orbit Ventures

Vice President, Global Connectivity
& Partner Solutions, Expedia Group

Senior Advisor
ennea Capital Partners
4.05PM
Wrapping It Up
4:05PM – 5.00PM
Networking Coffee Break
Take a breather, continue the conversations, and enjoy the rest of your afternoon around Singapore before the Opening Party at 7:00PM.
The Global Travel Tech Thinktank by WiT, Phocuswright & PhocusWire
By Invite Only
Location:
Ocean 3-4, Level 2
We’re starting afresh this year – with a Thinktank that will open up our minds to the possibilities that now exist and could emerge in this new epoch of travel.
There are big questions ahead of us:
• What are the things worth building?
• What are the things worth fighting for?
• What are the things worth protecting?
• What are the things we must change?
• What are the things we must collaborate on?
In essence – what’s possible that wasn’t possible five years ago and, to get there, what uncomfortable truths do we have to confront?
Back for its fourth year, this closed-door, by-invite event puts 50 leaders in a room to discuss, deliberate and debate the future we wish to create – the possibilities worth building towards, the truths worth confronting and the choices we choose to make.
Hosts:
Facilitator:
5.00PM – 5.05PM
The Framing
The question is not where we have been, the question is what are we choosing to build next.
5.05PM – 5.50PM
The Possibility Brief
To get us dreaming, imagining and thinking, we will kick off with a series of thought-provoking conversations and talks..
Featuring:

Co-founder & Managing Partner
Monk’s Hill Ventures

Chief Commercial Officer
The Ascott

Principal
T2Impact
Opening Cocktails hosted by Pan Pacific Singapore
Location:
PLUME, Level 1
Join us for an evening of drinks, conversations, and connections to celebrate the start of WiT Singapore – 21: A New Beginning.
Day 1: The World As It Is
Venue:
Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre
Heliconia Ballroom, Level 3
We are entering a stage of travel where there are more questions than answers. And so this edition of WiT Singapore begins with questions around the forces that are reshaping travel. We don’t promise to have all the answers, but we promise lots of healthy debate, open conversations and smart insights.
Speaker:

WiT (Web in Travel)
Siew Hoon has been covering the travel industry beat in Asia Pacific for decades, starting off as a rookie reporter and going on to lead and launch the region’s key industry media titles. In 2005, she founded WiT (Web in Travel) to tackle how technology was changing travel in Asia Pacific and created a new space in the fast-growing, dynamic region with a dedicated media and events platform.
Over the years, she took WiT to new places, launching editions in Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Middle East, Europe, Africa and most recently New Zealand to keep the world’s attention focused on the three pillars of travel, technology and Asia.
Following the acquisition by Northstar Travel Group in 2014, she led the launch of Travel Weekly Asia and M&C Asia and formed the editorial team to execute the entry of Northstar Travel Group to Asia.
Her work has been recognised by numerous institutions including the Singapore Tourism Board which recognised her as Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014. The WiT Singapore conference, which remains its tentpole event, has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year.
In 2020, WiT Singapore became the first travel conference to go fully hybrid, paving the way for a new model in events.
Other than writing about travel, Siew Hoon is also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries”, children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon” and host of “A Life In Travel” podcast.

WiT (Web in Travel)
Act 1: The Asia Moment
His story began with a low-cost airline that transformed travel in South-east Asia. Today, his group spans five different companies, all of which came into being because he made it possible for everyone to fly. Now he wants everyone to not only fly, but buy travel, transport goods, fix their planes. What does a new beginning look like for this Malaysian-born maverick entrepreneur who paid fifty cents, nearly thirty years ago, to buy a low-cost airline? And what does it mean to build something beyond the sky?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Capital A Berhad
Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, male, 62, is a co-founder of AirAsia. He was appointed as a Non-Independent Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 30 March 2018.
Tan Sri Tony is one of Asia’s most recognisable entrepreneurs, best known for co-founding low-cost carrier AirAsia and democratising air travel in the region.
In December 2001, Tan Sri Tony, together with Datuk Kamarudin Meranun, Dato’ Pahamin Ab Rajab and Dato’ Abdel Aziz @ Abdul Aziz bin Abu Bakar, acquired struggling domestic airline, AirAsia, and with the help of Conor McCarthy, relaunched it as a pioneer of budget travel in Asia, building AirAsia into the world’s best low-cost carrier.
He studied in the UK and qualified as an Associate Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in 1991, then as a Fellow Member in 1996. He is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). An accountant by training, he began his career in Virgin Group before returning to Malaysia as Warner Music Group’s Vice President for Southeast Asia before venturing into the airline business.
Tan Sri Tony has received numerous honours and awards over the course of his career. These include the Honour of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, conferred by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2011, and the Commander of the Legion d’Honneur, awarded by the French Government for outstanding contributions to the economy of France through the aviation industry. He also received the Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM) award conferred by Yang Di Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, which carries the title Tan Sri.

Capital A Berhad
While Tony Fernandes transformed air travel, this banker-turned-entrepreneur and his co-founder set out to change the way a younger generation of Asians could discover and buy experiences by creating Asia’s first tours and activities marketplace. Twelve years on, a full cycle, they have built a brand that has gone global and a platform that has become the lens through which a new generation experiences the world. What has the journey taught him? And what does the next chapter look like for Asia’s most successful travel startup in the past decade?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Klook
A Mauritius native, educated in the U.S., Eric is an avid explorer with a multicultural upbringing that taught him to speak seven languages. Before co-founding Klook in 2014, Eric worked in finance at a global investment bank in Hong Kong, traveling extensively worldwide.
As Chief Operating Officer of Klook, Eric spearheads the company’s global expansion and oversees various business units. He is instrumental in establishing partnerships with key travel players such as Universal Studios, Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTR), Japan National Tourism Organization, Hong Kong Tourism Board, and many more. Eric’s leadership contributed significantly to Klook’s diverse offerings and the brand’s rising popularity across in the globe. Today, as one of the world’s leading travel activities and services booking platforms, Klook offers its services in eight different languages, supporting 36 currencies with localized payment methods.
Eric was featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2017 List and China’s Yicai (CBN) Brilliant 20 List, recognizing his entrepreneurial spirit and game-changing attitude. Eric has been invited to speak in various world-class tech and travel conferences including TechCrunch, RISE, WIT (Web In Travel), Phocuswright, Arival and ITB.

Klook
India is no longer a market waiting to happen – it is happening. Its outbound travel surge is among the most consequential stories in global travel today, and MakeMyTrip has been at the centre of it. But building for a billion is not the same as building for millions. The infrastructure, the expectations, the first-time traveller complexity – it demands a different kind of platform thinking. What has been learned, what still needs to be built, and what does India’s next chapter mean for the rest of Asia, and the world?
Interviewer:

CEO
Queen’s Road Capital
Speaker:

MakeMyTrip
Rajesh Magow is the Co-Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of the Company.
He has been associated with the Company since June 12, 2006 and has been a Director of MakeMyTrip (India) Ltd. since June 19, 2026. He is responsible for overseeing strategic direction, spearheading growth and shaping long term vision across the group’s portfolio.
He is an associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He has been the chair of the FICCI Committee on Tourism for 2025-2026 and is an independent director on the board of Info Edge (India) Limited.
Prior to joining the Company, he was associated with Aptech Computer Education, Technovate Data and Services Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBookers.com, and Voltas Limited (formerly known as Voltas Switchgear Limited).
He has also been elected as governing council member of Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) for the term 2025–2027.
He has been awarded the Ernst & Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year – Services’ in 2024, ‘Times Now India’s Impactful CEO’ in 2024, ‘People-Focused CEO of the Year’ at the Economic Times Human Capital Awards in 2023, and the ‘E-commerce Leader of the Year’ in the individual category, by ET Retail, in 2023.
He has experience in information technology and e-commerce industries.

MakeMyTrip
One is built on the logic of fast food – a single, scalable model, replicated across the world. The other is built on the logic of multi-brand depth and institutional scale. One is channel agnostic, the other is doubling down on loyalty and agentic commerce. Two contrasting visions of hospitality, both rooted in Asia, both reaching for the next frontier. How are they thinking about technology and growth as they build for the traveller of 2035?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Hotel 101 Global
Hannah Yulo-Luccini has served as Director of HBNB since 2024 and Chief Executive Officer of HBNB since March 3, 2025. In addition, Ms. Yulo-Luccini has served as Director and Chief Executive Officer of Hotel101 Global from 2022 to present, Chief Investment Officer of DoubleDragon Corporation, a company listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange and the indirect parent company of HBNB, from 2015 to present and Director of Chief Financial Officer of MerryMart Consumer Corp., a company listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange and an affiliate of HBNB, from 2009 to present. Ms. Yulo-Luccini has also served as Chairman and Director of Mbox Smart Lockers Corp., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2021 to present, Director of M Supplies Corp., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2009 to present, Director of Carlos Drugs-Lucena Inc., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2002 to present, Director of Z.C. Ramthel Corporation, an affiliate of HBNB, from 2009 to present, Chief Financial Officer of Beedragon Global Corp., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2021 to present, Director and Treasurer of Mevorechet Corporation from 2012 to present, Director of CanopyProperties, Inc. from 2020 to present and Director and Chief Financial Officer of Young Focus for Education and Development Foundation, a non-profit organization, from 2018 to present. Ms. Yulo-Luccini holds a bachelor of science in business administration from Palawan State University and a masters in business administration from University of St. La Salle.

Hotel 101 Global

The Ascott Limited
Tan Bee Leng is Chief Commercial Officer at The Ascott Limited (Ascott), with a dual role as Managing Director, Digital Ventures, CapitaLand Investment (CLI).
As Chief Commercial Officer for Ascott, Bee Leng spearheads the company’s commercial strategy, leading a team comprising Global Sales, Revenue & Distribution Management, Brand & Marketing, Loyalty & Partnerships, Digital Experience and Communications.
Responsible for shaping Ascott’s portfolio of 17 hospitality brands, Bee Leng’s track record in brand innovation and leadership can be seen in a global Brand360 exercise that strengthened Ascott’s portfolio with a multi-typology brand strategy.
In 2024, she led Ascott to secure the partnership deal with Chelsea Football Club as its Official Global Hotels Partner, positioning Ascott well to capitalise on the growing convergence of sports, entertainment and hospitality.
In her dual portfolio role as Managing Director, Digital Ventures for CLI, Bee Leng oversees the group’s corporate venture arm, to drive innovation through new digital business opportunities with the potential to be incubated and nurtured into impactful start-up businesses for CLI.
Prior to her current role, Bee Leng was the Head of Group Communications for CapitaLand Group, where she was responsible for its corporate and executive communications, brand strategy and reputation management. Between 2009 and 2018, she was also overseeing the philanthropic arm of CapitaLand as the General Manager of CapitaLand Hope Foundation.
Bee Leng is a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience in developing and implementing effective communication and branding strategies. She was named a winner of Women To Watch Asia Pacific 2024 by Campaign Asia-Pacific for her contributions to marketing, media and communications.

The Ascott Limited
Networking Coffee Break hosted by Nuitee
Act 2: The Provocation Moment
He has seen Asia’s technology landscape from every angle – as entrepreneur, investor, and now as one of the region’s most incisive observers of where capital flows and why. As we move from the era of scale into the era of intelligence, he asks the question the industry keeps circling but rarely answers directly: what does a genuine new beginning actually demand of us?
Speaker:

Queen's Road Capital
In 2005 Frederick “Fritz” Demopoulos co-founded and was the CEO of Qunar. Qunar was acquired by Baidu in 2011.
Fritz also co-founded and was the CEO of Shawei. Shawei was acquired by Tom.com in 2000.
Fritz held senior management positions at various online and traditional media companies in China including Netease, Hai Run Media Group and News Corporation.
Fritz currently coordinates his personal investment and entrepreneurial activities through Queen’s Road Capital.
A native of Los Angeles, Fritz was educated at UCLA, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Karls-Ruprecht University in Heidelberg. He has lectured on entrepreneurship and the Chinese Internet at Stanford, Harvard, UCLA, Tsinghua, Beijing University, Singapore Management University and the Communist Party College in Nanjing.

Queen's Road Capital
The launch of Viator almost 30 years ago was the beginning of the online market for experiences. A never ending torrent of new operators entered the market, travellers set aside their distaste for old-style guided tours, massively funded OTA players like Klook and GetYourGuide burst onto the scene, social media changed the way people search and discover, and mobile completely changed the way people book. Now AI promises – or threatens – another new beginning. What happens next?
Speakers:

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Rod is a pioneer of the global online travel industry. He was the founder, CEO & Chairman of Viator, the leading global marketplace for tour and experience products. He was subsequently the CEO & Chairman of Rome2rio, the multi-modal search engine; and is currently a non-executive director of Veltra Corporation, the Tokyo Stock Exchange listed seller of tour and experience products, and Jayride, the Sydney-based global marketplace for airport transfers. He is also a member of the board of directors of Tourism Tasmania.

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Travel distribution is changing – and Expedia Group is betting that a unified approach to its partner ecosystem is the way forward. Golan Shakéd, VP, Hotel Management Partnerships and Air, joins us to explore what that means for hotels, airlines, and the broader travel industry. From integration challenges to new opportunities, Shakéd draws on a career across travel, media and digital growth to make sense of where the model goes next — and what partners should be thinking about as the landscape evolves.
Interviewer:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Speaker:

Partnerships and Air
Expedia Group
Golan Shakéd leads global partnerships across hotels and airlines for Expedia Group. In this role, he works closely with partners to strengthen strategic relationships, unlock growth opportunities, and drive commercial performance across a fast-evolving travel landscape. A seasoned commercial and growth leader, he brings over 25 years of experience scaling digital businesses and driving high‑impact transformation across corporate, private equity, and high‑growth technology environments.
Before joining Expedia Group, Golan held senior leadership roles across travel technology, media, and gaming. At Kiwi.com, he helped steer the company through the COVID‑19 crisis, led a shift toward a more customer‑centric, direct‑to‑consumer strategy, and strengthened airline partnerships through closer collaboration. Prior to that, he served as Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at Deezer, reshaping its global commercial strategy and accelerating its move to direct‑to‑consumer across EMEA, the Americas, and APAC. He also played key roles in major fundraising and transaction milestones, including private‑equity raises, Deezer’s management roadshow, and the bwin–PartyGaming merger and subsequent acquisition by GVC Holdings. Earlier in his career, he led global campaigns for Fortune 500 brands and helped scale Celltick’s mobile business while moving the company into profitability.
Golan holds a BA in Marketing and Communications and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology. He advises early‑ and mid‑stage start‑ups and has served on the Advisory Board of the International School of London.

Partnerships and Air
Expedia Group
If data is the rails on which the future of travel sits, what are the truths we have to confront – and fix – before we can write a new beginning? OAG sits at the intersection of schedules, capacity, and connectivity data that touches every journey made on earth. This presentation brings a forensic lens to the industry’s structural realities: where the system is sound, where it is fragile, and what the numbers say about where travel goes next.
Speaker:

OAG
Gemma Timmons is Director of Operations and Chief of Staff at OAG, a 96-year-old aviation data company undergoing significant technological transformation. She brings a rare blend of strategic, investment, and operational experience in travel tech and B2B software.
At OAG, Gemma leads operational and AI transformation efforts, with a focus on modernising data infrastructure for an increasingly agentic world. She holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

OAG
The online travel agency has survived every wave of disruption thrown at it – metasearch, mobile, the pandemic, the rise of direct booking. Now comes AI. A conversation with the world’s leading OTA to assess where they stand in one of its highest growth markets, what they are building, and whether the model that made them is the model that will carry them forward in this region.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Booking.com
As Managing Director & Vice President of Asia Pacific, Laura Houldsworth leads and oversees business growth, operations and strategy for one of Booking.com’s most vibrant and diverse regions globally.
Laura joined Booking.com in June 2021, following 10 successful years at SAP Concur where she last served as Senior Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China. Laura has previously held regional roles in BCD Travel and ABN Amro Private Banking; and is a commercial leader with more than 20 years of experience managing successful, multi-cultural teams.
As a people-first leader, Laura is a keen advocate for causes such as gender equality in the workplace and sustainability. She serves as an executive sponsor for multiple employee resource groups, such as B.Equal and B.Sustainable, supporting grassroots initiatives to make Booking.com APAC a great place to work.
Laura has lived and worked in Singapore for more than 20 years and holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Marketing Management from Bournemouth University, United Kingdom.

Booking.com
Answering the question – how do we build for the traveller of 2035?
Speaker:

Wego
Ross is CEO & Co-Founder at Wego, which is online travel marketplace that provides top ranked mobile apps and websites for users living in the APAC and MENA regions. Wego harnesses powerful technology that simplifies the process of searching, comparing and booking flights and hotels across hundreds of airlines, hotels and online travel agency websites. Wego is has dual-HQs in Singpaore and Dubai and is backed by top-tier investors including Tiger Global, Crescent Group, Square Peg Capital and the MBC Group.
Ross is a veteran of the Asian internet industry having established Yahoo!s Southeast Asian operations in Singapore back in 1998 and leading product development efforts across the region for 6+ years. He is also Singapore Co-Chair of H2, the premier global leadership network for the digital industry. Ross has been an active angel investor in the technology sector for a decade and enjoys working with other passionate entrepreneurs. He has worked in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Kuala Lumpur and is now splits his time between Singapore and Dubai. He travels frequently for business but not nearly enough for leisure.

Wego
Networking Lunch hosted by Wego
Act 3: The Build
“The unlikely origin of a $2.5 billion hospitality unicorn: a bored teenager working the night shift at his family business,” so goes the headline of a recent article in Fortune of this founder whose startup, Mews, has caught the hospitality world’s attention with its bold vision, moves and acquisitions. Now it too is a crossroads as it navigates the dynamic changes unfolding in the hospitality tech space. How is it writing a new beginning in hospitality to solve its biggest problems, to please the guest?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Mews
Richard Valtr is an entrepreneur and ex-hotelier with an extensive background in hotel investment and management. Richard was educated at UCL in London before returning to his native Czech Republic where he project managed a number of property developments, culminating in the creation of the Emblem Hotel. While he was working at the property, he realized that hotel management systems had failed to keep pace with hotels or their guests, and he founded Mews to bring modern, seamless hospitality to hoteliers and guests alike. In his time at Mews, Richard has pushed hoteliers to think differently, from operations and payments to optimizing every square inch of their properties. From his Brooklyn home, he continues to provide inspirational leadership not only at Mews but for the hospitality industry.

Mews
Unlock payments and you unlock the heart of the traveller – a moment of reckoning in what the next generation of travel payments infrastructure could unlock for the industry.
Speaker:

Visa
Jay has spent over five years at Visa, holding roles across the Commercial Solutions organisation. During this time, he managed a range of Visa’s European commercial issuers before playing a key role in establishing the Global B2B Travel team. He went on to assume global responsibility for Visa’s key strategic partner within the travel vertical, helping to drive partnership strategy and commercial payments innovation across the global travel ecosystem.
Prior to Visa, Jay spent seven years at AirPlus International as Head of Sales and Partnerships, and two years at Barclaycard Commercial, building deep expertise in commercial payments and their application across the travel industry. Jay resides in North London with his wife, eleven-year-old son, and dog. He enjoys participating in sports, cooking, listening to music, and traveling.

Visa
OTAs becoming fintech players. Fintech companies selling travel. Payments criss-crossing borders, following the flow of travellers within the region. And now comes agentic commerce – what will a new beginning in payments look like with this latest tech enablement? How will the industry address increased concerns about fraud and security amid this fluid, dynamic, changing landscape? How are the leading players in this space thinking about and orchestrating for the future?
Moderator:

Vice President, Corporate Development
Agoda
Speakers:

Visa
Tania is the Global Head of B2B Travel for Visa Commercial Solutions, where she responsible for the creation and execution of the business strategy for this rapidly evolving, high growth vertical segment. Bringing more than 25 years of experience in the payments, financial services and telecommunications sectors, Tania has led successful businesses around the world. Prior to joining Visa in early 2024, she managed the Commercial team at Outpayce from Amadeus, serving the global travel ecosystem with new advances in payments. Tania has also previously held senior business development roles at American Express, MasterCard Payment Gateway Services, Vodafone and IDT.

Visa

Xendit
Trevor Spinks is Head of Travel at Xendit, where he focuses on how payments infrastructure is shaping the future of travel commerce across Southeast Asia and beyond. He brings over two decades of senior commercial leadership experience across aviation and travel technology, most recently serving as Managing Director APAC at Volantio and Chief Commercial & Customer Officer (Interim) at flyadeal, with prior leadership roles at Sojern, Scoot, and Sabre. He brings a firsthand perspective on how travel businesses are adapting to shifting traveller expectations, evolving distribution models, and the opportunities and challenges of growth.

Xendit

Greater China and Southeast Asia
Checkout.com
Yao Xiang is Head of Commercial, for Greater China and Southeast Asia, at Checkout.com, where he leads business development, market expansion, and merchant performance across the region. He joined Checkout.com in 2022 as the General Manager for Greater China.
With over 10 years of payment industry experience, Yao works alongside enterprise merchants across Ecommerce, Gaming, Digital, Online Travel Agency, and Mobility. His deep operational expertise helps businesses elevate payment performance, refine risk strategies, and scale sustainably across international markets.
Prior to Checkout.com, Yao served as Head of Account Management at Adyen China. He also held key payments and risk management positions at LightInTheBox and Booking.com.
Yao holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Renmin University of China and a Master’s degree in Financial Management from TIAS Business School in the Netherlands.

Greater China and Southeast Asia
Checkout.com
Will search survive the agentic era or gets absorbed into it? Well, Skyscanner is not sitting around and waiting for the answer. It’s putting bets that push it past flights, past search. Its summer product release included Explore with AI, a natural-language search layer built on its own data; a road trip planner and a broader bet on multi-modal travel across five growth markets, India among them. Layer in its acquisition of Longtail, sharpening its ability to price flights on real demand signal. And its CEO also believes that in an agentic era, recognition matters more, not less, when an algorithm is doing the choosing. This coffee chat puts those bets to the test.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Skyscanner
Bryan leads Skyscanner in its mission to become the world’s number one travel ally. He’s held senior international roles at Booking.com and Tesla. He was previously the Chief Operating Officer for Skyscanner, implementing the company’s long-term strategic vision across the company, which sees Skyscanner search 100 billion prices every day to help travellers plan and book their trip with ease and confidence.

Skyscanner
Networking Coffee Break hosted by Nuitee
There is a gap between wanting to travel and booking travel and it is wider than the industry admits. WiT and Phocuswright unveil findings from an exclusive study into booking anxiety across South-east Asia, part of a global research project. The findings challenge some comfortable assumptions about what holds travellers back and suggest that the next wave of growth will go to those who understand the emotional intent of the travel decision, not just its logistics.
Speaker:

Protect Group
Stephen has been a founder and entrepreneur in tech since 1995, currently serving as Global Strategy Lead – Travel & Tours at Protect Group. He has previously served as VP of Content at Arival in the experiences industry and as Executive Director for OCTO. He co-founded Rezgo, a pioneering SaaS booking platform for the experiences industry, and worked as VP of Solutions at Holibob. Stephen is passionate about the travel industry and has served as a board member and Chair of several travel industry associations including the Open Travel Alliance and OCTO. He is an avid speaker and industry analyst, and he co-hosts the Arival – Best Part of Travel Podcast where he enjoys speaking with industry experts about the current and future state of the experiences industry.

Protect Group
Act 4: The Reckoning
For this founder who’s “Made in Fire”, and has been through several fires in 18 years of building ixigo, the next fire is here and coming at us at velocity-plus. And he’s running into the flames, unflinching, and building, unfettered he believes by nothing except our imagination. Let’s find out how he is making those battle scars count in this next chapter of ixigo’s growth, how he is already rewriting the tech stack and why India might well lead the way in innovation in the next 21.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

ixigo
Rajnish Kumar is the Co-founder and Group Co-CEO of ixigo (Le Travenues Technology Ltd., listed on NSE & BSE). An IIT Kanpur alumnus in Computer Science, Kumar began his career as a software engineer at Amadeus before co-founding ixigo in 2007.
He has led the company’s product, technology, growth and AI strategy across its journey from a bootstrapped travel search engine to India’s leading OTA for the ‘next billion users’, serving over 570 million annual active users in FY26. He was honoured with the 2023 Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT Kanpur and recognised under the ‘Comeback Kid’ category at the Economic Times Startup Awards 2021.
He is an active mentor and investor in India’s startup ecosystem and the author of ‘Made in Fire’, a book on entrepreneurship, resilience and the journey of building enduring companies.

ixigo
In the age of Generative AI, everyone’s back at the same starting line. Suppliers, intermediaries, giants, startups: the map’s been redrawn, and it’s anyone’s race to win. But who’s actually moving? We reveal fresh findings from Phocuswright’s B2B AI Survey, alongside consumer data from Japan, Europe and the US, to show where the industry is placing its bets – and whether travellers are ready to follow. Where is the gap between AI ambition and traveller adoption widest? And who’s asking the right questions to win the new beginning?
Speaker:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Talkback:

Principal
T2Impact
The Agentic future is here, faster than we anticipated, and there are more questions than there are answers. Indeed, it’s throwing up a lot of questions, especially around flight distribution. The key question is, what happens next?
• Is agentic search friend or foe, before it becomes something else?
• What’s the value of price comparison in agentic search?
• How will these forces impact partner relationships?
• Will it solve the look-to-book ratio?
• Who owns the relationship with the traveller?
• What happens to the economics of distribution when the intermediary is a machine?
Questions our panellists will answer, from their different lenses.
Referee:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Speakers:

Meili
A senior travel industry executive with unparalleled experience of developing and leading global technology platforms, Mike’s ambition is for Meili to become the market leader in travel tech. As the former CEO of CarTrawler, Mike used his superior perspective on the mobility marketplace to oversee continual growth over a decade, the successful completion of two major private equity investments and multiple acquisitions. Mike’s commercial expertise and stellar track record make him uniquely qualified to guide Meili on its path to growth.

Meili

ennea Capital Partners
Lisa is a seasoned professional with 15+ years in strategy, corporate development, and M&A. As SVP of Corporate Development at Etraveli Group, she leads strategy, M&A, and partnerships for the global flight platform backed by CVC Capital Partners. She is also an angel investor, startup mentor, and member of the Hellenic Business Angel Network. Boards include the upcoming role at Nezasa.

ennea Capital Partners

Travel Sellers, Asia Pacific
Amadeus
Renaud Nicolle is the Regional Senior Vice President, Travel Sellers, Asia Pacific at Amadeus, based in Singapore. He leads the strategy and performance of the Travel Sellers business across APAC, working closely with partners to drive growth, strengthen customer collaboration, and advance next-generation travel technology.
With more than 20 years at Amadeus, Renaud has held leadership roles across France, Spain, and Asia Pacific, spanning commercial strategy, global network management, product leadership, and major account development.
In recent years, he has played a key role in strengthening strategic partnerships with major customers and supporting high-impact commercial and NDC initiatives across APAC.
Renaud holds a Master of Engineering degree from the École Centrale de Paris.

Travel Sellers, Asia Pacific
Amadeus

Letsfly
Reno Wang has over 10 years of experience across travel, payments, and e-commerce, with a diverse background spanning product, engineering, business management, and data analytics. A seasoned travel industry executive, he has held leadership positions at leading OTAs including Hopper and Fliggy, and previously served as President of the Flight Business at Dida Travel, giving him extensive experience across both B2C and B2B travel businesses. At Letsfly, Reno leads global commercial partnerships, key accounts, and enterprise growth. He brings deep expertise in global travel distribution and a proven track record of driving business growth, strategic partnerships, and transformation.

Letsfly
2006. 20 years ago. He was there at the old beginning, one of the early startups to sense the social media wave coming for hospitality, and created one of the first sentiment analysis engines for hoteliers to track traveller reviews. His warnings of a social media tsunami that would drown out brands’ voices have come to pass. What’s the new wave coming, unleashed by AI? How do brands maintain relevance, win trust and keep customer love in an ever increasingly noisy, divisive world?
Speaker:

Brand Karma
Executive Director,
Montara Hospitality Group
Morris has spent three decades at the corner of tech and hospitality, usually loitering there a few years before everyone else shows up. At Microsoft he helped build the software you’ve definitely rage-quit (MS Office) and founded the Imagine Cup, now the planet’s biggest student tech competition (20 years and still going strong!). After Microsoft, he co-founded Brand Karma, which figured out how to turn hotel guests’ online opinions into something Marriott, Accor, and IHG would actually pay for — before getting scooped up in a two-buyer deal. These days he sits on the Montara Hospitality board, develops commercial strategy for his clients, and coaches executives who want to change the world but haven’t yet figured out how. Stanford engineer, WiT Warrior, proud dad, burgundy fan, and still learning something new everyday.

Brand Karma
Executive Director,
Montara Hospitality Group
Almost every session today has been about scale, speed, and the next fire. This one is different – it’s about the fire that was always meant to be tended, not chased. Told by three hoteliers with very different stories but following a similar path. One built a legacy from nothing, in a country he barely knew growing up. One is building on a legacy he inherited. Both are betting that heart is not a soft add-on to hospitality, it’s well, the heart. And the third hotelier? The guy that managed to start both on their paths.
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

HMD Asia & Shinta Mani Hotels
Sokoun has been involved in the hotel and restaurant business for more than fifteen years, which might seem like a short time, but in that time his concepts have garnered a host of awards and accolades, and his properties are recognized as leaders in the region.
However, Sokoun is more than his corporate avatar, his concepts are also garnering attention for their positive social and environmental impact. Sokoun is primarily responsible for seeking out opportunities to expand the Shinta Mani brand across Asia.
Raised in Bangkok, with roots in Cambodia, Sokoun is a native son to Southeast Asia, but received his BA at Boston University. His experience extends to high-end jewelry and hotel property development.
As founder of HMD Asia, Shinta Mani and other concepts Sokoun brings a wealth of industry knowledge to the boardroom table.

HMD Asia & Shinta Mani Hotels

Montara Hospitality Group (Thailand)
Kittisak “Kitt” Pattamasaevi is the Chief Executive Officer of Montara Hospitality Group, where he leads the company’s vision of creating exceptional hospitality experiences that enrich people’s lives while generating lasting value for communities and the environment.
Under his leadership, Trisara, Phuket’s iconic luxury resort and private residential community, has earned international recognition for its service, culinary excellence, and commitment to responsible hospitality. He is also leading the development of Tri Vananda, an integrated wellness community that brings together luxury residences, regenerative agriculture, hospitality, and preventive healthcare. At its heart is the Clinique La Prairie Health Resort Phuket, opening in 2026 as the first destination of its kind in Southeast Asia.
Beyond hospitality, Kitt is passionate about creating places with long-term social and cultural impact. His work focuses on fostering wellbeing, strengthening local communities, supporting Thai craftsmanship and agriculture, and developing destinations that celebrate Thailand’s natural and cultural heritage.
Kitt holds a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He also serves as a director of the Niyom Pattamasaevi Foundation, which supports education, arts, and cultural initiatives in Lampang, Thailand.

Montara Hospitality Group (Thailand)

Executive Director, Montara Hospitality Group
Bill came to Asia in 1982 as Resident Manager at the Regent Hong Kong. He was later transferred to Bangkok as General Manager.
During the HIV/Aids pandemic of the 90’s, Bill co-founded the Thailand Business Coalition on Aids which provided education and workplace policies for businesses to effectively addresses the issues that were effecting their workplaces.
In 2002, Bill formed his own hotel management company focusing on small and independent hotels in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
He then started to work for Sokoun, as he was opening Hotel de la Paix and had just opened Shinta Mani in Siem Reap. The early work at Shinta Mani was to incorporate the foundations work with the guests experience. This not only drove business but also raised substantial funds to help the foundation fulfill its objectives.
After the Asian tsunami in 2005 he joined the board of Montara Hospitality where he has worked with both the owner and the managers to help improve operational performances.
Bill’s company in 2010, was bought by a family office company in Singapore where Bill continued to be involved in philanthropy with the family’s efforts in India. He remained there until the COVID outbreak when he re-turned to Canada.
Being able to continue being engaged in the Asian hospitality industry he believes is a true blessing.

Executive Director, Montara Hospitality Group
What questions were answered today? What questions remain unanswered? Tomorrow, we return to tackle them.
Day 2: The New Beginning Begins
Venue:
Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre
Heliconia Ballroom, Level 3
Act 5: Rewriting the Future: Lenses of Experience
To everything, there is a season. This veteran has seen every cycle of travel – from the era of the destination management company to the age of the OTA, and now the age of artificial intelligence – and he smells something different in the air: a renaissance. A return to the human-led, the human-centric, the deeply personal. As he enters his own new beginning as chairperson of a 114-year-old travel institution that has outlasted every wave of disruption, he brings his lens of experience, context, and culture to what comes next. What does the renaissance look like and what does it demand of the industry that serves it?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

JTB Corp.
The JTB Group traces its roots back to 1912 when “Japan Tourist Bureau” was formed to attract international travelers to Japan and assist with their travel needs. While our activities and clientele have expanded greatly since then, the JTB Group remains aligned around a core purpose: bringing people, places and possibilities together.
Eijiro “Eddie” Yamakita has held key leadership positions throughout his career, with a focus on the group’s international business. Early on, he led the development of the company’s global strategy before moving to Europe, where he served as European Head of the JTB Group and Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Kuoni Travel Investment Ltd.
Following his return to Japan, he served as President and CEO from 2020. In this role, he led a comprehensive strategic transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, establishing a solid foundation for the group’s global expansion and long-term growth. He also leads global advocacy to the tourism industry through international organizations such as UN Tourism and the WTTC.
In 2026, he assumed his current role as Chairperson Representative Director and Executive Officer of JTB Corp.

JTB Corp.
He has now done this twice. He helped build Jetstar Asia from the ground up in 2004, then spent 12 years turning it into one of South-east Asia’s low-cost success stories – until he walked away from it entirely. In 2024, he did it again: returned to Jazeera Airways, the Kuwaiti carrier where he’d once been CFO, this time as CEO. And now he’s possibly facing his real test. Yet he remains steadfast on the future, establishing Jazeera Saudia to set up a new phase of growth “as it comes out the situation stronger”. Two airlines, two decades, two very different beginnings – what does someone who keeps starting over actually know that the rest of us don’t?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Jazeera Airways
Barathan Pasupathi (Bara), Chief Executive Officer of Jazeera Airways is Singaporean and has more than 30 years of global aviation experience spanning finance, commercial strategy, operations, and aircraft procurement and leasing. A seasoned airline leader, he has built a strong reputation for leading organizations with purpose, turning around businesses, driving transformation, delivering performance, and sustainable growth in competitive markets.
Since assuming the role of CEO in March 2024, Bara has led Jazeera Airways through a period of strategic expansion and operational discipline, culminating in the airline achieving record profitability in 2025, its strongest financial performance to date. Under his leadership, the airline has advanced its growth agenda through network expansion, fleet optimization, digital innovation, and a continued focus on safety, efficiency, and customer value.
He joined Jazeera from Jetstar Asia where he was the CEO for 12 years in Asia growing Asian markets as well as founding executive and CFO between 2004 to 2007 guiding the airline through multiple phases of growth and industry change. From 2007 to 2010, he served as CFO at Jazeera Airways and listed the airline on the Kuwait stock Market and set up Sahaab Aircraft leasing.
A prominent industry leader shaping the future of aviation, Bara has been featured by Forbes for his leadership influence and contributions to the sector. He is also an acclaimed speaker on aviation strategy, airline economics, and industry transformation, frequently addressing regional and global aviation audiences.
Bara holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Murdoch University and a Master of Business Administration from Deakin University in Australia. He is a Fellow of CPA Australia and a distinguished alumnus. He was also ranked among the Middle East region’s top 100 leaders by CNBC Arabia in 2026.

Jazeera Airways
We pull back the curtain on the Asian traveller – their ambitions, their behaviour, their aspirations and what it means for every company in this room. Five truths from a fresh study to be revealed at WiT Singapore.
Speaker:

Laura-Marie Arens is a global business leader with over 16 years of expertise driving sales, digital strategy, and commercial development across the technology and travel sectors in APAC and EMEA.
She currently leads the APAC Travel sector for Google’s Large Customer Sales (LCS) business in Singapore, partnering with top OTAs, Airlines, and global hotel chains to develop digital business strategy. In addition, Laura-Marie oversees Google’s APAC Vertical Search team—driving the regional adoption of ad tech solutions like Travel Ads and collaborating with global Product & Engineering teams to develop products for the region. Passionate about talent development, she also heads the Google Sales Associate Program across Southeast Asia, empowering early-career talent in Google’s Sales organization.
Prior to her role in Singapore, Laura-Marie held key leadership positions at Google across EMEA and US, including Business Leader for Travel Search EMEA in Berlin, Industry Manager for Travel in Hamburg, and Global Product Lead for Vertical Search in San Francisco.
Laura-Marie holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany), with international business studies completed at IE Business School (Spain) and Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). Based in Singapore for nine years, she enjoys exploring local parks and beaches with her Shiba Inu and discovering new destinations across APAC.

Before flights, he spent years in gaming and gambling – Netent, Betsson, Svenska Spel – an industry that runs entirely on odds and the house edge. He brought that instinct to travel, betting on the unglamorous plumbing of flight distribution. In 2023, Brussels blocked Booking Holdings’ €1.63 billion bid for Etraveli outright – a rare, precedent-setting veto that should have ended the story. Instead, Etraveli stayed independent, extended its Booking.com partnership for eight more years, and brought in KKR at a valuation nearly double the deal that fell through. In this coffee chat, Hedlund talks straight about losing the biggest bet of his career in public, why he still believes in doing the dirty work nobody else wants, and what a casino floor taught him about surviving when the house says no.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Etraveli Group
Mathias Hedlund joined Etraveli Group as CEO in 2014 and has since, together with his team, transformed the company into the world’s leading Flight Tech Platform selling and fullfilling more flights than anyone else outside of China. Based in Europe but with meaningful presence on all continents, Etraveli Group has during the last decade grown with >20% CAGR at consistent 20%+ EBITDA/Net Sales margin focusing solely on Flights. In recent years, Etraveli Group has successfully pivoted to become a leading global B2B Flight Tech Platform with fulfillment capabilities to support the development of Booking.com Flights and others.
Mathias has for the last 25 years been leading online businesses in many different sectors in public and private settings. From Executive Management or Board positions he has been part of developing international companies within financial services (Klarna), gambling (Netent, Betsson, Svenska Spel), e-commerce (Euroflorist, Cheffelo) and search (Eniro) before joining Etraveli. He currently serves as Chairman at Namecheap (a leading US domain registration and web services company)
Mathias has attended Executive Management Programs at Harvard and at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Stockholm.

Etraveli Group
These OTAs have one thing in common – they are domiciled in Asia. That’s the only common denominator. Each is at a different stage of its evolution and each is coming at it from a different angle, whether it be loyalty, value or trust through product and customer service. They represent the diversity that is Asia’s online travel. How are they rewriting their new beginning at a time of disruption?
Interviewer:

Industry Veteran
Speakers:

Senior Vice President of Commerce &
Marketing Company, Rakuten Group
Yoshiyuki Takano is Group Senior Managing Executive Officer, Senior Vice President of Commerce & Marketing Company, Rakuten Group Inc. since Jan 2017.
He started his career at Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd. and joined Rakuten, Inc. in 2002. Firstly, he worked for Rakuten Ichiba e-commerce business and then for Rakuten Travel since 2004. He became Business Manager after serving as Manager of Advertisement Department, Manager of Marketing & Web Design Department and Vice Manager of Travel Business. His digital marketing expertise and management experience in contributes to Rakuten Travel’s rapid business growth.
Yoshiyuki earned Master’s degree from Waseda University

Senior Vice President of Commerce &
Marketing Company, Rakuten Group

International Markets, APAC
Trip.com Group
As the Assistant Vice President of International Markets, Ms Ru Yi formulates strategic goals and drives organisational growth of Trip.com’s hotel business units across Asia, including Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand, among others. Ms Ru oversees the International Hotel Business Units’ operations in these markets – with the objectives of strengthening brand equity, identifying new growth opportunities and partnerships, and fostering strategic relationships with stakeholders. A founding member of Trip.com Singapore, Ms Ru was the Regional General Manager and the Country Head of the International Hotel Business Unit (Singapore) before being promoted to her current position. Ms Ru has a wealth of experience and expertise in the hospitality sector. Prior to joining Trip.com Group in 2013, she had assumed key appointments at Resorts World Sentosa, Sentosa Leisure Group and Far East Organization. A forward-thinking strategic leader with a strong business acumen, Ms Ru is frequently invited to speak at industry and trade events. Ms Ru graduated with a Bachelor in Business Management from Singapore Management University, and also holds an Executive MBA from SMU. A proud mum of two girls, Ms Ru enjoys reading and jogging.

International Markets, APAC
Trip.com Group

AirAsia MOVE
Nadia Omer joined AirAsia MOVE (formerly airasia Superapp) as its Chief Executive Officer effective 26 October 2023. Her key priority will be to drive airasia MOVE’s vision to be the best-value one-stop travel platform in Asean.
Nadia comes with deep experience within Asia and ASEAN in category conversion, habit change and building new categories that create shared value for the full ecosystem.
She began her career at P&G and subsequently moved to bigger roles at Nestle and PepsiCo and served as the Chief Business Officer of Cars24, Southeast Asia before AirAsia MOVE.
Innovation and building talent is something very close to Nadia’s heart. She has built her career as a working mum, and feels passionately about energizing and engaging other young female talents to unleash their potential. She is also a mentor at Antler focusing on helping young founders in tech and e-commerce.
Nadia holds a Master of Business Administration from the Lahore University of Management, and is a Bachelor of Science (Maths, Stats & Econ) graduate.

AirAsia MOVE
Two loyalty bets, built from opposite directions. HeyMax just launched HeyMax First, flipping the model on its head – miles upfront, earned back later, no expiry. Pelago is Singapore Airlines’ own answer to loyalty, built to deepen KrisFlyer engagement through travel experiences rather than just flights. One disrupts loyalty from outside the airline; the other reinforces it from inside. We compare what each is seeing in real customer behaviour, then ask them to bet on where loyalty in travel goes next.
Moderator:
Speakers:

HeyMax

HeyMax

Pelago by Singapore Airlines
Ricky So is Chief Commercial Officer and a founding executive of Pelago, Singapore Airlines’ travel experiences and loyalty platform, which connects travelers with experiences, attractions and hotels around the world. He joined Pelago in 2020 and has played a key role in building the business from concept to scale, shaping its commercial strategy, partnerships, marketing and broader role within the Singapore Airlines ecosystem.
Ricky brings 15 years of experience spanning travel, hospitality and technology, with previous leadership roles at Klook, Uber, Cathay Pacific, and Google. At Klook, he led commercial strategy and planning across multiple travel verticals, while his earlier career included experience at Cathay Pacific across airline sales, inflight services and Asia Miles, Cathay’s mileage currency.
At Pelago, Ricky has worked closely with the Board and senior leadership to develop long-term strategy, build high-performing international teams and forge partnerships across tourism boards, hospitality, attractions and financial services.
A passionate traveler having lived and worked in six countries, Ricky holds a Global Executive MBA with Distinction from INSEAD and is an advisor to early and growth-stage travel and consumer technology companies.

Pelago by Singapore Airlines
Networking Lunch
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Act 6: The Growth Map
At Booking Holdings’ first quarter earnings call this year, CEO Glenn Fogel said independents account for “the vast majority” of Booking.com room nights, while the 10 largest global hotel chains make up only a “low double-digit” share. His comments highlight the importance of the independent hotel segment to the OTAs. Cognizant of this, WiT in partnership with ZUZU Hospitality embarked on a pilot study in South-east Asia to understand how independent hotels are using AI, their concerns and the opportunities for them to be discoverable and profitable in this new age. Preliminary findings to be shared.
Speaker:

ZUZU Hospitality
Vikram Malhi is the Co-founder of ZUZU Hospitality Solutions, a Singapore based start-up that manages sales and online distribution for independent budget hotels across Asia. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Vikram was Managing Director for Expedia Asia and was instrumental in growing Expedia brand across 11 countries in Asia.
He spent a total of 8 years at Expedia, taking on multiple senior level roles including marketing, customer loyalty, operations and general management. In addition to his deep expertise in the online travel and hospitality sectors, he has strong experience in technology and business consulting. He worked at IBM Consulting early in his career and received MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

ZUZU Hospitality
Urban legend has it that this founder has a fire to thank, for igniting his dream. In 2001, while couch surfing with friends, after his first startup folded in the dot-com bust, the apartment he was in caught fire. He lost everything. To stay sane, he built a passion project within Yahoo Group (remember those?) called Spotnana, to help people in the group redeem points for the best deals. The rest is history, or maybe it’s just the beginning of this self-confessed hacker’s ambitions to set a legacy world on fire, with a next generation tech stack. Interviewing him, author of “Made In Fire”, Rajnish Kumar. Should be a fiery coffee chat.
Interviewer:

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo
Speaker:

Chief Product Officer
Spotnana
Sarosh Waghmar is Spotnana’s Founder, Co‑Chairman, and Chief Product Officer. He leads Spotnana’s efforts to build the industry’s first Travel‑as‑a‑Service platform, partnering with travel providers and global enterprises to deliver a modern technology stack that opens the door to a new generation of travel experiences.
Over more than two decades in travel, Sarosh has built and scaled businesses that rethink how corporate travel is purchased, sold, and serviced. Prior to Spotnana, he founded WTMC, the world’s first TMC to build direct connections to global airlines. When he isn’t working on product and platform architecture, you’ll likely find him in the kitchen, cooking for family, friends, and colleagues.

Chief Product Officer
Spotnana
Social has crossed the line from inspiration to transaction, and is rewriting the next chapter in travel commerce. Since its founding, this travel brand has been betting big on social and watched its evolution from inspiration to planning to now, commerce. Sharing findings from a study, especially commissioned for WiT Singapore, it reveals five key trends shaping social commerce in the region.
Speaker:

Klook
As Vice President of Global Marketing at Klook, Marcus has been privileged to contribute to their mission of transforming travel experiences since joining the company as employee #51 in 2016. Working alongside a dedicated team, they’ve navigated the company through 6 successful funding rounds, including a recent $100 million investment led by Vitruvian Partners . These milestones have enabled them to enhance our platform and better serve travelers worldwide.
In 2023, Marcus and his team spearheaded the launch of Klook’s Kreator Program, building a community of over 20,000 content creators across 16 markets within a year. This initiative has positioned Klook at the forefront of social commerce in the travel industry.
Prior to Klook, Marcus led digital marketing efforts at Scoot, enhancing global digital acquisition and managing social media across seven markets. He began his career at the Singapore Economic Development Board, focusing on digital brand and channel management for North America.

Klook
Everyone wants to sell travel. Banks, super-apps, content platforms – the list of companies that have decided travel belongs in their ecosystem grows every year. But wanting a piece of the travel pie and knowing how to bake it are different things. Meet the players who are taking different approaches to the travel opportunity. How are they thinking about travel? And what does it mean for the industry when the most powerful travel distribution channel might be one that was never built for travel at all? Who actually owns the traveller data flowing through a super app or a content platform? And who’s making this happen?
Moderator:

Vice President, Corporate Development
Agoda
Speakers:

Southeast Asia
Tiktok
Eason Zhang is Head of Apps & Strategic Partnership, for TikTok Southeast Asia, where he leads partnerships and commercial strategy across some of the region’s largest digital businesses. His portfolio spans travel, local services, fintech, crypto and gaming, working with leading brands including Trip.com, Agoda, Klook, Traveloka, Grab, Binance and OKX etc.
With extensive experience across the travel and technology industries, Eason previously held roles at Google and Skyscanner before joining TikTok in 2021. He has worked closely with travel platforms and destinations across Asia Pacific, helping businesses navigate shifts in consumer discovery, content, performance marketing and digital commerce.
At TikTok, Eason is particularly focused on how short-form video, creators, search and AI are reshaping the traveller journey—from inspiration and destination discovery to consideration and booking—and how travel brands can turn these changing behaviours into sustainable business growth.

Southeast Asia
Tiktok

Grab
Adilla Arantika is Regional Senior Manager, Partner Apps at Grab, where she leads a group-wide initiative expanding the range of services available to Grab’s 50 million monthly transacting users across Southeast Asia. She is also driving the development of an AI-assisted partner onboarding and business management system to help businesses launch and scale on the platform.
Adilla brings more than a decade of experience across digital products, technology, financial services, e-commerce and strategy. Prior to Grab, she was Head of Digital Product & Monetization at Principal Financial Group, where she owned the P&L of a B2B2C digital investment platform with USD271 million in assets under management and more than 3.5 million retail investors. She also held commercial leadership roles at Lazada and consulting roles at Frost & Sullivan and CIMB Group.
Her work sits at the intersection of technology, digital transformation, customer experience and business growth, with a particular interest in how emerging technologies can make products and services more accessible and relevant across diverse Asian markets.
Adilla has been recognised as a rising business leader and has spoken at industry forums on customer journeys, buyer behaviour, digital business and fintech. She is also the founder of Sinau Purwokerto, a family-run initiative providing free English classes to underprivileged children in Indonesia.

Grab

Rappi
As the Global Head of Travel at Rappi, Guido is in charge of building and running this new vertical inside the fastest growing “superapp” and ecommerce platform in the Latin American region. Guido brings with him over 20 years of experience in travel tech, launching and building teams and businesses across Latin America. He is a passionate entrepreneur and travel industry enthusiast. After founding a reverse auction model OTA in 1999, 123vendido.com, he started and was the driving force behind Netactica, one of the top travel technology providers in Latin America.

Rappi

Nuitee
Leyla Allahverdiyeva is SVP of Sales & Partnerships at Nuitee, where she leads the company’s global commercial organisation. She and her teams play a key role in expanding Nuitee’s international presence and driving growth through strategic partnerships with leading travel brands, fintechs, super apps and hospitality businesses building on Nuitee’s infrastructure.
She brings more than 15 years of international experience across hospitality, API-first travel technology, distribution and embedded travel solutions. Her expertise lies in navigating complex distribution ecosystems and helping partners launch and scale travel products efficiently.
Before joining Nuitee, Leyla held commercial leadership roles across the hospitality and technology sectors, including leading Sales Excellence at Delivery Hero and senior sales roles within travel technology companies. She also co-founded an aviation touring company, giving her a broad perspective across traditional travel operations, digital platforms and technology-led business models.
Passionate about people, innovation and collaboration, Leyla is committed to building meaningful partnerships and using technology to help shape a more connected and accessible future for travel.

Nuitee
After three years of WiT Africa, one thing is clear: the story has moved from promise to possibility to proof. But building here still demands resilience, local knowledge and the ability to navigate complexity that outsiders often underestimate. Fresh from WiT Africa’s “The Next 20: Leap, Build, Belong”, four entrepreneurs bring their perspectives to Singapore: scaling an African travel platform, building the next generation of African travel startups, using technology and storytelling to connect travellers more deeply with place, and building a collection of private residences globally. What can the rest of the world learn from a market that has less legacy to protect, more reason to leap and every incentive to build differently?
Curator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Wakanow
Adebayo Adedeji is a dynamic business leader and entrepreneur, best known as the Group CEO of Wakanow, one of Africa’s leading online travel companies. Under his leadership, Wakanow has expanded its operations to multiple African countries, the UK, and the UAE, offering a seamless platform for booking flights, hotels, and holiday packages, along with unique features like “Pay Small Small,” which allows travelers to spread travel costs over time. Wakanow also provides corporate travel solutions and innovative travel experiences through its subsidiaries. Before joining Wakanow, Bayo had an impressive career in finance and retail, serving as a Senior Finance Manager at Amazon and holding leadership roles at Walmart and PetSmart. He is also a serial entrepreneur, founding Dundu Nation, a food truck business specializing in local delicacies, and Wave Beach Lagos, a leisure destination. Bayo is recognized for his customer-centric approach, innovation, and strategic vision, which have transformed the travel landscape in Africa. He emphasizes continual learning, adaptability, and empathy in leadership and is deeply committed to driving positive change in the industries he engages with.

Wakanow

Purple Elephant Ventures
Ben Peterson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Purple Elephant Ventures, an innovation hub for Africa’s travel and tourism sector. He has over eighteen years of experience investing in, founding, growing, and managing companies and non-profits across Africa. We have some great conversations about focusing on the big picture and not getting worked up about the minutia in our everyday lives. Ben also gives some great insight on failing fast, learning from our failures, and their venture studio business model.

Purple Elephant Ventures

VoiceMaps
Iain is the founder of VoiceMap, the leading platform for self-guided audio tours. The app has been installed by over a million travellers, and its almost 1,000 publishers offer tours across over 600 destinations worldwide. They’ve earned over $1 million in royalties along the way.
Before launching the platform in 2014, Iain spent a decade living, working and travelling around the world – including an 18-month journey from London to Shanghai by land, which he documented at Old World Wandering. It was one of the first travel blogs, and a place where – in the words of an editor at National Geographic Traveler – “thoughtful, well-written slow travel writing with a strong sense of history and culture…can be reliably found.” His long-form dispatches were regularly featured by curators like The Browser, Longreads and Longform.org.
His favourite travel experiences almost always have one thing in common: someone shows him their corner of the world. They connect opinions, anecdotes and emotions to places, and use phrases like “I love”, “I remember” and “I hope” to describe things that might otherwise have been ordinary.
He likes to think that VoiceMap has become a place where these human perspectives can be reliably found.

VoiceMaps

In Residence by Pieter Brundyn
Pieter Brundyn is a South African private residential hospitality entrepreneur and legacy real estate broker. Raised on a farm in South Africa, Pieter developed an early fascination with travel, landscape and the wider world. That curiosity continues to shape his approach to hospitality: global in outlook, but grounded in place, people and cultural context. Cape Town remains central to the sensibility of his work, giving In Residence a warmth and human directness that sit apart from more conventional expressions of luxury.
As the founder and CEO of In Residence by Pieter Brundyn, a Cape Town-based global residential hospitality brand with a collection of over 800 distinguished private residences across more than forty destinations, Pieter has pioneered human-led hospitality for over a decade. Today, In Residence is both profitable and rapidly scaling its market-redefining hospitality with a focus on privacy, trust, and discretion. This commitment to operational excellence has led to the successful launch of In Residence offices in Spain and Turkey in 2026, with an expansion plan geared towards the 50 leading destinations.
Under Pieter’s leadership, Brundyn Estates manages a portfolio of legacy real estate across destination markets. Flagship properties include waterfront plots on Lake Como, private villas in Bodrum and Indonesia, and a luxury residential development in the Cape Winelands.
His broader work extends through The Brundyn Collective, where residential hospitality, real estate, cultural authority and private client relationships reinforce one another. Real estate gives the work its tangible form; hospitality gives it life; culture gives it depth. Pieter’s perspective treats exceptional homes not simply as inventory but as assets of trust, taste and belonging.
Art and culture philanthropy form a central part of Pieter’s life and work. With his wife, museum director and art consultant Elana Brundyn, he established the In Residence Foundation in 2021 to support community and cultural projects, with partners including the Lalela Project, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and the South African Youth Choir.
A traveller, entrepreneur and family man, Pieter remains closely tied to Cape Town while continuing to expand The Brundyn Collective internationally. His work returns to a single conviction: the future of luxury is not defined by visibility, excess or inventory, but by trust, taste, privacy and the people who know how to hold them.

In Residence by Pieter Brundyn
Networking Coffee Break hosted by Rakuten Travel
Act 7: The Wager – Placing Bets on What’s Next
Four panellists. Four very different obsessions: primates, bees, microbes and intangible heritage. What connects them is that they care deeply about something most of us rarely notice. Because when we understand something, we begin to appreciate it. And when we appreciate it, we are far more likely to protect it. This panel explores what their singular obsessions might teach us about the future of travel. In a world shaped by algorithms and mass-produced itineraries, will travellers increasingly seek out people with deep knowledge, conviction and something real to share? And will the most meaningful experiences be the ones that change not only where we go, but how we see the world?
Moderator:

CEO & Co-founder
Seek Sophie
Speakers:

Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore)
Dr. Andie Ang is a primatologist with over a decade of field experience studying wild primates in Southeast Asia. She has served as President of the Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore) since 2018, leading outreach and capacity-building initiatives to foster wildlife awareness and protection. Beyond her work in Singapore, Ang collaborates with governmental and non-governmental organisations in the wider region, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, on long-term research and conservation of endangered primates. In 2014, she received a National Geographic Society grant to construct aerial crossings for endangered Indochinese silvered langurs in Vietnam’s limestone karsts, a project aimed at mitigating habitat fragmentation. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore)

George Town Heritage Hotels
Investment banker turned international hotelier Chris Ong first ventured into the hospitality business when he 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 reasons, and in 2007, he purchased a decrepit Anglo-Indian bungalow on 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 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 Chris was again 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. 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 hip and yet comfortable interiors 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 hotel in the group. In the near future, GTHH will also serve as an information hub for Penang’s cultural events.

George Town Heritage Hotels

The Sundowner Nature Experience Centre
Clarence is a multiple-award winning entrepreneur specializing in environmental sustainability, hospitality, and tourism.
He started his career in government at NParks, then joined the pioneering team to launch Gardens by the Bay in 2012. During this time he founded landscape firm Country Cousins in 2014, and sold it in 2019 to a SGX-listed IFM company.
During the covid pandemic he pivoted to the sustainability sector, founding The Sundowner Nature Experience Centre which offers honeybee tours and F&B classes. To date it is Singapore’s only hospitality outfit with a 5-star rating across Google across 900 reviews. His newest venture is the House of Melissa Boutique Farmstay at Changi Village, Singapore’s only premium farmstay.
His award-winning work in nature conservation centres around his not-for-profit Bee Rescue programme, which relocates rather than exterminates honeybees — of which he has saved 6 million to date.

The Sundowner Nature Experience Centre

Tinwald Farm New Zealand
Amanda Currie is a farmer and food producer based in Central Otago, New Zealand. She and her team steward Tinwald Farm, a regenerative farming and vineyard property where food, landscape, and care for the land are inseparable.
A central focus of Amanda’s work is the restoration of soil health through rebuilding microbial communities—the unseen life that underpins resilient landscapes, nutritious food, and distinctive flavour. Through on-farm composting, microbial inoculants, and biological monitoring, she works to return balance and vitality to the land.
With a background in economics and public policy, Amanda brings a systems perspective to tourism, exploring how authenticity, provenance, and care for place create meaningful visitor experiences that endure beyond the journey.

Tinwald Farm New Zealand
At WiT Queenstown, James Thornton, CEO of Intrepid Travel, was asked how he’d rethink the purpose of travel. His answer: “It would be that travel was designed to benefit communities, not just customers. The way we’ve all grown up designing travel is for the benefit of the traveller … communities aren’t sufficiently benefiting, and when they are, it’s too infrequent, and it goes to too few people.”
This session widens the lens from destination-and-traveller to destination-and-community. Where does dispersal beyond the same honeypot cities actually work? How should tourism sit inside a city’s urbanization and regeneration plans, rather than beside them? And what does real community engagement look like when it’s designed in from the start, not bolted on after the complaints start?
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Airbnb

Airbnb

Think City, Malaysia
Matt Benson is Senior Director at Think City, a Malaysian Government urban agency specialising in evidence-based city planning and urban regeneration across Southeast Asia. A trained urban geographer with a PhD from the University of Western Australia, Matt leads programmes spanning waterfront redevelopment, precinct planning, heritage conservation, climate adaptation and public realm improvement across multiple Malaysian cities.
Over 25 years Matt has developed a reputation for combining rigorous analysis with genuine community voice – translating complex data into investment decisions that make cities more liveable. Recent work includes securing Malaysia’s first internationally funded urban climate resilience programme (USD10 million, Adaptation Fund), leading the Penang Economy 2030 scenario planning exercise, and directing major urban regeneration projects from Kuala Lumpur to George Town.
Matt has served three terms on the UN-Habitat International Advisory Board for the World Cities Report (2020, 2022 and 2024), participated in UN-Habitat Expert Group Meetings on the Global Urban Monitoring Framework, and serves on the Chief Minister of Penang’s Penang2030 Advisory Committee and the Penang Resilient Infrastructure Taskforce.

Think City, Malaysia

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Rod is a pioneer of the global online travel industry. He was the founder, CEO & Chairman of Viator, the leading global marketplace for tour and experience products. He was subsequently the CEO & Chairman of Rome2rio, the multi-modal search engine; and is currently a non-executive director of Veltra Corporation, the Tokyo Stock Exchange listed seller of tour and experience products, and Jayride, the Sydney-based global marketplace for airport transfers. He is also a member of the board of directors of Tourism Tasmania.

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Roger Sharp has spent three decades moving between the operator’s seat and the investor’s chair – building and exiting travel tech businesses, then backing the next wave of them. As Chair of WebBeds, he’s helped steer it into one of the world’s leading bedbanks; as Chair of North Ridge Partners, he leads its travel tech practice and advises travel tech companies on strategy, funding rounds and exits. He set up Technology Queenstown to wean a destination’s economy off tourism, and WiT Queenstown was the first spark. This conversation will cover where hotel distribution goes next, what travel tech is actually worth funding in this cycle, and the calls – right and wrong – that shaped his own track record.
Interviewer:

Venture Partner
Thayer Investment Partners
Speaker:

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown
Roger is a veteran travel technology Chair, investor and advisor. He played key roles in the privatisations of airlines and airports including Air New Zealand and Qantas before becoming CEO of ABN AMRO Asia and Global Head of Technology for ABN AMRO Bank. He subsequently built and sold ASX-listed travel.com.au and lastminute.com.au, chaired Webjet until its demerger in 2024, and served as Deputy Chair of Tourism New Zealand.
Roger chairs ASX-listed WebBeds, one of the world’s leading B2B hotel distribution platforms. He is also the founder of Asia-Pacific technology investment bank North Ridge Partners, where he leads the firm’s travel technology practice.
During COVID-19, Roger founded Technology Queenstown, a not-for-profit initiative building Queenstown into a leading travel and hospitality technology hub to diversify the regional economy.

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown
The most ambitious new companies in travel take the stage to make their case. They have been through a rigorous global selection process through the Global Startup Pitch — now the final filter is you. Which startup is solving the right problem, in the right way, at the right time? The audience votes for its People’s Choice, who goes on to win a spotlight at the Phocuswright Conference in Fort Lauderdale, November 17-19.
Facilitator:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Presenters:

Founder & CEO
1-CP

Founder & CEO
Crewfare

Founder & CEO
OneJourney

Founder & CEO
Vibe Adventures
Dragons:

Venture Partner, Thayer Investment Partners
As a long-time operating exec, startup advisor, investor and road warrior, Cara is actively involved in numerous corners of the travel tech industry, including co-hosting the popular Travel Tech Insider podcast. As Venture Partner at Thayer Investment Partners, the leading travel technology venture capital firm, she advises portfolio companies and helps connect the dots between emerging technology players and the leading travel brands and suppliers across the industry. She is a frequent speaker, panelist and startup pitch judge for numerous industry events, and enjoys coaching growth-stage teams on effective go-to-market strategy.
Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, she and her husband are avid golfers aiming to hit the links in all 50 states.

Venture Partner, Thayer Investment Partners

Orbit Ventures
William is Managing General Partner of Orbit Ventures the Emerging Markets VC the longest running emerging market startup program in the world with over US$125m in investment value managed. Orbit invests in technology startups that digitize traditional industries, boost earnings potential, and drive sustainable growth. Sectors include e-commerce, fintech, travel, media, health, education, and logistics across emerging markets in Asia, Middle East, Africa and LATAM. Orbit provides hands-on support for user acquisition, sales, partnerships, and fundraising. Orbit’s consumer ecosystem has helped our startups scale to 169m monthly active users as of 2Q25. Magnitt named Orbit #6 most active VC in Emerging Markets in both 2023, 2024 and 2H25. William joined Orbit from SingTel Innov8 Ventures where he was a founding Managing Director. Prior to that William was a Partner at Softbank China & India, a VC backed by Softbank and Cisco, leading investments across Asia. William started his career in equity research most recently with Deutsche Bank where he was a top ranked analyst for Internet and Software in Asia and worked on the IPOs for Alibaba, Kingsoft, eLong (Expedia), OnMobile and Infoedge Naukri.
William was ranked #3 stock picker in Hong Kong/China and #1 for Technology, Media and Telecom by Thomson Reuters Starmine as well as #3 equity research analyst in Asia for Software and IT Services by Institutional Investor Magazine. William has done over 350 early stage investments including Bitmex in blockchain, UShopal in ecommerce, italki in edtech, VideoVerse in media, Carota in mobility, Flickstree in media, ELSA Speak in edtech, Tappytoon in media, Coutloot in ecommerce, and Dastgyr in ecommerce. He currently sits on boards including Scantrust, Boost Capital, Pandabus, Fleksy, Goama, and italki as well as Blair Academy. He holds a BA from Bowdoin College.

Orbit Ventures

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown
Roger is a veteran travel technology Chair, investor and advisor. He played key roles in the privatisations of airlines and airports including Air New Zealand and Qantas before becoming CEO of ABN AMRO Asia and Global Head of Technology for ABN AMRO Bank. He subsequently built and sold ASX-listed travel.com.au and lastminute.com.au, chaired Webjet until its demerger in 2024, and served as Deputy Chair of Tourism New Zealand.
Roger chairs ASX-listed WebBeds, one of the world’s leading B2B hotel distribution platforms. He is also the founder of Asia-Pacific technology investment bank North Ridge Partners, where he leads the firm’s travel technology practice.
During COVID-19, Roger founded Technology Queenstown, a not-for-profit initiative building Queenstown into a leading travel and hospitality technology hub to diversify the regional economy.

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown

Visa
Tania is the Global Head of B2B Travel for Visa Commercial Solutions, where she responsible for the creation and execution of the business strategy for this rapidly evolving, high growth vertical segment. Bringing more than 25 years of experience in the payments, financial services and telecommunications sectors, Tania has led successful businesses around the world. Prior to joining Visa in early 2024, she managed the Commercial team at Outpayce from Amadeus, serving the global travel ecosystem with new advances in payments. Tania has also previously held senior business development roles at American Express, MasterCard Payment Gateway Services, Vodafone and IDT.

Visa
Twelve years into their tenure at Agoda, and having transformed it through one full cycle – from a scrappy Bangkok startup to a global platform powering hundreds of millions of transactions and South-east Asia’s fastest growing OTA –what does the next chapter look like for these two leaders? The first 12 years were about scale. What are the next 12 about? And what does it mean to build a new beginning for a company already in velocity mode?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Agoda
Omri Morgenshtern is the Chief Executive Officer of Agoda, part of Booking Holdings (Nasdaq: BKNG). He was appointed in July 2022. In his former role as COO, Omri was instrumental in driving global operations, Product, Partner Services, and the Customer Experience Group.
Omri joined Agoda in 2014 as Senior Product Owner, Algorithms and Learning Systems, and was later promoted first to Vice President of Product Development, then to Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer in 2018.
He was co-founder & CEO of Qlika, an award-winning UpWest Labs start-up specializing in online marketing optimization, which was acquired by Booking Holdings Inc. in 2014.
Omri received an M.S. Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Tel Aviv University and B.S. Cum Laude in Physics, Computer Science and Mathematics from The Hebrew University.

Agoda

Agoda
Idan Zalzberg is the Chief Technology Officer of Agoda. In his former role as Chief Data Officer, Idan was monumental in managing and architecting Agoda’s data and security solutions.
Idan joined Agoda in 2014 as Advanced Technology Architect Director and was later promoted to Vice President of Data, then to Chief Data Officer and to his current role as Chief Technology Officer in 2022.
He was co-founder of Qlika, an award-winning UpWest Labs start-up specializing in online marketing optimization, which was acquired by Booking Holdings Inc. in 2014.
Idan received an M.S. Summa Cum Laude in Physics from Tel Aviv University and B.S. Physics and Mathematics from The Hebrew University.

Agoda
We end with our signature debate. The motion is blunt: artificial intelligence will do more harm than good to the travel industry in the next decade. You vote.
For:

As himself

CEO & Co-founder
Belli

CEO & Co-founder
BeMyGuest
Against:

Vice President, Corporate Development
Agoda

Co-founder, The Reset Practice /
Adjunct Lecturer, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Founder
Talk to Magpie AI
Adjudicator:

Board Member, Tourism Tasmania / Founder,
Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
We swing straight through into cocktails.
Closing Party featuring the WiT For Good Charity Auction
Location:
Heliconia Ballroom, Level 3
Life’s a song and dance. We end with live music, cause-driven fundraising, and unexpected talent.
This year, WiT For Good is proud to support Young Focus, a Philippine-based nonprofit that has been working in the squatter communities of Manila since 2008, including families living around the Smokey Mountain area, where many rely on the informal garbage trade to survive on less than US$10 a day.
Interested in sponsoring the Closing Party or contributing to this year’s WiT For Good Auction? Celebrate the closing while supporting a meaningful cause.
Find out more →
Innovation Day
Venue:
Pan Pacific Singapore
The Next Generation Leaders Powered by Booking.comBy Invite Only
Location:
Pacific 2-3, Level 1
A New Beginning: Building Purpose and Impact In Your Journeys
21 – the age when you stop being defined by where you came from and start being defined by where you go from here. It’s the age where you ask big questions of yourself: who you want to be and what you want to do.
Travel is at that age too – a moment in time when the rising stars in travel should be asking big questions of themselves too: what is my purpose, what impact do I want to have, and what kind of industry do I want to belong to? One acts as your internal compass, the other as your external navigator – often the two may not want to move in the same direction and that’s the tension that makes every career journey interesting.
This third edition is as much about marking this milestone in travel – a moment of technological, generational and societal change – as it is about preparing ourselves for the future, to become better versions of ourselves, better leaders, and better custodians of our industry. It’s about building both purpose and impact in your journeys.
Because A New Beginning starts with you.
Minimal structure, maximum participation. This two-hour closed-door roundtable for rising stars under 35 comes with a cast of coaches who will guide the room through the paces – but ultimately, it’s about you and how you seize this opportunity.
9.30AM
Checking In
Take your seat among the next generation of travel leaders.
10.00AM – 10.10AM
The Beginning
Speaker:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
10.10AM – 10.40AM
Purpose vs Impact: The Live Wire
Is your purpose driving your impact – or has chasing impact quietly started defining your purpose for you? What big questions should travel be asking to prepare for the future? What big questions should leaders be asking of themselves?
We put four leaders to the test, and throw in some personal questions as well.
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Managing Director, Asia Pacific
Booking.com

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo

Head of Commercial
HeyMax

Deputy General Counsel
Airbnb
10.40AM – 11.40AM
Coach Breakout: Purpose & Impact Lenses
Coaches:

Vice President, Global Marketing
Klook

CEO & Co-founder
Seek Sophie

Managing Director, Asia Pacific
Booking.com

Co-founder, The Reset Practice /
Adjunct Lecturer, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Director of Public Policy APAC
Airbnb
11.40AM – 11.50AM
Report Back
11.50AM – 11.55AM
The One Commitment: Where Purpose Meets Impact
Everyone walks away with a commitment to the “one thing” over the next 12 months and we revisit the year after.
11.55AM – 12.00PM
The Ending – But It’s Only The Beginning
12:00PM – 1.00PM
The Next Generation Leaders Networking Lunch
An opportunity to connect with fellow Next Generation Leaders and coaches over lunch.
The WiT Bootcamp
Location:
Pacific 2-3, Level 1
21: A New Beginning
21 years ago, WiT was a startup idea, an acorn. Today, it’s grown into a thousand oak trees across the world and did you know, Asia is home to the highest species diversity of oak trees in the world?
21 – the age of liberation and independence, when you get your own keys to determine your own future.
Travel tech is at that moment – the opportunity to be liberated from legacy tech and old mindsets, a time to plant new seeds.
A New Beginning demands we ask new questions, or old questions in a new way. What are the questions startups and investors should be asking to ride on this wave of change? We raise the questions, prompt the answers and connect the dots in this room where travel innovation for the next 21 begins.
12:30
Checking In
Settle in and get ready to roll up your sleeves.
Note: Lunch is not included for WiT Bootcamp attendees. We recommend having lunch before arriving.
12.45PM – 12.55PM
The Beginning Of The New Beginning
12.55PM – 1.05PM
Travel Turns 21: Five Shifts Defining Its Next Chapter
A look at five forward-looking shifts shaping travel, from the center of gravity moving east and the increasingly diverse Asian traveller, to fragmented demand, the changing roles of suppliers and OTAs, and the impact of AI. A perfect note to prepare us for Main Stage tomorrow.
Speaker:

Senior Manager, Research & Market Intelligence
Phocuswright
1.05PM – 1.30PM
The Secret Life of Travel Tech Investment
Investors, with different perspectives and from different regions, give an unvarnished view of where the money is going in 2026 and where it isn’t. What themes are getting funded? What mistakes have they made? What are investors tired of hearing? What do they secretly want to hear? And what are the big questions startups and investors should be asking of each other for a fresh start?
Speakers:

Venture Partner
Thayer Venture Investments

Managing General Partner
Orbit Ventures

Partner
Velocity Ventures
Moderator:

Chair
North Ridge Partners, WebBeds & Technoloy Queenstown
1.30PM – 1.50PM
Made in Fire: Hard-Won Lessons for Believers, Builders and Future Founders
The book is out, now it’s time to hear the story straight from the co-author’s mouth. For the two builders behind Ixigo, the real challenge isn’t starting; it’s keeping that fire alive while everything around you tries to put it out. Competitors. Doubt. Scale. Sometimes even your own success. We’ll get an honest account of what building a travel tech startup actually costs – the mistakes, the near-deaths, the pivots and what does it mean to continue to build, when you’ve already been at it for nearly two decades.
Speaker:

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
1.50PM – 2.10PM
Brothers & Futures: Unlocking Tours, Activities & Attractions in Asia
We get into the story of how two siblings got together – one, a banker and the other, an airline executive – to start a technology business in tours and activities. They’ve been building diligently for more than 13 years, a discipline that has won them recognition as one of Singapore’s most innovative tech startups. But in every business cycle comes a moment of reckoning. Even as their sector is ablaze with opportunity, it is also ablaze with competition. We find out how they are strengthening their business, building longevity into their B2B business model and proving their importance in the tours and activities ecosystem in Asia.
Speakers:

Co-founder & CEO
GlobalTix

Co-founder & COO
GlobalTix
Interviewer:

Board Member, Tourism Tasmania /
Founder, former CEO & Chairman, Viator
2.10PM – 2.20PM
Reset At 21
The High-Performance Traveller’s Guide to Energy and Recovery: A practical and participatory 10-minute reset designed for entrepreneurs and frequent travellers. Learn simple ways to restore movement, manage fatigue and protect your energy on a flight, in a hotel room and at home.
Speaker:

Founder & Recovery Atelier
RAPIDÉ
2.20PM – 2.45PM
Prompt Time: The Honest Answers
In this fast and furious interactive session, we prompt our startups, some of whom are just beginning and some halfway (perhaps) into their journey from seedling to sapling, with questions for which there may be no easy answers. The toughest question, we will save for the last – expect audience engagement.
Speakers:

CEO & Founder
DayAway

Co-founder & CEO
Lumitics

CEO & Co-founder
Belli

CEO & Co-founder
Seek Sophie

Co-founder
Tour Hero
Prompter:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
2.45PM – 3.00PM
Agentic AI Hackathon: The Prelude
A review of the first Agentic Hackathon organized by Alibaba Cloud and Atlas to surface the most innovation solutions in Agentic AI.
Speakers:

CEO & Founder
Atlas

VP, International Business / Regional GM
of ASEAN, Alibaba Cloud
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
3.00PM – 3.20PM
Agentic AI Hackathon Finals: Meet The Top Three
Presenting the three finalists of the first Agentic Hackathon organized by Alibaba Cloud and Atlas to surface the most innovation solutions in Agentic AI. A live panel of judges will determine the winner and the runner-ups, to be announced at the closing on Main Stage on October 2.
Finalists:

Founder & AI Systems Lead
GlobalPlanner

Founder
Northstar AI

Co-founder
YuanFen
Judges:

Principal
T2Impact

CEO & Co-founder
Wego

CEO & Founder
Atlas

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo

CEO
AchieveGo

Technical Evangelist Lead
Alibaba Cloud
Facilitator:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
3.20PM – 4.05PM
Global Startup Pitch Showcase: Meet The Seedup Winners
Following an intense Grand Finals held at Phocuswright Europe in Barcelona in June, these winners of the Global Startup Pitch (Seed-ups) get their four minutes of fame, followed by three minutes of commentary from our dragons. You get to vote for your People’s Choice, who goes on to win a spotlight at the Phocuswright Conference in Fort Lauderdale, November 17-19. The winner will be announced on Main Stage at the closing on October 2.
Facilitator:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Seedup Winners:

Founder & CEO
BizTrip AI

Founder & CEO
BookAfrica

Founder & CEO
Lobby

Co-founder & CEO
SPUN Global
(Honorary) Wild Cards:

Co-founder
Conxi

Founder
Talk to Magpie AI
Dragons:

Chair
North Ridge Partners, WebBeds & Technology Queenstown

Venture Partner
Thayer Investment Partners

Managing General Partner
Orbit Ventures

Vice President, Global Connectivity
& Partner Solutions, Expedia Group

Senior Advisor
ennea Capital Partners
4.05PM
Wrapping It Up
4:05PM – 5.00PM
Networking Coffee Break
Take a breather, continue the conversations, and enjoy the rest of your afternoon around Singapore before the Opening Party at 7:00PM.
The Global Travel Tech Thinktank by WiT, Phocuswright & PhocusWire
By Invite Only
Location:
Ocean 3-4, Level 2
We’re starting afresh this year – with a Thinktank that will open up our minds to the possibilities that now exist and could emerge in this new epoch of travel.
There are big questions ahead of us:
• What are the things worth building?
• What are the things worth fighting for?
• What are the things worth protecting?
• What are the things we must change?
• What are the things we must collaborate on?
In essence – what’s possible that wasn’t possible five years ago and, to get there, what uncomfortable truths do we have to confront?
Back for its fourth year, this closed-door, by-invite event puts 50 leaders in a room to discuss, deliberate and debate the future we wish to create – the possibilities worth building towards, the truths worth confronting and the choices we choose to make.
Hosts:
Facilitator:
5.00PM – 5.05PM
The Framing
The question is not where we have been, the question is what are we choosing to build next.
5.05PM – 5.50PM
The Possibility Brief
To get us dreaming, imagining and thinking, we will kick off with a series of thought-provoking conversations and talks..
Featuring:

Co-founder & Managing Partner
Monk’s Hill Ventures

Chief Commercial Officer
The Ascott

Principal
T2Impact
Opening Cocktails hosted by Pan Pacific Singapore
Location:
PLUME, Level 1
Join us for an evening of drinks, conversations, and connections to celebrate the start of WiT Singapore – 21: A New Beginning.
Day 1: The World As It Is
Venue:
Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre
Heliconia Ballroom, Level 3
We are entering a stage of travel where there are more questions than answers. And so this edition of WiT Singapore begins with questions around the forces that are reshaping travel. We don’t promise to have all the answers, but we promise lots of healthy debate, open conversations and smart insights.
Speaker:

WiT (Web in Travel)
Siew Hoon has been covering the travel industry beat in Asia Pacific for decades, starting off as a rookie reporter and going on to lead and launch the region’s key industry media titles. In 2005, she founded WiT (Web in Travel) to tackle how technology was changing travel in Asia Pacific and created a new space in the fast-growing, dynamic region with a dedicated media and events platform.
Over the years, she took WiT to new places, launching editions in Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Middle East, Europe, Africa and most recently New Zealand to keep the world’s attention focused on the three pillars of travel, technology and Asia.
Following the acquisition by Northstar Travel Group in 2014, she led the launch of Travel Weekly Asia and M&C Asia and formed the editorial team to execute the entry of Northstar Travel Group to Asia.
Her work has been recognised by numerous institutions including the Singapore Tourism Board which recognised her as Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014. The WiT Singapore conference, which remains its tentpole event, has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year.
In 2020, WiT Singapore became the first travel conference to go fully hybrid, paving the way for a new model in events.
Other than writing about travel, Siew Hoon is also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries”, children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon” and host of “A Life In Travel” podcast.

WiT (Web in Travel)
Act 1: The Asia Moment
His story began with a low-cost airline that transformed travel in South-east Asia. Today, his group spans five different companies, all of which came into being because he made it possible for everyone to fly. Now he wants everyone to not only fly, but buy travel, transport goods, fix their planes. What does a new beginning look like for this Malaysian-born maverick entrepreneur who paid fifty cents, nearly thirty years ago, to buy a low-cost airline? And what does it mean to build something beyond the sky?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Capital A Berhad
Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, male, 62, is a co-founder of AirAsia. He was appointed as a Non-Independent Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 30 March 2018.
Tan Sri Tony is one of Asia’s most recognisable entrepreneurs, best known for co-founding low-cost carrier AirAsia and democratising air travel in the region.
In December 2001, Tan Sri Tony, together with Datuk Kamarudin Meranun, Dato’ Pahamin Ab Rajab and Dato’ Abdel Aziz @ Abdul Aziz bin Abu Bakar, acquired struggling domestic airline, AirAsia, and with the help of Conor McCarthy, relaunched it as a pioneer of budget travel in Asia, building AirAsia into the world’s best low-cost carrier.
He studied in the UK and qualified as an Associate Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in 1991, then as a Fellow Member in 1996. He is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). An accountant by training, he began his career in Virgin Group before returning to Malaysia as Warner Music Group’s Vice President for Southeast Asia before venturing into the airline business.
Tan Sri Tony has received numerous honours and awards over the course of his career. These include the Honour of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, conferred by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2011, and the Commander of the Legion d’Honneur, awarded by the French Government for outstanding contributions to the economy of France through the aviation industry. He also received the Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM) award conferred by Yang Di Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, which carries the title Tan Sri.

Capital A Berhad
While Tony Fernandes transformed air travel, this banker-turned-entrepreneur and his co-founder set out to change the way a younger generation of Asians could discover and buy experiences by creating Asia’s first tours and activities marketplace. Twelve years on, a full cycle, they have built a brand that has gone global and a platform that has become the lens through which a new generation experiences the world. What has the journey taught him? And what does the next chapter look like for Asia’s most successful travel startup in the past decade?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Klook
A Mauritius native, educated in the U.S., Eric is an avid explorer with a multicultural upbringing that taught him to speak seven languages. Before co-founding Klook in 2014, Eric worked in finance at a global investment bank in Hong Kong, traveling extensively worldwide.
As Chief Operating Officer of Klook, Eric spearheads the company’s global expansion and oversees various business units. He is instrumental in establishing partnerships with key travel players such as Universal Studios, Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTR), Japan National Tourism Organization, Hong Kong Tourism Board, and many more. Eric’s leadership contributed significantly to Klook’s diverse offerings and the brand’s rising popularity across in the globe. Today, as one of the world’s leading travel activities and services booking platforms, Klook offers its services in eight different languages, supporting 36 currencies with localized payment methods.
Eric was featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2017 List and China’s Yicai (CBN) Brilliant 20 List, recognizing his entrepreneurial spirit and game-changing attitude. Eric has been invited to speak in various world-class tech and travel conferences including TechCrunch, RISE, WIT (Web In Travel), Phocuswright, Arival and ITB.

Klook
India is no longer a market waiting to happen – it is happening. Its outbound travel surge is among the most consequential stories in global travel today, and MakeMyTrip has been at the centre of it. But building for a billion is not the same as building for millions. The infrastructure, the expectations, the first-time traveller complexity – it demands a different kind of platform thinking. What has been learned, what still needs to be built, and what does India’s next chapter mean for the rest of Asia, and the world?
Interviewer:

CEO
Queen’s Road Capital
Speaker:

MakeMyTrip
Rajesh Magow is the Co-Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of the Company.
He has been associated with the Company since June 12, 2006 and has been a Director of MakeMyTrip (India) Ltd. since June 19, 2026. He is responsible for overseeing strategic direction, spearheading growth and shaping long term vision across the group’s portfolio.
He is an associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He has been the chair of the FICCI Committee on Tourism for 2025-2026 and is an independent director on the board of Info Edge (India) Limited.
Prior to joining the Company, he was associated with Aptech Computer Education, Technovate Data and Services Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBookers.com, and Voltas Limited (formerly known as Voltas Switchgear Limited).
He has also been elected as governing council member of Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) for the term 2025–2027.
He has been awarded the Ernst & Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year – Services’ in 2024, ‘Times Now India’s Impactful CEO’ in 2024, ‘People-Focused CEO of the Year’ at the Economic Times Human Capital Awards in 2023, and the ‘E-commerce Leader of the Year’ in the individual category, by ET Retail, in 2023.
He has experience in information technology and e-commerce industries.

MakeMyTrip
One is built on the logic of fast food – a single, scalable model, replicated across the world. The other is built on the logic of multi-brand depth and institutional scale. One is channel agnostic, the other is doubling down on loyalty and agentic commerce. Two contrasting visions of hospitality, both rooted in Asia, both reaching for the next frontier. How are they thinking about technology and growth as they build for the traveller of 2035?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Hotel 101 Global
Hannah Yulo-Luccini has served as Director of HBNB since 2024 and Chief Executive Officer of HBNB since March 3, 2025. In addition, Ms. Yulo-Luccini has served as Director and Chief Executive Officer of Hotel101 Global from 2022 to present, Chief Investment Officer of DoubleDragon Corporation, a company listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange and the indirect parent company of HBNB, from 2015 to present and Director of Chief Financial Officer of MerryMart Consumer Corp., a company listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange and an affiliate of HBNB, from 2009 to present. Ms. Yulo-Luccini has also served as Chairman and Director of Mbox Smart Lockers Corp., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2021 to present, Director of M Supplies Corp., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2009 to present, Director of Carlos Drugs-Lucena Inc., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2002 to present, Director of Z.C. Ramthel Corporation, an affiliate of HBNB, from 2009 to present, Chief Financial Officer of Beedragon Global Corp., an affiliate of HBNB, from 2021 to present, Director and Treasurer of Mevorechet Corporation from 2012 to present, Director of CanopyProperties, Inc. from 2020 to present and Director and Chief Financial Officer of Young Focus for Education and Development Foundation, a non-profit organization, from 2018 to present. Ms. Yulo-Luccini holds a bachelor of science in business administration from Palawan State University and a masters in business administration from University of St. La Salle.

Hotel 101 Global

The Ascott Limited
Tan Bee Leng is Chief Commercial Officer at The Ascott Limited (Ascott), with a dual role as Managing Director, Digital Ventures, CapitaLand Investment (CLI).
As Chief Commercial Officer for Ascott, Bee Leng spearheads the company’s commercial strategy, leading a team comprising Global Sales, Revenue & Distribution Management, Brand & Marketing, Loyalty & Partnerships, Digital Experience and Communications.
Responsible for shaping Ascott’s portfolio of 17 hospitality brands, Bee Leng’s track record in brand innovation and leadership can be seen in a global Brand360 exercise that strengthened Ascott’s portfolio with a multi-typology brand strategy.
In 2024, she led Ascott to secure the partnership deal with Chelsea Football Club as its Official Global Hotels Partner, positioning Ascott well to capitalise on the growing convergence of sports, entertainment and hospitality.
In her dual portfolio role as Managing Director, Digital Ventures for CLI, Bee Leng oversees the group’s corporate venture arm, to drive innovation through new digital business opportunities with the potential to be incubated and nurtured into impactful start-up businesses for CLI.
Prior to her current role, Bee Leng was the Head of Group Communications for CapitaLand Group, where she was responsible for its corporate and executive communications, brand strategy and reputation management. Between 2009 and 2018, she was also overseeing the philanthropic arm of CapitaLand as the General Manager of CapitaLand Hope Foundation.
Bee Leng is a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience in developing and implementing effective communication and branding strategies. She was named a winner of Women To Watch Asia Pacific 2024 by Campaign Asia-Pacific for her contributions to marketing, media and communications.

The Ascott Limited
Networking Coffee Break hosted by Nuitee
Act 2: The Provocation Moment
He has seen Asia’s technology landscape from every angle – as entrepreneur, investor, and now as one of the region’s most incisive observers of where capital flows and why. As we move from the era of scale into the era of intelligence, he asks the question the industry keeps circling but rarely answers directly: what does a genuine new beginning actually demand of us?
Speaker:

Queen's Road Capital
In 2005 Frederick “Fritz” Demopoulos co-founded and was the CEO of Qunar. Qunar was acquired by Baidu in 2011.
Fritz also co-founded and was the CEO of Shawei. Shawei was acquired by Tom.com in 2000.
Fritz held senior management positions at various online and traditional media companies in China including Netease, Hai Run Media Group and News Corporation.
Fritz currently coordinates his personal investment and entrepreneurial activities through Queen’s Road Capital.
A native of Los Angeles, Fritz was educated at UCLA, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Karls-Ruprecht University in Heidelberg. He has lectured on entrepreneurship and the Chinese Internet at Stanford, Harvard, UCLA, Tsinghua, Beijing University, Singapore Management University and the Communist Party College in Nanjing.

Queen's Road Capital
The launch of Viator almost 30 years ago was the beginning of the online market for experiences. A never ending torrent of new operators entered the market, travellers set aside their distaste for old-style guided tours, massively funded OTA players like Klook and GetYourGuide burst onto the scene, social media changed the way people search and discover, and mobile completely changed the way people book. Now AI promises – or threatens – another new beginning. What happens next?
Speakers:

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Rod is a pioneer of the global online travel industry. He was the founder, CEO & Chairman of Viator, the leading global marketplace for tour and experience products. He was subsequently the CEO & Chairman of Rome2rio, the multi-modal search engine; and is currently a non-executive director of Veltra Corporation, the Tokyo Stock Exchange listed seller of tour and experience products, and Jayride, the Sydney-based global marketplace for airport transfers. He is also a member of the board of directors of Tourism Tasmania.

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Travel distribution is changing – and Expedia Group is betting that a unified approach to its partner ecosystem is the way forward. Golan Shakéd, VP, Hotel Management Partnerships and Air, joins us to explore what that means for hotels, airlines, and the broader travel industry. From integration challenges to new opportunities, Shakéd draws on a career across travel, media and digital growth to make sense of where the model goes next — and what partners should be thinking about as the landscape evolves.
Interviewer:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Speaker:

Partnerships and Air
Expedia Group
Golan Shakéd leads global partnerships across hotels and airlines for Expedia Group. In this role, he works closely with partners to strengthen strategic relationships, unlock growth opportunities, and drive commercial performance across a fast-evolving travel landscape. A seasoned commercial and growth leader, he brings over 25 years of experience scaling digital businesses and driving high‑impact transformation across corporate, private equity, and high‑growth technology environments.
Before joining Expedia Group, Golan held senior leadership roles across travel technology, media, and gaming. At Kiwi.com, he helped steer the company through the COVID‑19 crisis, led a shift toward a more customer‑centric, direct‑to‑consumer strategy, and strengthened airline partnerships through closer collaboration. Prior to that, he served as Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at Deezer, reshaping its global commercial strategy and accelerating its move to direct‑to‑consumer across EMEA, the Americas, and APAC. He also played key roles in major fundraising and transaction milestones, including private‑equity raises, Deezer’s management roadshow, and the bwin–PartyGaming merger and subsequent acquisition by GVC Holdings. Earlier in his career, he led global campaigns for Fortune 500 brands and helped scale Celltick’s mobile business while moving the company into profitability.
Golan holds a BA in Marketing and Communications and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology. He advises early‑ and mid‑stage start‑ups and has served on the Advisory Board of the International School of London.

Partnerships and Air
Expedia Group
If data is the rails on which the future of travel sits, what are the truths we have to confront – and fix – before we can write a new beginning? OAG sits at the intersection of schedules, capacity, and connectivity data that touches every journey made on earth. This presentation brings a forensic lens to the industry’s structural realities: where the system is sound, where it is fragile, and what the numbers say about where travel goes next.
Speaker:

OAG
Gemma Timmons is Director of Operations and Chief of Staff at OAG, a 96-year-old aviation data company undergoing significant technological transformation. She brings a rare blend of strategic, investment, and operational experience in travel tech and B2B software.
At OAG, Gemma leads operational and AI transformation efforts, with a focus on modernising data infrastructure for an increasingly agentic world. She holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

OAG
The online travel agency has survived every wave of disruption thrown at it – metasearch, mobile, the pandemic, the rise of direct booking. Now comes AI. A conversation with the world’s leading OTA to assess where they stand in one of its highest growth markets, what they are building, and whether the model that made them is the model that will carry them forward in this region.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Booking.com
As Managing Director & Vice President of Asia Pacific, Laura Houldsworth leads and oversees business growth, operations and strategy for one of Booking.com’s most vibrant and diverse regions globally.
Laura joined Booking.com in June 2021, following 10 successful years at SAP Concur where she last served as Senior Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China. Laura has previously held regional roles in BCD Travel and ABN Amro Private Banking; and is a commercial leader with more than 20 years of experience managing successful, multi-cultural teams.
As a people-first leader, Laura is a keen advocate for causes such as gender equality in the workplace and sustainability. She serves as an executive sponsor for multiple employee resource groups, such as B.Equal and B.Sustainable, supporting grassroots initiatives to make Booking.com APAC a great place to work.
Laura has lived and worked in Singapore for more than 20 years and holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Marketing Management from Bournemouth University, United Kingdom.

Booking.com
Answering the question – how do we build for the traveller of 2035?
Speaker:

Wego
Ross is CEO & Co-Founder at Wego, which is online travel marketplace that provides top ranked mobile apps and websites for users living in the APAC and MENA regions. Wego harnesses powerful technology that simplifies the process of searching, comparing and booking flights and hotels across hundreds of airlines, hotels and online travel agency websites. Wego is has dual-HQs in Singpaore and Dubai and is backed by top-tier investors including Tiger Global, Crescent Group, Square Peg Capital and the MBC Group.
Ross is a veteran of the Asian internet industry having established Yahoo!s Southeast Asian operations in Singapore back in 1998 and leading product development efforts across the region for 6+ years. He is also Singapore Co-Chair of H2, the premier global leadership network for the digital industry. Ross has been an active angel investor in the technology sector for a decade and enjoys working with other passionate entrepreneurs. He has worked in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Kuala Lumpur and is now splits his time between Singapore and Dubai. He travels frequently for business but not nearly enough for leisure.

Wego
Networking Lunch hosted by Wego
Act 3: The Build
“The unlikely origin of a $2.5 billion hospitality unicorn: a bored teenager working the night shift at his family business,” so goes the headline of a recent article in Fortune of this founder whose startup, Mews, has caught the hospitality world’s attention with its bold vision, moves and acquisitions. Now it too is a crossroads as it navigates the dynamic changes unfolding in the hospitality tech space. How is it writing a new beginning in hospitality to solve its biggest problems, to please the guest?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Mews
Richard Valtr is an entrepreneur and ex-hotelier with an extensive background in hotel investment and management. Richard was educated at UCL in London before returning to his native Czech Republic where he project managed a number of property developments, culminating in the creation of the Emblem Hotel. While he was working at the property, he realized that hotel management systems had failed to keep pace with hotels or their guests, and he founded Mews to bring modern, seamless hospitality to hoteliers and guests alike. In his time at Mews, Richard has pushed hoteliers to think differently, from operations and payments to optimizing every square inch of their properties. From his Brooklyn home, he continues to provide inspirational leadership not only at Mews but for the hospitality industry.

Mews
Unlock payments and you unlock the heart of the traveller – a moment of reckoning in what the next generation of travel payments infrastructure could unlock for the industry.
Speaker:

Visa
Jay has spent over five years at Visa, holding roles across the Commercial Solutions organisation. During this time, he managed a range of Visa’s European commercial issuers before playing a key role in establishing the Global B2B Travel team. He went on to assume global responsibility for Visa’s key strategic partner within the travel vertical, helping to drive partnership strategy and commercial payments innovation across the global travel ecosystem.
Prior to Visa, Jay spent seven years at AirPlus International as Head of Sales and Partnerships, and two years at Barclaycard Commercial, building deep expertise in commercial payments and their application across the travel industry. Jay resides in North London with his wife, eleven-year-old son, and dog. He enjoys participating in sports, cooking, listening to music, and traveling.

Visa
OTAs becoming fintech players. Fintech companies selling travel. Payments criss-crossing borders, following the flow of travellers within the region. And now comes agentic commerce – what will a new beginning in payments look like with this latest tech enablement? How will the industry address increased concerns about fraud and security amid this fluid, dynamic, changing landscape? How are the leading players in this space thinking about and orchestrating for the future?
Moderator:

Vice President, Corporate Development
Agoda
Speakers:

Visa
Tania is the Global Head of B2B Travel for Visa Commercial Solutions, where she responsible for the creation and execution of the business strategy for this rapidly evolving, high growth vertical segment. Bringing more than 25 years of experience in the payments, financial services and telecommunications sectors, Tania has led successful businesses around the world. Prior to joining Visa in early 2024, she managed the Commercial team at Outpayce from Amadeus, serving the global travel ecosystem with new advances in payments. Tania has also previously held senior business development roles at American Express, MasterCard Payment Gateway Services, Vodafone and IDT.

Visa

Xendit
Trevor Spinks is Head of Travel at Xendit, where he focuses on how payments infrastructure is shaping the future of travel commerce across Southeast Asia and beyond. He brings over two decades of senior commercial leadership experience across aviation and travel technology, most recently serving as Managing Director APAC at Volantio and Chief Commercial & Customer Officer (Interim) at flyadeal, with prior leadership roles at Sojern, Scoot, and Sabre. He brings a firsthand perspective on how travel businesses are adapting to shifting traveller expectations, evolving distribution models, and the opportunities and challenges of growth.

Xendit

Greater China and Southeast Asia
Checkout.com
Yao Xiang is Head of Commercial, for Greater China and Southeast Asia, at Checkout.com, where he leads business development, market expansion, and merchant performance across the region. He joined Checkout.com in 2022 as the General Manager for Greater China.
With over 10 years of payment industry experience, Yao works alongside enterprise merchants across Ecommerce, Gaming, Digital, Online Travel Agency, and Mobility. His deep operational expertise helps businesses elevate payment performance, refine risk strategies, and scale sustainably across international markets.
Prior to Checkout.com, Yao served as Head of Account Management at Adyen China. He also held key payments and risk management positions at LightInTheBox and Booking.com.
Yao holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Renmin University of China and a Master’s degree in Financial Management from TIAS Business School in the Netherlands.

Greater China and Southeast Asia
Checkout.com
Will search survive the agentic era or gets absorbed into it? Well, Skyscanner is not sitting around and waiting for the answer. It’s putting bets that push it past flights, past search. Its summer product release included Explore with AI, a natural-language search layer built on its own data; a road trip planner and a broader bet on multi-modal travel across five growth markets, India among them. Layer in its acquisition of Longtail, sharpening its ability to price flights on real demand signal. And its CEO also believes that in an agentic era, recognition matters more, not less, when an algorithm is doing the choosing. This coffee chat puts those bets to the test.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Skyscanner
Bryan leads Skyscanner in its mission to become the world’s number one travel ally. He’s held senior international roles at Booking.com and Tesla. He was previously the Chief Operating Officer for Skyscanner, implementing the company’s long-term strategic vision across the company, which sees Skyscanner search 100 billion prices every day to help travellers plan and book their trip with ease and confidence.

Skyscanner
Networking Coffee Break hosted by Nuitee
There is a gap between wanting to travel and booking travel and it is wider than the industry admits. WiT and Phocuswright unveil findings from an exclusive study into booking anxiety across South-east Asia, part of a global research project. The findings challenge some comfortable assumptions about what holds travellers back and suggest that the next wave of growth will go to those who understand the emotional intent of the travel decision, not just its logistics.
Speaker:

Protect Group
Stephen has been a founder and entrepreneur in tech since 1995, currently serving as Global Strategy Lead – Travel & Tours at Protect Group. He has previously served as VP of Content at Arival in the experiences industry and as Executive Director for OCTO. He co-founded Rezgo, a pioneering SaaS booking platform for the experiences industry, and worked as VP of Solutions at Holibob. Stephen is passionate about the travel industry and has served as a board member and Chair of several travel industry associations including the Open Travel Alliance and OCTO. He is an avid speaker and industry analyst, and he co-hosts the Arival – Best Part of Travel Podcast where he enjoys speaking with industry experts about the current and future state of the experiences industry.

Protect Group
Act 4: The Reckoning
For this founder who’s “Made in Fire”, and has been through several fires in 18 years of building ixigo, the next fire is here and coming at us at velocity-plus. And he’s running into the flames, unflinching, and building, unfettered he believes by nothing except our imagination. Let’s find out how he is making those battle scars count in this next chapter of ixigo’s growth, how he is already rewriting the tech stack and why India might well lead the way in innovation in the next 21.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

ixigo
Rajnish Kumar is the Co-founder and Group Co-CEO of ixigo (Le Travenues Technology Ltd., listed on NSE & BSE). An IIT Kanpur alumnus in Computer Science, Kumar began his career as a software engineer at Amadeus before co-founding ixigo in 2007.
He has led the company’s product, technology, growth and AI strategy across its journey from a bootstrapped travel search engine to India’s leading OTA for the ‘next billion users’, serving over 570 million annual active users in FY26. He was honoured with the 2023 Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT Kanpur and recognised under the ‘Comeback Kid’ category at the Economic Times Startup Awards 2021.
He is an active mentor and investor in India’s startup ecosystem and the author of ‘Made in Fire’, a book on entrepreneurship, resilience and the journey of building enduring companies.

ixigo
In the age of Generative AI, everyone’s back at the same starting line. Suppliers, intermediaries, giants, startups: the map’s been redrawn, and it’s anyone’s race to win. But who’s actually moving? We reveal fresh findings from Phocuswright’s B2B AI Survey, alongside consumer data from Japan, Europe and the US, to show where the industry is placing its bets – and whether travellers are ready to follow. Where is the gap between AI ambition and traveller adoption widest? And who’s asking the right questions to win the new beginning?
Speaker:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Talkback:

Principal
T2Impact
The Agentic future is here, faster than we anticipated, and there are more questions than there are answers. Indeed, it’s throwing up a lot of questions, especially around flight distribution. The key question is, what happens next?
• Is agentic search friend or foe, before it becomes something else?
• What’s the value of price comparison in agentic search?
• How will these forces impact partner relationships?
• Will it solve the look-to-book ratio?
• Who owns the relationship with the traveller?
• What happens to the economics of distribution when the intermediary is a machine?
Questions our panellists will answer, from their different lenses.
Referee:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Speakers:

Meili
A senior travel industry executive with unparalleled experience of developing and leading global technology platforms, Mike’s ambition is for Meili to become the market leader in travel tech. As the former CEO of CarTrawler, Mike used his superior perspective on the mobility marketplace to oversee continual growth over a decade, the successful completion of two major private equity investments and multiple acquisitions. Mike’s commercial expertise and stellar track record make him uniquely qualified to guide Meili on its path to growth.

Meili

ennea Capital Partners
Lisa is a seasoned professional with 15+ years in strategy, corporate development, and M&A. As SVP of Corporate Development at Etraveli Group, she leads strategy, M&A, and partnerships for the global flight platform backed by CVC Capital Partners. She is also an angel investor, startup mentor, and member of the Hellenic Business Angel Network. Boards include the upcoming role at Nezasa.

ennea Capital Partners

Travel Sellers, Asia Pacific
Amadeus
Renaud Nicolle is the Regional Senior Vice President, Travel Sellers, Asia Pacific at Amadeus, based in Singapore. He leads the strategy and performance of the Travel Sellers business across APAC, working closely with partners to drive growth, strengthen customer collaboration, and advance next-generation travel technology.
With more than 20 years at Amadeus, Renaud has held leadership roles across France, Spain, and Asia Pacific, spanning commercial strategy, global network management, product leadership, and major account development.
In recent years, he has played a key role in strengthening strategic partnerships with major customers and supporting high-impact commercial and NDC initiatives across APAC.
Renaud holds a Master of Engineering degree from the École Centrale de Paris.

Travel Sellers, Asia Pacific
Amadeus

Letsfly
Reno Wang has over 10 years of experience across travel, payments, and e-commerce, with a diverse background spanning product, engineering, business management, and data analytics. A seasoned travel industry executive, he has held leadership positions at leading OTAs including Hopper and Fliggy, and previously served as President of the Flight Business at Dida Travel, giving him extensive experience across both B2C and B2B travel businesses. At Letsfly, Reno leads global commercial partnerships, key accounts, and enterprise growth. He brings deep expertise in global travel distribution and a proven track record of driving business growth, strategic partnerships, and transformation.

Letsfly
2006. 20 years ago. He was there at the old beginning, one of the early startups to sense the social media wave coming for hospitality, and created one of the first sentiment analysis engines for hoteliers to track traveller reviews. His warnings of a social media tsunami that would drown out brands’ voices have come to pass. What’s the new wave coming, unleashed by AI? How do brands maintain relevance, win trust and keep customer love in an ever increasingly noisy, divisive world?
Speaker:

Brand Karma
Executive Director,
Montara Hospitality Group
Morris has spent three decades at the corner of tech and hospitality, usually loitering there a few years before everyone else shows up. At Microsoft he helped build the software you’ve definitely rage-quit (MS Office) and founded the Imagine Cup, now the planet’s biggest student tech competition (20 years and still going strong!). After Microsoft, he co-founded Brand Karma, which figured out how to turn hotel guests’ online opinions into something Marriott, Accor, and IHG would actually pay for — before getting scooped up in a two-buyer deal. These days he sits on the Montara Hospitality board, develops commercial strategy for his clients, and coaches executives who want to change the world but haven’t yet figured out how. Stanford engineer, WiT Warrior, proud dad, burgundy fan, and still learning something new everyday.

Brand Karma
Executive Director,
Montara Hospitality Group
Almost every session today has been about scale, speed, and the next fire. This one is different – it’s about the fire that was always meant to be tended, not chased. Told by three hoteliers with very different stories but following a similar path. One built a legacy from nothing, in a country he barely knew growing up. One is building on a legacy he inherited. Both are betting that heart is not a soft add-on to hospitality, it’s well, the heart. And the third hotelier? The guy that managed to start both on their paths.
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

HMD Asia & Shinta Mani Hotels
Sokoun has been involved in the hotel and restaurant business for more than fifteen years, which might seem like a short time, but in that time his concepts have garnered a host of awards and accolades, and his properties are recognized as leaders in the region.
However, Sokoun is more than his corporate avatar, his concepts are also garnering attention for their positive social and environmental impact. Sokoun is primarily responsible for seeking out opportunities to expand the Shinta Mani brand across Asia.
Raised in Bangkok, with roots in Cambodia, Sokoun is a native son to Southeast Asia, but received his BA at Boston University. His experience extends to high-end jewelry and hotel property development.
As founder of HMD Asia, Shinta Mani and other concepts Sokoun brings a wealth of industry knowledge to the boardroom table.

HMD Asia & Shinta Mani Hotels

Montara Hospitality Group (Thailand)
Kittisak “Kitt” Pattamasaevi is the Chief Executive Officer of Montara Hospitality Group, where he leads the company’s vision of creating exceptional hospitality experiences that enrich people’s lives while generating lasting value for communities and the environment.
Under his leadership, Trisara, Phuket’s iconic luxury resort and private residential community, has earned international recognition for its service, culinary excellence, and commitment to responsible hospitality. He is also leading the development of Tri Vananda, an integrated wellness community that brings together luxury residences, regenerative agriculture, hospitality, and preventive healthcare. At its heart is the Clinique La Prairie Health Resort Phuket, opening in 2026 as the first destination of its kind in Southeast Asia.
Beyond hospitality, Kitt is passionate about creating places with long-term social and cultural impact. His work focuses on fostering wellbeing, strengthening local communities, supporting Thai craftsmanship and agriculture, and developing destinations that celebrate Thailand’s natural and cultural heritage.
Kitt holds a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He also serves as a director of the Niyom Pattamasaevi Foundation, which supports education, arts, and cultural initiatives in Lampang, Thailand.

Montara Hospitality Group (Thailand)

Executive Director, Montara Hospitality Group
Bill came to Asia in 1982 as Resident Manager at the Regent Hong Kong. He was later transferred to Bangkok as General Manager.
During the HIV/Aids pandemic of the 90’s, Bill co-founded the Thailand Business Coalition on Aids which provided education and workplace policies for businesses to effectively addresses the issues that were effecting their workplaces.
In 2002, Bill formed his own hotel management company focusing on small and independent hotels in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
He then started to work for Sokoun, as he was opening Hotel de la Paix and had just opened Shinta Mani in Siem Reap. The early work at Shinta Mani was to incorporate the foundations work with the guests experience. This not only drove business but also raised substantial funds to help the foundation fulfill its objectives.
After the Asian tsunami in 2005 he joined the board of Montara Hospitality where he has worked with both the owner and the managers to help improve operational performances.
Bill’s company in 2010, was bought by a family office company in Singapore where Bill continued to be involved in philanthropy with the family’s efforts in India. He remained there until the COVID outbreak when he re-turned to Canada.
Being able to continue being engaged in the Asian hospitality industry he believes is a true blessing.

Executive Director, Montara Hospitality Group
What questions were answered today? What questions remain unanswered? Tomorrow, we return to tackle them.
Day 2: The New Beginning Begins
Venue:
Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre
Heliconia Ballroom, Level 3
Act 5: Rewriting the Future: Lenses of Experience
To everything, there is a season. This veteran has seen every cycle of travel – from the era of the destination management company to the age of the OTA, and now the age of artificial intelligence – and he smells something different in the air: a renaissance. A return to the human-led, the human-centric, the deeply personal. As he enters his own new beginning as chairperson of a 114-year-old travel institution that has outlasted every wave of disruption, he brings his lens of experience, context, and culture to what comes next. What does the renaissance look like and what does it demand of the industry that serves it?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

JTB Corp.
The JTB Group traces its roots back to 1912 when “Japan Tourist Bureau” was formed to attract international travelers to Japan and assist with their travel needs. While our activities and clientele have expanded greatly since then, the JTB Group remains aligned around a core purpose: bringing people, places and possibilities together.
Eijiro “Eddie” Yamakita has held key leadership positions throughout his career, with a focus on the group’s international business. Early on, he led the development of the company’s global strategy before moving to Europe, where he served as European Head of the JTB Group and Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Kuoni Travel Investment Ltd.
Following his return to Japan, he served as President and CEO from 2020. In this role, he led a comprehensive strategic transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, establishing a solid foundation for the group’s global expansion and long-term growth. He also leads global advocacy to the tourism industry through international organizations such as UN Tourism and the WTTC.
In 2026, he assumed his current role as Chairperson Representative Director and Executive Officer of JTB Corp.

JTB Corp.
He has now done this twice. He helped build Jetstar Asia from the ground up in 2004, then spent 12 years turning it into one of South-east Asia’s low-cost success stories – until he walked away from it entirely. In 2024, he did it again: returned to Jazeera Airways, the Kuwaiti carrier where he’d once been CFO, this time as CEO. And now he’s possibly facing his real test. Yet he remains steadfast on the future, establishing Jazeera Saudia to set up a new phase of growth “as it comes out the situation stronger”. Two airlines, two decades, two very different beginnings – what does someone who keeps starting over actually know that the rest of us don’t?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Jazeera Airways
Barathan Pasupathi (Bara), Chief Executive Officer of Jazeera Airways is Singaporean and has more than 30 years of global aviation experience spanning finance, commercial strategy, operations, and aircraft procurement and leasing. A seasoned airline leader, he has built a strong reputation for leading organizations with purpose, turning around businesses, driving transformation, delivering performance, and sustainable growth in competitive markets.
Since assuming the role of CEO in March 2024, Bara has led Jazeera Airways through a period of strategic expansion and operational discipline, culminating in the airline achieving record profitability in 2025, its strongest financial performance to date. Under his leadership, the airline has advanced its growth agenda through network expansion, fleet optimization, digital innovation, and a continued focus on safety, efficiency, and customer value.
He joined Jazeera from Jetstar Asia where he was the CEO for 12 years in Asia growing Asian markets as well as founding executive and CFO between 2004 to 2007 guiding the airline through multiple phases of growth and industry change. From 2007 to 2010, he served as CFO at Jazeera Airways and listed the airline on the Kuwait stock Market and set up Sahaab Aircraft leasing.
A prominent industry leader shaping the future of aviation, Bara has been featured by Forbes for his leadership influence and contributions to the sector. He is also an acclaimed speaker on aviation strategy, airline economics, and industry transformation, frequently addressing regional and global aviation audiences.
Bara holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Murdoch University and a Master of Business Administration from Deakin University in Australia. He is a Fellow of CPA Australia and a distinguished alumnus. He was also ranked among the Middle East region’s top 100 leaders by CNBC Arabia in 2026.

Jazeera Airways
We pull back the curtain on the Asian traveller – their ambitions, their behaviour, their aspirations and what it means for every company in this room. Five truths from a fresh study to be revealed at WiT Singapore.
Speaker:

Laura-Marie Arens is a global business leader with over 16 years of expertise driving sales, digital strategy, and commercial development across the technology and travel sectors in APAC and EMEA.
She currently leads the APAC Travel sector for Google’s Large Customer Sales (LCS) business in Singapore, partnering with top OTAs, Airlines, and global hotel chains to develop digital business strategy. In addition, Laura-Marie oversees Google’s APAC Vertical Search team—driving the regional adoption of ad tech solutions like Travel Ads and collaborating with global Product & Engineering teams to develop products for the region. Passionate about talent development, she also heads the Google Sales Associate Program across Southeast Asia, empowering early-career talent in Google’s Sales organization.
Prior to her role in Singapore, Laura-Marie held key leadership positions at Google across EMEA and US, including Business Leader for Travel Search EMEA in Berlin, Industry Manager for Travel in Hamburg, and Global Product Lead for Vertical Search in San Francisco.
Laura-Marie holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany), with international business studies completed at IE Business School (Spain) and Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). Based in Singapore for nine years, she enjoys exploring local parks and beaches with her Shiba Inu and discovering new destinations across APAC.

Before flights, he spent years in gaming and gambling – Netent, Betsson, Svenska Spel – an industry that runs entirely on odds and the house edge. He brought that instinct to travel, betting on the unglamorous plumbing of flight distribution. In 2023, Brussels blocked Booking Holdings’ €1.63 billion bid for Etraveli outright – a rare, precedent-setting veto that should have ended the story. Instead, Etraveli stayed independent, extended its Booking.com partnership for eight more years, and brought in KKR at a valuation nearly double the deal that fell through. In this coffee chat, Hedlund talks straight about losing the biggest bet of his career in public, why he still believes in doing the dirty work nobody else wants, and what a casino floor taught him about surviving when the house says no.
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speaker:

Etraveli Group
Mathias Hedlund joined Etraveli Group as CEO in 2014 and has since, together with his team, transformed the company into the world’s leading Flight Tech Platform selling and fullfilling more flights than anyone else outside of China. Based in Europe but with meaningful presence on all continents, Etraveli Group has during the last decade grown with >20% CAGR at consistent 20%+ EBITDA/Net Sales margin focusing solely on Flights. In recent years, Etraveli Group has successfully pivoted to become a leading global B2B Flight Tech Platform with fulfillment capabilities to support the development of Booking.com Flights and others.
Mathias has for the last 25 years been leading online businesses in many different sectors in public and private settings. From Executive Management or Board positions he has been part of developing international companies within financial services (Klarna), gambling (Netent, Betsson, Svenska Spel), e-commerce (Euroflorist, Cheffelo) and search (Eniro) before joining Etraveli. He currently serves as Chairman at Namecheap (a leading US domain registration and web services company)
Mathias has attended Executive Management Programs at Harvard and at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Stockholm.

Etraveli Group
These OTAs have one thing in common – they are domiciled in Asia. That’s the only common denominator. Each is at a different stage of its evolution and each is coming at it from a different angle, whether it be loyalty, value or trust through product and customer service. They represent the diversity that is Asia’s online travel. How are they rewriting their new beginning at a time of disruption?
Interviewer:

Industry Veteran
Speakers:

Senior Vice President of Commerce &
Marketing Company, Rakuten Group
Yoshiyuki Takano is Group Senior Managing Executive Officer, Senior Vice President of Commerce & Marketing Company, Rakuten Group Inc. since Jan 2017.
He started his career at Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd. and joined Rakuten, Inc. in 2002. Firstly, he worked for Rakuten Ichiba e-commerce business and then for Rakuten Travel since 2004. He became Business Manager after serving as Manager of Advertisement Department, Manager of Marketing & Web Design Department and Vice Manager of Travel Business. His digital marketing expertise and management experience in contributes to Rakuten Travel’s rapid business growth.
Yoshiyuki earned Master’s degree from Waseda University

Senior Vice President of Commerce &
Marketing Company, Rakuten Group

International Markets, APAC
Trip.com Group
As the Assistant Vice President of International Markets, Ms Ru Yi formulates strategic goals and drives organisational growth of Trip.com’s hotel business units across Asia, including Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand, among others. Ms Ru oversees the International Hotel Business Units’ operations in these markets – with the objectives of strengthening brand equity, identifying new growth opportunities and partnerships, and fostering strategic relationships with stakeholders. A founding member of Trip.com Singapore, Ms Ru was the Regional General Manager and the Country Head of the International Hotel Business Unit (Singapore) before being promoted to her current position. Ms Ru has a wealth of experience and expertise in the hospitality sector. Prior to joining Trip.com Group in 2013, she had assumed key appointments at Resorts World Sentosa, Sentosa Leisure Group and Far East Organization. A forward-thinking strategic leader with a strong business acumen, Ms Ru is frequently invited to speak at industry and trade events. Ms Ru graduated with a Bachelor in Business Management from Singapore Management University, and also holds an Executive MBA from SMU. A proud mum of two girls, Ms Ru enjoys reading and jogging.

International Markets, APAC
Trip.com Group

AirAsia MOVE
Nadia Omer joined AirAsia MOVE (formerly airasia Superapp) as its Chief Executive Officer effective 26 October 2023. Her key priority will be to drive airasia MOVE’s vision to be the best-value one-stop travel platform in Asean.
Nadia comes with deep experience within Asia and ASEAN in category conversion, habit change and building new categories that create shared value for the full ecosystem.
She began her career at P&G and subsequently moved to bigger roles at Nestle and PepsiCo and served as the Chief Business Officer of Cars24, Southeast Asia before AirAsia MOVE.
Innovation and building talent is something very close to Nadia’s heart. She has built her career as a working mum, and feels passionately about energizing and engaging other young female talents to unleash their potential. She is also a mentor at Antler focusing on helping young founders in tech and e-commerce.
Nadia holds a Master of Business Administration from the Lahore University of Management, and is a Bachelor of Science (Maths, Stats & Econ) graduate.

AirAsia MOVE
Two loyalty bets, built from opposite directions. HeyMax just launched HeyMax First, flipping the model on its head – miles upfront, earned back later, no expiry. Pelago is Singapore Airlines’ own answer to loyalty, built to deepen KrisFlyer engagement through travel experiences rather than just flights. One disrupts loyalty from outside the airline; the other reinforces it from inside. We compare what each is seeing in real customer behaviour, then ask them to bet on where loyalty in travel goes next.
Moderator:
Speakers:

HeyMax

HeyMax

Pelago by Singapore Airlines
Ricky So is Chief Commercial Officer and a founding executive of Pelago, Singapore Airlines’ travel experiences and loyalty platform, which connects travelers with experiences, attractions and hotels around the world. He joined Pelago in 2020 and has played a key role in building the business from concept to scale, shaping its commercial strategy, partnerships, marketing and broader role within the Singapore Airlines ecosystem.
Ricky brings 15 years of experience spanning travel, hospitality and technology, with previous leadership roles at Klook, Uber, Cathay Pacific, and Google. At Klook, he led commercial strategy and planning across multiple travel verticals, while his earlier career included experience at Cathay Pacific across airline sales, inflight services and Asia Miles, Cathay’s mileage currency.
At Pelago, Ricky has worked closely with the Board and senior leadership to develop long-term strategy, build high-performing international teams and forge partnerships across tourism boards, hospitality, attractions and financial services.
A passionate traveler having lived and worked in six countries, Ricky holds a Global Executive MBA with Distinction from INSEAD and is an advisor to early and growth-stage travel and consumer technology companies.

Pelago by Singapore Airlines
Networking Lunch
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Act 6: The Growth Map
At Booking Holdings’ first quarter earnings call this year, CEO Glenn Fogel said independents account for “the vast majority” of Booking.com room nights, while the 10 largest global hotel chains make up only a “low double-digit” share. His comments highlight the importance of the independent hotel segment to the OTAs. Cognizant of this, WiT in partnership with ZUZU Hospitality embarked on a pilot study in South-east Asia to understand how independent hotels are using AI, their concerns and the opportunities for them to be discoverable and profitable in this new age. Preliminary findings to be shared.
Speaker:

ZUZU Hospitality
Vikram Malhi is the Co-founder of ZUZU Hospitality Solutions, a Singapore based start-up that manages sales and online distribution for independent budget hotels across Asia. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Vikram was Managing Director for Expedia Asia and was instrumental in growing Expedia brand across 11 countries in Asia.
He spent a total of 8 years at Expedia, taking on multiple senior level roles including marketing, customer loyalty, operations and general management. In addition to his deep expertise in the online travel and hospitality sectors, he has strong experience in technology and business consulting. He worked at IBM Consulting early in his career and received MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

ZUZU Hospitality
Urban legend has it that this founder has a fire to thank, for igniting his dream. In 2001, while couch surfing with friends, after his first startup folded in the dot-com bust, the apartment he was in caught fire. He lost everything. To stay sane, he built a passion project within Yahoo Group (remember those?) called Spotnana, to help people in the group redeem points for the best deals. The rest is history, or maybe it’s just the beginning of this self-confessed hacker’s ambitions to set a legacy world on fire, with a next generation tech stack. Interviewing him, author of “Made In Fire”, Rajnish Kumar. Should be a fiery coffee chat.
Interviewer:

Co-founder & Group Co-CEO
ixigo
Speaker:

Chief Product Officer
Spotnana
Sarosh Waghmar is Spotnana’s Founder, Co‑Chairman, and Chief Product Officer. He leads Spotnana’s efforts to build the industry’s first Travel‑as‑a‑Service platform, partnering with travel providers and global enterprises to deliver a modern technology stack that opens the door to a new generation of travel experiences.
Over more than two decades in travel, Sarosh has built and scaled businesses that rethink how corporate travel is purchased, sold, and serviced. Prior to Spotnana, he founded WTMC, the world’s first TMC to build direct connections to global airlines. When he isn’t working on product and platform architecture, you’ll likely find him in the kitchen, cooking for family, friends, and colleagues.

Chief Product Officer
Spotnana
Social has crossed the line from inspiration to transaction, and is rewriting the next chapter in travel commerce. Since its founding, this travel brand has been betting big on social and watched its evolution from inspiration to planning to now, commerce. Sharing findings from a study, especially commissioned for WiT Singapore, it reveals five key trends shaping social commerce in the region.
Speaker:

Klook
As Vice President of Global Marketing at Klook, Marcus has been privileged to contribute to their mission of transforming travel experiences since joining the company as employee #51 in 2016. Working alongside a dedicated team, they’ve navigated the company through 6 successful funding rounds, including a recent $100 million investment led by Vitruvian Partners . These milestones have enabled them to enhance our platform and better serve travelers worldwide.
In 2023, Marcus and his team spearheaded the launch of Klook’s Kreator Program, building a community of over 20,000 content creators across 16 markets within a year. This initiative has positioned Klook at the forefront of social commerce in the travel industry.
Prior to Klook, Marcus led digital marketing efforts at Scoot, enhancing global digital acquisition and managing social media across seven markets. He began his career at the Singapore Economic Development Board, focusing on digital brand and channel management for North America.

Klook
Everyone wants to sell travel. Banks, super-apps, content platforms – the list of companies that have decided travel belongs in their ecosystem grows every year. But wanting a piece of the travel pie and knowing how to bake it are different things. Meet the players who are taking different approaches to the travel opportunity. How are they thinking about travel? And what does it mean for the industry when the most powerful travel distribution channel might be one that was never built for travel at all? Who actually owns the traveller data flowing through a super app or a content platform? And who’s making this happen?
Moderator:

Vice President, Corporate Development
Agoda
Speakers:

Southeast Asia
Tiktok
Eason Zhang is Head of Apps & Strategic Partnership, for TikTok Southeast Asia, where he leads partnerships and commercial strategy across some of the region’s largest digital businesses. His portfolio spans travel, local services, fintech, crypto and gaming, working with leading brands including Trip.com, Agoda, Klook, Traveloka, Grab, Binance and OKX etc.
With extensive experience across the travel and technology industries, Eason previously held roles at Google and Skyscanner before joining TikTok in 2021. He has worked closely with travel platforms and destinations across Asia Pacific, helping businesses navigate shifts in consumer discovery, content, performance marketing and digital commerce.
At TikTok, Eason is particularly focused on how short-form video, creators, search and AI are reshaping the traveller journey—from inspiration and destination discovery to consideration and booking—and how travel brands can turn these changing behaviours into sustainable business growth.

Southeast Asia
Tiktok

Grab
Adilla Arantika is Regional Senior Manager, Partner Apps at Grab, where she leads a group-wide initiative expanding the range of services available to Grab’s 50 million monthly transacting users across Southeast Asia. She is also driving the development of an AI-assisted partner onboarding and business management system to help businesses launch and scale on the platform.
Adilla brings more than a decade of experience across digital products, technology, financial services, e-commerce and strategy. Prior to Grab, she was Head of Digital Product & Monetization at Principal Financial Group, where she owned the P&L of a B2B2C digital investment platform with USD271 million in assets under management and more than 3.5 million retail investors. She also held commercial leadership roles at Lazada and consulting roles at Frost & Sullivan and CIMB Group.
Her work sits at the intersection of technology, digital transformation, customer experience and business growth, with a particular interest in how emerging technologies can make products and services more accessible and relevant across diverse Asian markets.
Adilla has been recognised as a rising business leader and has spoken at industry forums on customer journeys, buyer behaviour, digital business and fintech. She is also the founder of Sinau Purwokerto, a family-run initiative providing free English classes to underprivileged children in Indonesia.

Grab

Rappi
As the Global Head of Travel at Rappi, Guido is in charge of building and running this new vertical inside the fastest growing “superapp” and ecommerce platform in the Latin American region. Guido brings with him over 20 years of experience in travel tech, launching and building teams and businesses across Latin America. He is a passionate entrepreneur and travel industry enthusiast. After founding a reverse auction model OTA in 1999, 123vendido.com, he started and was the driving force behind Netactica, one of the top travel technology providers in Latin America.

Rappi

Nuitee
Leyla Allahverdiyeva is SVP of Sales & Partnerships at Nuitee, where she leads the company’s global commercial organisation. She and her teams play a key role in expanding Nuitee’s international presence and driving growth through strategic partnerships with leading travel brands, fintechs, super apps and hospitality businesses building on Nuitee’s infrastructure.
She brings more than 15 years of international experience across hospitality, API-first travel technology, distribution and embedded travel solutions. Her expertise lies in navigating complex distribution ecosystems and helping partners launch and scale travel products efficiently.
Before joining Nuitee, Leyla held commercial leadership roles across the hospitality and technology sectors, including leading Sales Excellence at Delivery Hero and senior sales roles within travel technology companies. She also co-founded an aviation touring company, giving her a broad perspective across traditional travel operations, digital platforms and technology-led business models.
Passionate about people, innovation and collaboration, Leyla is committed to building meaningful partnerships and using technology to help shape a more connected and accessible future for travel.

Nuitee
After three years of WiT Africa, one thing is clear: the story has moved from promise to possibility to proof. But building here still demands resilience, local knowledge and the ability to navigate complexity that outsiders often underestimate. Fresh from WiT Africa’s “The Next 20: Leap, Build, Belong”, four entrepreneurs bring their perspectives to Singapore: scaling an African travel platform, building the next generation of African travel startups, using technology and storytelling to connect travellers more deeply with place, and building a collection of private residences globally. What can the rest of the world learn from a market that has less legacy to protect, more reason to leap and every incentive to build differently?
Curator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Wakanow
Adebayo Adedeji is a dynamic business leader and entrepreneur, best known as the Group CEO of Wakanow, one of Africa’s leading online travel companies. Under his leadership, Wakanow has expanded its operations to multiple African countries, the UK, and the UAE, offering a seamless platform for booking flights, hotels, and holiday packages, along with unique features like “Pay Small Small,” which allows travelers to spread travel costs over time. Wakanow also provides corporate travel solutions and innovative travel experiences through its subsidiaries. Before joining Wakanow, Bayo had an impressive career in finance and retail, serving as a Senior Finance Manager at Amazon and holding leadership roles at Walmart and PetSmart. He is also a serial entrepreneur, founding Dundu Nation, a food truck business specializing in local delicacies, and Wave Beach Lagos, a leisure destination. Bayo is recognized for his customer-centric approach, innovation, and strategic vision, which have transformed the travel landscape in Africa. He emphasizes continual learning, adaptability, and empathy in leadership and is deeply committed to driving positive change in the industries he engages with.

Wakanow

Purple Elephant Ventures
Ben Peterson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Purple Elephant Ventures, an innovation hub for Africa’s travel and tourism sector. He has over eighteen years of experience investing in, founding, growing, and managing companies and non-profits across Africa. We have some great conversations about focusing on the big picture and not getting worked up about the minutia in our everyday lives. Ben also gives some great insight on failing fast, learning from our failures, and their venture studio business model.

Purple Elephant Ventures

VoiceMaps
Iain is the founder of VoiceMap, the leading platform for self-guided audio tours. The app has been installed by over a million travellers, and its almost 1,000 publishers offer tours across over 600 destinations worldwide. They’ve earned over $1 million in royalties along the way.
Before launching the platform in 2014, Iain spent a decade living, working and travelling around the world – including an 18-month journey from London to Shanghai by land, which he documented at Old World Wandering. It was one of the first travel blogs, and a place where – in the words of an editor at National Geographic Traveler – “thoughtful, well-written slow travel writing with a strong sense of history and culture…can be reliably found.” His long-form dispatches were regularly featured by curators like The Browser, Longreads and Longform.org.
His favourite travel experiences almost always have one thing in common: someone shows him their corner of the world. They connect opinions, anecdotes and emotions to places, and use phrases like “I love”, “I remember” and “I hope” to describe things that might otherwise have been ordinary.
He likes to think that VoiceMap has become a place where these human perspectives can be reliably found.

VoiceMaps

In Residence by Pieter Brundyn
Pieter Brundyn is a South African private residential hospitality entrepreneur and legacy real estate broker. Raised on a farm in South Africa, Pieter developed an early fascination with travel, landscape and the wider world. That curiosity continues to shape his approach to hospitality: global in outlook, but grounded in place, people and cultural context. Cape Town remains central to the sensibility of his work, giving In Residence a warmth and human directness that sit apart from more conventional expressions of luxury.
As the founder and CEO of In Residence by Pieter Brundyn, a Cape Town-based global residential hospitality brand with a collection of over 800 distinguished private residences across more than forty destinations, Pieter has pioneered human-led hospitality for over a decade. Today, In Residence is both profitable and rapidly scaling its market-redefining hospitality with a focus on privacy, trust, and discretion. This commitment to operational excellence has led to the successful launch of In Residence offices in Spain and Turkey in 2026, with an expansion plan geared towards the 50 leading destinations.
Under Pieter’s leadership, Brundyn Estates manages a portfolio of legacy real estate across destination markets. Flagship properties include waterfront plots on Lake Como, private villas in Bodrum and Indonesia, and a luxury residential development in the Cape Winelands.
His broader work extends through The Brundyn Collective, where residential hospitality, real estate, cultural authority and private client relationships reinforce one another. Real estate gives the work its tangible form; hospitality gives it life; culture gives it depth. Pieter’s perspective treats exceptional homes not simply as inventory but as assets of trust, taste and belonging.
Art and culture philanthropy form a central part of Pieter’s life and work. With his wife, museum director and art consultant Elana Brundyn, he established the In Residence Foundation in 2021 to support community and cultural projects, with partners including the Lalela Project, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and the South African Youth Choir.
A traveller, entrepreneur and family man, Pieter remains closely tied to Cape Town while continuing to expand The Brundyn Collective internationally. His work returns to a single conviction: the future of luxury is not defined by visibility, excess or inventory, but by trust, taste, privacy and the people who know how to hold them.

In Residence by Pieter Brundyn
Networking Coffee Break hosted by Rakuten Travel
Act 7: The Wager – Placing Bets on What’s Next
Four panellists. Four very different obsessions: primates, bees, microbes and intangible heritage. What connects them is that they care deeply about something most of us rarely notice. Because when we understand something, we begin to appreciate it. And when we appreciate it, we are far more likely to protect it. This panel explores what their singular obsessions might teach us about the future of travel. In a world shaped by algorithms and mass-produced itineraries, will travellers increasingly seek out people with deep knowledge, conviction and something real to share? And will the most meaningful experiences be the ones that change not only where we go, but how we see the world?
Moderator:

CEO & Co-founder
Seek Sophie
Speakers:

Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore)
Dr. Andie Ang is a primatologist with over a decade of field experience studying wild primates in Southeast Asia. She has served as President of the Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore) since 2018, leading outreach and capacity-building initiatives to foster wildlife awareness and protection. Beyond her work in Singapore, Ang collaborates with governmental and non-governmental organisations in the wider region, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, on long-term research and conservation of endangered primates. In 2014, she received a National Geographic Society grant to construct aerial crossings for endangered Indochinese silvered langurs in Vietnam’s limestone karsts, a project aimed at mitigating habitat fragmentation. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore)

George Town Heritage Hotels
Investment banker turned international hotelier Chris Ong first ventured into the hospitality business when he 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 reasons, and in 2007, he purchased a decrepit Anglo-Indian bungalow on 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 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 Chris was again 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. 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 hip and yet comfortable interiors 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 hotel in the group. In the near future, GTHH will also serve as an information hub for Penang’s cultural events.

George Town Heritage Hotels

The Sundowner Nature Experience Centre
Clarence is a multiple-award winning entrepreneur specializing in environmental sustainability, hospitality, and tourism.
He started his career in government at NParks, then joined the pioneering team to launch Gardens by the Bay in 2012. During this time he founded landscape firm Country Cousins in 2014, and sold it in 2019 to a SGX-listed IFM company.
During the covid pandemic he pivoted to the sustainability sector, founding The Sundowner Nature Experience Centre which offers honeybee tours and F&B classes. To date it is Singapore’s only hospitality outfit with a 5-star rating across Google across 900 reviews. His newest venture is the House of Melissa Boutique Farmstay at Changi Village, Singapore’s only premium farmstay.
His award-winning work in nature conservation centres around his not-for-profit Bee Rescue programme, which relocates rather than exterminates honeybees — of which he has saved 6 million to date.

The Sundowner Nature Experience Centre

Tinwald Farm New Zealand
Amanda Currie is a farmer and food producer based in Central Otago, New Zealand. She and her team steward Tinwald Farm, a regenerative farming and vineyard property where food, landscape, and care for the land are inseparable.
A central focus of Amanda’s work is the restoration of soil health through rebuilding microbial communities—the unseen life that underpins resilient landscapes, nutritious food, and distinctive flavour. Through on-farm composting, microbial inoculants, and biological monitoring, she works to return balance and vitality to the land.
With a background in economics and public policy, Amanda brings a systems perspective to tourism, exploring how authenticity, provenance, and care for place create meaningful visitor experiences that endure beyond the journey.

Tinwald Farm New Zealand
At WiT Queenstown, James Thornton, CEO of Intrepid Travel, was asked how he’d rethink the purpose of travel. His answer: “It would be that travel was designed to benefit communities, not just customers. The way we’ve all grown up designing travel is for the benefit of the traveller … communities aren’t sufficiently benefiting, and when they are, it’s too infrequent, and it goes to too few people.”
This session widens the lens from destination-and-traveller to destination-and-community. Where does dispersal beyond the same honeypot cities actually work? How should tourism sit inside a city’s urbanization and regeneration plans, rather than beside them? And what does real community engagement look like when it’s designed in from the start, not bolted on after the complaints start?
Moderator:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Airbnb

Airbnb

Think City, Malaysia
Matt Benson is Senior Director at Think City, a Malaysian Government urban agency specialising in evidence-based city planning and urban regeneration across Southeast Asia. A trained urban geographer with a PhD from the University of Western Australia, Matt leads programmes spanning waterfront redevelopment, precinct planning, heritage conservation, climate adaptation and public realm improvement across multiple Malaysian cities.
Over 25 years Matt has developed a reputation for combining rigorous analysis with genuine community voice – translating complex data into investment decisions that make cities more liveable. Recent work includes securing Malaysia’s first internationally funded urban climate resilience programme (USD10 million, Adaptation Fund), leading the Penang Economy 2030 scenario planning exercise, and directing major urban regeneration projects from Kuala Lumpur to George Town.
Matt has served three terms on the UN-Habitat International Advisory Board for the World Cities Report (2020, 2022 and 2024), participated in UN-Habitat Expert Group Meetings on the Global Urban Monitoring Framework, and serves on the Chief Minister of Penang’s Penang2030 Advisory Committee and the Penang Resilient Infrastructure Taskforce.

Think City, Malaysia

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Rod is a pioneer of the global online travel industry. He was the founder, CEO & Chairman of Viator, the leading global marketplace for tour and experience products. He was subsequently the CEO & Chairman of Rome2rio, the multi-modal search engine; and is currently a non-executive director of Veltra Corporation, the Tokyo Stock Exchange listed seller of tour and experience products, and Jayride, the Sydney-based global marketplace for airport transfers. He is also a member of the board of directors of Tourism Tasmania.

Founder, Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
Roger Sharp has spent three decades moving between the operator’s seat and the investor’s chair – building and exiting travel tech businesses, then backing the next wave of them. As Chair of WebBeds, he’s helped steer it into one of the world’s leading bedbanks; as Chair of North Ridge Partners, he leads its travel tech practice and advises travel tech companies on strategy, funding rounds and exits. He set up Technology Queenstown to wean a destination’s economy off tourism, and WiT Queenstown was the first spark. This conversation will cover where hotel distribution goes next, what travel tech is actually worth funding in this cycle, and the calls – right and wrong – that shaped his own track record.
Interviewer:

Venture Partner
Thayer Investment Partners
Speaker:

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown
Roger is a veteran travel technology Chair, investor and advisor. He played key roles in the privatisations of airlines and airports including Air New Zealand and Qantas before becoming CEO of ABN AMRO Asia and Global Head of Technology for ABN AMRO Bank. He subsequently built and sold ASX-listed travel.com.au and lastminute.com.au, chaired Webjet until its demerger in 2024, and served as Deputy Chair of Tourism New Zealand.
Roger chairs ASX-listed WebBeds, one of the world’s leading B2B hotel distribution platforms. He is also the founder of Asia-Pacific technology investment bank North Ridge Partners, where he leads the firm’s travel technology practice.
During COVID-19, Roger founded Technology Queenstown, a not-for-profit initiative building Queenstown into a leading travel and hospitality technology hub to diversify the regional economy.

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown
The most ambitious new companies in travel take the stage to make their case. They have been through a rigorous global selection process through the Global Startup Pitch — now the final filter is you. Which startup is solving the right problem, in the right way, at the right time? The audience votes for its People’s Choice, who goes on to win a spotlight at the Phocuswright Conference in Fort Lauderdale, November 17-19.
Facilitator:

Managing Director
Phocuswright
Presenters:

Founder & CEO
1-CP

Founder & CEO
Crewfare

Founder & CEO
OneJourney

Founder & CEO
Vibe Adventures
Dragons:

Venture Partner, Thayer Investment Partners
As a long-time operating exec, startup advisor, investor and road warrior, Cara is actively involved in numerous corners of the travel tech industry, including co-hosting the popular Travel Tech Insider podcast. As Venture Partner at Thayer Investment Partners, the leading travel technology venture capital firm, she advises portfolio companies and helps connect the dots between emerging technology players and the leading travel brands and suppliers across the industry. She is a frequent speaker, panelist and startup pitch judge for numerous industry events, and enjoys coaching growth-stage teams on effective go-to-market strategy.
Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, she and her husband are avid golfers aiming to hit the links in all 50 states.

Venture Partner, Thayer Investment Partners

Orbit Ventures
William is Managing General Partner of Orbit Ventures the Emerging Markets VC the longest running emerging market startup program in the world with over US$125m in investment value managed. Orbit invests in technology startups that digitize traditional industries, boost earnings potential, and drive sustainable growth. Sectors include e-commerce, fintech, travel, media, health, education, and logistics across emerging markets in Asia, Middle East, Africa and LATAM. Orbit provides hands-on support for user acquisition, sales, partnerships, and fundraising. Orbit’s consumer ecosystem has helped our startups scale to 169m monthly active users as of 2Q25. Magnitt named Orbit #6 most active VC in Emerging Markets in both 2023, 2024 and 2H25. William joined Orbit from SingTel Innov8 Ventures where he was a founding Managing Director. Prior to that William was a Partner at Softbank China & India, a VC backed by Softbank and Cisco, leading investments across Asia. William started his career in equity research most recently with Deutsche Bank where he was a top ranked analyst for Internet and Software in Asia and worked on the IPOs for Alibaba, Kingsoft, eLong (Expedia), OnMobile and Infoedge Naukri.
William was ranked #3 stock picker in Hong Kong/China and #1 for Technology, Media and Telecom by Thomson Reuters Starmine as well as #3 equity research analyst in Asia for Software and IT Services by Institutional Investor Magazine. William has done over 350 early stage investments including Bitmex in blockchain, UShopal in ecommerce, italki in edtech, VideoVerse in media, Carota in mobility, Flickstree in media, ELSA Speak in edtech, Tappytoon in media, Coutloot in ecommerce, and Dastgyr in ecommerce. He currently sits on boards including Scantrust, Boost Capital, Pandabus, Fleksy, Goama, and italki as well as Blair Academy. He holds a BA from Bowdoin College.

Orbit Ventures

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown
Roger is a veteran travel technology Chair, investor and advisor. He played key roles in the privatisations of airlines and airports including Air New Zealand and Qantas before becoming CEO of ABN AMRO Asia and Global Head of Technology for ABN AMRO Bank. He subsequently built and sold ASX-listed travel.com.au and lastminute.com.au, chaired Webjet until its demerger in 2024, and served as Deputy Chair of Tourism New Zealand.
Roger chairs ASX-listed WebBeds, one of the world’s leading B2B hotel distribution platforms. He is also the founder of Asia-Pacific technology investment bank North Ridge Partners, where he leads the firm’s travel technology practice.
During COVID-19, Roger founded Technology Queenstown, a not-for-profit initiative building Queenstown into a leading travel and hospitality technology hub to diversify the regional economy.

North Ridge Partners, WebBeds,
Technology Queenstown

Visa
Tania is the Global Head of B2B Travel for Visa Commercial Solutions, where she responsible for the creation and execution of the business strategy for this rapidly evolving, high growth vertical segment. Bringing more than 25 years of experience in the payments, financial services and telecommunications sectors, Tania has led successful businesses around the world. Prior to joining Visa in early 2024, she managed the Commercial team at Outpayce from Amadeus, serving the global travel ecosystem with new advances in payments. Tania has also previously held senior business development roles at American Express, MasterCard Payment Gateway Services, Vodafone and IDT.

Visa
Twelve years into their tenure at Agoda, and having transformed it through one full cycle – from a scrappy Bangkok startup to a global platform powering hundreds of millions of transactions and South-east Asia’s fastest growing OTA –what does the next chapter look like for these two leaders? The first 12 years were about scale. What are the next 12 about? And what does it mean to build a new beginning for a company already in velocity mode?
Interviewer:

Founder
WiT (Web in Travel)
Speakers:

Agoda
Omri Morgenshtern is the Chief Executive Officer of Agoda, part of Booking Holdings (Nasdaq: BKNG). He was appointed in July 2022. In his former role as COO, Omri was instrumental in driving global operations, Product, Partner Services, and the Customer Experience Group.
Omri joined Agoda in 2014 as Senior Product Owner, Algorithms and Learning Systems, and was later promoted first to Vice President of Product Development, then to Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer in 2018.
He was co-founder & CEO of Qlika, an award-winning UpWest Labs start-up specializing in online marketing optimization, which was acquired by Booking Holdings Inc. in 2014.
Omri received an M.S. Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Tel Aviv University and B.S. Cum Laude in Physics, Computer Science and Mathematics from The Hebrew University.

Agoda

Agoda
Idan Zalzberg is the Chief Technology Officer of Agoda. In his former role as Chief Data Officer, Idan was monumental in managing and architecting Agoda’s data and security solutions.
Idan joined Agoda in 2014 as Advanced Technology Architect Director and was later promoted to Vice President of Data, then to Chief Data Officer and to his current role as Chief Technology Officer in 2022.
He was co-founder of Qlika, an award-winning UpWest Labs start-up specializing in online marketing optimization, which was acquired by Booking Holdings Inc. in 2014.
Idan received an M.S. Summa Cum Laude in Physics from Tel Aviv University and B.S. Physics and Mathematics from The Hebrew University.

Agoda
We end with our signature debate. The motion is blunt: artificial intelligence will do more harm than good to the travel industry in the next decade. You vote.
For:

As himself

CEO & Co-founder
Belli

CEO & Co-founder
BeMyGuest
Against:

Vice President, Corporate Development
Agoda

Co-founder, The Reset Practice /
Adjunct Lecturer, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Founder
Talk to Magpie AI
Adjudicator:

Board Member, Tourism Tasmania / Founder,
Former CEO & Chairman, Viator
We swing straight through into cocktails.
Closing Party featuring the WiT For Good Charity Auction
Location:
Heliconia Ballroom, Level 3
Life’s a song and dance. We end with live music, cause-driven fundraising, and unexpected talent.
This year, WiT For Good is proud to support Young Focus, a Philippine-based nonprofit that has been working in the squatter communities of Manila since 2008, including families living around the Smokey Mountain area, where many rely on the informal garbage trade to survive on less than US$10 a day.
Interested in sponsoring the Closing Party or contributing to this year’s WiT For Good Auction? Celebrate the closing while supporting a meaningful cause.
Find out more →

