Newsmaker

No stranger to this post, Thailand’s minister of tourism and sports Weerasak Kowsurat tells why the country’s tourism sector needs to stop its addiction to increasing visitor arrivals but instead place serious emphasis on achieving equity for all stakeholders

Airbnb may have started out as an air mattress rental business, but this hospitality behemoth now wants to be the engine driving a new kind of travel and experiences in modern living. Co-founder and chief strategy office Nathan Blecharczyk tells why Airbnb’s future lies in more than just accommodation

CEO for Asia at Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels & Hospitality, Mike Batchelor, tells Pamela Chow how traditional hotel operators are navigating Asia's dynamic hospitality landscape.

Sean Treacy, before leaving the Royal Caribbean Asia-Pacific office for a bigger role as associate vice president strategic planning for international in the Miami headquarters, sat down with Karen Yue for a look back at his three years steering the region's fast-growing cruise market.

Numerous changes are afoot at Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG), led by Lothar Nessmann who took over the reins as CEO in February 2017. He talks to Karen Yue about pushing for changes that take the organisation forward, adopting technology applications that make sense and keeping the critical dance with travel agents going

The nature of representation is changing but the philosophy behind it hasn’t, says Geoff Andrew, CEO, Worldhotels, who tells Raini Hamdi why representation has a future despite the onslaught of OTAs, sharing economy and new soft brands

Marriott International chooses to let its people-first culture lead it out of a stormy 2020, a decision that has created a year of incredible lessons and innovative solutions that benefited business performance, reveals Rajeev Menon, president, Asia Pacific (excluding China).

Angie Stephen, Royal Caribbean Cruises’ new managing director for Asia-Pacific, compares and contrasts the western cruise market with this region, and finds that digital media proliferation here is shortening the cruise adoption process. Asians are taking quickly to cruising and there’s still plenty for her to learn, she tells Karen Yue

Young association members are the key to making inroads into Asia’s travel trade, and Skål International’s new CEO, Daniela Otero, talks about big plans to revolutionise the association.

Agoda's new tech-driven CEO Omri Morgenshtern lives and breathes technology, seeking to break new ground with online services to enable customers to build their travel itinerary on the platform over a period of time