Business Travel

6 Conversation Starters for Travellers in Asia

Stuck in a boardroom? Lost for words on a date? Here’s your conversational ammo across Asia this month

Taipei

Taipei 101 Taiwan night traffic
Credit: Shutterstock

Start-up Turing Drive and the Taipei City Government are testing a new self-driving shuttle bus service along Xinyi Road this May. If successful, it will begin late-night passenger services this autumn – an important milestone for the future of public transport in the city and beyond.

Tokyo

Janu Montenegro Pool with Cabanas

Ultra-luxe hotel group Aman has just announced Janu, its younger, edgier label set to open in Montenegro, Saudi Arabia and Tokyo starting in 2022. Janu is aimed at travellers seeking the level between top-tier luxury and lifestyle hotels – at a (slightly) more affordable price.

Cambodia

Cambodia Preah Ko temple
Credit: Shutterstock

Asia’s history of rice cultivation has long been discussed and debated. Now fossilised black rice grains found in the basement of the Preah Ko temple site in Stung Treng show that Cambodians have been cultivating the staple since the early Neolithic, some 12,000 years ago.  

Kuala Lumpur

MoMo, Kuala Lumpur
Credit: Courtesy of MoMo

There are two fresh openings by the Ormond Group in KL’s Chow Kit market and arts district. The 86-room Chow Kit boutique hotel is joined by the minimal MoMo, which offers comfortable bare essentials plus a communal creative space at an affordable price.

Yangon

Yangon, Myanmar, city traffic
Credit: Shutterstock

The ink is drying on a deal with a Thai construction company to design and build Yangon’s first smart city, bringing high-tech business opportunities and jobs, underpinned by eco-friendly urban planning. The first unit will become operational by 2021.

Colombo

City of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Credit: Shutterstock

Japan’s Taisei Corporation has been tapped to build Colombo airport’s Terminal 2. Targeting completion by 2023, it will feature vertical segregation of arriving and departing passengers, plus new taxiways and spaces in anticipation of handling
20 million passengers by 2025.

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