Hello Scout, a San Francisco-based personalisation and text messaging platform for hotels, has been bought by Australian luxury home rentals specialist Luxico which now has “exclusive access” to the technology. The purchase price has not been disclosed. Hello Scout launched in 2015 (tnooz startup pitch from Feb16 here) and…

Nasdaq-listed Indian OTA Yatra has revealed the extent to which marketing costs are driving the landgrab for customers in the country, with its Q1 spend on this line up by nearly 250% compared with the same quarter last year. Its Q1 earnings released last week showed marketing and sales…

The Direct Booking Summit 2017 has named tnooz as an official media partner for both its Americas and European events taking place this autumn. This article appears as part of tnooz’s sponsored content initiative. The Direct Booking Summit is the largest, most comprehensive event of its kind. It’s a…

This is a viewpoint by Ross Fastuca, CIO and cofounder, Travelport Locomote. VR, AR, AI, 3D printers – a bunch of emerging technologies, increasingly expressed as acronyms or in abbreviations, that many businesses are keen to adopt in order to show they’re taking an innovative approach to modern technology….

lastminute.com group‘s first half results reveals some big strategic shifts over the past year, with its dynamic packaging business growing strongly in all markets. The business is listed on the Swiss stock exchange and was formerly known as BravoFly Rumbo, changing its name in 2015 after it bought lastminute.com…

This is a viewpoint from Jonathan Cherki, CEO of ContentSquare One of the biggest struggles travel brands face in 2017 is understanding their customer. With so many different types of travelers and booking options to choose from, knowing who your client is and what they want is no mean…

This is a roundup of product news and announcements related to travel distribution in August 2017. Monday 14 August ICE hot for Fliggy Alibaba’s travel marketplace Fliggy, formerly known as Alitrip, has linked up with visual content specialist ICE Portal. Through this partnership, hotel groups using ICE Portal will…

Airbnb has released some figures which might please its investors but, on the face of it, do little to appease those who think that the platform is responsible for what is now known as overtourism, The figures have been released a week or so after Airbnb’s busiest ever day…

Expedia Inc. said its relationship with hotels is moving beyond distribution to focus on hoteliers’ needs for “new product offerings that help our partners reach their goals.” The company is rolling out Expedia Powered Technology, a toolkit of technology, marketing and data offerings that grew out of testing inspiring…

This is a viewpoint from Sam Shank, CEO of HotelTonight.  A few weeks ago, at a dinner with other tech startup execs, the topic of fostering a great team culture came up. Everyone was throwing out big ideas (like HotelTonight’s HT Roulette, where we send a randomly-chosen team member…