MICHAEL PESCHARDT, TV Presenter and Host, BBC World Michael Peschardt is now the BBC's leading international interviewer. His programme, Peschardt's People' is broadcast to more than two hundred countries and has become a centrepiece of the BBC World News Television schedule.(More)
DARREN WRIGHT, General Manager Australia, AirAsia X Darrren Wright joined the airline back in 2007 when it started its first flight into the Gold Coast. Darren was previously the Marketing Manager of Virgin Blue for four years and before that, was six years in the marketing team at Flight Centre. (Podcast) (More)
ROMAIN ROULLEAU, Senior VP E-commerce, Accor Worldwide Romain Roulleau has joined the Hotel Distribution Division as Senior VP e-Commerce in charge of the development of Accor hotels direct sales on the web. Romain is responsible for the development of the accorhotels.com portal and with his team will continue to bring the necessary support to the Marketing teams to develop the various brand sites. (More)
ROSHAN MENDIS, President of Zuji and Regional Vice President of Travelocity Asia Pacific Based in Singapore, Roshan Mendis leads Travelocity in Asia Pacific, and is responsible for leading the business focus, development and future growth strategies for all Travelocity brands in Asia Pacific including Travelocity, ZUJI and Nextour. Roshan has more than 10 years experience with Sabre and Travelocity. Prior to joining the Executive Team at ZUJI in 2006, in the role of Director, Supplier Relationships and Partnerships, Roshan worked for ZUJI's parent company Travelocity.(More)
Customer Reviews : WIT 2009
“Having been involved with WIT since the beginning – I can think of no better tribute than the fact that it is still going and still doing the “right” thing – challenging the challenged. Well done, WIT. Here’s to another 5.”
Adrian Currie is Chairman of Agoda, the Asian hotel reservation service acquired by priceline.com in 2007. Agoda generated bookings of over $100 million for APAC hotels in 2008, more than 100% up on 2007, and provides a multi-lingual website and 24/7 customer support in all major Asian and European languages.
Aileen Clemente was appointed President of Rajah Travel Corporation in February 2007. Prior to this, she served as Executive Vice President of Rajah Travel Corporation. Aileen is in charge of overall operations of all Rajah Travel Corporation offices.
A journalist with many years of experience in the luxury market, Alison Marshall enjoys travelling (mostly at the back of the plane) and securing the best bargain.
Anthony Ku holds the position of Regional Vice President Asia Pacific at Trust International. In his role, Anthony is responsible for technology and distribution sales; business development; launching new products, and establishing strategic partnerships for the region.
Anya Zhao joined Air China at the end of 2007 and is now responsible for the online marketing activities at the airline. Air China is the flag carrier of China and is also a Star Alliance member. Over the last two years, Air China has taken the leadership position in online marketing in China's aeronautic industry.
Aya Aso, CPA, is the CEO & President, of Agora Hospitalities Co. Ltd. She manages Nojiriko Hotel EL BOSCO, a boutique resort hotel in Nagano Prefecture, Japan.
Brett Henry is Vice President of Abacus International's Agency Marketing Division where he leads Strategic Agency Marketing, Marketing Services, eService,Training and Business Development.
Marathon man, coach, trainer, adventurer, environmentalist, actor - that's Bruce Hancock rolled into one. Bruce, currently Director Operation/Development at Asian Oasis Thailand believes in doing everything with passion and what drives him is the joy in seeing others share, open their heat, laugh, build relationships, learn and apply.
Chong Phit Lian, Chief Executive Officer of Jetstar Asia/Valuair has over 28 years of management experience in the lifestyle, leisure, tourism, manufacturing and engineering industries. Chong joined Jetstar Asia Airways in March 2006 and is currently serving as CEO of OrangeStar Pte ltd, Jetstar Asia Airways and Valuair.
Chris is a 15-year veteran of the travel and transportation industry with experience in a variety of roles within marketing, finance, and business development. He is currently Vice President of Airline Distribution Marketing for Sabre Travel Network with global responsibility for marketing, strategy, and pricing of GDS offerings to airlines.
Darrren Wright joined the airline back in 2007 when it started its first flight into the Gold Coast. Darren was previously the Marketing Manager of Virgin Blue for four years and before that, was six years in the marketing team at Flight Centre.
Dave Lim has worked on different sides of the entrepreneurial fence: an early internet investor since 1995, a high-tech investor in two venture capital firms, worked in a Silicon Valley startup team, a business mentor and angel investor.
Melka is a venture capitalist residing in Singapore. Since 2006, he has co-founded and launched companies in consumer finance, information technology, hospitality, telecommunications, agriculture and sustainable forestry.
David Chambat is Vice-President, Asia Pacific of TVtrip.com, the leading hotel online video guide. TVtrip.com uses video to provide travellers with the transparency they need when planning a trip.
Desmond Chong leads business development as well corporate segments and solutions in Abacus. Reporting to the Vice President of marketing, Desmond's business development role includes evaluating new technologies and business models with the potential to boost the sustainability of travel agencies affiliated to Abacus.
Dhruv returned to India after 8 years in Europe and his most recent role prior to co-founding Yatra was as Director Group Operations and Technology of the Ebookers Group where he was responsible for sales of over $850 million achieved thru multi channels including online, call centers and retail shops.
Don's experience includes airlines, hotels, telecommunications, travel agents and most recently GDS distribution as CEO of Abacus International. But he still has problems delivering a decent second tennis serve.
PODCAST - Click here to listen to an interview with Don
Well known as one of the leading personalities and representatives of the meetings industry in Australia, Elizabeth has been managing her own company, Agenda Pty Ltd since the early 1980s, specialising in the business events sector. Her company consults on a variety of industry-related projects, and she is a regular contributor to trade magazines in Australia and Asia.
Eric Munoz has been immersed in the hospitality industry for 20 years and is a specialist in hotel operations technology components, revenue management, and online distribution.
Communications for Asia Pacific's largest and most prominent hotel group Accor is headed by Evan Lewis. Based in Accor's Asia Pacific corporate office in Singapore, Evan is responsible for all external and internal communications.
Fritz Demopoulos has been involved in the Chinese internet and media industries for nearly a decade. Fritz sold China’s first banner advertisement to Ogilvy & Mather in 1997 as part of the IBM account. He is currently the CEO and Cofounder of Qunar.com, a leading travel search engine in Beijing.
Gerry Oh is the Regional Vice President South East Asia & Australia for Jet Airways, India’s most awarded airline and one of top six airlines in the world. Before joining Jet Airways, he was Senior Vice President Global Sales & Marketing for the London listed Millennium & Copthorne Hotels plc.
Giles is Head of Business Development for EMEA & APAC at Frommer's Unlimited, a John Wiley & sons company. Frommer's Unlimited speciaiises in providing travel and entertainment content and digital services to the online travel industry.
Gordon Locke is the Vice-President of Airline Marketing for The Travel Industry Group at Sabre. He is responsible for global airline marketing & airline segment strategy for Sabre Airline Solutions / Sabre Travel Network, including portfolio positioning for solutions to help airlines better market, sell, serve and operate.
GRANT COLQUHOUN, Director of Hotels, Travelocity Asia Pacific Grant Colquhoun, director of hotels for Travelocity in Asia Pacific, is responsible for the Preferred Hotels program in the region. As such, his focus is on working with hotels to improve their visibility and success both regionally and globally.
Prior to joining BCD Travel, Greg spent ten years as president and CEO of SYNERGI, Inc., a USD$10 billion global corporation delivering travel management services through business travel firms in more than 50 major business markets. Greg grew the company from operations in six countries 1992 to 50 countries by the end of 2005, thanks to his strong focus on training, branding and technology.
HANS LERCH, Vice Chairman, Hotelplan Hans Lerch has spent 35 years in the travel and tourism industry, in many different positions but always in the same company, and worked for Kuoni Travel Holding Ltd. from 1970 to 2005.
Hedy Mok formed Eurotours & Travel in 1974 when it dawned on her that she has the passion for travel. It started as a wish to travel to all the continents of the world until it has emerged to be a fulltime business.
Hoong Mau is Director of Airline Distribution Division where he has overall responsibility for managing relationships with airlines. He leads airline strategy and business development, information marketing as well as airline account management to drive strategic sales initiatives to ensure maximum growth of airline accounts.
Ho Kwon Ping (“KP”) is Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, which owns both listed and private companies engaged in the development, ownership and operation of hotels, resorts, spas, residential homes, retail galleries and other lifestyle activities in the region.
Jens Uwe Parkitny is Managing Director Affiliate Network of Expedia Asia Pacific. In this role, which he commenced on October 20, 2008, he is responsible for developing and managing Expedia's B2B unit in APAC including all white-label and co-branded affiliate partnerships in Asia Pacific.
As Founder and Executive Partner of Chameleon Strategies, Jens Thraenhart leads an innovative Strategy Think Tank with offices in Europe, Asia, and North America, focused on branding, e-business, social media, with a focus on helping travel organizations to market to Chinese consumers via social media and online marketing.
Jill is employed by the State Government of Sarawak as the Sarawak Convention Bureau’s inaugural Chief Executive Officer. The Bureau, formed in 2007 was the first to be established in Malaysia. Under her guidance the Bureau has secured 60 new conventions and events with an average 70 per cent bid success ratio.
John Northen is the Area Vice President for South East Asia, responsible for the operational standards and excellence of Marriott International's 30 hotels in his territory. John joined Marriott in 1986 as a Director of Food & Beverage for Renaissance Hotels in London followed by assignments in Turkey, Aruba and Grenada.
Karthik is the founding chairman of the Global Brand Forum . As Chairman of the Global Brand Forum, Karthik's main role lies in helping create the world's most inspiring and influential platform for brands, businesses and leadership. Karthik oversees strategy development, brand planning and Advisory.
Laurent Kuenzle, 41, was born with a pioneering spirit of travel in his blood.
When few Europeans had thought of working and living in cities in Asia such as Seoul, he did. And he did the same in places such as Hong Kong, Osaka, Bangkok, Cambodia and Myanmar.
Today, he is regarded as the pioneer of travel-related services to Indochina and Myanmar.
Mr. Lim, based in Singapore, has been awarded two scholarships by the Singapore government. The first was to complete an undergraduate cum Masters degree in electronics engineering in the prestigious French 'Grande Ecole' schools of engineering. The second was awarded while he was serving with the Ministry of Defence of Singapore to complete a Masters in Public Administration at the elite Ecole Nationale d’ Administration of France.
Lim Kin Chew is a Senior Lecturer cum Research Fellow in the SIM University in Singapore. He has a B.Sc (Physics), Dip-Ed and an M.Sc (Business Systems Analysis & Design). Currently he looks after the Executive Graduate Diploma and Executive Master Programme on Open Source Software Management in the SIM University.
Maria Taylor is Vice President Distribution & Sales, Asia Pacific for Accor, the World’s largest hotel, tourism and corporate services company. Maria joined Accor in 1993, and during this time has held various positions in the rooms division and hotel operations.
Mark is the general manager of the Microsoft Online Services Group in Southeast Asia and is responsible for leading the Microsoft Advertising, Windows Live and MSN teams across six major makrets - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam.
Martin joined Wego as CEO in March 2006 and with nearly 15 years of travel industry experience, the last seven focused on the Asia Pacific online travel space.
Masashi Okatake is the President of Rakuten Travel, Inc. a 100 percent subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc., and operates Japan's largest online hotel reservation website with over 2.2 million room nights booked per month.
Michael Issenberg leads Accor Asia Pacific. In February 2008, Mr Issenberg assumed his current position as Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, Accor Asia Pacific and joined the global executive committee. Based in the Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, he is responsible for overseeing the company’s overall hospitality development and management activities.
Michael Peschardt is now the BBC's leading international interviewer. His programme, Peschardt's People' is broadcast to more than two hundred countries and has become a centrepiece of the BBC World News Television schedule.
Michael Yap is Deputy CEO at Media Development Authority (MDA). He is concurrently Executive Director of the Interactive Digital Media (IDM) Programme Office responsible for driving the national IDM R&D agenda.
Morris Sim is a Co-Founder and the CEO of Circos.com, Inc., a business analytic company focusing on social media. Its flagship product, Brand Karma, helps brands increase awareness and conversion by analysing the impact of customer reviews online and correlating the insights to revenue, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Patrick Andrès is the Managing Director of SynXis Asia Pacific. He is a veteran of the Asian hospitality technology industry. He is presently spearheading the Asia-Pacific expansion of SynXis, the Sabre Holdings business that provides hotel reservation management, distribution and technology services. Andrès' well-rounded experience includes positions at the hotel level, in hospitality automation and electronic distribution.
Patrick Imbardelli has over 25 years of distinguished experience in the hotel industry managing global multi-brand organisations. He has been President and Chief Executive Officer for Pan Pacific Hotels Group since July 2008.
As general manager, Asia Pacific, Ram heads the development of PhoCusWright's business in the Asia Pacific region including strategy, syndicated research, custom engagements and conference activity.
Richard has worked in many areas of the travel industry, from hotels, airlines, retail and tour wholesaling to airfare consolidation. He has 30 years travel and 12 years internet marketing experience.
Richard Wiegmann was appointed to the position of Managing Director of Trust International in January 2005. Based out of the Frankfurt/Germany headquarters, Richard is responsible for business development and strategy, marketing, client relationships, operations, financial and administrative services.
Robbie Cooke joined Wotif.com in January 2006, initially as the Chief Operating Officer, before taking the reigns as CEO and Managing Director in October 2007 following the retirement of Wotif.com's Founder, Graeme Wood. Having been instrumental throughout the company's listing on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2006, Robbie's knowledge of and experience in achieving continued profitability and growth through strategic development has helped Wotif.com sustain its position.
Robbie Hills is recognised as one of the region’s most authoritative search marketing experts.
He was appointed CEO of WPP’s Group M Search businesses across the Asia Pacific region in April 2008 and prior to that was managing director of WPP owned 24/7 Real Media in Australia, the regions largest search marketing company.
Robert Bailey is the President and CEO of Abacus International. Robert joined Abacus in 2008, bringing with him a wide range of experience in general management, senior strategy, business development, and marketing roles in the travel industry.
In 1991 Robin Lokerman founded GIC Management, which became Europe’s leading full service association management company. The company merged with MCI in August 2003, and today MCI is the foremost global Association, Communications and Event Management Group, with close to 800 professional staff working in 32 offices throughout Europe, Middle East, Asia and Latin America.
Romain Roulleau has joined the Hotel Distribution Division as Senior VP e-Commerce in charge of the development of Accor hotels direct sales on the web. Romain is responsible for the development of the accorhotels.com portal and with his team will continue to bring the necessary support to the Marketing teams to develop the various brand sites.
Roland Jegge is Vice President, Asia Pacific for WORLDHOTELS. In this position, Roland is responsible for all aspects of membership development and services and managing sales and marketing activities throughout the Asia Pacific region for the more than 500 affiliate hotels of WORLDHOTELS across the globe.
Based in Singapore, Roshan Mendis leads Travelocity in Asia Pacific, and is responsible for leading the business focus, development and future growth strategies for all Travelocity brands in Asia Pacific including Travelocity, ZUJI and Nextour. Roshan has more than 10 years experience with Sabre and Travelocity. Prior to joining the Executive Team at ZUJI in 2006, in the role of Director, Supplier Relationships and Partnerships, Roshan worked for ZUJI's parent company Travelocity.
Sajith looks after the growth of Google's online advertising business in the Travel, Automotive, Retail sectors in Southeast Asia. Advertisers in these sectors are driven by measurement, analysis and return on investment – attributes that are ideally suited for search engine marketing.
Sascha Hausmann is a specialist in online distribution systems in Europe and the US. Sascha has been the Chief Operating Officer of eRevMax Inc. since June 2007 for which he is a consultant part of StellantPartners.
Sandra Chipchase has had an outstanding career in international tourism and Business events marketing, major events, sponsorship, business and asset management.
Click below for a list of achievements.
PODCAST - Listen to the WIT interview with Sandra.
Simon Nowroz was appointed President & Managing Director Asia in September 2009. Simon has been a key member of the Asia Pacific management team since 2006. He is responsible for the commercial operations for Travelport GDS in Asia that includes identifying strategic opportunities for the company and driving new business.
Suguru Tomizuka is the Corporate Vice President for Recruit Co., Ltd and President of Recruit Travel Information Co. Using a variety of media, including information magazines, the Internet, and mobile communications, Recruit Co., Ltd provides environments for connecting businesses to consumers, and businesses to businesses. Its businesses cover travel as well as entertainment, visual and media; automobiles; and medical.
Takanobu Yamamoto leads TripAdvisor's business in Japan - the company's first website in Asia. He is responsible for implementing Japan specific marketing and product strategy, to achieve TripAdvisor's mission of helping people around the world plan and have the perfect trip in Japan.
Timothy Hughes, Commercial Director for Hotelclub.com is a senior online and new media executive. Timothy is responsible for a team of 50, managing the sales, revenue management & pricing, sourcing (hotel inventory), content (descriptions) and database operations for online hotel sites HotelClub.com, RatesToGo.com and asia-hotels.com.
PODCAST - Listen to the WIT interview with Timothy
Timothy O Neil-Dunne serves as the lead for the Airline, Aviation and Airport Practice. Timothy has worked in aviation and travel distribution for more 30 years, including time with Worldspan and Microsoft/Expedia before founding T2Impact in 1998. He leads the group's efforts in the international arena, providing e-commerce services to travel and technology clients, and others involved in transaction processing oriented e-businesses.
Tran Minh Phuong David is CEO of Chudu24, a leading travel portal in Vietnam, which he co-founded in 2008. Chudu24 is the largest travel portal in Vietnam and attracts over half million visitors monthly.
During my 15 years slogging in the corporate world, I did mostly marketing/operational work in many different industries. I retired back in 2003 when I realised the perks are better working for my husband - he just needs me to plan our vacations.
Mr William Liu (or Bill which he is more commonly known) is currently the Chairman of Stream Global, a business advisory and management consultancy firm focusing on Infocomm Technology SMEs in the Asia Pacific Region.
Wu Hai is Founder and CEO of Orange Hotel Group. Orange Hotel Group is bringing its distinctive, high-design hotel product to consumers in China at budget hotel prices. Headquartered in Beijing, Orange Hotel Group currently operates 16 hotels in Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Nanjing.
Vikas joined Sprice.com in January 2008. In his role, he leads business development in the region and is also responsible for formulating and driving the strategic marketing plans to promote Sprice.com brand to consumers in Asia.
Vinay Gupta is the dynamic, young visionary and founder of Via. His persistent pursuit to create seamless travel in India led to the formation of India's leading travel services company.
