KUALA LUMPUR, presidentpost.id – Vynn Capital, a Southeast Asia-based early-stage venture capital firm and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) today jointly announced a strategic partnership to promote Southeast Asia’s tourism sector by facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation, Wednesday (8/8).
Through this strategic partnership, Vynn Capital and UNWTO will collaborate to create a framework and policies to support technology startups that are addressing opportunities and challenges in the region’s tourism sector. Both parties will work together to encourage traditional industry players such as hotel groups, property groups and food companies to adopt digital strategy as well as encourage more investments by the private sector into technology companies.
Vynn Capital will support the objectives of UNWTO and act as a partner on initiatives to achieve these goals, by supporting tourism entrepreneurs and traditional industry players as the tourism market embraces technology and innovation.
“The tourism sector represents a huge opportunity, especially for Southeast Asia, where we see the emergence of a strong middle class. Vynn Capital has identified tourism as one of the key investment space for us, and we will continue to work with entrepreneurs and industry players to promote the region’s tourism sector. We believe technology companies that focuses of the mobility of consumers such as Indonesia’s Travelio and Carsome, who already has operations in four key countries in Southeast Asia, will continue to be champions that represent the economic impact of tourism growth. We join hands with UNWTO to foster a new generation of innovative tourism companies in Southeast Asia,“ said Victor Chua, Founding and Managing Partner of Vynn Capital and Chairman of the Malaysia Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (MVCA).
“UNWTO is proud to partner with Vynn Capital, who will help us to generate real solutions for the much needed digital transformation of tourism These partnerships are key to continue generating opportunities for all through tourism, and proof that venture capital has a role to play when we want to advance sustainable development” said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.
According to UNWTO, international arrivals have increased in all regions since the start of 2018, continuing the strong trend of previous years. The strong results are led by Asia and the Pacific (+8%), especially South-East Asia (+10%) and South Asia (+9%), already surpassing 2017 results, here Asia saw a 6% increase in international arrivals. This is significant, considering that Asia Pacific represents around 29% of the share for international tourism receipts.
Currently Vynn Capital has three advisors, pioneer in the advertising industry in Malaysia Tan Sri Vincent Lee, Chairman of Jababeka Group in Indonesia S.D. Darmono and CEO of Pacific Travel Association (PATA) in Thailand Dr. Mario Hardy. (TPP)