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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 âSouth-east Asia: Resetting Expectationsâ, to give âa more realistic and focused approachâ 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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âWhen you live in it, you donât see it.âMy 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 â the brand new bridges, highways, skyscrapers â and I couldnât help exclaiming and repeating myself everytime we turned a corner into a new district, âWow, itâs changed so much.â
Amused, she said, âI suppose you notice it because youâve been away for so long. I live here, so itâs just grown around me, and Iâve grown into it.â
On this WiT Stories, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) chronicles her recent trip to Vietnam and how Ho Chi Minh City is barely recognisable since her last trip there.
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Fehlende Folgen?
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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 integrity in the Middle East.
Have a listen and ask yourself - if you didn't know this was generated by AI, would you have guessed anyway?
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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.
Itâs 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 Bangkokâs leading hospitals, Bumrungrad, and MK Real Estate, donât come cheap.
Stream the full story for more.
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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, âNo need already. Just look at camera.â
Thatâs Singapore for you, clockwork efficiency.
It made me think that this is true personalisation â my personal identity verified, recognised and cleared â and it makes my life easier as a traveller.
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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.
Itâs hard to say whoâs more surprised by the achievement â Ethan Lin (CEO) or Eric Gnock Fah (President) or perhaps their parents whom they talk about openly â but one thing is clear, these two co-founders are firm friends and have each otherâs backs.
Itâs uncanny how well they complement each other, as you will discover in this special WiT Podcast edition, marking their 10th anniversary, with WiT founder Yeoh Siew Hoon.
In one of the most open conversations, the two founders get into some pretty personal aspects of their lives that have driven Klook to its success, and how quickly their early "lightbulb moment for Klook" went from a âphone noteâ to financial modelling on an Excel sheet (their banking background showing here), to growing faster than they expected when the network effect kicked in.
Have a listen.
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On this episode, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) ponders on a new-ish trend that's being called âtheme travelâ. New-ish because it used to be called special interest travel - people who travelled for specific interests. In this âNext Generationâ, letâs call this tribe, âThemersâ.
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 oftentimes, it's more than one nook.
Stream this episode to hear more about themed travel, mouseholes and why Siew Hoon prefers to travel like a local.
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This week, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) reflects on her recent stay in the tranquil village of Sheepstor, West Dartmoor, which also has a surprising connection to Sarawak, Malaysia. The Burrator Cottages, on the estate once owned by Sir James Brooke, the first Rajah of Sarawak, provides an idyllic retreat for travellers seeking a truly authentic experience.
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Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) is back in Shanghai for the first time since 2019, for Trip.com's global partner conference, Envision 2024. Experiencing first-hand the resurgence of China's tourism and hospitality scene, Siew Hoon highlights the cities eagerness to embrace tech, it's robust art scene and everything a revitalised Trip.com is doing to cater to fresh demographics.
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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 â the masses of cranes; the construction going on everywhere you look; the traffic in Riyadh â 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 â this is nation-building, social-transformation, call it what you will, with travel and tourism as its engine.
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While standing in a long queue at the cafĂ© at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, wondering why it doesnât have a robotic barista because the human ones were looking rather frazzled, Siew Hoon spotted a man wearing a delegate badge that says âBlack Hat Asiaâ.
Intrigued because she associated Black Hat with hackers (Google says âthe term black hat has been used to differentiate criminal hackers from white hat and gray hat hackersâ) 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, âMy company does security upskilling training in penetration testing.â
While Siew Hoon may have restrained herself from making the joke we're all thinking of, this encounter did lead to revelation at another conference next door.
Stream the episode to find out.
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Author and travel writer Paul Theroux had a very simple way of describing people who travel. He divided them into tourist and traveller, saying, âTourists donât know where theyâve been, travellers donât know where theyâre going.â
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 âBurma Sahibâ, 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 Stories, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) looks at some newer terms, buzzwords and jargon that has popped up in travel, while creating some of her own along the way.
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This final episode of âCustomer Loveâ fittingly covers tours and activities â the things travellers do in-destination. Itâs the most exciting part of travel and itâs coming online at great speed, thanks to companies such as Booking.com which started building out their âconnected tripâ 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 Booking.comâs Trips Business Unit, and David Liu, Chief Product Officer of Klook, on the trends they are seeing, the products they are building and how they see technology such as AI and Augmented Reality changing the sector.
For David, whoâd always been into tech, joining Klook in 2016 as VP of Product and UX, a year after it was founded, was a no-brainer. âI didnât pick a startup, I picked Klook," he says during the episode, emphatically.
The foundersâ passion and vision in wanting to bring experiences online and connect suppliers and travellers excited him. âI care a lot about customers, and they care about our customers as well.â
Meanwhile, Austin, quoting Booking.comâs Q3 2023 financial results, said that they âsaw an increase in the percentage of transactions which we count as connected trips, meaning two or more travel components within a trip (though still small number of total transactions).
David also shared an experience about buying shoes online, which co-host Laura Houldsworth then extrapolated on, citing her own experience of an AR shoe fitting â which then led to a new idea that David said Klook would develop to ride on the growing trend of âcostume dressingâ among Asian travellers in destinations such as Japan and South Korea.
Have a listen for the reveal at the end.
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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 âpain and sufferingâ message is new to entrepreneurs as well. During Web in Travel Africa last week, she interviewed three travel founders to find out their tales from the edge.
One of them said, âIf youâre not at one point about to go bankrupt then you canât say you really had a startup! Whatâs really difficult is to hire good people, so you have to appear motivated and positive in front of them to keep them on board, while suffering quietly in the back.â
Want to find out what the other entrepreneurs had to say? Have a listen.
In this episode, Siew Hoon delves into what it means to be a happy entrepreneur, warts and all.
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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 with Peter, whom she calls a mentor, about not only the professional trials of Alan Joyce, but the often-ignored emotional element of people in high places. As the saying goes - it's lonely at the top.
Siew Hoon also asks the serious question - why are there so few women in aviation, to which Peter responds with some honest albeit harsh truths. The two also talk about life Down Under and yet another book that Peter is currently working on.
It's all here in this special whopper of an episode.
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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 Townâs most vibrant and diverse community of startups, investors and corporates, itâs brimming with ideas and buzzing with passion.
The humans gathered in this space all want to make an impact â from startups working on digital identity to AI services for education and businesses, fintech and health care. Itâs 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.
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Travelling is a highly physical activity â those long walks to the gates and immigration, those long queues â 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 â and the inevitable conclusion that one day it will happen to all of us.
For Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT), seeing life through her motherâs 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 one-fifth of Singapore's population, up 11.7% from a decade ago.
As much fuss as there is about the Gen Z and Millennials and their current and future spending power, thereâs a silent and strong undercurrent going on in the silver generation.
So how can technology address the ageing population worldwide? And is the solution, as psychologists suggest, to simply travel inside our own minds?
Narrator: Yeoh Siew Hoon
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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 OâLeary, the late American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs.
He wasnât talking about acid but of the future, she said. ââHe asked us to imagine a future thatâs 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 Anderson's head âŠâ
Thatâs when she decided âthatâs the world I want to work inâ. Fast forward to now and Adrienne says all the things OâLeary spoke about â it was around 1987 â have come to pass â deep fakes that you can generate with an app, for instance.
In this episode of Customer Love, hosts Yeoh Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) and Laura Houldsworth (Managing Director & Vice President for Asia Pacific, Booking.com) speak with Enggist about her views on AI taking over travel and hospitality and the role of tech in creating better products for customers.
For starters, Enggist's advice to developers is âyou've got to make your mistakes differentlyâ.
As for how she thinks AI will impact travel and how you can cook up âAI and Product Loveâ into your business to win âCustomer Loveâ, have a listen.
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Taylor Swift has arrived in Singapore for the highly anticipated Eras Tour, which she'll perform for six nights over two weeks. Letâs 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, itâs 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 â from Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, Trip.com Group, Amadeus.
Also, why does AI get blamed for everything these days?
It's all on this week's WiT Stories. You can read the article version of this podcast here.
Narrator: Yeoh Siew Hoon
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