This is a roundup of news and announcements for travel people in April 2017. Wednesday 5 April 2017 Sabre adds to ecommerce and distribution role Rakesh Narayanan joins as vice president of supplier commerce, Asia Pacific, for Sabre Travel Network. Narayanan has worked within Sabre for 20 years and most…

Youth travel is emerging as one of the industry’s most resilient sectors, delivering significant volumes of business across the travel ecosystem while maintaining a compelling growth profile. NB: This is a viewpoint by Mike Cleary, global managing director for StudentUniverse. The UNWTO’s Power of Youth Travel report predicted that…

Travelzoo appears to be returning to its deals publishing roots after telling the market that it has decided to “discontinue” its fly.com and SuperSearch businesses. Its 8-K filing released yesterday said: “On March 30, 2017, Travelzoo…decided to discontinue its ‘Search’ business, consisting of Fly.com and ‘SuperSearch’. This decision supports…

While the electronics ban imposed on flights from Middle Eastern and African countries to the US and UK presents a difficult challenge to airlines and their customers, it will not greatly interfere with certain experience personalization initiatives airlines have deployed. This is the view of Joe Leader, the boss…

This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel distribution in April 2017. Tuesday 4 April 2107: Amadeus adds Distribusion Agents will now have access to more than 300 airport bus transfer as well as intercity bus operators following a deal between Amadeus and Distribusion. Travel intermediaries in…

Lufthansa has launched a new online marketing initiative, with a dedicated URL, which will encourage and allow travellers to share memorable travel experiences. The so-called Lufthansa Memory Network went live yesterday (3 April) and is being promoted with the tagline “ready to remember”. At the time of writing, some…

Improvements in hotel technology have been enabling properties to think less about the behind the scenes processes and concentrate more on guests. Two years ago about a quarter of US hotels were using pen and paper to manage their properties but, fast forward to 2017 and they are looking…

Juniper Research expects that chatbots will play an increasingly important role in the technical and commercial development of instant messaging (IM) services such as WhatsApp and Snapchat over the next five years or so. However, despite the succession of big name travel companies launching chatbot-based services, the study identifies…

AccorHotels is working with a startup called Travelsify to enable guests to search according to their mood. Travelsify analyses reviews to find the attributes that travellers are looking for when booking an hotel. The ‘MoodMatch’ search, which is being launched this week, will allow guests in France and the…

SITA has linked up with Airbus to provide a cybersecurity service designed specifically for the air transport industry. In 2016, SITA identified cybersecurity as one of its five priorities. Its Airline IT Trends Survey 2016 found that 91% of airlines were planning to invest in this area over the…