The corporate travel segment is just good business for Freebird, the startup that rebooks travelers experiencing flight disruption. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company shifted its focus to TMCs and their corporate clients a year ago and received another $5 million in funding from General Catalyst and Accomplice in April, following…
Back in 2016, IBM predicted that the API economy would be worth $2.2 trillion by 2018, based on the cumulative benefits of data integration and exchange through all industry sectors and the transactional value of that data. McKinsey predicted in September of 2017 that the number of public APIs…
This is a viewpoint from Nancy Hall, senior vice president at Conversant. Earlier this year, digital travel sales in the US were forecasted to reach $189.62 billion, of which 40% were estimated to come from mobile devices. Travel research and booking on mobile is continuing to grow as a…
A new report by L2 “Luxury Hotels: Google Hotel Finder vs OTAs” highlights a shift in the advertising strategies of leading hotel brands as these continue their direct booking battle with the leading OTAs. L2 analysts find that the reach of the three leading OTAs TripAdvisor, Expedia, and Kayak…
It’s Media Day here at CES 2018, where we’ll be live-blogging our way through the most notable emerging tech — and the crowds — Tuesday through Friday. Hundreds of new products will be previewed this week by some of the biggest technology companies in the world, along with the plucky…
Ctrip‘s Chinese customers visiting North America will be able to book restaurants using Priceline Group’s OpenTable via the Ctrip app. The tie-up is based around Ctrip’s Gourmet List brand, which launched in 2016 allowing Chinese travellers to discover and book restaurants in China and around the world. Gourmet List…
This is a viewpoint from Gitit Greenberg, director of digital insights at SimilarWeb. The digital travel ecosystem is constantly evolving. Key players come and go, and market trends often shift to the unexpected placing of an added emphasis on the need to stay ahead of the curve. 2017 was…
Sponsored by Amadeus. Over the past few years, we’ve seen limited service hotels grow in popularity among travelers and investors alike. There’s been a steady uptick in demand, the economics are ideal, and owners are quick to build these properties based on anticipated returns. Brands in this space have…
Social media customer service firm Conversocial has published its Airline Benchmark Report for 2018, which rates airlines’ performance on social media as a customer service tool. It shows that airlines in North America still outperform their European and Middle Eastern counterparts in terms of response-time on Twitter, though EMEA…
An Indian-based chatbot specialist, which has received funding from a US-based incubator, has partnered with a Spanish-listed travel tech firm in a trial focussed on travel agents in Thailand using a messaging platform developed in Japan which is owned by a South Korean internet giant. The chatbot specialist is…