WiT Stories: Of cheeky encounters, cultural kaleidoscopes and social transformation
Release Date: 05/02/2024
Year In Review 2024, Looking Ahead To 2025
The WiT Podcast
New years always begin with such anticipation while we end each year with a tinge of nostalgia, a mood of reflection and sometimes, a sigh of relief that another year is over. Well, this is it – we’re coming to the end of 2024 and as we wind down for what was yet another tumultuous year, it’s time to look back, be grateful for the good things that happened and take the bad in our stride and move onwards and upwards. As part of our annual tradition, we asked our friends what they thought of 2024 and what they are looking forward to in the new year. Here’s the first instalment.
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Episode 43: Reviewing 2024 and prepping for 2025 with Agoda's Timothy Hughes
The WiT Podcast
2024 brought both promises and challenges to the travel industry, especially around sustainability, AI, and evolving traveller behaviors. As Timothy Hughes, Vice President of Corporate Development at Agoda, reflects on the past year, he offers insights that hint at what’s ahead in 2025. From the persistent desire for leisure travel to AI's integration into the core of travel platforms, Hughes joined this special year-in-review edition of the WiT Podcast to share a vision that balances optimism with pragmatism.
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South-east Asia: Resetting Expectations
The WiT Podcast
Lightspeed report, from Gojek co-founder, aims at resetting expectations of founders and investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, the multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends, has released a report on “South-east Asia: Resetting Expectations”, to give “a more realistic and focused approach” to building businesses in the region. Disclaimer: This podcast was created with Google's AI platform, NotebookLM. These voices are completely AI-generated.
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WiT Stories: From instant noodles to skyscrapers
The WiT Podcast
“When you live in it, you don’t see it.”My friend said this with a wry smile as she navigated the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh City. I sat beside her, wide-eyed, taking in the sweeping changes of a city I hadn't seen since 2018. I was gobsmacked by the transformation – the brand new bridges, highways, skyscrapers – and I couldn’t help exclaiming and repeating myself everytime we turned a corner into a new district, “Wow, it’s changed so much.” Amused, she said, “I suppose you notice it because you’ve been away for so long. I live here, so it’s just grown around me,...
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AI Podcast Experiment: How Accor’s Kerry Healy addressed rate integrity in Middle East
The WiT Podcast
Full disclosure - this is not a "real" podcast in the traditional sense of the word. Google has a new Artificial Intelligence tool called Notebook LM that allows users to feed it any type of written data, which it will then turn into a podcast. The voices you hear are completely generated by Notebook's language models. We decided to experiment with the tool by showing it a recently article we posted on our website featuring Kerry Healy, chief commercial officer, Middle East, Africa, Turkey & Asia Pacific for Premium, Midscale & Economy, Accor, and how she's tackling rate...
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WiT Stories: The quest for longevity - what’s travel got to do with it?
The WiT Podcast
Anti-ageing, as a branch of medicine, has been around a long time. Today, the term anti-ageing is not used much anymore because it suggests that ageing is a process we fight against. Today, the terms, wellness, longevity, regenerative, are preferred because, well, the experts say we should embrace it actively and proactively. It’s definitely a mega, global trend among the wealthy who have more to lose... literally. Retreats like RAKxa, a joint venture between VitalLife, the preventive medicine arm of one of Bangkok’s leading hospitals, Bumrungrad, and MK Real Estate, don’t come...
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WiT Stories: I entered Singapore without a passport. Now that’s personal
The WiT Podcast
Last week, I entered Singapore sans passport. I had arrived on a flight from Bangkok and at the immigration gates, when I wanted to put my passport on the scanner, I was told, “No need already. Just look at camera.” That’s Singapore for you, clockwork efficiency. It made me think that this is true personalisation – my personal identity verified, recognised and cleared – and it makes my life easier as a traveller.
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Klook at 10: From $1m to $1b by 2018, founders reflect on journey and see bright future for experiences | WiT Podcast Ep 43
The WiT Podcast
They put their own money into the business, one of them selling his house. Together, they scraped together $1m. By 2018, their tours and activities platform was valued at around $1b, and the business continues to grow. It’s hard to say who’s more surprised by the achievement – Ethan Lin (CEO) or Eric Gnock Fah (President) or perhaps their parents whom they talk about openly – but one thing is clear, these two co-founders are firm friends and have each other’s backs. It’s uncanny how well they complement each other, as you will discover in this special WiT Podcast edition, marking...
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WiT Stories: The secret sauce of “char koay teow”, storytelling and indie travel businesses
The WiT Podcast
AI, it seems, is creeping into everything. In a little café in a local neighbourhood in Penang, far from the madding tourist crowd, the young entrepreneurs running it offer “AI Fried Char Koay Teow”.
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WiT Stories: What’s your theme, and are you dreaming of your own “Mousehole”?
The WiT Podcast
On this episode, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) ponders on a new-ish trend that's being called “theme travel”. New-ish because it used to be called special interest travel - people who travelled for specific interests. In this “Next Generation”, let’s call this tribe, “Themers”. This includes runners who travel for marathons, music fans who go from festival to festival, and event-driven folks who fly across continents for experiences. This trend somewhat overlaps or intersects with the 'Dreamers' - those who dream of finding their little nook in the world in unfamiliar lands. And...
info_outlineSiew 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 their conversations.
This is a story that goes beyond the warmth and hospitality of its people. Something momentous is happening in Saudi and it goes beyond the numbers, the dollars, the targets – this is nation-building, social-transformation, call it what you will, with travel and tourism as its engine.