Latest news with #InternationalConferenceonCohesiveSocieties
Business Insider
21-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
The biggest tech shift in travel isn't AGI — it's real-time translation, says a luxury hotel mogul
Picture yourself in a tiny sake bar on Japan's Noto Peninsula, swapping stories with the chef in flawless, real-time translation. Such frictionless conversations, Banyan Group founder Kwon Ping Ho says, will "open up the boundaries of travel in a big, big way." Ho, who launched his first resort on an abandoned tin mine in Phuket, Thailand in 1994, has spent over 30 years in the hospitality industry. The 72-year-old told Business Insider that when it comes to AI, tools like simultaneous translation will make a big splash in his industry. "The one AI that I think will revolutionize our industry and travel is oddly enough, not AGI. That's science fiction because nobody can imagine what it's really going to lead to," Ho said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Cohesive Societies held in Singapore last month. AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a theoretical form of AI that is capable of thinking and reasoning like humans. Experts are split on when exactly AGI will be achieved. Some say AGI will be ready in two years, but others say it is decades away. Real-time translation software, on the other hand, could have a similar impact on travel as budget carriers did, Ho said. "One of the biggest impediments to tourism travel is the language barrier, and the places you can go to. It's never been a problem for people to go on group tours and have a tour guide who speaks the language. But as you go deeper into experiential travel, you want to go and talk to people directly," he added. Ho said such software would make travelers more confident to venture into far-flung destinations even if they do not speak the local language. He compared it to the rise of budget airline carriers, which took off in the 1990s and 2000s and opened up lower-cost travel to more people. "When you get instant translation, that's going to make people go into so many areas they normally wouldn't go," he added. "People can go to the remotest village in Japan or Indonesia and not feel strange at all." Ho isn't the only hospitality mogul who said that AI will impact the industry, albeit in a limited fashion, given that the technology is still in its nascent stages. Brian Chesky, the cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, said on the company's earnings call in February that he didn't think AI is "quite ready for prime time." Chesky said Airbnb would implement AI in its customer service functions first before expanding it to other areas. "It's still really early. It's probably similar to like, the mid to late-90s for the internet. So I think it's going to have a profound impact on travel, but I don't think it's yet fundamentally changed for any of the large travel platforms," Chesky said.
Straits Times
18-07-2025
- General
- Straits Times
A recipe for Singapore: A dash of religion and concern for the planet
Most faiths teach us to care for the environment. We can bring these religious traditions together in a common cause that will also strengthen Singapore. In Singapore, we can tap the common refrain among different faiths to care for mother earth, says the writer. On June 24, 2025, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam delivered the opening address to delegates at the International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS) in Singapore. During his presentation – subsequently published in The Straits Times – he argued that multicultural societies have traditionally been conceived as a quilt composed of many individually distinctive patches that create a beautiful effect when stitched together. However, when factors such as polarisation or economic inequalities put pressure on the quilt, the stitches can come apart. The President argued that Singapore should strive to create a stronger fabric – for example, something more like a tapestry in which many threads of different colour are woven together to create a single integrated textile that cannot so easily be torn apart at the seams. What would it take to create such a material?
Business Insider
14-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
The founder of a luxury hotel chain says today's tourists look nothing like they did 30 years ago
Kwon Ping Ho has come a long way since he opened his first resort in Phuket in 1994. Ho's luxury hotel chain, Banyan Group, now operates over 90 hotels worldwide, including in countries like Cuba and Saudi Arabia. The 72-year-old told Business Insider that it's not just his company that's changed. His customers look much different than they did three decades ago, and they want different things out of travel. "When you talk about the people of my generation, when international travel just started, people were happy to go on group tours. They just go to a hotel and they eat in a hotel," Ho said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Cohesive Societies held in Singapore last month. "But young people today have long become jaded about international travel. They've been traveling with their parents," he added. "Today, when they're traveling on their own, they are looking much more for things that are out of the way." Ho said today's more seasoned travelers are a vastly different breed from yesterday's checklist sightseers. "They are much more into experiences, and not just to see something beautiful because they've probably seen that, done that with their parents already. They are looking at experiences which are deeper and allow them to interact with the local community," he continued. Ho isn't the only one who has noticed the generational shift taking place. Last year, McKinsey surveyed 5,000 travelers from China, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the US. The consultancy said that 52% of Gen Zers surveyed said they are willing to splurge on travel experiences compared to 29% of baby boomers surveyed. "One-size-fits-all tourism offerings of the past have grown outdated" as travelers seek "creative experiences that are tailored to their priorities and personal narratives," McKinsey wrote. Another change Ho said he noticed was in the countries from which tourists tended to hail and the places that they chose to visit. "When I first started in hospitality 30 years ago, the nature of tourism was one direction and one color," Ho said. "It was basically white people from Europe, traveling in one direction, from west to east." "Over the years, what I call 'rainbow tourism' has come up because of increasing wealth in other developing countries," he added. Ho said this has led to a "multicolored, multifaceted, exciting tourism of people from all over the world traveling to all over the world." "You've got Indians, you've got Africans, you've got Arabs, you've got Chinese, and Japanese, and so on, and then of course you've got young people from within the region," he continued. "That to me has been the biggest change." In January, UN Tourism's World Tourism Barometer said an estimated 1.4 billion tourists traveled internationally in 2024, an 11% increase over 2023. UN Tourism said it expected international tourism arrival numbers to grow by 3% to 5% in 2025.
Business Insider
09-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
An Asia hotel mogul has run a luxury chain for decades. He says hospitality is the worst industry to be in.
Kwon Ping Ho, the founder and executive chair of Banyan Group, has worked in the hospitality industry for over three decades. It can be grueling, the 72-year-old told Business Insider. "The worst business to be in is hospitality," he said, on the sidelines of the International Conference on Cohesive Societies held in Singapore last month. He outlined the challenges of running a global hotel group that has grown to 90 hotels, from Cuba to Saudi Arabia to Japan. "It is so management intensive. It is so time and people-intensive, and it is so vulnerable to event risk," Ho said. "A health disaster like Covid-19. A natural disaster like an earthquake. Political events. It's event risk-based," he added. "So many events can just put travel to a halt." Amid the pandemic-induced hospitality shutdown, Ho said in an interview with CNBC in July 2020 that he took a 100% pay cut. The company also had to lay off up to 15% of its global workforce. The company has since made a recovery. In January 2024, Banyan Group said in a statement that its 2023 performance had surpassed "pre-pandemic metrics across various regional markets." Ho, whose company is now worth nearly $373 million, started his career as a journalist. In 1981, after his father suffered a stroke, he took over the reins of his family business, the Wah Chang Group. In 1994, Ho opened his first resort, Banyan Tree Phuket, after converting an abandoned tin mine he purchased a decade earlier. Ho told BI he's learned two key lessons about running a luxury hotel chain like Banyan Group. "Getting the corporate culture right is so important because people are so important," Ho said. "You go to a hotel. You forget about the 10 good experiences you have. One screw-up, you will never forget. People are not very forgiving about screw-ups," he added. To tackle this, Ho said he tries to create an environment that minimizes fumbles while giving his staff the space to make mistakes and learn from them. "I also learned to be very resilient financially because disasters will always happen," Ho added. "So it's a difficult industry, but it's fun."
The Star
05-07-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Tweet and sour
MARIE Abdullah remembers her school days fondly – a time when friendships cut across race and background. 'We were as thick as thieves,' says the 28-year-old event organiser from Kuala Lumpur. But today, she's troubled by what she sees on social media. 'Some of my old friends post things that are downright incendiary. One will openly use slurs when discussing certain issues. Others jump in to oppose them and retaliate in the same manner. 'We were friends. But now I'm thinking about unfriending them. What they write is just too disheartening to read,' she says. Marie's experience reflects a wider trend: social media, once seen as a bridge, is now becoming a wedge. Online polarisation – fuelled by identity politics, misinformation, and algorithmic echo chambers – is fraying the social fabric. The issue took centre stage at the International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS) in Singapore last week. In his keynote address, Deputy Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah warned that the very tools meant to connect the people are doing the opposite. 'The very technologies that promise inclusion can entrench exclusion. Our information ecosystems have become battlegrounds. Algorithms have the unfortunate habit of trapping us in digital echo chambers – feeding prejudice and starving nuance. 'This results in fragmentation, a kind of online tribalism. Information, while accessible, is becoming decentralised.' Sultan Nazrin Shah warned that the very tools meant to connect the people are doing the opposite. — Bernama Digital divides Sultan Nazrin noted that while more than five billion people now have access to the Internet, this unprecedented connectivity has not translated into greater unity. 'Digital platforms shape public discourse and private thought. The impact on our economies, our politics and even on our minds is transformative. 'The pandemic was a watershed moment in our living history, not least in how it accelerated our virtual connectedness. It brought wide-ranging digital communities into our very living rooms. We conducted schooling, office work, legal trials, and endless group quizzes on screens.' He said virtual spaces had promised inclusion and a shared global experience like never before and for a time, it felt real. 'Societal cohesion was reshaped by a dynamic online global community, one held together by innovations both marvellous and challenging.' Still, he warned that these benefits come at a serious cost. 'Our digital spaces, which should be so good at opening doors and minds, are instead responsible for closing them. Online hate rises, as does the spread of conspiracy theories, the propagation of extremist ideologies and even violence. 'And with truth itself now up for grabs – with the rise of fake news – trust in institutions and in each other breaks down. 'The very real dangers of this were realised last summer in the UK, for example, in the race riots that followed the tragic murders in Southport. 'The fabric of our social cohesion is being unravelled in the digital realm. And so it is there also that we must focus our efforts to weave it back together.' A 2024 University of California study supports this concern. It found that 80% of youth aged 10 to 18 had encountered hate speech on social media in the prior month. The most common forms were gender-based hate (72%), race or ethnicity-based hate (71%) and religious hate (62%). The study also noted a spike in hate speech reports after the Oct 7 Hamas attack and Israel's military genocide in Gaza, much of it centred on religious identity. A separate report published by the Council on Foreign Relations stated that online hate speech has been linked to a global increase in violence towards minorities, including mass shootings, lynching, and ethnic cleansing, and that policies to deter such speech are 'inconsistently enforced'. Weaponising social media Prof Farish A. Noor, political scientist at the International Islamic University of Indonesia, says social media's adverse effects are now a global threat and one that no society is immune to. 'No country is exempt from this. Even the most ethnically homogeneous societies still have to address social cohesion. And so states have a role to play in keeping in check these communicative technologies that we have, like social media, which have been weaponised. 'I still don't understand why people cannot see that social media can be weaponised. It's evident that it's used as a weapon to create animosity and to foster hatred, contempt, and fear between groups.' Farish says social media's adverse effects are now a global threat and one that no society is immune to. — UIII He says Muslims, in particular, have faced decades of Islamo-phobia that continues to be amplified online. 'Muslims have been victims of Islamophobia for the last 20 to 30 years and a lot of such hate continues to be generated through social media, media and popular culture. 'Whatever prejudice that you may see or suffer from is often engineered. Prejudice, in this sense, is not a natural thing. Someone engineers it. You engineer it by creating false stereotypes. 'You demonise people – entire communities or belief systems – and it's done normally for political purposes. We need to be very wary of that.' While many balk at the idea of controlling social media, Farish believes limits and responsibilities must exist. 'At least there has to be some means to teach people how to be responsible when they use it. You can't simply incite religious or ethnic hatred and say, 'Oh, it's just a joke.' 'It's not a joke – because it spills out into something very real,' says Farish. 'And it has very real consequences. And when that happens, people blame the state for not doing anything. So the states – governments – are in a very awkward position. If they intervene, people say you're censoring. If you don't intervene, they say you let it happen.' Getting back on track One group trying to reverse this tide is Projek57, a Malaysian non-governmental organisation promoting unity in the face of divisive narratives. At the ICCS, Projek57 executive director Debbie Choa shared how the organisation uses its Unity Ribbon campaign to start conversations. 'We are actually from the business community. We collaborate as a social enterprise with businesses and raise awareness by selling our Unity Ribbon pins. We have sold about half a million with support from several organisations. 'This in turn helps us spread a positive narrative on unity, since on social media there's a lot of negativity right now. If everyone comes together with the same kind of narrative, there is hope that Malaysia can move forward. 'Not just Malaysia – I think globally now this message is much needed, right? That we need to be good neighbours.' Choa says education can also help bridge gaps early. She recalls a recent Projek57 event in Bera, Pahang, where students of different backgrounds, including national schools, a private school and Orang Asli children, came together for a Unity Ribbon activity. 'There was a Malay school counsellor attached to a Chinese school there. He connected us to other national schools nearby. We also brought in students from a private school, as well as some Orang Asli students. 'Can you imagine all these kids in the same space? They normally don't meet each other. 'Initially it was a bit of a culture shock. They were shy. But we played some games and got them to participate in creating the unity ribbons.' What happened next amazed her. 'They could talk about how they feel when working with each other and getting to know each other. Imagine if they are studying in the same school.' Colin Swee, Projek57's co-founder, says reconnecting with people on the ground is crucial to understanding the social fabric. One of their initiatives includes cycling across the country to meet people from all walks of life. Choa recalls a simple but meaningful encounter: 'There was a Makcik selling banana fritters,' she begins. When the woman was told what Projek57 was about, Choa says that 'she said, 'Kami anak Malaysia' [we are children of Malaysia] It was so cute. That's how we aspire to live together.' Swee says he has also spoken to former servicemen who fought during the communist insurgency. 'These ex-servicemen didn't do it because of their pay. They were willing to make sacrifices for the country.' To a question about what drives the movement, Choa says: 'And how do we change our own lenses, right? I think reconciliation – having a reconciliation mindset – is not only about forgiving others, but also about how we look at ourselves.'
