China’s online package travel specialist Tuniu handled around seven million tours during 2016, more than 50% higher than the previous year. Its 2016 Q4/FY earnings break down the numbers between organized and self-guided tours. During the year it booked 2.8 million international organised tours, 2.2 million local (domestic) organised…
Hotels.ng, a hotel booking site for Nigeria, is adding flights to its site as part of its attempts to diversify its offering and broaden its appeal to an international, inbound audience. The flight channel is powered by Travelstart, the South African-based online travel agency which operates across the African…
In the over-complex world of consumers’ big data, with the infinite possibilities for the travel & hospitality industries, independent hoteliers have not yet embraced the full technological and strategic potential of traveller data. Hoteliers are busy making their guests happy, filling their rooms, keeping up with the tech innovations…
Here’s a comment that is likely to make the hairs stand on end of many a hotelier and critics of online travel agencies. “If I was starting a hotel from scratch, I’d give all my distribution to OTAs and just concentrate on the guest and their experience.” That was…
While the big guns of online travel compete over what brand can spend the most on digital ads, developments are still allowed to continue for everyone else. HotelPlanner, a specialist in group travel for meetings, sporting events and weddings, has bought InternetHotels for an undisclosed fee. InternetHotels Sister site HotelsAtAnywhere was…
Rainmaker will devote its attention to hotels and the casino world after trousering a cool $300 million from the sale of its real estate tech to RealPage. The group has operated a dual industry model for many years, producing hotel tech (revenue management and rate shopping tools) and also what…
Whether it’s big travel companies getting bigger and better through acquisition, tech entrepreneurs carving out new markets to change consumer behaviour or more spontaneous, digitally savvy consumers driving innovation in travel, it’s hard to keep up. NB This is a viewpoint by Pamela Whitby, editor of EyeForTravel. In the…
A month to the day on from its suspension, Ryanair Holidays is back online with a new provider behind the scenes to power its package trips. Ryanair took its fledgling Holidays service offline at the end of January this year, just a month after its launch, due to what…
The Priceline Group made $10.7 billion in revenue in 2016 – up from $9.2 billion in 2015 – and has seen a 40% jump in adjusted EBITDA. Agency revenues made up $7.9 billion of the overall pie. Gross profit increased by 21% year on year to $10.3 billion during 2016. Merchant…
The CAPA India Aviation Summit 2017 took place recently at the Leela Hotel Mumbai and was a great opportunity to network with key industry stakeholders – senior executives and CEOs from airlines, corporations, suppliers and representatives from airports and local government. NB This is a viewpoint by Ian Heywood,…