Accor Hotels says it wants to discover new ways to make the most of its existing assets and the digital economy. The chain is not content with a series of major moves over the course of the last 12 months outside of its core function of running hotels, and will…
India’s biggest OTA MakeMyTrip has just got a whole lot bigger after announcing that it is merging with Ibibo Group. A statement said that the pair have “agreed to pursue a transaction that will combine the two businesses under MakeMyTrip, creating one of the leading travel groups in India…
Google is clearly rather pleased with the recent full launch of its Trips application for mobile devices. The free app (available on both Android and Apple devices) aims to be a personalised tour guide for travellers and is arguably the most significant launch in the travel space for Google…
The latest Travel Flash Report from Criteo reveals Turkey as the market experiencing the strongest growth in mobile bookings. The findings are based on Criteo’s analysis of aggregate data collected from more than 1,000 of its advertisers in the travel industry. The topline takeaway is that “smartphone bookings are rising…
It seems airlines are finally turning their attention to disruption management from both the operations and even the passenger sides. It’s long overdue considering the regular occurrence of system outages, weather incidents and other reasons that keep planes on the tarmac. Incidents such as the United Airlines’s system failure late…
Even when Google enhances its search in unoriginal ways, the travel industry needs to take notice because the search giant might someday become a major booking tool for consumers. Here are Google’s two most notable moves: It has begun to add airfare predictions to its metasearch tool. It has also begun to…
Yet another example of the establishment in the industry getting in on the startup scene – this time it’s global agency group, Flight Centre. The company has launched Little Argas, an investment vehicle that will “identify, invest in and scale innovative travel tech and travel-related startups”. It will focus on…
It would be fair to say that many examples of virtual reality in the travel sector have yet to convince travellers and the industry of its overall usefulness. Many are yet to be persuaded that 360-degree walk-throughs of a hotel or aircraft, using some kind of virtual reality device,…
Blockchain technology is running at a gallop and creating unique opportunities for travel companies to track their customer’s preferences, build more personalized and meaningful interactions, and extract more value from loyalty programs. Case in point: A pilot demonstration of the first destination loyalty program built on blockchain. The Dubai Points program…
Google has burst onto the hotel transaction scene via Book on Google, awakening plenty of curiosity and questions about the real interest Google has with this move. NB This is a viewpoint by Pablo Delgado, CEO at Mirai. What is Book on Google? It is a booking system or…