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Hello reader,
When India reopened in October 2020 after months of Covid-induced lockdown, my family took a trip to Ooty, a beautiful hill station nestled in the Nilgiris Hills of southern India.
After many months of staying at home, the trip was pure bliss. What added to the joy was the 40% discount our hotel offered us. There was only one other family staying at the property, while the rest of the rooms were vacant. Ooty’s Jubilee Park, which is otherwise packed with tourists, looked like a deserted green estate.
India’s tourism sector was battered by the pandemic in 2020. It however bounced back in late 2021 as “revenge travel” picked up.
Similarly, Southeast Asia has been seeing an uptick in tourist footfall. However, tourism in the region, famous for its culture and beaches, is yet to reach its pre-pandemic levels.
In the Big Story this week, my colleague Simon breaks down Grab’s (GRAB, NDAQ) ambitions to make hay from the reopening of the tourism sector in Southeast Asia. The super app has launched several features to attract tourists to the platform. But will it? And how much impact might this have on the company’s topline? Read on to find out.
–Samreen
THE BIG STORY
Image credit: Timmy Loen
How Grab can benefit from rebound in SEA tourism
The super app wants to welcome travellers back to the region with new and updated features. But what impact will this have on Grab’s top line?
3 Trends to keep an eye on
*Hot stocks, earnings reports, restructuring, pressure from activist investors, and more.
1️⃣ IPO sizes see course correction: With tough market conditions continuing to haunt companies, upcoming tech IPOs are undergoing a correction in their valuations. Japan’s Rakuten Bank downsized its US$625 million IPO filing, which was initially expected to raise about US$800 million. But the good news was that its shares surged up to 40% in the market debut on Friday. In India, hotel chain Oyo has refiled its draft red herring prospectus under the pre-filing route to raise betweenUS$400 million and US$600 million IPO – half of the US$1.2 billion it had targeted earlier. Such incidents indicate the lengths celebrated tech companies are going to in order to list in this climate.
2 Eye-popping facts
The one you didn’t see coming
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