This is a roundup for product news and announcements for travel DISTRIBUTION in tourism and hospitality for October 2016.

Thursday 20 October 2016:

ETTSA gets Lastminute.com Group on-board

• Lastminute.com Group, the umbrella company behind a collection of online travel agencies, will join the European lobbying organisation for travel technology companies. Others include the three leading GDSs, Expedia and eDreams Odigeo, as well as Skyscanner and TripAdvisor as associate members.

Travelport signs East West Travel Group

• East West Travel, a specalist corporate travel agency that represents BCD Travel in Egypt, has agreed a new multi-year deal with Travelport. The deal will give East West access to Travelport’s GDS content from agency desktops.

RTS deals with Travolutionary

• The global wholesaler will use the Travolutionary platform to expand its hotel distribution network. The 12-year-old company has more than 150,000 hotels in 15,000 destinations around the world, with a particular focus on properties in Asia-Pacific and the Far East.

Tuesday 18 October

Passport Online partners with Virtuoso

• North American members of luxury travel agency consortium Virtuoso will have access to Passport Online’s Tandem cruise booking engine from next month for B2B and B2C bookings. Passport is the first official cruise tech partner for the group, and has been working as part of its Virtuoso Incubator program.

Monday 17 October 2016:

Ctrip adds to non-hotel options

• Chinese OTA Ctrip has signed a distribution deal with Bridge Rentals, a Singapore-based B2B platform for instantly bookable vacation rental properties, to increase its options for independent Chinese outbound travellers. Bridge is a sister company of B2C short-term rentals site Roomorama.

Thursday 6 October 2016:

Musement and 15below unite

• The passenger communication specialist has integrated with Musement to give airlines the opportunity to promote destination activities and attractions (including links for bookings) within their customer notifications. The system will also be used to push services that can be used during disruption to a flight. Musement has around 3,500 products in 350 cities around the world on its platform.

SilverRail green signal with Concur

• SilverRail’s SilverCore platform will be plugged into the Concur travel and expense management system, with the ability for employees of a company to book rail tickets directly through Concur and added to its an existing expense account. The collaboration will initially be available in Spain and Sweden, with other countries to follow. Concur existing rail provision with other operators will run in tandem.

Wednesday 5 October 2016:

GTA taps Bokun for ground services

• The global distributor will use the Bokun platform to provide 16,700 sightseeing tours, attractions and transfer providers in over 100 countries and 1,000 destinations worldwide. Bokun has real-time availability and bookings.

Ixigo rides with Uber and RedBus

• Users of the Indian online travel search engine’s rail mobile app will be able to book Uber cars and select bus tickets from their device. Uber services are available in over 28 cities in India and RedBus sells tickets on 70,000 routes across the country.

Monday 2 October 2016:

BookLogic nets Skyscanner deal

• The hotel revenue management company will give its customer base additional distribution through its new partnership with Skyscanner, via the metasearch engine’s hotel search service. BookLogic’s technology will handle the bookings on behalf of hotels.

Musement gives Travelport more activity

• Musement, the activities and ticketing company, has developed an app for travel agents that will sit in Travelport’s commerce platform, Smartpoint. The agents will be able to book tours and activities for their customers in more than 450 cities in 55 countries.

NB: Travel distribution image via Bakhtiar Zein/BigStock.