Airbnb’s latest SEC filing showing another billion dollars has been added to its warchest. The filing also shows that 40 investors were involved in the round, which reportedly values the business at $31 billion. Coverage is also saying the business was profitable in the second half of 2016 and…
Who says the drive to instant bookings on search engines can be hard (well, TripAdvisor, for starters) – in vacation rentals it appears to be working out very well. Vacation rental marketplace Tripping has quietly been adding instant booking functionality to its search results in the past few months,…
In the cult 1990s movie “Strange Days,” a virtual reality apparatus pulls images straight from a user’s cerebral cortex. Though solidly in the realm of science fiction, a similar kind of intense interactive experience is not far off in the real world. NB: This is a viewpoint by Tony…
Brisbane Airport has partnered with SITA and Air New Zealand, to launch a trial of the SITA Smart Path facial recognition technology. It allows passengers to identify themselves throughout the journey using biometrics–from check-in to boarding—without requiring boarding passes, passports or other travel documents to be presented at each…
Etihad Airways has completed the implementation of a new IATA NDC-compliant booking standard to improve the information flow between travel agents and the airline’s reservation systems. The airline partnered with Sabre Airline Solutions and Sabre Travel Network to implement the new data exchange system which received a Level 1…
Mobile searches for budget hotels outweigh those for luxury properties – but the latter is growing fast. This is one of a number of findings from a huge study by Sojern, using both its own data and that from Google, examining search and booking trends across mobile and desktop devices. Searches at the economy…
Lots of column inches have been taken up on the policies of the Donald Trump administration but what of their impact on travel distribution and likelihood to hurt US travel and tourism? Are we truly talking Trump Slump or, is it just bias against the administration, as recently asserted…
Two seconds in the space-time continuum does not seem long. But as with most things in life, everything is relative. Most of us would happily spend minutes talking to a friend or hours watching a much-awaited movie, but in online travel search, if we are looking for flight options…
Lufthansa Group‘s digital transformation continues apace, with its low-cost carrier Eurowings launching its MakeMyWay initiative today. Eurowings expects to handle 25 million passengers this year and claims to be the fastest growing airline in Europe. MakeMyWay comprises a number of digitally-led initiatives, many of which tap into the resources…
GuestReady is another of a growing number of service startups that have emerged to cater for the ecosystem that surrounds the sharing economy. Working with Airbnb hosts in London and a number of cities in Asia, GuestReady handles property management services online and also a concierge-type product. The former element…