Eight Continents Hotels & Resorts has officially launched its ultra-luxury brand, Legacy Hotels, at The Great India Travel Bazaar 2025. Showcased among global travel leaders, the new vertical is set to redefine aristocratic hospitality by transforming royal residences into immersive, world-class palace stays for the discerning traveler.
The Allianz Partners Travel Index, which surveyed over 500 Singaporean adults regarding travel plans and holiday aspirations, reveals that more than nine in 10 (90%) Singaporeans plan to travel in the year ahead. While travel is high on the agenda for most, cost-of-living is also having an impact on spending, with 73% of those not travelling citing cost as their main barrier.
At Japan’s Expo 2025, UN Tourism highlighted the key role of innovation and education for driving transformation and female empowerment in the sector.
Why are we always trying to oppose one against the other in terms of online search? Organic search and paid search should be seen as a single, unified digital marketing strategy. They complement and amplify each other. Why? they have a shared goal: visibility, traffic, credibility and conversion amplified by AI personalisation, the data analysis synergy: it allows to focus only on the 'converting' terms and inform the SEO content actions.
The answer is rather straightforward: if somebody is bidding on your brand terms (OTAs and affiliates, for example), you are leaving clicks and bookings on the table if you do not: that additional spot in the SERP affects your conversion rates significantly.
Who searches your hotel by its official name? These are your past guests, people referred by friends and family, people influenced by word-of-mouth, people who have read positive reviews on social media or PR about the property.
Thailand’s vibrant wellness industry will take centre-stage this May in Phuket with BEING Thailand 2025, a new B2B event designed to unite professionals across the wellness, hospitality, and tourism sectors. The inaugural gathering, expected to draw 400 industry leaders, aims to drive key conversations and innovation, bringing together a traditionally fragmented sector for an exchange of ideas and strategies.
The 2nd edition of APAC's leading MICE show, The Meetings Show Asia Pacific (TMS APAC), sees a record number of exhibitors and buyers. Returning to Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre on 16 and 17 April 2025 and co-located with the inaugural Business Travel Show APAC, TMS APAC is set to bring the biggest gathering of travel professionals in the region. With the support of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), this year’s event further solidifies Singapore’s standing as the "World's Best MICE City.”
Tourism is considered a key industry in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), which sets its sights on becoming a world-leading destination. The School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) today released its policy study findings on the strategies and potential for creating an integrated brand tourism cluster by leveraging the strengths of the cities within GBA. The study has been supported by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme of the HKSAR Government.
As IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) marks its 50th anniversary in Greater China and celebrates its milestone of 800 open hotels, the group officially launched its first major event of the year — “Let’s make travel easy” 2025 IHG Greater China Expo in Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai. It empowers business travel by focusing on collaboration, digital empowerment, and mutual growth.
IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG), one of the world’s leading hospitality companies, is proud to announce its sponsorship of World Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai and the UK Pavilion – a partnership that highlights its commitment to growth across Japan and Asia Pacific.
Traditional SEO is not dead, but traditional search is! Consumers simply do not search as they did 10 or 15 years ago. Social search is now a big component of the customer journey: from TikTok to YouTube to Instagram, the platforms are diverse and usage greatly vary depending on age and traveler habits.
In spite of all the buzz around genAI, the AI Search market share today is estimated around 6% of the total search market, and estimated to go up to 14% by 2028 (Search Engine Land). Google's own Gemini AI has already been made available to Google's 84 billion monthly users - compare this to ChatGPT's 121 million users!
I don't believe that SEO is dead. I am of the view that the role of SEO is going to develop in alignment with the evolution of search. After all, it doesn't resemble the way it began with the incumbent approach. The challenge remains how to be found.
We can hope regulators will someday "reimagine" policies to enable innovation, but let's face it: this is entirely beyond the industry's control. Expecting governments to grasp the complexities of hotel tech is like waiting for a no-show guest to miraculously fill your occupancy gap.
Technical fragmentation has long been a challenge in all aspects of hospitality. Some of this is a reality. Some of it is by choice and driven from vendor marketing propoganda about 'Best of Breed'. The reality is that to overcome this general challenge in industry, consolidation and unification is required.
Website analytics in isolation from the rest of the hotel tech stack has lost its importance. Combined with the property's CRM, RMS, a personalization engine and the rest of the tech stack, it is priceless and impacts many revenue-generation functions: Revenue Management: The website browsing behavior, booking engine denials, time spent on web pages of various packages, offers and hotel amenities are important data signals for the RMS and property pricing strategies.
Marriott Hotels, part of Marriott Bonvoy’s global portfolio of more than 30 extraordinary hotel brands, recently launched the "Wonderful Hospitality For Your Heartfelt Smile" brand campaign in Greater China. The campaign kicks off with five engaging videos starring popular Chinese comedians Yan Peilun, Zhang Youwei, Liu Yang, and Zhu Meiji, who shine a bright spotlight on Marriott’s signature hospitality through the delightful lens of comedy and laughter. The five campaign videos capture everyday moments at Marriott Hotels, from the front office associates who anticipate guest needs to exceptional, in-house dining experiences crafted with passion and care.
2024 has been a standout year for Indian hoteliers, with positive sentiments expressed by survey respondents across all major economic metrics. Twothirds of Indian accommodations reported good or very good business performance over the past six months, reflecting a substantial improvement from 2023 when the Barometer survey was first conducted. In comparison, only half of accommodations expressed similar optimism last year.
To give Aussies the ultimate festive experience, the team at KitKat is offering the chance to have a break in the IRL KitKat Christmas Cabin in partnership with Booking.com.
The short answer is no.
The threat by the genAI search engines has to be taken seriously and this is exactly what Google is doing. First, Gemini AI and its latest version Gemini 1.5-pro-002 is comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4o and better in more complex tasks like coding and problem-solving.
It's an interesting situation. Those who've always had the information and also the commerce. Versus those that have started with the information retasked to be more informative. But not yet the commerce. My view is that the more informative information coupled with commerce will prove out in the end.
Organised by the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) and supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) as well as Workforce Singapore (WSG), the inaugural Hospitality Exchange held on 3 October 2024 at Hilton Singapore Orchard was a resounding success. The Guest of Honour for the event was Mr Olivier Lim, Chairman of STB.
Duetto, the world’s leading revenue management software provider for the hospitality industry, is proud to announce its further expansion into North Asia. This strategic move aligns with Duetto's goal to bring revenue optimization excellence to more markets, helping businesses maximize their profitability and deliver exceptional guest experiences.
India's festive season, marked by vibrant cultural celebrations, weddings, and long holidays, presents a significant opportunity for the hospitality industry to boost its revenue and enhance its brand image. The period from October to December sees a surge in domestic travel, family gatherings, and celebrations, making it a crucial time for hotels, resorts, and other hospitality ventures to position themselves for success.
Homegrown hotel brand, Vibe Hotels, is celebrating a milestone 21st birthday today, marking more than two decades of connecting people, places and creating memorable stays across Australia.