Bezurk to power TODAY hotel search

Starting today, Singapore based travel search engine and former E27 presenter, Bezurk will power the TODAY newspaper's online hotel search service.

According to this post on Channel News Asia, Bezurk will provide Todayonline with a database of dozens of hotel suppliers, allowing users to search for the latest information including availability and pricing on over 100,000 hotels worldwide. After comparing multiple deals and making their selection, users will be redirected to the Bezurk site to make their booking.

This deal is clearly an ace for Bezurk. Inspired by the success of travel search engines like Expedia and Priceline in the US, Bezurk hopes to recreate this experience for frustrated Asia Pacific travellers. According to their website, Bezurk comes to the aid of numerous people who go "berserk" searching for travel information on the Internet.

Having initially focused on hotel search, Bezurk seems to be building a new Flight search engine as well. Not too long ago, I was looking for some cheap tickets to India. Normally, I would've just called my travel agent and booked the most economical ticket that he would offer. This time around, I decided to try Bezurk. While not expecting much from a Singapore site in terms of user experience, I was pleasantly surprised by the simple and intuitive interface. It had all the things I needed and in the right places. They had also added just the right amount of AJAXy goodness in the page to make it feel like it was always a step ahead of me. Bezurk also allowed me to tweak things like desired flight times, currency type and price range.

However, the results turned out to be pretty disappointing. The minimum price that Bezurk's search returned was almost S$200 above what my travel agent offered. Of course, it wasn't the same airline, but that wasn't one of my considerations. I was simply looking for the most economical way to fly home. And I couldn't find it using Bezurk.

Well, to give them a break, Bezurk's flight search engine is still in Beta and they are perhaps in the process of adding more airlines to their database. I will definitely return to the site the next time I need tickets. Hopefully, I am not disappointed again.

Prashant.

What's so special about India and China?!

Another question on the SGE Forum:

Yes, yes. The two great upcoming superpowers. So what? What is available there that you can't have in Singapore?

My reply:

Hmmm... Haven't we all asked ourselves that question - 'What's special about India/China?'


Well, I'm from India and I can safely tell you that it is much easier to start a business in Singapore than it is in India. It is much more straightforward, and nowadays there is a reasonable amount of capital available as well (as long as you have a good idea). In India, on the other hand, you've got a million other things to worry about. Right from the high(er) levels of corruption to the pitiable infrastructure (it takes >1 hr to travel 16km from my home to the airport at Chennai) you end up sucking it up to a million people just to get your business started. So why India?

Well, its simple (I think). The opportunity. Business goes where the opportunity is. Business goes where the customers are. Business goes where the money is. With a burgeoning middle class and increasing amounts of disposable income, this billion-strong market is ripe for business - almost any kind of business. I think this is the single strongest reason for this sudden love for India/China. Of course, the large pool of professionals, increasing penetration of broadband, etc are contributing to this trend as well. But its the market and the opportunities that top the list. So much so that entrepreneurs and businesses are overlooking the disadvantages of corruption, bureaucracy and infrastructure to get to this market.

With that said, I must say that I wasn't really impressed with the state of the web startup sphere in India. There are a few web startups here n there... a few Youtube clones, a few digg-clones... all of them virtually unknown. The only really popular web-destinations are the matrimony sites. Isn't that unusual, especially considering the fact that India has the single largest population of web developers in the world?! Why is it that India's 'upcoming-super-power-brother' China paints a whole different picture as far as web startups are concerned? Hmmm... There could be a number of interesting reasons for this. But that warrants a whole other discussion

Any thoughts?

Prashant

Back in Singapura!

Well, my one year stint in Silicon Valley is now over. I reached Singapore a couple of days back. It feels good to be back... back to my dear friends, back to my brother, back to college, back to student life, back to buses and mrts, back to modules and caps, back to tiger beer, and back to lovely little Singapore.
Still, there are some things that make me yearn for Silicon Valley... topping that list of course is the freakin heat down here... omg... i can't believe how i stayed here for 2 whole years... i'm sweating 24x7.. and its winter for God's sakes!
Well, other than that, I've become pretty jobless these days (kinda figures, now that I dont have a job!)... My calendar has suddenly become almost empty... I've had to switch from the daily view to the monthly view!
And of course, I miss the in-n-out burgers, the jamba juice and the jack in the box biscuits! (that's where most of my extra 15 pounds came from, btw)

Anyways, now that I'm back, I'm really looking forward to the next one year at NUS. After all, this may well be the last year of college in my life!

psycho.

Business vs. Technology

From Young Singaporean Entrepreneurs are not Pop Idols by Bernard Leong on sgentrepreneurs:

The next problem that I see in Singapore is that everyone wants to be the business people and no one wants to be an inventor. Singapore are short of good technologists and geeks...oftentimes, there are a lot of money but no good ideas... Actually, the reason is simple. Any fool can learn business lingo, marketing and financial stuff...The technologists have an unique selling point that will always tip them in the stronger position. So, lack of innovators make up most of the problem in young entrepreneurs.

Well said, Bernard! That is sooooo true!

Every other day, I see my friends joining the leading banks as IB. And these guys are all engg students - brilliant ones in fact. But I guess the lure of money and a “work-hard-party-harder” lifestyle is just too strong!

The other possible reason for this is the fact that technology and engineering is no longer cool! I mean, for some odd reason, over the last 30-40 years, business graduates and business schools have been given this unfair advantage over their technology counterparts. We all know that a biz school grad (who partied his/her way through college) gets paid much higher than someone who slogged his/her feet through a PhD. Hell, its probably easier for them to get girlfriends too!

But then, just looking at the statistics tells us that Silicon Valley was almost entirely built by technologists! From the Fairchilds to the Apples, from M$ to Google… it was all done by geeks! Noone is claiming that these guys are good at running businesses. But they are good at giving birth to innovations that can change the world.

And that is precisely what we need in Singapore. Innovations.

Prashant.