The Web In Travel conference brought together an international crowd of participants in the travel industry, but it was really almost a gathering of friends. The travel industry is one of people and relationships, and an emotional one. From all parts of the travel supply chain, WIT, as it is affectionately known, saw hoteliers, global distribution systems and intermediaries like online travel agents and aggregators come together in Singapore again for the 4th WIT conference.

The conference also featured several interactive elements like the Abacus BlogCentral where participants could go to a few computer terminals to input their thoughts live onto the site and have it appear on the screen hanging overhead straight away and live audience voting and questions (for speakers) by SMS, sponsored by Amadeus Asia. In addition to that, taped videos of earlier speaker presentations played on a few screens while another was being held inside the main auditorium. Also running concurrently were interviews with WIT’s participants just outside the entrance to the auditorium, all being recorded on film of course.

In this summary, we have chosen a few of the many interesting panel discussions and speaker sessions to highlight; for space, as we know, is limited.

Day 1: The Travel Matrix, Revisited
Entrepreneurs who are thinking of entering the travel space will be heartened to know that Jim Donnelly (Pursuit Group Charlotte, US) thinks that there are emerging opportunities in the marketplace today. He spoke about how small players will launch and develop ideas, and larger companies will buy and integrate these ideas. So his conclusion is that now is a great time to start something. So entrepreneurs, what are you waiting for?

Gwen listening intently, of course.

Day 1: The Asian Consumer: Constant Transformation
The first speaker of this was Meranda Chan (Country Manager, Singapore and Brunei, Visa), and she presented to the audience the latest findings from Visa’s Asia Travel Intentions Survey. Some highlights from her presentation follow.

What attracts travellers:
(1) Natural scenery
(2) Sunshines and beaches
(3) Discovering new places
(4) Food
(5) History, heritage, architecture

Japanese attracted to places with political stability, and Americans have highest inclination to find travel deals.

What deters travellers:
(1) Terrorism/threats
(2) Infectious diseases
(3) Racial discrimination
(4) Natural disasters
(5) Airport hassles

For those in Asia, most common deterrent is infectious diseases. Whereas, for those outside Asia, it’s terrorism.

From left: Meranda Chan and Benett Porter

Some key points brought up by Benett Porter (Yahoo! SEA, she replaced Ken Mandel, the original speaker slated to present), the second speaker for this session:

The Five Dominant Tribes of people online:
- The Socials live their life online, are heavy users of social networks, instant messaging and email. They use the web less to transact.
- Embracers tend to be a bit older for whom online transactions is key differentiator for these all rounders. They pride efficiency in the web and are driven by convenience and productivity. They are heavy users of search, email, portals and mobile internet.
- Fun explorers are into online gaming, fun and entertainment.
- Utilitarians are functional internet users who use the internet mainly for communication and connection.
- Casual browsers are light internet users who are research driven.

One big difference between hotel reservations and airline ticket bookings online is that there was more search than actual purchases for hotel reservations, and more bookings made than search activity for airline tickets. And while hotel searches are cyclical, ticket searches remain steady throughout the year.

Porter talking about how the search for tickets usually results in purchases, while not so much so for hotel bookings.

The five to-dos that she left for us:
(1) Identify the tribe of consumer you’re targeting
(2) Compare media mix and target consumer
(3) Refine consumer message
(4) Look at website (is it actionable by consumers?)
(5) Search your brand (online)

Day 1: The Web Landscape, Transformed
Speaker Tim Hughes (VP – Commercial, HotelClub.com and BOOT, the latter I love!) wrote about the panel after.

Day 2: Ideas From The Streets

Down-to-earth architect and artist, Ketna Patel (Ketna Patel Studios) did a little show-and-tell of sorts of her various travels around the streets of Asia and through it show how we can understand them a little bit better. Contrasting pictures of the more commercial parts of towns with that of homes, we see colours get slowly drained out once individuals are replaced by corporations – what were bright became muted ones. To me, this was the most consumer-oriented session of the entire conference for it speaks to anyone who loves travel and for whom the little everyday streets are our museums, be they within or without the travel industry.

Day 2: Market Ideas II: China

Alfred Chang (Director, Int’l Business Development, Ctrip.com) speaking.

I’ll save myself some trouble and redirect you again to Tim’s summary on this panel on China.

Day 2: The Start-Up Pitch

Entrip making the pitch

TripFilms, Entrip and Conference Bay were chosen to pitch at a WIT mini competition to win a Professional Development Program (PDP) from the Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management (CNI) scholarship worth US$2,500 (valid for 2009) as well as the opportunity to take their winning idea to the next level with the investor judges. The judges included Michael Yap (Deputy CEO of the Media Development Authority of Singapore), Reza Behnam (IDG Ventures SEA), Bill Liu (Chairman of StreamGlobal) and Lee Keen Whye (Managing Director, Strategic Alliance Capital).

Panel of judges. From left: Bill Liu, Lee Keen Whye, Reza Behnam, Michael Yap and moderator, Siew Hoon

Before each startup had their turn at the pitch, founder of WIT Siew Hoon moderated the a short panel discussion on investing in this global financial crisis. The consensus amongst the judges was there money will still be invested in good ideas and great people. After each had their turn (view Entrip‘s and Conference Bay‘s presentation), Siew Hoon turned it over the audience to live vote for which they thought deserved to win. At the end, the audience vote came to Entrip but the panel of judges differed and chose TripFilms as the winner instead. Bill Liu offered an explanation in that while Entrip sounds the most exciting and appealing to consumers, TripFilms won with their experienced team and proven business model. In contrast, the business model for Entrip was not clear and what they promise to do is gonna be a hard one to pull off. No matter the judges’ or people’s choice, all three startups have to be commended for making the pitch.

Day 2: WIT Debate II: Ideas vs Execution vs Action
This second debate of the entire conference was in short, a fiery, engaging and thoroughly crowd-thrilling one. The three debaters had to each defend either Ideas, Execution or Action as the most important one of the three concepts. First up on stage was John Northen (Area VP, SEA Marriot International) and he spoke about Ideas. He argued how an idea is the first spark of inspiration and is the most important of all – for what are actions without a clear idea to begin with? He provided further entertainment for the audience when he did a mini striptease by undoing his belt, visibly showing off his bright orange pair of boxers, in relation to a joke/apology he made earlier to fellow debater, Martin Symes regarding the latter’s orange boxers at last year’s WIT.

Next was Catherine McNabb (Director, Strategic Clusters I, Business Travel & MICE Group, Singapore Tourism Board) arguing for Execution. She argued that ideas are in abundance and what makes something great is when real innovation occurs – when there is a link between the thought and the nuts and bolts.

Persuasive yet simple, Catherine’s argument was, it was swiftly taken down by what was according to Martin Symes (CEO, Wego.com) a simple definition clarification for “Actions” include “Execution”. He proceeded to entertain everyone in the audience with his wittily crafted and eloquently delivered defence of Actions, using everything from logic, law and wordplay to persuade us to his cause. I can’t even begin to recreate his excellent script here for it will do him no justice. Needless to say, Martin won everyone over (99% of the audience voted for him) and gave a fitting end to the WIT conference.

The 4th WIT Conference

Additional Tidbits:

- A quick summary of the key themes discussed during WIT and some figures and statistics.
- You can view a full list of downloadable speakers’ presentations here and videos will be up soon, WIT says.
- Shot by LiveStudios, view pictures from Day 1 and Day 2.

I’ve been through a lot.

About 8 years ago, my company’s factory was still reeling from the Asian Financial Crisis and later the bursting of the dot com bubble. It was eventually closed and relocated due to the rising costs of operation in Singapore. Many factories were moving to countries like Vietnam and China where the cost of operation was very much competitively lower. It was also during a period of financial crisis when I was retrenched 8 years ago.

It may have been the best thing that happened to me.

It forced me to re-evaluate my options. I asked myself then if I wanted to work in another factory again when our costs of operation is not ever going to be able to compete with the factories in other developing nations? What if 10 years down the road, the new factory that employed me relocates too? Would I still be able to get a job when I’m in my late 30s? How can I compete with the fresh graduates and youngsters then?

Coupled with the ignorance of youth and the encouragement from my wife, that’s when I decided and was forced to become an entrepreneur. I had wanted to see if I can become the stewart of my own journey.

I had also wondered if I was never retrenched, would I have become an entrepreneur? I’m glad though to have taken the path less trodden. I would not have been where I am today if I did otherwise.

For the past few weeks, financial bad news having been filling the tv channels, newspapers and magazines. The sentiments have been mostly doom and gloom. The dark clouds of retrenchment is overcast again. Before that, we have inflationary pressure on our costs of living. The price of oil had even hit a new record high of $147.27 on 11 July 2008.

Déjà vu. All these have happened before.

If you look at the economic history, there will always be peaks and troughs. When we ride out the current global financial crisis, a few years after that, there will be other financial crisis. The inflationary pressure will also continue to be there and the costs of living will just continue to climb. We also had gone through similar oil crisis in 1990 due to the Gulf War. Even our PM Lee Hsien Loong mentioned about the oil crisis in his 2006 National Day Rally speech (page 6, para 2). As we approach Peak Oil situation (if we are not already there), the only direction for the oil price in future is to go up.

How can we insulate ourselves against the bad times and constant inflationary pressure? How do you ensure that your income outpace the inflationary pressure? One of the ways is to be master of your own destiny. If you had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, this may be the best time to start because it takes years for you to build branding and reputation for your company. It took me 3 years before my potential clients become more receptive to my company’s products. So if you start now, during the bad times when business is expected to be bad anyway, you can make use of the bad times to slowly grow your company. In a few years time, when the economy recovers, you’ll be able to surf the rising wave of the economy right when it starts.

If you have always put off your plans to start your own business or becoming an entrepreneur, don’t delay, give yourself excuses and say you’ll start tomorrow. Because if you have decided to strike out on your own, tomorrow starts today.

By becoming an entrepreneur, it will be the hardest thing you do, that I promise you. But if you want your family to have a better tomorrow, it starts today.

Professor Wong Poh Kam, the director of NUS Entrepreneurship Centre and also an associate professor in the NUS Business School & Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy has just started a blog – Connect The Dots@Singapore to share his thoughts and opinions on different aspects of entrepreneurship, from social innovation to public policy. He started this blog from the inspiration of Steve Job’s famous commencement speech in 2005. Other than his strong academic credentials, Professor Wong is also a known angel investor with the BAF Spectrum in the community.

If you are interested in knowing about the internet trends and companies in China, the China Web 2.0 review has presented some interesting facts (based on a report by CNNIC) what Chinese internet users do online. For those who want to tap the Chinese market, it might be useful to read this interesting article. A new book “Silicon Dragon: How China is Winning the Tech Race” by Rebecca Fannin will be out soon and the book reviews the entrepreneurs and the ideas behind the famous internet companies in Zhongguancun, Beijing. She wrote about her book in the HuffingtonPost.

If you want to know which web 2.0 companies have failed this year, TechCrunch has their list of companies for the year 2007 in Deadpool. You will also find their list of favourite articles and deals for the year as well. If this is not interesting, try this post from Valleywag who made predictions on what Google would be doing next year.

As we have heard a lot about the famous China internet entrepreneur, Jack Ma from various venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, here is a rare interview done in Inc.Com entittled, “How I Did It: Jack Ma, Alibaba.com“.

For the entrepreneurs, all of us should start planning for our next stage in 2008. John Nesheim offers some advice: SETTING YOUR PERSONAL GOALS 2008: Tips for entrepreneurs.

In the world of online social networks, LinkedIn has opened up their platform to app developers (source: ZDNet). Of course, if you want a sense of the statistics dominating the online social networking market, check out The Promise of Social Network Advertising in e-Marketer. If you belong to the skeptic’s camp, you can read Molly Wood’s article on “Five reasons social networking doesn’t work”. Of course, elsewhere, Google has asked the other online social networks such as -LinkedIn, Friendster, and Bebo – Not to give up Open Social.

Locally, the 2nd Singapore PHP user group meeting happened last Wednesday. We highly recommend SimplyJean’s account of the event. If you want to hear some good and interesting tech news, do pop by the podcast of Tech65.

How conservative should a CEO be? by John Nesheim tackles how one should juggle between idealism and realism for financial forecasts and other aspects of a company. We also recommend his earlier article about DO IT RIGHT: Execution with expertise is golden, as a lesson to those who have the vision but in any business today, execution is key for the management.

In the world of tech, Michael Arrington from TechCrunch wrote a preview on Google’s pre-launch of a new iPhone interface. AppleInsider talks about the coming Microsoft Office 2008 and looks at the comparison between Powerpoint and Keynote.

If you are about to sign a deal with the a venture capitalist, what are the hidden tricks that you need to see in a term sheet? John Nesheim talks about the need to know the hidden tricks in a term sheet. You can also learn about the some terms which you need to seek out in a term sheet which may be harmful to you. Of course, negotiating the deal with a venture capital usually takes longer than you think and term sheets are not contracts. Finally, you can read this article about how shares are issued in a company.

Many cities often wish to duplicate Silicon Valley in their own backyards, with many entrepreneurial blogs in Singapore having analyzed this possibility, and Paul Graham (based in the valley) suggesting how to do so. Now, Russia is following suit with its first IT technopark, and organization of the latest Silicon Valley Open Doors 2007 conference, may one day like what Guy Kawasaki says, be able to Kick Silicon Valley’s Butt.