Global hotel chain Hilton is embarking on an overhaul of its branding and loyalty programme, including a major new partnership with Amazon. First the aesthetic stuff: the group will now be known as Hilton (dropping the “Worldwide”) and its existing loyalty scheme will be known as Hilton Honors (dropping the…
There seems to be two rather different realities presented about human interaction with consumers in the travel industry. We hear that the industry is moving to bots and pure online services, yet simultaneously we are seeing the strong comeback of the travel agent. So which will it be? NB:…
A report from Sabre‘s APAC team reveals the need for online and offline agents to connect with travellers during the trip. The study, which covers eleven countries across the region, identifies four types and is the latest to look at travellers in terms of what they want from their…
HomeAway has split opinion over its decision to alter the way in which potential guests can interact with a property’s owner. At the turn of 2017, HomeAway shifted the ability for a traveller to find out more about a rental listing by pushing contact details for the owner to the…
“Metasearch on steroids,” is how industry veteran Krista Pappas, the vice president of Lola, describes the firm’s new agent console, a state-of-the-art piece of kit that delivers “super powers” to the group’s living-breathing travel agents. NB: This is a viewpoint by Pamela Whitby, editor of EyeForTravel. The console, which…
TripAdvisor provides a regular metric about its global traffic – an eye-watering “390 million average monthly unique visitors” across 49 sites worldwide. But some of the deeper analytics behind its extraordinary presence and influence in the online travel ecosystem are more difficult to come by – perhaps understandably. Audience…
New US president Donald Trump has signed, as well all know, a number of executive orders in his first few weeks in office. Buried in one of them is a line around data privacy which could emerge to be a major headache for global OTAs, airlines, adtech firms and…
Certify‘s findings for 2016, based on expense claims filed through its system, includes some proper statistics for Airbnb. During the year just gone, Airbnb continued its run of doubling transaction volumes every year since 2014. No specific room night numbers are revealed, but Certify does specify that, out of…
The Chinese believe that what happens at New Year influences your fortunes in the year ahead. Indeed, understanding China offers an insight into what is going to happen globally within technology and travel in 2017 and beyond. NB: This is an analysis by Kieron Branagan, CEO of Openjaw Technologies….
There are various ways of viewing the rise of Airbnb on both a global and in individual country basis. And, depending on who you ask, you’ll inevitably get a different perspective. Hotels are either nervous or bold, whilst at the same time consumers are either thrilled with the range of…