From research to in-experience to post-visit – an expanding opportunity of addressable interactions can drive customer engagement throughout the process. How do you prioritize these opportunities to maximize bookings?

Join Merkle for a FREE webinar to understand how you can improve your digital visibility in the travelers’ journey and how you should prioritize your efforts to maximize these opportunities.

In this FREE webinar, you’ll learn how to:

• engage the right customers earlier in the process
• deliver experience to keep engagement throughout the travel journey
• enable customers to share positive experiences that influence other relevant desired segments
• leverage first-party data to improve customer experience at each stage

Panelists for this FREE webinar are:

• Pat McInerney, Senior Account Executive, Google
• Ryan Gibson, EVP, Marketing Strategy, Merkle | RKG
• Matt Naeger, EVP, Digital Strategy, Merkle
• Kevin May, Senior Editor & Moderator, Tnooz
• Gene Quinn, CEO & Producer, Tnooz

This FREE webinar took place on Thursday, the first day of October.

Recording and slides [after registration]: 

This group is a growing one, too, with life-spans and disposable incomes increasing accordingly.

And, obviously, with corners of the earth now more accessible than ever before, and their penchant for wanting to explore during their twilight years, this has a massive impact on how travel brands should be reaching and engaging with them.

For some reason, so-called Generation-Y gets the lion’s share of attention when it comes to theories about consumer behaviour as a result of changes to technology and the “always connected” nature of modern consumers.

That evolution, however, has not passed the older generation by – as most readers who have created a Facebook profile or helped set up an elderly relative’s new smartphone will attest to.

As a result, academics in Finland have looked at members of the old and wise generation and attempted to establish a number of personas, in particular how they relate to online travel and technology in general.

The Centre for Tourism Studies at the University of Eastern Finland, based in the city of Savonlinna, studied people between the ages of 61 and 78 and came up with three groups:

Three ways to travel and use technology:

1. Adventurous experimenter

Confident both in choosing their destination and using information technology. They are independent travellers who like to try out new destinations and avoid ready-made travel packages.

2. Meticulous researcher

Use technology mainly to search for information, and they appreciate safety and user-friendliness both when it comes to technology and their destination.

3. Fumbling observer

Not very keen to use technology and they often require assistance in using it. This group is the one that also prefers ready-made travel packages and familiar destinations.

So what does this all mean those travel brands that are eager to capture more of this growing sector of increasingly tech-savvy consumers?

The researchers argue that senior travellers should not be thought of as a single group of people but, instead, as different market segments that utilise information and buy and use tourism products in different ways.

Senior travellers are not only users of travel agencies, but the proportion of independent senior travellers who use a variety of tourism technologies.

Perhaps most importantly for marketers and online user experience experts, websites should adopt what is known as a “design-for-all” philosophy, rather than focusing on website design solely for the older generation.

Increasingly, senior travellers also share information, not just search for it, with the inevitable use of social networks such as Facebook and photo-sharing websites like Instagram.

Like their younger counterparts, seniors rely on websites for information but also supplement their search for travel information through social media channels.

Finally, there is an increasing level of open-mindedness about travel and their ambitions for exploring the world, yet the personality of each senior is very much connected to both information search and travel behaviour.

NB: The full academic paper can be downloaded here.

NB2: Senior travel images via Shutterstock.

NB This is a viewpoint by Charlie Osmond, chief tease for Triptease.

Did you know that in any given minute there are 1.8 million Facebook likes? And while hotels around the world are amassing likes online at a striking rate, we think there’s got to be more.

An online like doesn’t last forever, but love does. So whether you’re running a ten-room hotel, or in charge of thousands of keys, our advice is simple: rather than chasing likes, start looking for love and get more people booking direct.

You can’t hurry love

Phil Collins was on to something. You can’t hurry love. It takes guts (executive buy-in), investment (in digital), commitment (a team), and most importantly it takes time (longer-term thinking).

Investing in digital is what is moving the oldest hotel brands worldwide forward and providing a new alternative to the sharing economy and to third parties the media likes to scare us about.

Marriott’s #itpaystobookdirect campaign is a prime example of a hotel group that is investing in both its experience and in shifting consumer preferences. The groundwork being done now will pay off as more hotels have the confidence to speak out about the benefits of booking direct.

Real love is more than just a one night stand: no, you’ll just have to wait.

Love don’t come easy

It’s hard to know where to focus your efforts on building online love. As one of thousands of travel start-ups, we’ve heard the sales pitches of many, all vying for a slice of that online pie. It can be baffling. How do you know where to start and what really works?

That’s why focus is so important. The most successful hotels bet on one or two channels that they know will provide the biggest wins.

In almost all cases, brand.com is top of that list. The cost per booking is lowest and it’s the one place guests can really get to know your brand.  Lennert de Jong from CitizenM said in a recent white paper that a hotel’s website “is like a boutique. This is where you’ll find the best products”.

Don’t rely on others to convince guests to fall in love with you, invest in your direct channel for better relationships.

It’s just a game of give and take

You’re probably thinking: “Oh Triptease! Of course you’d say that! All you ever talk about is direct bookings”. That’s a fair comment, but with a team including Alexandra Zubko, former head of strategy at IHG, we know first-hand just how tempting it can be for hotels to get caught up with filling rooms any which way possible.

But stay strong. There is a set of taps you can turn on to create a steady flow of guests walking through the door. However not all taps are equal and what comes out of them isn’t the same.

Some carry heavy commissions and produce guests you’d rather not have. Others are more appealing – specifically  the ‘brand.com’. We know from speaking to thousands hotels every week that they see a significant difference in guests that have booked direct. Namely, they end up loving the hotel more and stay loyal.

It’s exactly the same as falling in love – don’t settle for the easy route right now because you might end up regretting it in the future.

• Tnooz and Triptease are hosting a FREE online workshop, offering specific tips and ideas on how to increase hotel direct bookings. “Why hotel direct bookers make better lovers” takes place on October 13. Click here to register.

NB1 This is a viewpoint by Charlie Osmond, chief tease for Triptease. It appears here as part of Tnooz’s sponsored content initiative.

NB2 Image by Shutterstock

After participating, and being a runner up, in a TechCrunch hackathon in London last year, Seeusoon was developed to make it easier to bring people together.

The startup points to the 33 million expatriates that call Europe home and the region is the second online travel market valued at Euro 150 billion per year.

The four founders are chief executive Pierre Becerril, chief technology officer Nil Sanz while Alfonso Garcia-Valdecasas is responsible for business development and Katarzyna takes charge of user experience and design.

Funding to date has come via Euro 400,000 pre-seed investment from two accelerators.

Despite competition in the group travel space, Seeusoon believes few are tackling “distant relationship.” The startup mentions Teleport which helps nomadic works move from place to place and targets corporate digital nomads.

Larger entities cover off the package planning market but says Seeusoon, they are not targeting group travel.

As the company looks to develop its user base  it is using Skyscanner’s API and working on a lead generation revenue model.

Becerril says:

” We find this model perfect for bootstrapping as we grow our userbase. Integrating with Skyscanner and Airbnb allows us to remain focused on our core offering: effective and efficient group travel planning. Future revenue may be derived from offering direct package bookings.”

Q&A with Pierre Becerril, CEO

What problem does the business solve?

The Problem:

Organizing a trip amongst a group of travellers has unique challenges. If there is more than one departure city, the planning can become a serious headache.

Group travellers currently:

• Invest significant time to plan their trips and meet at a certain location
• Experience poor atomized searches
• Face various roadblocks due to complex coordination, resulting
 in higher expenses
• Hypothesis

Travellers over the past 10 years have evolved and become better informed than over any period in history. Since humans stopped being nomadic 10,000 years ago, we have until the past few years not seen such nomadic tendencies re-emerge.

Groups already have advanced communication channels where they plan their trips, such as Facebook Groups, email, Whatsapp and Skype.

Solution:

• Unique search process that dynamically packages flights + Airbnb
• Travellers can enter different departure cities for which our custom algorithm matches the most cost efficient destinations
• Travellers can use simple shareable links to access relevant content generated by their search, so we do not disrupt the actual social planning experience

How did the initial idea evolve and were there changes/any pivots along the way in the early stages? 

The initial idea was to offer a solution to ease the pain of planning getaways for couples in a long distance relationship and to allow anyone to meet more often, cheaper and if needed somewhere in the middle.

We realized somewhere along the way that we could combine a flight metasearch tool that also provides dynamic pricing for accommodation using a short-term rental market place’s listing.

We have maintained our commitment to long distance relationships and for that reason we still offer a feature that allows travellers to select different departure cities to ultimately review the best locations where they can see each other soon.

Why should people or companies use the business?

Seeusoon is 100% free and allows travellers to save time and money by comparing destinations, Airbnb accommodation and flight packages in a single search.

Because we really wanted to take the pain out of group travelling, we also made sharing the trip options a piece of cake.

What is the strategy for raising awareness and the customer/user acquisition (apart from PR)?

We are currently approaching student networks to offer a white label version of our service. The shareability of our trip plans is also a big component in acquiring new users.

Where do you see the company in three years time and what specific challenges do you anticipate having to overcome?

In three years time, we see Seeusoon as the trip planner you will use when you need to book a trip where more than one traveller is involved. Whether we still do metasearch, or switch towards a direct booking model, we want to be the trip planning tool that modern travellers use to stay connected with those they care about.

The main challenges we will have to face are:

Maintaining high conversion rates: we currently position ourselves in the inspiration and research side of the “online travel food chain”, which usually generates low conversion rates.

We have to nail retention, as the use case is arguably recurrent on short periods.

What is wrong with the travel, tourism and hospitality industry that it requires a startup like yours to help it out?

The industry is lead by large companies and startups that do not have much flexibility when it comes to integrating new offer formats or specialized group planning features. A start-up like Seeusoon is flexible enough to try these new formats and focus on certain niches, left out by the market leaders.

What other technology company (in or outside of travel) would you consider yourselves most closely aligned to in terms of culture and style… and why?

We feel closely aligned to several friends from the travel industry with who we share our vision on the online travel space: from surprise weekend planner Wayna, flight app deal finder Hitlist, or curated accommodation directory and booking website The Poshpacker.

We also feel strongly inspired by Destinia, the Spanish OTA and its co-founder Amuda Goueli, for its great approach to innovation and growth hacking (Destinia was one of the first OTA to accept Bitcoin payments for instance).

Which company would be the best fit to buy your startup?

On paper, we might be a good fit for any OTA or metasearch engine looking to explore a niche market or complement its offerings with a new format.

In real life, we would be a good fit for any company that sees the online travel market as an overcrowded yet eager for innovation market and that might be interested in better serving a large number of modern travellers.

To be a good fit, a potential acquirer would share our vision and passion around product development.

Describe your startup in three words?

Long distance shrinker

Tnooz view:

It’s true group planning is a headache. You have to take into account people’s diaries, different departure cities and individual likes and dislikes.

Cracking the above is no mean feat, yet plenty are currently trying to and for the most part with the ‘social’ element thrown in.

A plus for Seeusoon is the ability to enter different departure cities with the number of travellers and then get back options. However, with seven or eight pages of possibilities, it might be an idea to present fewer and say something like “we have chosen the best for you.”

The Airbnb link is good and your date/destination/number of travellers information is pre-populated. Going forward Seeusoon will need more accommodation options. Your mother-in-law might prefer a hotel.

The softly approach in terms of revenue from lead generation will help the company but the concern here is whether it will stand out from the rest with metasearch flights and Airbnb for accommodation.

Clearly, Seeusoon can see the challenges it faces in terms of scale and retention and starting with student networks is a great idea as they generally need to travel back and forth as well as family coming to visit them.

Lots of startups are buzzing round the group travel segment at the moment, it will be interesting to see who emerges, how it matures and whether it attracts the attention of the online travel giants.

Vine:

NB: This is a viewpoint from Peter Matthews, founder and chief executive of Nucleus.

Second-screening has been seen as an interesting marketing opportunity for quite some time, but many of the techniques applied have been ham-fisted. If a user has to download an app to complete a TV ad call to action, this won’t result in much consumer engagement.

More tightly integrated programme-related second-screen opportunities are likely to be more successful, such as The X Factor’s ‘fifth judge’ app, where second-screeners can vote for each candidate. In app advertisers, such as Dominos, have leveraged this well.

Getting relevance right

Some past surveys have suggested that a high percentage of simultaneous device usage is spent looking at completely ‘unrelated content’ to what’s being aired on TV. But, is that really the case? Not if you listen to what Google has to say.

So let’s imagine a family at home enjoying The X Factor, friends watching Friends, a group of teenagers entranced with Made in Chelsea, or boys together to see a big match.

At the break a Premier Inn ad runs and someone asks “who’s that singing ‘Wonderful Life’?” Seconds later a teenager provides the answer, “someone called Katie Melua”. This is one example of the deeper engagement that search can bring via second-screening.

Perhaps synchronised second-screen search is the new TV reality game we are all participating in?

Take a lead from Google

If your favourite search engine is taking a great deal of interest in this, then probably so should you.

If you listen to Google, second-screening is a fantastic opportunity to understand more about how consumers’ minds work, what they are interested in and how impulsive questions trigger greater engagement. It’s the ‘who’s that guy’ question that sofa search can satisfy and, according to the search giant, it’s creating big search spikes during programmes, ads or games.

Just as Google believes second-screen moments offer insights into how consumers think and interact, it seems many of us do want more detail and depth while watching TV and second-screen search is the most convenient way to satisfy real-time curiosity. Search is a much more immediate, natural behaviour than going to the app store and downloading an app.

According to Google research, second-screeners are more than twice as likely to search for show-related info as those engaging with it on social media. This increase in dynamic search interest has already led it to offer real-time ads using second screen search insights as a starting point. Its trials suggest significant improvements in click-through rates can be achieved, compared to control ads, simply by pairing TV and digital in real-time.

A sense of place

But second-screening isn’t just about extending television ad creatives to mobile; it can also be about product placement and – with particular relevance to travel brands – about location-specific interests: “Where is that hotel?”, “Where can I stay near that beach?”, “Can I book tickets to this event next year?”

All this requires advertisers to plan joined-up or, better still, seamlessly integrated marketing and digital strategies based around cohesive creative concepts, which we know, unfortunately is far too rarely the reality.

Second-screening offers many new opportunities for brands in all sectors: to amplify and extend their investment in television media; to make it easy for consumers to reach out to find out more; and to extract direct responses to sponsorship, product placement and featured content. It can also add a new metric for measuring the effectiveness of TV media spend, but it requires a more nuanced approach to delivering richer, mobile-friendly supporting content on the web, rather than expecting an app to convert second-screen interest.

It would seem that, in today’s mobile era, watching TV is no longer just about watching. 

Some facts about second-screening:

• According to Nielsen, American adults watch more than five hours of TV per day
• Ofcom figures show UK adults spend an average of 4 hours per day watching TV and 8 hours and 41 minutes on ‘media devices’
• Nielsen research also shows 84% of smartphone and tablet owners use their devices as a second screen while they watch TV: 12% read discussions about TV programmes on social media; 29% search for show-related information
• Research from Statista reveals 91% of Millennials and 85% of Generation X online users have used a second screen while watching television
• The most tweeted television event during the 2014/2015 season was the Super Bowl XLIX with 25.1 million tweets
• According to Google research, two thirds of smartphone owners say they turn to their phones to learn more about something they saw in a TV commercial

NB: This is a viewpoint from Peter Matthews, founder and chief executive of Nucleus.

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

Thursday 1 October 2015:

Virgin Australia gives flight management to Amadeus

• The airline will use the Amadeus ALTEA Departure Control Flight Management system for all its operations, including building an interface with its existing passenger service system. It is the first time an airline has used the Amadeus platform without being an ALTEA Suite PSS customer.

ETTSA and Hit Rail sign cooperation agreement

• The European lobbying group and Hit Rail will work together to push joint initiatives in the area of full service models for the rail industry. Such initiatives include advancing userail booking tools, information sharing and collaboration with other rail vendors.

NB: Travel systems image via Shutterstock.

But the bench trial, scheduled for October, has been taken off the schedule by the presiding judge.

The two sides have begun to discuss a possible monetary settlement. This is the first time they have talked with each other about a settlement in more than a year-and-a-half, they have told the judge.

Details remain private. But the total compensation would almost certainly be below the range of between $70 million and $210 million that US Airways had sought before the judge trimmed its claim in last winter.

A procedural setback

As of yesterday, US Airways insisted that a settlement was not enough. It said it wants a legal ruling to prove that Sabre broke antitrust law.

It had said it had hoped that Judge Lorna Schofield of the US Southern District Court would make a critical declaration that would help it toward that goal.

Instead, earlier this month the judge did nearly the opposite.

Judge Schofield ruled that, first, she didn’t think her court had jurisdiction on the matter US Airways wanted her to weigh in on.

She added that, even if she did have the authority to weigh in on the matter, she would be inclined to not side with US Airways’s position.

Critically, in her view, there is not enough of a live case or legal controversy to merit the bench trial that the airline had requested. In her written order, she described the contractual provisions as expired.

Here’s the backstory: US Airways’ parent company American Airlines had settled out of court with Sabre on a similar lawsuit a few years ago. The terms of that settlement included an antitrust litigation bar through December 2019. US Airways’ current contract with Sabre will end in about twenty-eight months — two years before. As the judge wrote:

“A declaratory judgment would not impact the parties’ current legal relationship and would be academic.”

The airline holds a different view. It argues, to paraphrase, that, without a court ruling, market pressures will not be enough to discourage the GDSs from continuing to write contracts that have provisions similar to the ones the airline calls illegal.

The judge has a narrower view of what her responsibility is in the case. She also is of the view that it’s too speculative to know what kind of contract Sabre might offer in 2019.

Righteous or cautious?

Today the main question facing US Airways is how much financial risk it is willing to accept to try to get a court to rule that Sabre broke the law, as it alleges.

As of today, Sabre is offering a financial settlement without admitting liability.

If events unfold as they usually do in such cases, say legal experts, US Airways may face the following situation: If US Airways refuses Sabre’s settlement offer, and then takes the company to trial, it will have to get a compensation result from the trial that is better than (not equal to, or less than) the original offer — or else it will have to pay Sabre’s trial expenses.

In a case as complex as “US Airways v. Sabre”, $1 million per side in legal fees over a few weeks would not be unthinkable. The parties to the case estimated that a trial could last between two-and-a-half weeks and as long as six weeks.

Up until now, US Airways has appeared to believe that it has been at low financial risk. It has seemed to be banking that, in most of the probable outcomes, it would at least have its attorney’s fees covered by Sabre in some sort of settlement.

Now the worst-case scenario is, well, worse. If the airline spurns the settlement and pursues Sabre in court, it risks incurring legal expenses it may never recover at a later date, namely, Sabre’s attorney bills for a trial — according to one scenario played out by two legal experts who have been following the case.

This week US Airways has filed with the court that it is exploring seeking a jury trial after all. Sabre argues that that would be highly unusual for a plaintiff to be allowed to switch to a jury trial after having made a strategic decision for a bench trial.

The judge’s initial response to the proposal does not sound broadly welcoming of the idea, but she has not yet ruled on the request.

In the meantime, the airline faces a context of having lost more motions than Sabre has during the case’s four years.

Higher stakes

US Airways originally sued for damages because it said that it had paid unnecessarily high fees to Sabre — one of the three main global distribution systems (GDSs) that act as middlemen for ticket sales — because Sabre’s contract provisions, and the company’s actions in concert with the other GDSs and other industry players, squelched competitors from appearing.

It alleges that the lack of competition kept fees unnecessarily high.

More than 100 people have been deposed in the case. In a celebrity touch, two of US Airways’ expert witnesses are winners of the Nobel prize.

But the airline’s case doesn’t give the appearance of being a slam dunk. For instance, in one pre-trial transcript, a Sabre lawyer said to the judge that the airlines’ main economist experts, including the Nobel prize winners, “could not identify a single competitor foreclosed from this market due to the complained of contract provisions.”

In the next month or two, the judge is expected to rule on procedural matters which will affect the paths the plaintiff and defendant can take.

For example, if the judge forces US Airways to accept Sabre’s official settlement (or offer of judgment without admission of guilt), the airline might seek redress for the judge’s decision from an appellate court, in the hopes that a higher court would be inclined to send the case back to the lower court with clearer instructions on what its jurisdiction is, says one legal expert.

Then again, an appellate case could add another half-million dollars to US Airways’ legal bills, say experts.

To be clear, a trial of some kind has not been ruled out. Yet years of lawsuits between the airlines and GDSs like Sabre have ended in back room settlements — including one between parent company American Airlines and Sabre in a similar case a few years ago. In the words of Judge Schofield:

“98 percent of the cases that are filed in this country that are civil cases settle, basically no matter what the judge does. In my experience, most cases settle regardless of what I do.”

Attorneys and critics hoping for a trial of the century shouldn’t despair, though. Elsewhere in the same district court system, there’s a class action suit being pressed by other law firms on similar grounds against the GDSs.

RELATED COVERAGE

US Airways to judge: We’ll accept $20 and Sabre’s antitrust guilt

US Airways taps Nobel-prize winner to testify against Sabre

NB: Image of boxers courtesy of David Rosen/Flickr/Creative Commons

Wednesday 30 September 2015:

Duetto lands deal with the Trump Hotel Collection

• The startup, which sells profit optimization tools, will launch its services at nine Trump properties in New York City, Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Miami, Panama, Canada, and Ireland.

GetThere gives a leg up to United passengers

• The Sabre-owned corporate booking has launched GetThere Air Extras so United customers can select and pay for higher market seats on the carrier during their existing process. This option will extend to letting customers use their own credit card to choose a Economy Plus extra-legroom seat when the option is out of policy.

VacationFutures rebrands as rented

• Founded in 2012 and rebranded today, rented has assets listed on 5 continents and more than 100,000 rental weeks listed worldwide. It has won Phocuswright’s Most Innovative Startup Award, and works out of Georgia Tech’s Technology Business Incubator, ATDC, in Midtown Atlanta.

Tuesday 29 September 2015:

ResNet World gets content from Leonardo

• The hospitality distribution company has joined Leonardo’s Vizlly Partnership Program to help hotel customers boost their online marketing and direct bookings with images and video content. ResNet is headquartered in Dubai and works with hotels in the Middle East, India and Europe.

Monday 28 September 2015:

Qunar adds Starwood

• Chinese OTA Qunar has announced a deal with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, bring the chain’s global portfolio onto Qunar’s mobile and desktop transaction platform. Starwood has 1200 properties around the globe, with 150 in China. The deal is part of Qunar’s plan to increase its supply of high-end domestic and international properties.

STA Travel partners with Airbnb

• Airbnb rentals can now be booked online or via a referral system in stores following a partnership with STA Travel. The youth travel specialist declined to say whether a commercial deal was in place or  not. STA’s UK division is leading the way and a landing page has been created for online bookings and STA is also offering a £20 voucher code for Airbnb website or app to first time bookers who come into a store.

Friday 25 September 2015:

Amadeus signs Air Canada for distribution and merchandising

• The Canadian flag carrier has agreed a new, multi-year partnership to push its fares and seat availability to Amadeus-connected agencies around the world. The deal includes use of the Amadeus Fare Families and Ancillary Services tools.

Thursday 24 September 2015:

Travelport AXESS developments

• Japanese global distribution system AXESS International Network is and Travelport are developing an improved agency desktop system to replace the existing CREA technology. The updgraded system will be driven by Travelport Smartpoint technology and called AXESS CREA Advance. The Japanese GDS also plans to use Travelport’s Locomote technology for business travel management. Travelport acquired a 49% stake in Australia-based Locomote a year ago.

Wednesday 23 September 2015:

Everbooked debuts its Pro product

• The company says this is the first subscription data service for professional managers and hosts of the Airbnb platform; the first to offer pricing, comps and market data all in one product; the first to update this data in realtime — all reports are ‘live’; and the first to offer unlimited data for a flat monthly fee.

Tuesday 22 September 2015:

Tripping captures two distribution partners

• Kozaza will give the vacation rental metasearch site more than 5,000 listings in South Korea, whilst Dobovo adds 8,600 properties from the Ukraine. The additions come two months after Tripping raised $16 million in a Series B funding round.

Thursday 17 September 2015:

Amadeus extends LogiTravel family

• The online travel agency will be first in Europe to implement Fare Families from Amadeus so that airlines can differentiate their offering by creating bundles of tickets and ancillary services. The fares will be available on Logitravel in November.

Sabre signs Azul Brazilian Airlines

• The long-term agreement will push Azul’s fares, schedules and availability to all Sabre-connected agencies around the world. Included in the partnership will be the ability to issue e-tickets and the selection of services such as last-seat availability and booking changes.

Monday 14 September 2015:

Etihad introduces Fare Families via Amadeus

• The UAE-based airline will use the system to “brand and differentiate” its products for travel agencies using the Amadeus GDS. Etihad’s packaged fares will be available on all retailing interfaces worldwide, showing merchandising options available on each ticket.

Hotelzon expands to the Netherlands

• The Travelport-owned hotel distribution platform has opened a dedicated office in Amsterdam to help push its growth into countries around Europe. Headin the operation will Sebastiaan van der Kroon who has joined from a global sales executive role at aviation technology provider, MI Airline.

Friday 11 September 2015:

Travelport freezes with Air Iceland for first time

• Fares and schedules for the regional division of IcelandAir will be available to Travelport-connected agents for the first time as part of the agreement. The airline, which operates flights around Iceland and to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, has also made its content available on Travelport’s Rich Content and Branding system, part of its Merchandising Platform.

FareHarbor rides with Segway

• The Hawaii, US-based tours and activities reservation system will provide online booking facilities for all American affiliated tour operators of segways. FareHabor’s system will include real-time and live availability, as well as give segway operators marketing tool to help boost online visibility and improve their websites.

Thursday 10 September 2015:

Duetto, a startup focusing on hotel profit optimization technology, signs a deal with Leading Hotels of the World

• Duetto will provide its revenue strategy solutions to more than 400 hotels worldwide that are members of Leading Hotels, a luxury hotel collection. The startup provides insights on pricing and demand via a cloud-based software as a service model.

Rocketrip, the business travel platform, has signed a deal with Virgin America

• Virgin America will now enable Rocketrip customers to earn status and miles on Virgin. The startup wants to remove travel management friction. In one of its models, corporate travelers receive rewards for staying within company policy and/or budget. Rocketrip has received $6.2 million in funding, to date.

SiteMinder adds HotelTonight to distribution portfolio

• The agreement means hotels connected to SiteMinder’s Channel Manager system can distribute their real-time rates and availability to the HotelTonight mobile apps. Bookings will then be delivered directly to each hotel’s individual property management system.

GoEuro launches in Switzerland

• The multi-modal search engine has secured partnerships with Swiss rail operator SBB and coach brand ExpressBus. Including Swiss options (four airport, 600 train stations and 60 bus terminals) will give GoEuro a presence in eight European countries.

Amadeus renews AeroMexico partnership

• The long-term re-signing with the Mexican airline will include Amadeus services such as Fare Families and Ancillary Services. The carrier  flies to more than 80 cities on three continents, including 46 destinations in Mexico, 16 in the United States, 15 in Latin America, three in Canada, three in Europe and two in Asia.

Boingo, the airport Wi-Fi service provider, is expanding

• In the first half of 2015, Boingo has signed agreements for eight new network builds and 16 network upgrade agreements at Boingo’s large-scale partner venues including major airports, sports and entertainment venues and transportation hubs. The company says, in a statement,
  

  “Boingo’s leadership in Passpoint and Wi-Fi offload technologies, which includes the deal they announced earlier this year with Sprint enabling access to Boingo Wi-Fi networks in 35 major U.S. airports, is changing the airport Wi-Fi experience and making getting online a more seamless and secure experience for travelers.”

Tuesday 8 September 2015:

Austrian Airlines hires CarTrawler for car brief

• The Lufthansa Group-owned carrier will use CarTrawler to provide car rental options to passengers using its website. The airline flies to 130 destinations and currently handles around 11 million passengers a year.

Monday 7 September 2015:

Amadeus partners with Shijie99

• China-based aggregator Shijie99 has sealed a multi-year agreement with Amadeus which gives it access to air content via the GDSs Master Pricer technology for points of sale outside mainland China. The partnership also includes hotel, car rental and rail content for customers in all marketing including China.

Wednesday 2 September 2015:

Travelport renews agreement with Travelgenio

• The Spanish online travel agency has signed a multi-year partnership with Travelport, giving it access to travel content available on the distribution network. It includes branded fares and ancillaries from low cost and legacy carriers, as well as 650,000 hotels around the world.

NB: Travel distribution image via Shutterstock.

But Danish subsidiary of tour operating giant Thomas Cook, known as Spies, scored a winner last year with a cheeky online campaign under the guise of boosting the country’s population.

Do It For Denmark outlined the problem of fewer children being born in the country, but then issued a plea for couples to, well, enjoy themselves when travelling.

Encouraging potential customers to get close to one another is one thing, but the campaign moves into cheeky (perhaps even a bit weird, depending on your point of view) territory when it asked that those have booked online and can prove conception of a child during a trip – via a copy of a positive pregnancy test – were eligible to win a prize.

The funny video has managed to capture 8.3 million views since March last year.

Now those saucy Danes are at it again, producing a new campaign to continue to highlight the plight of the low birth rate in Denmark but also introduce an offer for grandparents to pre-pay (“Parent Purchase”) for trips online as gifts.

Here is the latest promo:

As a result, online reputation management specialist TrustYou teamed up with the Accor Hotels and the Statistical Consulting Unit of LMU Munich to try and paint picture of how changes to one element impacts on another.

The trio examined the following factors:

• Review score (overall score for hotels based on reviews)
• Ranking (ranking/placement on TripAdvisor search results)
• 5-bubble reviews (number of excellent reviews for a hotel)

Examining the data for 407 Accor hotels (225 in Europe, 182 in Asia-Pacific) from October 2013 to November 2014, TrustYou was able to determine the following:

• In Europe, if the percentage of 5-bubble reviews grows by 10%, a property’s ranking is improved by 11.3%. A 10% increase in review score pushes a ranking up by 6.1%.

• But, in Asia-Pacific, a 10% jump in 5-bubble reviews will increase the ranking by only 3.7%, with a 10% review score increase seeing a 4.3% improvement in ranking.

How this impacts on the volume of bookings is arguably the most important piece of analysis that hoteliers want to know about.

The data showed that in Europe the percentage of 5-bubble reviews have a greater impact on bookings, whereas in Asia-Pacific the average review score played a larger part.

Interestingly, the effects of average review scores and rankings decrease, with an increase in ranking showing a rise in the number of bookings of 5.2% but after four weeks the impact of bookings falls to 3.5%.

What does this all mean for hoteliers using TripAdvisor has one of their marketing/distribution channels?

Well, TripAdvisor rankings yield more bookings for a hotel’s overall web channel. For example, a ranking increase of 10% will see the overall number of bookings climb by 4.6% and 5.7% respectively for Europe and Asia-Pacific.

The same goes for average review scores, with an increase of 10% triggering a rise in the number of overall web bookings by 9% in Europe and a hefty 15% in Asia-Pacific.

NB This is a viewpoint by Eddie Robb, managing director for Make it Social.

So if we’re thinking about a step-change in revenue for our business, we need to make a choice.  And in the growth potential game, only one can win.

Questions such as  ‘why do it that way?’ and  ‘ok, so what needs to change?’ can be helpful, but ultimately, in group bookings, innovation is key to staying ahead and being fit for the future.

We all know that in the group booking section of our sites there is money being left on the table. But how do we tap into it?

Here’s five thoughts around how to grab that revenue with both hands.

1: Love groups of all sizes.

Open your mind and untap the potential. By freeing yourself of norms about group sizes you could instantly access  a profitable market that’s commonly ignored.

Group sizes ranging from two to eight people have the potential to convert quicker, with fewer decision makers leading to a greater likelihood of consensus and conclusion.

So by giving them the tools they need, catering for larger numbers of smaller groups may mean quick wins for your business.

What’s more, smaller groups have the potential to grow and could go viral. So by removing the fences around what makes a group a group you can open your business to increased revenue potential.

2: Innovate with GDSs

If you’re looking to grow your group bookings you want to create flexibility for your customers and that means finding new ways of working within existing systems.

Right now, the GDS limits the number of flights you can block-book to a maximum of nine per entry. Plug in a group booking platform that allows individual members to book and pay separately via a specialist API, connected directly to an airline’s live data feed. and the only limit you’ll face is the number of free seats on the plane.

3: Empower your groups

This is all about reducing costs and increasing conversion rates for your business.

One of the biggest reasons for a failed group booking is the back and forth between the agent, the group leader and the group members. As a result, a huge amount of friction can be created simply trying to move from A to B.

By using a social group booking platform you can empower group members to take charge of the successful completion of the sale, freeing your agents to manage more bookings, thus increasing efficencies and profit.

A smart booking plugin that also features automated e-prompts can further motivate groups towards completion, creating the potential for sales to conclude with minimal energy from your agent.

4: Get to know Generations X, Y, and Z

Understanding your customers and meeting their needs can also be a real quick win.

The historic model of ‘travel agent as king’ fails to meet not only the interests and needs of ‘Generation Easyjet’ but also an increasing number of ‘silver surfers’ too.

With some 27.4 million adults 55+ using social media to communicate and around $7 billion spent online annually by adults aged 50+, people of all ages want to retain autonomy in a social online secure environment when planning and spending.

So by offering a social online booking environment where group members can come together to organise, agree and pay securely, you can provide the group with autonomy and an authentic social experience that harnesses the impulsive nature of this ever impatient tech savvy consumer.

5: Nurture self-payment

It’s simple – make group payment easy for your customers.

By allowing your customers to pay separately through a secure social group booking portal you can avoid the pain points associated with group payment, while capturing all revenue and avoiding drop-outs. You know – where one member of the group has to pay out for the rest, and then your booking of 10 suddenly dwindles to 7 and top-up payments are required?

Because social group booking is self-motivating, the transparency created by a group booking portal allows each member to see who has or hasn’t paid. This drives momentum towards completion and you only confirm the booking for those who have paid or once you receive enough money to commit the entire group.

So by embracing new ways to see group bookings you can begin to innovate in this most familiar space. The result? Innovation, efficencies, customer satisfaction, business growth and increased profits for your business.

NB This is a guest article by Eddie Robb, managing director of Make it Social. It appears here as part of Tnooz’s sponsored content initiative.

NB2 Make it Social is one of the sponsors of THack Hamburg, taking place this October. Click here to find out more.

NB3 Image by Shutterstock

NB This is a guest article by Andrew McConnell, founder and CEO of rented.

In just one week, hundreds of articles published on Airbnb covered everything from the founder’s San Francisco Airbnb unit, the Airbnb Apple TV app, business traveler’s usage of Airbnb, and Airbnb tax controversy.

While Airbnb is certainly newsworthy, the conversation varies. Some articles attribute a decline in hotel revenue to Airbnb, touching on how this signals the demise of hotels while other outlets frequently discuss Airbnb as if it was one of today’s largest hotel brands.

With Airbnb being both compared to hotels and framed as the disruptor of the hotel industry, it seems that Airbnb is both destroying and recreating the hotel industry. With this logic in mind, it becomes no surprise that the company has a reported valuation in excess of $25 billion.

But what is Airbnb really doing? Is Airbnb killing hotels? Or is it becoming one?

While this is often the question that is asked, it’s not the right one. With the clear disruption of the hotel industry taking place, it’s time to stop defining Airbnb and other brands in terms of what the companies are doing or what they want to do; it’s time to define them in terms of what travelers and guests demand.

From this perspective, the difference between hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, vacation rentals and Airbnbs becomes diminutive. For the traveler, all that matters is that he or she is spending a night away from home and needs a place to sleep.

The nuances of the expectations and demands are defined by the individual and the context of the night away. For example, a baby boomer will have different needs when on an overnight business trip compared with a week-long vacation with extended family. A millennial consultant traveling to a client-site Monday through Thursday will again have different needs than when he or she is attending a wedding with a group of friends.

So it’s not about vacation rentals replacing hotels, or Airbnbs replacing bed and breakfasts, it’s about finding the right fit for a specific audience in a specific context.

Identifying the hotel, the vacation rental, or the Airbnb as the “winner” in the accommodation space is meaningless; this is much too narrow. The winners of tomorrow will not be hotels anymore than they will be vacation rentals, motels, bed and breakfasts, or Airbnbs.

The winners will be those who think of themselves not in narrow verticals, but as providers of lodging. They will be providers of places to sleep for those nights when people are away from home. They will understand the needs of different people, and they will understand the needs of the same person in different contexts.

But who really are the winners of tomorrow? Hyatt, for example appears to have taken an early lead through its investment and partnership with Onefinestay, positioning itself as a global provider across different lodging verticals.

So everything is still left to play for in lodging and accommodation. The sector is  much larger than just hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, vacation rentals, or any other arbitrary vertical.

Ultimately consumers will be the winners, but those companies best able to understand their wants and needs, and to deliver on those when the time is right, will certainly stand to benefit handsomely.

NB This is a guest article by Andrew McConnell, founder and CEO of rented.

NB2 Image by Shutterstock

But TripAdvisor recently filed complaints against the owner of two domain names, winning one of its challenges but missing out on the other.

The two domain names in question were Trpadvisor.com and TripAdvosor.com, both registered to a domain exchange company known as Fabulous.com which acts as a handling agent for YOLAPT, an Isle of Man, UK-based organisation known as Privacy Ltd.

Domain brand protection firm CitizenHawk represented TripAdvisor in the case.

The owner decided not to file a response to the domain arbitration hearing during the summer of this year, so the one-person panel ruled that the first URL, TrpAdvisor.com, be handed over to TripAdvisor.

However, the complaint regarding the second URL, TripAdvosor.com, was not upheld and the domain stays with its existing owner, the hearing decided.

The panel said the owner, with the regards to the first case, was taking advantage of errors by users on the TripAdvisor trademark and was engaged in so-called “typosquatting” for financial gain.

This was not proven in the second case.

Brands often go to these lengths to wrestle back such URLs held by “typosquatters” in order to give users the chance to find the genuine company website when making innocent spelling errors online.

There are, of course, commercial reasons for doing so.

In this particular case, the owner of the domains was redirecting visitors to the two domains over to Trivago, a rival of TripAdvisor for hotel metasearch, a process which can sometimes include an affiliate referral fee.

It has since emerged that the owner is well known for this kind of activity, having lost out in a similar dispute in 2007 in a case against social networking giant Facebook for using the domain Face-Book.com.

TripAdvisor did not respond to a request for comment or further information.

NB: Domain image via Shutterstock.

Wednesday 29 September 2015:

Egencia study highlights pain of paid for wifi

• More than half of British business travellers (53%) cite having to pay for wifi in hotels as their greatest frustration according to an Egencia survey. The study also highlights major frustrations in the booking process such as not being able to book a room on the required date  and too many search results/choice.

Traveldoo enhances app

• Business travel and expense management specialist Traveldoo has added a number of features to its mobile application. The service includes VAT calculation, an ‘Expense Card’ feature providing a visual summary of expenses and additional automation via ‘Expense Check-out’ which uses geolocation to enable users to search for a place.

Tuesday 15 September 2015:

Jovago unleashes app

• Africa hotel booking site Jovago has developed a mobile app enabling users to access 25,000 properties both online and offline. The Android app, which also offers about 200,000 hotels worldwide, allows users to search using a map and presents hotel images, descriptions and reviews.

Ebookers upgrades app with dynamic packaging tools

• The new app is available for both Android and Apple devices and will allow users to secure both separate flight and hotel options into a single booking. The Ebookers’ Bonus+ Rewards loyalty programme is also integrated into the updated apps.

HRS introduces business traveller app

• The hotel booking service launched the Corporate App last week with a specific set of tools targeted at the business traveller. Available on both Android and Apple operating systems, features include hotel search tools on pre-set corporate locations, billing and payment tools.

Wednesday 9 September 2015:

RoomsTonite opens up late-booking window

• The mobile service has expanded so users can now book late hotel deals for the “day after tomorrow”. The extension of the original strategy will initially be for the company’s Android-hosted application and comes as part of a wider update which includes new filtering tools.

Serko launches bag tracker tool

• The booking and expense management brand will now have a monitoring system included on its mobile app so users can check the progress of their bags, from check-in to boarding and carousel. The system uses Estimote Beacons, a piece of technology that uses low energy bluetooth chips which are said to last up to a year without being charged.

NB: Send links or releases related to travel devices directly to Tnooz via email.

NB2: Travel devices image via Shutterstock.

As of Thursday, US retailers, including travel companies, are required to have upgraded to new point-of-sale terminals that work with credit cards that have computer chips. The new chip-based cards are called EMV, for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, and they are slowly replacing cards with magnetic strips.

Starting October 1, retailers that haven’t upgraded to EMV point-of-sale terminals will be liable for fraud that takes place via their terminals.

That means that the cost for the point-of-sale breaches that Hilton, Mandarin Oriental, and other travel companies have recently experienced may may significantly increase for those businesses.

For instance, some of the Mandarin Oriental’s point-of-sale systems at some of its luxury hotels in the US were infected with malware capable of stealing customer card data, the company said last March.

Smaller travel (and other) businesses that rely on swipe-based credit card machines are also vulnerable.

The US is broadly adopting chip-and-signature cards instead of chip-and-PIN cards that are standard in Europe.

You might think that tightening security on credit cards will mean an overall reduction in fraud for travel and other companies. But that’s not what history suggests. When Europe switched over to the chip-based cards, it saw fraud attempts rise for online transactions that don’t require physical cards.

So-called “card not present fraud” will more than double in the US by 2018, forecasts Aite Group, a consultancy. Companies can try to combat that problem using encryption, cross-verification, and other methods.

MORE: Details on the Hilton Hotels security breach

EARLIER: Mandarin Oriental provides more details on credit card malware

LeisureLink reckons it has come up with the definitive guide to ensuring property owners can maximise their listing and pricing to take into account the opportunities and challenges which may arise.

“There is distribution, and then there is smart distribution,” the company says.

It argues that avoiding the seven deadly sins of distribution will at least allow property owners to take advantage of their listings on OTAs and improve their chances of repeat bookings.

Here is the infographic:

NB: Vacation rental image via Shutterstock.

But with consolidation in the online travel agency sector (and its associated marketing muscle) and the rise of brands such as TripAdvisor that want to be all things to all people with metasearch and reviews of hotels, properties and chains have a problem getting consumers “in the front door” of their websites.

Searches and bookings are taking place elsewhere, in other words.

Still, there are plenty of consumers that do make it onto hotel websites, often for research, check prices or make a booking.

As a result, hoteliers are starting to thinking about how they convert those visitors before they disappear off to a rival property or favourite OTA.

One growing trend is the concept of “guided selling”, a process by which web users are channelled faster or easier into making a decision about whether to make a reservation.

Booking.com is the master at this, using the “one room left” or “five people looking”-type messages on properties in the hope that it pushes the conversion.

Business intelligence service L2 has spent some time examining how major luxury hotel brands have been using guided selling tactics on their own websites, with some interesting results.

Over the course of the last year, hotel brands have certainly been trying to improve the user experience of their websites to facilitate the guided selling idea.

For example, more websites are using filtering tools in 2015 than they were in the previous year, whilst there has been a marked increase (39% to 49%) of brands offering online virtual tours and comparison tools to show how a property ranks against competitors are even starting to make their presence felt.

Here are some of the key points from the research:

1. Search and navigation

Almost two-thirds (61%) of luxury hotel brands offer destination search filters and 47% offer sorting (excluding price, rate, or room type options).

Amenities, the most common filter criteria, are incorporated by 42 percent of brands, although they do not offer sorting by the same option.

Some 28% of luxury hotel brands allow loyalty members to filter by program-related criteria (e.g., points available or property status levels) to easily determine where accrued points or nights can be spent.

Interestingly, only 14% of brands enable filtering or sorting by availability, arguably one of the most important factors from a booking practicality standpoint.

2. Interactive tools

Just over half (52%) of brands include an interactive map within search results, enabling users to more easily visualize property locations and proximity to points of interest or transportation.

Another helpful tool for users to narrow in on properties that best fit their needs is through direct comparison; on a third of brand sites travelers can compare properties by features.

Once a destination has been selected, 16 % of brands allow users to compare rooms. Whilst 62% of brands offer videos directly on the property page and 50% incorporate a virtual tour to give greater insights into property details.

3. Property pages

Two-thirds percent of luxury hotel brands feature reviews on property pages, up from 59% last year. Of the brands offering reviews, half syndicate them from TripAdvisor, while 40% offer a proprietary (potentially curated) review system.

Less than half of brands invite guests to submit reviews about their stay on the brand site, missing an opportunity to collect content to inform and potentially persuade future users.

Marketers are embracing user-generated content (UGC) as a way to signal authenticity, but brands in multiple categories are still positioning UGC (for example, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) as a top-of-the-funnel brand equity play, rather than a way to drive conversion.

Many luxury hotel brands are limiting use of UGC to their social media pages, oftentimes merely reposting content from their fans, but a handful include
Instagram image collateral on-site.

Although 86% of brands maintain an Instagram account and some have thoughtfully curated image galleries, only 14 percent of brands feature Instagram UGC on property pages.

NB: Luxury hotels online image via Shutterstock.

The forecasted numbers couldn’t be verified because the private startup doesn’t publicly reveal its figures.

If true, Airbnb would have a triple-digit growth rate for nightly bookings in its seventh year of existence. That would far exceed the forecasts of investment analysts.

Nightly bookings do not precisely equate to revenue gains. So a doubling in nightly bookings doesn’t mean overall revenue doubles. That said, the marginal cost of selling additional nights on the system is small.

Challenge to hotels

A couple of years ago, the industry perception was that Airbnb was mainly a threat to vacation rentals platforms like Homeaway. But now the talk has turned to Airbnb’s effect on hotels.

A story in today’s Wall Street Journal shows why. It uses the example of Pope Francis’s visit to the United States last week and the effect on hotel rates as a sign of Airbnb’s growing impact on hotels.

When a major event happens at a destination (like a papal visit, a sporting event, or a holiday like New Year’s), hotels charge higher-than normal rates.

But the early data from STR Global, the consultancy, shows that rates at stops along the papal visit did not increase as much as would have been expected based on past models.

Airbnb’s presence is named as a factor. In Philadelphia, one of the stops on the papal tour, Airbnb boosted the supply of accommodation by about 17%, reported STR.

Airbnb says it has more than 1.5 million rental listings worldwide.

Tnooz recently cited the view of hotel asset managers, investors, and major chain executives that Airbnb’s threat to hotels may be structural. We quoted Mark Carrier, president of B.F. Saul Company Hospitality Group, who said:

“My worry is about the potential for Airbnb to generate inventory that responds dynamically to demand in peak periods. That would knock the edge off hotels’ ability to drive profitable RevPAR.”

The full Reuters story is: Exclusive: Airbnb to double bookings to 80 million this year – investors

The full WSJ story is worth a read: “Airbnb Crimps Hotels’ Power on Pricing”

Meanwhile in China in the past day, Zhubaijia, an Airbnb clone, raises $78 million, just six weeks after receiving a $30 million round.

Tnooz’s August story was: Airbnb’s threat to hotels may be structural, going beyond tax fight

NB: Image courtesy ouishare/Flickr/Creative Commons

NB: This is a viewpoint from Brian Chien, general manager for Amadeus China.

The country’s “Internet+” strategy is raising confidence in ecommerce while mobile usage has leapfrogged the rest of the world.

Elsewhere, the flourishing Chinese travel industry shows no signs of slowing down. thanks in part to ongoing investments in travel from the country’s big three online giants – Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (together, affectionately known as ‘BAT’).

So it’s no surprise that innovation was the name of the game as some of China’s brightest developers gathered at Hangzhou’s renowned innovation centre, Alibaba Campus, for Tnooz’s THack event on 13 September 2015.

Powered by APIs from some of the leaders in travel, including the Amadeus Travel Innovation Sandbox API, developers worked to design solutions aimed at meeting the needs of the increasingly powerful Chinese traveller.

The results were remarkable.

The name of the winning entry was also a clear call to action: JoinIn. The solution that captured the hearts and minds of judges at the event promised to inspire group travellers, a mainstay of Chinese tourism.

JoinIn made its mark as the answer to organising complex group itineraries: inspiring travellers by gathering wish lists; creating and matching groups; providing travel recommendations with dynamic pricing; and personalising different aspects of the trip to each individual traveller.

Ctrip, China’s largest online travel agency, energised its overseas hotel team to deliver “Room Touch”, the second prize winner and the recipient of the Amadeus Innovation Prize.

The app allows travellers to get detailed 3D views of rooms – inside and out – using floorplans, Google Maps and a bird’s eye view, allowing guests to  experience the room before they commit to clicking the ‘book’ button.

JoinIn and Room Touch were just two solutions delivered by the 23 teams, made up of nearly 100 hackers, alongside other entries such as the rousingly named ‘Trailblazer’, which won the prize for ‘Best Use of an Amadeus API’.

In fact, more than half of the teams built their solutions using the Amadeus Sandbox.

It was not only inspiring but also a privilege to see Amadeus technology being used by the developer community for a second consecutive year.

Looking more broadly, innovative apps, solutions and ideas such as these are disrupting almost every industry, but this is particularly apparent in the travel industry in China.

China is embracing the Age of Traveller Power. The Chinese are travelling more than ever before. With new channels to deliver their aspirations, they are more individualistic and need innovative ways to connect their journeys.

This is why Amadeus is supporting the developer community in China. It is bright, agile and enthusiastic – and that means disruptive innovation, which we encourage.

This is a market that has embraced the leapfrog, and developers are focused almost solely on the screens in the palms of our hand, rather than the ones on our desks.

Amadeus believes in a traveller-centric approach, which means everything we do is with the traveller at the heart. We actively nurture, mentor and partner with travel start-ups in Asia Pacific and across the world – matching our technology, reach, expertise and funding with their agile innovation.

That’s why we are once again proud to play our part in powering THack, helping the most talented developers come up with ideas that truly shape the future of travel.

NB: This is a viewpoint from Brian Chien, General Manager, Amadeus China. It appears here as part of Tnooz’s sponsored content initiative.

NB2: Click here to read “Hacking China travelers’ passion for mobile“,  Tnooz’s coverage of the China THack

NB3: Image by Shutterstock

The initially undisclosed funding round (“multi-million”) is understood to be in the region of Euro 4 million.

The car rental distribution technology company says the round will be used to increase headcount and invest in product development.

It is also clearly trying to position itself as a competitor to fellow Irish travel tech brand CarTrawler and Priceline Group’s RentalCars Connect.

So much so that fighting talk from Mobacar CEO Mike Webster claiming the partnership with Auto Europe will “disrupt a non-data driven industry”.

He argues:

“Airlines and online travel agencies have been duped for years and have sleepwalked into car rental solutions that overprice their customers, drive poor conversions, are poorly serviced and drive absolutely no loyalty to the online travel retailer’s brand.”

“Mobacar have been at the forefront of the development of retail intelligence technology for the travel industry. Based on these innovations, AE and Mobacar see the huge potential in partnering Mobacar’s technology and AE’s global supply and unparalleled service.”

Mobacar had previously won investment from Delta Partners with an earlier Euro 4 million financing.

Delta has also backed Irish tech companies, Boxever and MeetingsBooker.