What a week! From our mega-event at TBEX Athens all the way to Singapore for WIT and ITB Asia, and then to our epic party with Lonely Planet at WTM London, Travel Massive is covering travel across the globe.

We spent last week in Singapore filming and meeting the who’s who in Asia Travel on behalf of Travel Weekly Asia. Here’s a quick wrap up of WIT and ITB Asia. Watch below for the highlights:

DAY 1 – WIT DAY 1 AND STARTUP PITCHES

The biggest change in the last ten years?

We asked a host of travel industry insiders what they thought the biggest changes in the past decade in travel has been:

“Mobile and disruptive technology” – Turochas ‘T’ Fuad from Travelmob
“Empowerment of users” – Hugo Burge CEO of Momondo Group
“Sustainability” – Alexadre Tsuk, founder of Bookgreener
“Internet rules our lives and it rules travel” – Martin Kelly, founder of TravelTrends.biz
“Price transparency” – Mirza Juddani, founder of Australian OTA Skiddoo
“Our ability to learn how to mine consumers’ intent” – Timothy Hughes, Agoda
“Transparency” – Timonthy O’Neil Dunne, T2Impact

The next biggest change?

According to Timony O’Neil Dunne, financial settlement processes are far too complicated today. He say’s we’ll be able to buy more products and services more easily because of financial fulfilment. And Andy Sleigh, GM of APAC for Skyscanner thinks that “Hyperpersonalisation” is the next big thing (that’s knowing where you want to go before you even know yourself!)

Startup pitches

We also interviewed the 4 finalists from the Abacus Ventures WIT Startup Pitches:

Mozio – a group transportation startup that aggregates shuttles, taxis, express trains, express buses, and any way to get to and from the airport. The clients are OTA and travel agencies, and airlines that want to sell ground transportation.

Local Alike – a startup focusing on community-based tourism. They’ve set up a platform to connect locals with travellers who are looking for more meaningful experiences.

Spacebase (the final winner – congratulations!) – a marketplace for exciting event spaces that you can easily book online. Julian said right now no one is really solving problem of ‘how do I find creative productive exciting meeting places where I can really boost creativity and have exciting meetings.’

Jayride (the winner of TravelTech Sydney’s startup pitch in October) – another ground transportation startup from Sydney. When we met Rod in Singapore, Rod was in the middle of $2 million capital raise to expand Jayride.

Thanks to Rani Francois-Marie Saadi from Abacus Ventures for supporting travel startups and innovation in Asia.

 DAY 2 – 7 YEARS of ITB and counting

We caught the opening of ITB Asia, the largest travel exhibition of it’s kind in Asia and met with buyers and exhibitors about what their top destinations in 2015 and the travel trends they are watching.

Here’s the top destination picks for 2015:

Cape Town, Zanibar and Egypt – Ayo Oyewole, Afro Tourism
Singapore, Thailand, Korea – Moe Moe Yee – Real Treasure Travel & Tours
Bali, Cambodia, Sri Lanka – Brice Reavaille – Panomatics Asia
Fraser Island, Tasmania, Queenstown (NZ) – Russell Lindfield – Thermeon
Bali, Koh Samui, Luang Prabang (Laos)  – Ine S Turell – Chic Collection
Melbourne, Greece, Bahamas – Ridhima Singh Bilochpura – The 69
Slovakia, Poland and South America – Laura Thomas – Neways

The Rise Of The Independent Asian Traveller

John Mc Quillan, CEO of Openjaw Technologies noted the growth of independent travel within Asia and the growing demand for dynamic packaging. Jonathan Zuk from Amadeo Travel Solutions also commented on the rise of the independent Asian traveller, saying “while in the past they (Asian travellers) would travel in group with language guide, they are now exploring further beyond the gateway destinations”.

“People are making decisions faster.”

According to Tejveer Singh Bedi from Park Hotel Group, travellers are booking with shorter lead times and booking more online across multiple channels.

The biggest thing learnt at WIT?

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is to not come in not with any preconceived ideas about how you do things back home but think about localisation and try to immerse yourself in the culture of that particular country because it’s very different here.” – Kevin May – Tnooz

“Ancillerary opportunities are tremendous.” – Sameer Shiraz Poonja – Emirates Group

“Diversity – I started to realise that there are so many differences between the asian markets.” – Joseph Xiao – Hotels Combined

“More opporutnities in this part of the world than in the western market.” – Johannes Reck – Get Your Guide

“Facebook has evolved their mission from break things to build things to fix your shit. It was a great insight and good advice for companies that are growing and trying to scale” – Traci Mercer – Expedia Inc

DAY 3 – WIT ITB Clinics

The third day featured talks at ITB from WIT delegates. We caught up with some of the attendees at WIT and found out what they learned.

Thanks to the following people for their comments at ITB:  – Zen Tang – Tuniu.com, Chris Backe – Oneweirdglobe.com, Matt Gibson – Xpatmatt, Oxana Baydakova – Worldhotels, Lyndel Joyce – Unlisted Collection, Shaun Clear – FCm Travel Solutions, and Perrine Schober – Pistachio Eyes.

A big thank you to everyone who spoke to us, and see you in Singapore next year for WIT (Oct 19-21) and ITB Asia (Oct 21 – 23).

Special Thanks – A BIG SPECIAL THANK YOU to Mo Seetubtim who helped me film all our episodes and to Christopher Chew from Monsoon Pictures who edited and produced the videos into amazing quality episodes!