Well, the lion ate the monkey at the third and last WIT*e of the year last week - That is, Frank Trampert of Carlson Hotels trumped Martin Symes of Wego in the Debate: "Corporate life sucks: Being a start-up is best."

It was a close battle, mind you. The audience was divided. Symes, WIT's champion debator, was his usual sharp, witty and commanding self but underdog Trampert put up a valiant fight and packed in plenty of meat into his 3-minute challenge.

Symes (pictured left)  kicked off the debate by sharing a survey he did with his Wego team – "Name one thing about corporate life that is better than life in a start-up."

They listed: Better salaries, The certainty of getting paid, Job Security, Health insurance. Pensions, Business class travel, Peer/family respect (granny can tell her friends who you work for), Training, Company events, Shorter working hours, Career progression, Administrative support, People to delegate to and Nice working environments…

"Apart from that, they couldn't come up with anything of substance."

He then shared Abraham Maslow's "Heirarchy of Psychological Needs".

"Basically his theory is that as humans grow, they go through a series of higher and higher evolving needs. At the lowest end is the need for security and comfort while in the middle are the needs for Relationships & Power.

"Now, if you examine the list of things my team identified that corporates offer, then you can clearly see they ALL fall into to the lower and middle end of Maslow's hierarchy. Now, I hear you asking…..what are the top-end needs Maslow identified? Well it's obvious, right? Recognition & Self-Actualisation."

He then put it that "you simply CANNOT get genuine recognition (that which comes from the inside) or the feeling of self-actualisation, of being ALL that you can be, without CASTING OFF the SHACKLES of MUNDANE corporate existence and PLUNGING HEADLONG into the ROLLER COASTER of UNCERTAINTY that is a start-up".

"Simply put, higher evolved human beings work in start-ups," he said.

As for what type of people thrive in corporate environments, Symes looked to another Russian for guidance, Ivan Pavlov, "the man with the dogs".

"Now Pavlov taught us all about conditioning, or how animals (and humans) develop automatic responses to stimuli. Well look at anyone who has worked in a big corporate for years and you can see this clearly. 

"The reaction of nodding every time the idiot boss says something ridiculous and inane. The reaction of fear when yet another pointless reorganistion or restructure is announced. The reaction of nausea at the unveiling of the latest mission statement."

He concluded, "Given Pavlov did his work by testing dogs saliva, you could argue that corporate life doesn't SUCK, it DROOLS."

At first punch, Trampert (pictured right) got personal. One thing he says corporate life has taught him is being up for a challenge – "just like my opponent Martin, who today stands before us promoting the virtues of start-ups, but really spent several of his formative years in corporations such as HSBC Bank, Merrill Lynch, British Airways and American Airlines!"

His second punch was also personal. Quoting from Wego's website, he said, "Did you know that his start-up has freely admitted they have monkeys?" (Wego's website: "Imagine you had an army of 42 monkeys squatting in front of 42 computers searching 42 different travel sites for that perfect hotel room in Hawaii. Eventually I guess they'll probably find that perfect hotel room for you? Maybe not.")

Unlike the monkeys, Trampert said, corporations are likened to the lion – the King of the Jungle. "Corporations such as Carlson, founded in 1938, are long standing; possess a strong tenacity and legacy for business success. As one of the world's leading travel and tourism companies, our 2008 revenues were USD38 billion, with190,000 employees in 150 countries. We must be doing something ‘more than just right', no?

"After all, if you are the King of the Jungle, then chances are you will have a huge pack, or following. On numerous occasions some "monkeys" jump ship or become prey to the stronger King of the Jungle. Isn't that how many start-ups get bought out or integrated into larger corporations?"

Taking his "Monkey Theory" further, he said, "The probability of a monkey typing a given string of text exactly, as long as, for example, Shakespeare's Hamlet, is so tiny that, were the experiment conducted, the chance of it actually occurring during a span of time of the order of the age of the universe is minuscule but not zero.

"For example: The typewriter has 50 keys, and the word to be typed (by the monkey) is 'banana'. Typing at random, the chance that the first letter typed is 'b' is 1/50, and the chance that the second letter typed is a is also 1/50, and so on. As all those typing events are independent the chance of the first six letters matching banana is less than one in 15 billion.
"With that your dream of finding that perfect room in Hawaii just dissolved in hot air."

He concluded, "Now it suddenly all makes sense. Because as you know - start-ups tend to go "Bezurk" at times – which strangely enough – wasn't that Wego's name when they started out? Anyway , you be the judge of which is more "Bezurk" or bizarre – to go "monkeying" around start-ups or  take the lead at Corporate, Lion Style."

Note: Martin Symes will return to debate again at WIT when he takes on "What Conquers All: Love or Money?" against John Northern of Marriott International.

Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com

Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at the cafe for travel insiders.

4Hoteliers is the "Official Daily News" of WIT09 - www.webintravel.com