Grab Says Its Travel Strategy Isn’t About Hotels or Flights, It’s About Knowing What You’ll Need Next
Photo Credit: Philipp Kandal, Grab Chief Product Officer, speaking at Skift Asia Forum on April 29, 2026 in Bangkok. Skift
Skift Take
Grab says it isn't competing with the region’s travel platforms. But what it is building may be more disruptive than direct competition.
The Singapore-headquartered superapp Grab says it's not a travel company — but it keeps adding travel products.
This spring, it unveiled GrabStays, Discover by Grab, GrabPay for Travel, and a Personalised Travel Experience layer.
“We don’t see travel as a category per se,” Grab's chief product officer Philipp Kandal told Skift. “We think more about travelers as users and then make sure that everything we offer to them is catered to them.”
At the center of Grab’s travel businesses is what Kandal described as the company’s “intelligence layer” — a data and AI system powered by activity across its transport, food delivery, grocery and payments ecosystem.
Kandal said Grab’s scale gives it a rich understanding of consumer behavior, built on “
