Ever since ecommerce hit the airline industry’s radar, every year we’ll hear a new batch of leaders (including Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary) declaring they want to become the ‘Amazon of Travel’. My reaction is always the same: “…that’s it?” NB: This is a viewpoint from Philippe Der Arslanian, CEO of…

Società Esercizi Aeroportuali, which manages Italy’s Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate airports, has announced a seven-year service agreement to consolidate its IT infrastructure using IBM Cloud. The agreement covers data centre and hosting services, systems and storage managed services, as well as help desk and security management. SEA will…

FabHotels, one of India’s technology-driven budget hotel franchise companies, has raised a further $25 million and has earmarked the cash to expand the portfolio and to increase its technology team. The Series B funding was led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, with current investor Accel involved. Accel was part…

Tourico Holidays, a wholesale travel company, launched a “first of its kind” platform designed to help travel distribution clients improve inventory accuracy and identify hotel deals with the highest profit margins. Called Olympus X, it includes an interactive dashboard that provides detailed monthly reports where clients can view all…

trivago Business Intelligence data has revealed that independent hotels visible on trivago have on average 8,000 rates online a year. NB This is a viewpoint by trivago Considering that a hotel’s rates are displayed across multiple booking sites and vary according to room type, whether meals and other amenities…

Toronto-based SnapTravel, which allows users to search and book hotels via Facebook Messenger and SMS, has secured a Series A funding round worth $8 million, led by iNovia. The funding will be used to “double down on technology and to fuel growth.” SnapTravel launched on Facebook Messenger just over…

A few years ago, most travelers could name one, maybe two, companies that were in the tours and activities business. Now, by PhoCusWright’s reckoning, it is the third largest travel segment after airlines and hotels, reaching $135 billion in 2016 and surpassing the car rental, cruise and rail industries….

The sixth edition of hotels.com’s annual Chinese International Travel Monitor identifies a disconnect between what hoteliers are doing for their Chinese travellers and what the travellers actually want. The gap identified by the research is that hoteliers are prioritizing budgets around social media and marketing campaigns over spending on…

Vacation rental tech specialist Beyond Pricing has acquired Smart Host, which provides pricing intelligence to rental home owners. Beyond Pricing, (Startup pitch here), is combining technology from Smart Host to its existing system so that hosts can see “Nearby Listings.” Beyond Pricing chief executive Ian McHenry says hosts had…

The average conversion rate for direct bookings is about 1%. How can hoteliers convert those 99% visitors who leave the website? NB This is a viewpoint by Catarina Pimental, marketing manager for GuestCentric. Recently, hoteliers have taken a great interest in investing in digital marketing tools to attract visitors…