At the Next Generation Leaders event on October 9, held as part of WiT Singapore, four voices from across Asia’s travel ecosystem—Laura Houldsworth (Booking.com), Timothy Hughes (Agoda), Morris Sim (Montara Hospitality) and Jacinta Lim (Seek Sophie)—examined how the new travel landscape is being reshaped by artificial intelligence (AI), authenticity and the fight for trust.
The age of acceleration
Houldsworth set the tone: “The pace of change is dizzying. It’s not just planning for what happens next year, but what happens tomorrow.”
The event, sponsored by Booking.com and open by-invite to about 60 young leaders from across Asia’s online travel market, opened on how fast AI is shifting the travel equation. OpenAI, Houldsworth noted, now counts over 800 million active weekly users, a four-fold jump in less than a year.
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“Except for when Taylor Swift announces something,” Houldsworth said. “I can’t think of anything that happens faster.”
But the challenge, she said, goes beyond scale, with people now searching for vibe. “How does it feel? What’s the vibe, the experience? That’s hard to put into a booking engine, that’s what will change the game.”
The funnel, unbroken but redrawn
Hughes of Agoda offered a note of grounding. “As much as technology changes, the fundamental funnel doesn’t. Someone still needs to be inspired—that’s unbreakable. What changes is who wins in each part of it.”
He recalled that in the pre-AI era, content was the loser. “Search belonged to Google. Bookings went to the OTAs. But now, with AI shifting the power of the funnel, the content question is back.”
Already, Google Gemini and OpenAI are capturing search intent in new ways. One percent of searches may not sound like much, but when you’re talking about billions, it’s enormous, the panel acknowledged.
The boardroom moment for AI
At Montara Hospitality, AI has become a standing agenda item. “Every board meeting now includes an AI update,” said Sim. “Our operations managers are all trained in it.”
Distribution used to mean choosing your channels. Now, you’re expected to be in all of them and AI helps you manage that chaos.
Morris Sim, Montara Hospitality
For him, the question isn’t whether to use it, but how. “Distribution used to mean choosing your channels. Now, you’re expected to be in all of them and AI helps you manage that chaos.”
Yet, he added, the key is still emotion. “How do you communicate the vibe of a place? Ironically, what we put out ourselves gets the least traction. What guests create, that’s what people consume and influence.”
Trust in an age of skepticism
That trust deficit—across media, marketing and institutions—was a recurring theme. “People are skeptical. They look for multiple sources and construct their own truth,” Sim said. “AI, used well, can help aggregate those voices and even translate them into different languages.”
He recounted instances of guests saying, “ChatGPT proposed this itinerary—why isn’t it in yours?”
“It keeps us on our toes,” he said. “We have to be service-oriented but flexible. It’s less about talking about our products—we have a spa, we have a gym—but more about understanding what questions people are asking, what prompts they are using.”
The human pulse of discovery
For Lim, co-founder of Seek Sophie, the drive for experiences and authenticity hasn’t changed—only how people find it. “We started Seek Sophie because we couldn’t find the experiences we wanted online. Even on page 10 of Google, it was the same lists, same SEO.”
Her insight is clear: “People want stories, from people who’ve actually been there. They want the vibe, not a chatbot summary.”
Her comment drew nods around the room. “The more stories we tell, the more people resonate. That’s how trust builds, through voices that sound like theirs.”
Social media, she added, has become “the new luxury.”
“It’s telling people you’ve been to this place; it’s about relatability. The new aspiration is to live a story worth telling.”
Asia’s responsibility to its future
On tourism’s responsibility to the environment, Hughes shared his frustration with an airline he flew with from Bangkok to Singapore that was still giving away plastic shoehorns to its business class passengers as well as socks and eye masks on short flights. “That’s completely unnecessary.”
As we look at the protests going on in Europe, we in Asia have to be very careful. Our livelihoods depend on tourism assets, and we don’t have the muscle to protect these natural places.
Jacinta Lim, Seek Sophie
Lim also issued a quiet warning. “As we look at the protests going on in Europe, we in Asia have to be very careful. Our livelihoods depend on tourism assets, and we don’t have the muscle to protect these natural places. As Asia booms, what does tourism do to our natural spaces and how do we protect them?”
Responding to a question as to whether Seek Sophie could become bigger than Viator, Lim said, “If that’s the responsible thing to do, to be bigger, then yes. But growth at all costs, I don’t agree with that.”
An industry at a crossroads
Hughes brought the conversation full circle. “Sure, tech will change—AI, content, speed of development. But what we don’t yet know is how consumers will change. That’s the real unknown.”
He likened this moment to “the beginning of a monster change.”
Houldsworth added, “Even the people building the tools don’t know where this goes. All we can do is stay agile.”
The Asian moment
For Sim, this decade belongs to Asia. “Asia is shaping the global narrative now. You see Europeans, Australians, Americans coming here not just for holidays but to explore why our countries are so interesting.”
Between Japan’s inbound boom and South-east Asia’s economic rise, he said, “There’s an endless amount of opportunity in the next 50 years—as more people enter the middle class and start travelling for meaning, not mileage.”
This article originally appeared in WiT.
