Singapore – Digital travel platform Booking.com has partnered with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) of the United Nations to launch a new series of free online courses designed to support accommodations on their journey to operate more sustainably.

Providing practical knowledge around sustainability for accommodations, each course will focus on a different topic: local community engagement, energy usage & greenhouse gases, food management, and water management.

The modules share actionable recommendations that accommodation providers can immediately start integrating into their practices, ranging from how to calculate a property’s energy consumption and reduce its emissions to best practices for community engagement.

The series is led by respected subject-matter experts and academics, providing strong technical expertise, deep industry knowledge and a data-driven approach. Booking.com accommodation partners are also included in the modules as a way of sharing practical success stories from their own individual sustainability journeys. 

Talking about this initiative, Danielle D’Silva, head of sustainability at Booking.com, said, “We are excited to expand our longstanding relationship with UNWTO and deliver this new educational series which responds to the desire of accommodation providers for resources on how to implement more sustainable practices.”

“Supporting partners, and the wider industry, to integrate more sustainability practices into their operations is a core component of our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. By increasing the supply of more sustainable accommodation options, we are also enabling travellers to make more mindful travel choices. This ultimately benefits the places we visit, the people who live there and the planet,” she added. 

Meanwhile, Natalia Bayona, executive director at UNWTO, commented, “Education and skills development are the foundations for building a more sustainable tourism sector. UNWTO looks forward to working with Booking.com to enable accommodations everywhere to benefit from the wide range of resources available through the UNWTO Tourism Online Academy.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – airasia academy, the edutech arm of airasia Digital, and Google Malaysia have partnered in providing free digital courses for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia, as part of its BINA Digital program, which targets building a progressive business plan structured to supercharge their efforts online while looking into technical methods of productivity.

Said collaboration aims to empower the SME community in reskilling and upskilling themselves to digitize their business, stay relevant, be equipped with modern tech skill sets and continue to excel in their businesses.

Google’s involvement in the collaboration includes the utilization of the Google Primer, a mobile app that offers quick, easy-to-understand lessons to help business owners and individuals grow skills and reach their goals. The free courses are now available for SMEs or any individual who is interested to learn via the on-demand Learning platform at airasia digital’s website.

The first 50 airasia academy students who have completed the Primer series by 31 October 2021 will have the option to subscribe to courses on the on-demand Learning platform at only RM10 a month. They will also stand a chance to win a free seat to airasia academy instructor-led training courses and a lunch date with Aireen Omar, president of airasia digital when they have fully completed the Primer series.

Omar stated that they are delighted to embark on this journey together with Google Malaysia and look forward to reskilling and upskilling thousands of SMEs in Malaysia so they can be more resilient and continue to contribute positively to the economy.

She also added that the free courses will consist of nine minicourses for beginners, intermediate and advanced levels with topics such as ‘Grow your business and generate revenue’, ‘Take your business online’, ‘Get started with digital advertising’, among others.

“The SMEs are a key pillar of our economy. In these tough times, we’ve seen many local SMEs struggling to stay afloat and we want to continue playing our part by providing free access to those in need to ensure that they are equipped with tech skill sets to grow their businesses. Many businesses are sometimes unsure where to start and we believe these free courses can guide them into taking the first step to learn new tech skill sets.” Omar explained.

Meanwhile, Marc Woo, managing director at Google Malaysia, commented that by continuing to work with their long-standing partners like airasia academy, Google remains committed to ensuring that every business has the support and tools they need to recover and rebuild for the long run.

“Malaysians are spending more time online and as we embark on the path of economic recovery, digital technologies are pivotal to help SMEs adapt. This means that when these businesses go online, they can reach their customers faster, which in turn generates a higher uplift in our digital economy. It is even more crucial now than ever that we continue to help businesses of all sizes build digital skill sets,” Woo stated.

Hong Kong – HDcourse, the SEO optimization services and training provider, has launched free online SEO courses to help SMEs increase their organic SEO traffic.

HDcourse offers courses that cover SEO, WordPress, email marketing, and digital marketing. It supports short video teaching and is suitable for people who are studying on mobile phones and busy with work.

HDcourse shared a case study where one of its students from Malaysia had only 53,500 impressions and 1,240 clicks on Google, and following its classes, said impressions have grown to 583,000 and clicks to 15,000.

HDcourse said that through the free SEO teaching courses, anyone can have a jumpstart, promoting its classes to have 10 integrated factors that can improve the SEO of the clients and obtain organic traffic.

One of the factors is ‘Search Intention’, that helps businesses to know consumers’ intentions behind inputting certain keywords. Second is ‘Index’, which is having the search engine index the content of the customer’s website one by one. Next is ‘Backlinks’, which mainly refers to how many other people’s website links point to the customer’s website.

Meanwhile, ‘User Experience’ is the time the user stays on the website, and ‘Uniqueness of Content’ is the deep and rich content, allowing content optimization. ‘E.A.T.’ or ‘Expertise, Authority and Trustworthy’ is also a factor to improve SEO, which is enabling experts to write content to increase authority and professionalism, while ‘Freshness of Content’ is writing up-to-date news.

Furthermore, the ‘Click-Through Rate’ is adding numbers or attractive words to the title, which will help the search engine, while ‘Website Speed’ is the time to load the website should be within 2-4 seconds. And lastly, ‘Responsive Design’, which allows users to easily browse the same website regardless of the computer, tablet, or mobile phone.

Singapore – Following the company’s decision to take down the online course featuring Filipino tattoo artist Apo Whang-od, Nas Academy has finally responded to the allegations that the online course was a ‘scam’ and that the course has been approved by the artist herself.

The issue stemmed from a Facebook post by Kalinga-based tattoo artist Gracia Palicas who is also the grandniece of Apo Whang-od herself, which has since then been deleted, warning people that Apo Whang-od never signed any contract with NAS Academy said online course, which was available for a price of PHP750.

“Some people are taking advantage of our culture. Please help us stop this disrespect to the legacy of Apo Whang-od and the Butbot tribe,” Palicas stated.

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Most often referred to as the ‘last’ and oldest ‘mambabatok’ or traditional Kalinga tattoo artist, Whang-od was conferred by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) the prestigious ‘Dangal ng Haraya’ Award at Tabuk, the capital of Whang-od’s ethnic province of Kalinga, in 2018.

In a Facebook post that included video evidence of Apo Whang-Od inking her right thumb fingerprint into the documents, Nas Academy stated that they have approached her, with the reasoning that the team wanted to share her culture for future generations to appreciate and respect the ancient Kalinga tradition of ‘mambabatok’, a traditional tattoo art form she learned from her father by the age of 15.

Nas Academy added as well that they pitched the idea to her family regarding the creation of the Whang-Od Academy. The post stated as well that she and her family ‘loved this idea’, and have worked with NAS Academy to build it, with Whang-Od teaching herself. As a matter of fact, Whang-Od’s trusted niece, Estella Palangdao, was present and translated the content of the contract prior to Whang-Od affixing her thumbprint, signifying her full consent to the project.

“Everybody was compensated for their time, and for every sale the Whang-Od Academy generates, most of it went directly to her and her family. We just provided the technology and the marketing,” the company stated.

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An image of Apo Whang-od (Courtesy of Apo Whang-od Facebook page)

Nas Academy was founded in 2020 by Arab-Israeli vlogger Nuseir Yassin, most commonly known online as ‘Nas Daily’ where he made 1,000 daily one-minute-long videos on Facebook. Said online education platform aims to empower creators to share their knowledge, built on the concept of the modern creator, supporting them with curriculum development, marketing, and community management.

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With said issue being publicized, there has been growing sentiment among Filipino netizens that foreign influencers are banking on Filipino culture for their own benefit and profit.

In response, a spokesperson from Nas Academy told MARKETECH APAC, “Nas Academy’s mission is to help creators become the next generation of educators. All the Academies are built directly with the creators themselves, and the majority of the sales goes to them. We just provide the technology and the marketing. Nas Academy is proud to support Filipino creators to share their knowledge and culture both within the Philippines and around the world.”

The company also added in their Facebook post, “We care deeply about the Philippines and respect the many cultures and traditions that exist across the country. And we have all come together to make the world a better place.”

Manila, Philippines – In response to the growing need among businesses in the Asia Pacific region to learn new skills for their marketing endeavor, MARKETECH APAC, the dedicated news platform for the marketing and advertising scene in Asia Pacific, has announced that it will be launching its new slew of digital courses catered to empower businesses through marketing skills.

Named as ‘Elevate’, MARKETECH APAC offers a series of marketing workshops to provide the marketing industry with addressing the ongoing need to upskill new and cross-skilling marketing talents and to help them to be successful in their roles. 

In addition, MARKETECH APAC is planning to offer virtual training programs to ensure safety while learning and to get participants in the region to have an opportunity to learn together from other markets. There will also be an option to do on-site training depending on the current COVID-19 situation in the city.

Topics for the virtual training sessions digital marketing, content marketing, public relations, and e-commerce. MARKETECH APAC will also produce specific training courses for SMEs and the startup community.

Joven Barceñas, publisher at MARKETECH APAC, spoke about the training launch, “We are excited to launch MARKETECH Elevate. This is our way to stay true to our mission – Making marketing for all. This time, we will work with marketing experts to identify the current training needs of marketers across Asia Pacific and deliver quality training programs in the region.”

MARKETECH APAC’s launch of ‘Elevate’ comes after the news site just recently celebrated its one year since its establishment, and continues to enrich its stance as an Asia Pacific-centric marketing publication by extending help to aspiring and junior marketers in bringing out the best in them in the industry.

Furthermore, MARKETECH APAC believes that through the selection of topics for training offering, all of them are ample to empower aspiring marketers and businesses to step up their presence, whether locally or regionally.

Interested trainers who would like to be part of this initiative are encouraged to send an email to [email protected]. Please attach your CV and share your training portfolios, or suggested training topics.