WiT Stories: Of cheeky encounters, cultural kaleidoscopes and social transformation
The WiT Podcast
Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) returns to the Middle East for the first time since 2019 for WiT Phocuswright Middle East 2024. But what she experiences there upon landing serves as both culture shock and eye-opener to the progress the region has supercharged itself with in the last few years. Yes, there are lots of expected – the masses of cranes; the construction going on everywhere you look; the traffic in Riyadh – but underneath all that, the unexpected open-ness, the overwhelming warmth of people, the unbridled pride of Saudis to share and show off their kingdom and the lack of guile in...
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WiT Stories: I met a Black Hat and it led to this revelation
The WiT Podcast
While standing in a long queue at the café at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, wondering why it doesn’t have a robotic barista because the human ones were looking rather frazzled, Siew Hoon spotted a man wearing a delegate badge that says “Black Hat Asia”. Intrigued because she associated Black Hat with hackers (Google says “the term black hat has been used to differentiate criminal hackers from white hat and gray hat hackers”) and because she has always wanted to meet a real-life hacker, she asked him what he did for a living. Without missing a beat, the man replied, “My...
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WiT Stories: Decoding travel jargon - From bleisure to rubbish tourism
The WiT Podcast
Author and travel writer Paul Theroux had a very simple way of describing people who travel. He divided them into tourist and traveller, saying, “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travellers don’t know where they’re going.” Of course, he said this, way before social media turned travel into a mass team sport. One wonders what the scribe, who by the way has just published a new book “Burma Sahib”, would think of the many jargons we in the travel industry have come up with in recent years to describe all the different types of people who travel. In this episode of WiT...
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Creating Customer Love In Tours & Activities | Customer Love Ep 5
The WiT Podcast
This final episode of “Customer Love” fittingly covers tours and activities – the things travellers do in-destination. It’s the most exciting part of travel and it’s coming online at great speed, thanks to companies such as Booking.com which started building out their “connected trip” in 2019 and Klook which has been building up the sector in Asia Pacific for the past nine years. We speak to two product chiefs, Austin Sheppard, Senior Vice President of ’s Trips Business Unit, and David Liu, Chief Product Officer of Klook, on the trends they are seeing, the products they...
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WiT Stories: Of pain, suffering and low expectations: How to be happy founders and travellers
The WiT Podcast
It's news to no one that the words 'pain' and 'suffering' have negative connotations, for obvious reasons. However, many modern thinkers believe that these experiences are often intertwined with success and happiness. Of course, for those of us in Asia, these teachings and sayings aren't new. In fact, they're ingrained in many cultures and religious beliefs in the region. Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) doesn't think this “pain and suffering” message is new to entrepreneurs as well. During Web in Travel Africa last week, she interviewed three travel founders to find out their tales...
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Episode 42: Peter Harbison on 'Alan Joyce and Qantas'
The WiT Podcast
Aviation veteran and consultant Peter Harbison has many accolades - founder of CAPA, aviation lawyer and commentator, and of course, author. His new book, 'Alan Joyce and Qantas: The Trials and Transformation of an Australian Icon' contains all the ingredients of a corporate thriller, filled with constant shocks to the system and boardroom drama. But despite all the corporate chaos, Peter's book tells a deeply human story - of a man at the peak of a monumental industry, navigating arguably the most turbulent years in aviation history. In this episode, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) chats...
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WiT Stories: Of diamonds, dassies and naked surprises
The WiT Podcast
On this episode of WiT Stories, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) chimes in from beautiful Cape Town, South Africa - the home and host of this year's WiT Africa. The WiT community has gathered at Innovation City, where we are holding our first WiT Africa on 14-15 March. A heritage building that now houses Cape Town’s most vibrant and diverse community of startups, investors and corporates, it’s brimming with ideas and buzzing with passion. The humans gathered in this space all want to make an impact – from startups working on digital identity to AI services for education and businesses,...
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WiT Stories: I have a dream; travelling with dignity and humility
The WiT Podcast
Travelling is a highly physical activity – those long walks to the gates and immigration, those long queues – not easy when you are not fully mobile. Especially for the elderly - the requests for assistance pre-flight, the waits at check-in for assistance, the arrival process – and the inevitable conclusion that one day it will happen to all of us. For Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT), seeing life through her mother’s eyes made her highly cognizant of the ageing societies of Asia. According to the Singapore government's 2023 population report, citizens aged 65 and above make up almost...
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Cooking Up AI & Product Love with Adrienne Enggist | Customer Love Ep 4
The WiT Podcast
As a student, Adrienne Enggist, Senior Director of Product, Customer Experience and Platforms for Booking.com, had an epiphany, not a hallucination, when she listened to Timothy O’Leary, the late American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. He wasn’t talking about acid but of the future, she said. ““He asked us to imagine a future that’s less than 20 years away, where you can talk to anybody in the world instantly in real time without paying for long distance … and he spoke of how you could create content like Arnold Schwarzenegger with Loni...
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WiT Stories: Swept up by Swiftie, and Blame AI For Everything
The WiT Podcast
Taylor Swift has arrived in Singapore for the highly anticipated Eras Tour, which she'll perform for six nights over two weeks. Let’s face it, pop stars are good for business. More than 300,000 tickets have been sold for the concerts in Singapore, with a large number of fans travelling in from Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. All round, it’s been a good news week for travel and tourism, with the top travel companies all reporting healthy fourth quarter 2023 and full year 2024 results – from Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, Trip.com Group, Amadeus. Also, why does AI...
info_outlineOn this episode of WiT Stories, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) chimes in from beautiful Cape Town, South Africa - the home and host of this year's WiT Africa.
The WiT community has gathered at Innovation City, where we are holding our first WiT Africa on 14-15 March. A heritage building that now houses Cape Town’s most vibrant and diverse community of startups, investors and corporates, it’s brimming with ideas and buzzing with passion.
The humans gathered in this space all want to make an impact – from startups working on digital identity to AI services for education and businesses, fintech and health care. It’s interesting how no matter where you are, you have humans innovating and using tech to solve similar issues.
Besides the event, Siew Hoon also chronicles the sights, sounds, people and unique wildlife that she encounters on her trip there.