Singapore Tourism Board to host India tech forum

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) will join forces with Web In Travel (WIT) to organise the first India Travel Executive Forum this month.

Taking place on 10 July at the Taj West End in Bengaluru, the half-day event will feature a series of high-level speakers from the Indian travel industry.

Themed ‘Deconstructing the India Story’, top executives from MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Cleartrip, AirAsia Expedia, Thomas Cook and Mercury Travels will participate in the programme, along with new players in the Indian online travel sector, including Mygola, Trip38 and SavvyMob.

Yeoh Siew Hoon, editor and founder of WIT

In addition, start-up teams from Singapore including Voyagin and Travelogy will travel to Bengaluru to share their stories.

“The entrepreneurial and innovative spirit is strong here in India. This rings true in the travel space, where increasing digitisation is disrupting the travel decision and planning process,” said Chang Chee Pey, the STB’s executive director for South Asia, Middle East, Africa Europe.

“Working with WIT to bring key insights from Singapore’s TravelRave to India would enable the travel ecosystem here to plug into latest trends in travel technology, entrepreneurship and innovation across Asia.”

The forum will be hosted by Yeoh Siew Hoon, editor and founder of WIT.

“We’ve been thinking of doing a WIT India edition for some time and this partnership with STB is a good opportunity for us to bring our style of events to India, one of the biggest and most important markets that’s changing travel in Asia,” said Ms Yeoh. “Nicknamed the Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore was a natural choice for us given its vibrant and dynamic start-up scene.”

The event will be by invitation only, with the STB saying it intends to invite participants from “prominent self-starters” and “more established travel players”.

Singapore Tourism Board to host India tech forum