AI wave, local reckoning: Four trends cruise can’t ignore
Confession first: the woman opening a cruise conference is not, by her own admission, a cruiser.
“I am not a big cruiser,” Yeoh Siew Hoon told delegates at Cruise World Asia in Singapore on Wednesday morning, before explaining why she was on stage anyway – WiT, the travel platform she found [...]
Vietnam travel surges. China OTAs under pressure. Cloudbeds’ new RMS. Zeal CRM debuts. Airbnb names Asia director.
Vietnam leads growth as Southeast Asians increasingly traveling within the region
Agoda's H1 2026 data shows Southeast Asian travellers are increasingly booking trips to neighboring countries, with Vietnam the standout destination; accommodation searches rose across every regional market, from 20% [...]
GetYourGuide sharpens tool kit for tour operators
GetYourGuide has unlocked a set of new tools to help tour and attraction operators sharpen performance, build stronger listings, and reach travellers faster.
The product updates, unveiled at its annual Unlocked Summit Berlin, were shared with Europe’s leading travel operators gathered to discus [...]
The next generation of hotels: Software companies that happen to have beds
Robots delivering room service in San Francisco, a 200,000-square-foot wellness floor in Athens with a longevity clinic attached. At WiT Queenstown, a panel of operators, owners and investors tried to work out what actually matters once the gadgetry is stripped away.
Travellers now have multitud [...]
F1 boosts SEA travel. Booking loses Etraveli appeal. Laters.com raises $1.5M. VantisCorp’s TMC platform. More
VantisCorp debuts white-label automation platform for TMCs
VantisCorp launched a white-label corporate travel platform, aimed at Travel Management Companies (TMCs) still relying on spreadsheets, email approvals, and manual invoice reconciliation; it unifies hotel and flight booking (with TMC-specif [...]
Online Travel in Asia: The Unwritten Story (Documentary premiere)
WiT's follow-up documentary sits down with travel tech founders, leaders and rising innovators to ask what's about to change, what never will, and what they'd tell their younger selves.
Every industry has a moment it can't quite explain until it's living through one. For online travel in Asia, that [...]
Resilient travel demand for GCC destinations signals recovery potential through the end of 2026
Travel intelligence analysis by The Data Appeal Company finds that, while the February escalation triggered an immediate shock to travel sentiment and hotel demand across the GCC, travellers have progressively become less reactive to renewed tensions—pointing to strong recovery potential if disrup [...]
Google AI books hotels. Eurovision taps Agoda. Heat influences travel decisions. Acai Desk launched.
Google AI Mode adds direct hotel booking, flight price tracking
Google has fully launched agentic hotel booking in Search's AI Mode in the U.S. (following a recent pilot), with inventory partners including Expedia, Booking.com, Hilton, Hotels.com, Choice Hotels, IHG, Priceline, Marriott, Wyndham an [...]
What the big OTAs are betting on as the next frontier
True to his financial roots, Adrian Currie, former Booking Holdings executive, opened his panel on “OTAs: The Next Frontier”, with numbers to illustrate the size of the four companies on his panel. Booking.com, Expedia Group, Trip.com Group and, in spirit, Katrina Barry’s former employer Webje [...]
Klook expands Kreator Shops feature to all creators on its platform
Klook has rolled out an upgraded version of its Kreator Shops feature to all 30,000-plus creators on its platform across 88 markets. The announcement was made at KREATORVERSE 2026, the company's annual creator summit, held this year in Phu Quoc, Vietnam.
Kreator Shops allows content creators who pa [...]
