This is a viewpoint from David Turnbull, founder and chief commercial officer for SnapShot. Mark Twain’s famous “If I had more time” quotation could be updated and applied to the current generation of hotel revenue managers suffering the pain of collecting and storing data. Nearly 20% of business time…

Glenn Fogel, chief executive of Booking Holdings, formerly Priceline Group, hailed a good year for the company as it posted healthy fourth quarter results for 2017 with gross travel bookings up 19% year-on-year to $18 billion. Gross profit increased 22% year-on-year to $2.8 billion while EBITDA was up 23%…

This is a viewpoint from Matt Walker, chief storyteller at LikeWhere Netflix knows something about you. Something that you don’t know about yourself, or at least you will not admit: You are poor at making decisions. We like to think of ourselves as reasonable beings, weighing the options and…

The spending habits of Chinese tourists abroad is the subject of an Outbound Chinese Tourism and Consumption Trends survey by Alipay. Chinese Tourists’ mobile habits set expectations for mobile payment. As the study’s author’s state: “Thanks to the widespread use of mobile payments across China, Chinese people are increasingly…

Hospitality is the heartbeat of travel and tourism, with technology dictating the rhythms. The relationship between hospitality and tech is constantly shifting in response to not only industry developments but also the evolution of technology itself. Distribution dilemmas are one of the most obvious manifestations of how hospitality and…

This is a viewpoint from Eric Bamberger, SVP, Hospitality, IgnitioneOne. In September, Guggenheim Securities posited that Priceline may be backing away from the hotel metasearch channel and instead emphasizing brand marketing and building direct relationships. A casual search shows that Priceline occupies the top ad spot on TripAdvisor and…

It is not that long ago, even last week, that inflight wifi was viewed as a perk. But it’s growing importance to customers has led to the forging of new relationships to build an infrastructure that goes beyond letting customers check their email to creating a viable flying network…

Emirates Vacations has partnered with Wayblazer for the launch of a AI-powered chatbot that communicates with consumers through display ads. Emirates says use of the medium drove an 87% lift in engagement compared to more traditional click-through ads. Wayblazer’s recommendation engine lies behind the chatbot ad which asks consumers…

The Vahana AlphaOne, an electric, autonomous flying taxi, has now experienced its first flight. This is the latest in a series of demonstrations this year which raise confidence for the prospect of flying taxi services. The first flight of AlphaOne was short, a minute long, but the designers used…

This is a viewpoint from Steve Dobson, Director Information Security at The ATCORE Group. Yes, it’s coming: the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on the 25th of May. That’s roughly three months from now. So if you’ve been avoiding the topic, now is the time…