At WiT 2009, themed “Tough Love” because the world was coming out of the global financial crisis, Ho Kwon Ping, known for not pulling his punches, called out of the rise of China and the clash of civilisations.
A decade later, we revisit him in his home in Singapore to catch up with him on how he thinks Covid-19 will further change the state of play between East and West, what ASEAN should do to save its tourism industry, how this crisis will forge the next generation of leaders in Asia and the terrible dilemma of tourism.
Some key takeaways:
How Covid-19 exposed weaknesses in Western societies
“I think the final veneer of Western exceptionalism is gone. You are clearly no better than any of us in your values, in your social cohesion in your governance. And I think that’s going to have an incredible impact on the psyche of an entire Asia that is really beginning to economically rise up.”
“ASEAN is worst hit. My concern is it’s not going to rise fast enough…”
“It is in ASEAN that we are the worst hit because we have been the most dependent on inbound tourism. The intra ASEAN tourism industry is still in its infancy. It’s something that’s happening thankfully, with the rise of budget carriers, midscale hotels and the rise in middle class incomes. But it’s got to rise much faster because there’s a huge hole to fill. My concern is I don’t think it’s going to rise fast enough to fill the holes that are increasing under our feet.”
A good lesson for the younger generation of Singaporeans
“The lessons of COVID-19 have now been burnt into the psyches of the entire younger generation. And that is a huge good for us because then we don’t have to worry, as an older generation that the younger one was not prepared for emergencies and other future crises. That, to me, is the most important beneficial impact.”
The survivability of Singapore – a matter of attitude
“I’m not worried about the survivability of Singapore. I think the biggest concern is whether Singaporeans in terms of our attitude towards work, towards foreign labour, towards our own complacency – are Singaporeans themselves able to recognise the need for us to maintain this little tiny island afloat? And once we do, I don’t think it’s that difficult to craft the specific strategies to always be relevant to a changing world.”
The survivability of Banyan Tree – a matter of cash
“We’ve experienced liquidity crunches before. This time, it’s been a lot worse than ever before, and with greater uncertainty. So our response to it is to ensure that you can survive in a cash crunch. Forget about profits, doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s cash. Have you got the cash to survive with a burn rate? That is similar to startups, meaning you just have no income. How long can you survive with your burn rate? And now we have to think about stretching out our cash to survive for two years without any income.”
The impact on physical events – “I’ve attended more webinars in one month than in last 4-5 years”
“I’ve attended more conferences, webinars in the last one month than I have done probably in four to five years. Now with webinars, I’m quite happy to log into breakfast talks and other kinds of talks because I just mute myself. I’m off video, and reading my newspapers, I’m eating my breakfast, and I’m just listening in. And it’s so much better.”
As a journalist, who would you like to interview, and what question would you ask?
“I would love to interview Donald Trump. And I would like to ask him, Are you for real?”
What won’t change about travel
“Travel at the end of the day involves a rediscovering of what really matters to you and to your friends. And in many ways, it will sound very, very syrupy, but it also allows us to discover the humanity that is in the rest of the world. Now, in that respect, I don’t think travel will ever change.”
Travel’s very real dilemma
“The airline industry, in particular, is one of the worst offenders in terms of carbon emissions. And yet, at the same time, we cannot accept that the only responsible way to travel is to travel locally, and don’t go to other countries. If that really takes on as an ethos, that might well be good for the world in terms of climate change, but it will be absolutely disastrous to people in poor countries for whom tourism is a means of economic upliftment.”
What needs to change about travel
“There is a lot of savings in terms of carbon footprint that could be done by the shipping and airline industries, and they’re not doing it enough. If we don’t do that, airlines are going to find that people may eventually boycott them, in the same way that people will boycott buying petrol driven cars, and it might be too late. The industry that is responsible for climate change needs to be the one that tries to find technological ways of reducing this problem.
Finally, has he successfully married social activism with commercial and entrepreneurial goals?
Want to know the answer? Have a listen.