Editor’s letter

PERSONALLY I think February is one of the hardest months of the year to get through.

A still from the fashion shoot of our March edition. Picture: David Meagher

PERSONALLY I think February is one of the hardest months of the year to get through. By the first week of the month IÂ’m starting to get stressed that I havenÂ’t really started on my new yearÂ’s resolution to eat less and do more, and the gloss of my annual summer holiday has well and truly dulled while the next one seems like it is aeons in the future.

Which is why I like to have things in the calendar to look forward to – such as planning our next holiday, no matter how far away that might be. That said, our yearly survey of the things, places, events and trends to get excited about is not just a holiday planner, even though it does include a new hotel, a few must-visit destinations and developments in airline seat products. It’s also about the social and technological developments that will have a lasting impact on the way we live in the not-too-distant future.

Expect the “sharing economy” – think Uber, Airbnb etcetera – to become even more commonplace. Cash transactions could go the way of the CD player – even where we part with our money could also radically change. New housing developments in urban areas are redefining how we think about apartment buildings. And when people are in those apartments the way they consume something as omnipresent as television is set for a radical shake-up with the introduction of several internet TV services in Australia. If you’re the kind of person who embraces change then 2015 is going to be an exciting year.

It will also be an exciting year for WISH. In October the magazine will mark its 10th anniversary – more on that at a later date. We have established a partnership with Time + Tide Watches, an influential Australian-based online publication, to enhance our monthly watch page, starting in March.

We are also reaching out to the almost 800,000 Chinese tourists who visit Australia each year, with two special Chinese-language editions of WISH next month and September. China is Australia’s second-largest inbound market for visitor arrivals and they spend almost $5 billion here annually – a figure that is expected to nearly double by 2020. We photographed our fashion shoot for the March Chinese-language edition at the Sydney Opera House and we’ll post those images on our website and on social media next month.

We hope you enjoy the issue.