Richie is a 27-year-old orang utan living in the Semenggoh Wildlife Reserve of Sarawak, Philip Yong, CEO of Borneo Adventure, found him living in a cage as a baby, paid to free him and now he’s hanging out at the sanctuary, which rehabilitates apes and returns them to the wild.

Obviously Richie is enjoying his life too much to leave. Everyday he comes out to feed and delights his human audiences who come from all over the world to watch him and the 26 other apes who reside here.

You hear him before you see him. The rustling of the trees and leaves, then you see him swinging from the vines to land on the platform. I love the way he de-husks the coconut with ease, breaks it by cracking it on the platform and pours the juice into his mouth.

Above: Richie, the swinger

I’ve been to similar reserves, watched apes feed and play, adopted a couple of them and they never cease to fascinate me �" their likeness to us, their childlike behavior, their love for play and cuddles �" but Richie is more real to me because I learnt about his story from Philip.

His transition from baby-ape-in-cage to star-attraction was not easy, nor straightforward �" but it seems to be as happy a tale as it gets in the story of man vs nature.

The story of Richie is what enriches travel experiences for me. It’s not just about standing on a platform, watching him eat and taking photos and videos of him but to learn about him, his life and the bigger story of the great apes and their fight for survival in the rainforests that are being destroyed and burnt �" and if we complain about the haze that’s been shrouding us in South-east Asia for months, what about the apes and all creatures, great and small, whose home is the outdoors?

I am in Kuching on a weekend retreat after wrapping up the WIT Conference. Our theme was “Reboot” and here are several ideas I walked away with, that need rebooting in our industry.

The last 10 years was about distribution; the next 10 will be about content and story-telling.

Brand Karma, the story teller.

Morris Sim, CEO and co-founder, Brand Karma, whose company is rebooting itself into a storyteller, using virtual reality, says it’s time to take content to a new level, whether through technology or story-telling. We need to share our stories with our customers in a much more powerful and personal way so that it engages hearts and minds, not just wallets.

The next big thing in travel is not travel.

Miriam Moscovici, BCD Travel.

Miriam Moscovici of BCD Travel asked whether travel management companies could also help customers manage their non-travel tools such as video-conferencing assets? That some results could be achieved by not travelling? This idea also applies to events. To me, the events industry is not about events but communications, not just about the physical brick-and-mortar, but also about the full spectrum of content, communication and community.

Read the full story here.