Recorded in just one day on the trade show floor at IT&CMA & CTW 2026, the new series of Trends brings together the personalities, places and ideas shaping how we travel, meet and see the world. Each episode pairs an in-depth editorial in TravelDailyNews.asia with the full video interview on the Trends YouTube channel. Expect fresh perspectives on everything from expedition adventures and corporate cruising to community enterprise and the next generation of tourism talent. Fr

As Bangkok prepares to welcome a gathering of global explorers, founder Ric Gazarian considers the irresistible pull of the places we have yet to see. There is something deliciously unfashionable about saving the best until last. In an age of instant gratification, Ric Gazarian has kept Ireland waiting for a decade. When he finally arrives, there will be a Guinness, a celebration and the quiet satisfaction of completing an extraordinary ambition: visiting every United Nations

Hyperlocal advertising is pushing event marketing towards a new level of precision, allowing organisers and exhibitors to target audiences by physical location while turning event footprints into potentially valuable digital media inventory. The meetings and events industry has spent years talking about personalisation. The next step may be considerably more precise: not simply reaching the right audience, but reaching the right person within a few metres of where a commercia

Bangkok rarely whispers. It pulses, glows, honks, steams and surges around you. Which is precisely why the first impression of Andaz One Bangkok is so compelling: calm. Before meeting Opening General Manager Ross Cooper, I had prepared the predictable questions about Bangkok’s increasingly competitive luxury hotel landscape, brand positioning and the challenges of opening a major new property in one of Asia’s most dynamic cities. Then I changed tack. Instead, I asked Cooper h

Two minutes. One camera. One story worth telling. More than 100 Bangkok University students are putting tourism storytelling against the clock with Tourism in 2, a short-form documentary competition that challenges emerging filmmakers to capture the people, places and experiences behind travel in just 120 seconds. Students from the university’s IMI News & Documentary Production course were given two weeks to conceive, script, shoot, edit and deliver an original two-minute doc

More than 50 years before Thailand turned screen tourism into national strategy, Phuket cinema owner Wichit Na-Ranong saw the box-office potential of Phang Nga Bay. Some men collect Bond memorabilia. Wichit Na-Ranong helped furnish the legend with an address. Before Phang Nga Bay became a fixture on Thailand itineraries and before “set-jetting” entered the tourism lexicon, a young cinema owner in Phuket looked at its vertiginous limestone karsts and saw something else: a movi

The Tuna Truth, a feature documentary examining the environmental and human stakes behind the global tuna industry, made its Asian screening debut in Bangkok on Sept. 14, ahead of its official U.K. launch and international release. The outdoor screening at Blue Elephant Sukhumvit, Bangkok, brought together filmmakers, sustainability advocates, seafood executives and hospitality figures for an unconventional premiere night pairing ocean conservation with Thai cuisine and coc

Kamala Sukosol shares her journey as Thailand’s “Singing Hotelier,” blending hospitality and entertainment in her family’s award-winning hotel group. In a special episode of Trends , host David Barrett sits down with Thailand ’s very own “Singing Hotelier,” Kamala Sukosol , at the stylish Library of The Siam , a luxury property within her family’s award-winning hotel group. Kamala Sukosol, once larger-than-life and now more petite as a veteran of Thailand’s hotel industry, s

Everyone in Thailand’s tourism knows a name that is synonymous with innovation and exploration; Luzi Matzig . The trailblazing Founder and CEO of VIP Jets and Chairman of Asian Trails welcomed Trends host David Barrett aboard his private jet for an exclusive high flying final episode of Trends in 2023. Captain Matzig’s story is as compelling as the destinations he so passionately connects. From dreaming of owning his own jet to soaring across continents, he transforms his

David Barrett, host of the industry-focused interview series Trends , met up with Ric Gazarian, aka Global Gaz, founder and organiser of the third edition of the Extraordinary Travel Festival. ETF III will return to Bangkok from 22 to 25 October 2026 at the Ambassador Bangkok Hotel on Sukhumvit soi 12. David Barrett, host of the industry-focused interview series Trends , met up with Ric Gazarian, aka Global Gaz, on the trade show floor at IT&CMA and CTW in Bangkok earlier

When the great and the good of the global tourism trade gather on the trade show floor of Pacific Asia Travel Mart 2025 (PTM 2025) there...

Amidst the business networking on the trade show floor at PATA Travel Mart in Bangkok (PTM2025), the Trends pop-up studio managed to...

Ark Travel Express, one of the Philippines’ most recognisable names in tourism. The company has weathered the tempests of global crises...

At the Pacific Asia Travel Association’s PATA Travel Mart 2025 in Bangkok, David Barrett, host of the Trends series, sat down with Mark...

At the PATA Travel Mart (PTM2025) in Bangkok, among the wealth of meetings, speeches and corporate displays, one conversation cut through...

Pacific Asia Travel Association’s trade show floors are never short of outsized personalities. At the PATA’s PTM2025, hosted in Bangkok,...

Tourism in Bhutan has long carried an air of mystique. For decades, the Himalayan kingdom kept the world at arm’s length, its borders...

Discova, the destination management company owned by Australia’s Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), has been steadily building its...

Pichai Pongsasaovapark - Illuminating Environmental Crises and Social Issues Through Art Continuing the theme of Sustainability, in...

Vivi Sirporn Sriaram's Crusade for a Sustainable Future We talk about saving the environment in Episode 11 of Trends. Vivi Sirporn...