Category Archives: Technology

Wego records exponential growth in the flight searches from Saudi Arabia to the UAE following Saudi’s announcement on welcoming travelers from the Emirate again. Saudi Arabia has been handling the pandemic very well and is rolling out its vaccination drive across the country. Travelers are feeling more reassured where airports are reinstating the confidence in travel. With stringent precautionary measures followed and safety measures that meet the high standards, we will see a quicker recovery for the tourism sector. Mamoun Hmedan, Managing Director, MENA and India, Wego, said: “The region was eagerly awaiting this announcement. Saudi Arabia is one of the most preferred destinations for MENA travelers. Through our platform, we saw a 1,700% increase in flight searches from Saudi Arabia to the UAE in the last two days. We expect to see more growth in flight searches and bookings in the coming days.” Around 50% of travelers are looking to travel within a week from the announcement and 60% of the people are searching for a short stay around 3 days. Solos are dominating the type of travelers searching for flights with 80%, followed by families and couples. Dean Wicks, Chief Flights Officer, Wego, said: “Flight searches from the UAE to Saudi Arabia have jumped by 1000% just days after the announcement. Saudi Arabia continues to be one of the favorite destinations for UAE travellers. The massive spike in searches between the two countries shows how much pent up demand there is for travel within the region.” Wego brings the best offerings to its users to help them get the best rates and deals from over hundreds of hotels and flights.

Sabre Corporation and Qatar Airways are now finalizing a new distribution deal that will provide long-term access to the airline’s content through the Sabre travel marketplace. Qatar Airways intends to strengthen its partnership with Sabre to take advantage of Sabre’s global reach and leading position in corporate travel for the distribution of Qatar Airways’ products to travelers worldwide. Implementation work is starting to enable unique NDC offers created by Qatar Airways to be distributed through Sabre’s new distribution capability (NDC), which provides a consistent end-to-end workflow that integrates within well-established agency operations. “A new approach to retailing is required in order to respond to the personalized service and enhanced flexibility that travelers expect,” said Roshan Mendis, Chief Commercial Officer, Sabre Travel Solutions. “Sabre is committed to supporting Qatar Airways in enhancing its retailing capabilities by enabling the airline to distribute personalized offers through our marketplace to corporations and travel agencies around the world.  Collaboration will be crucial in travel’s recovery, so I’m proud that we are now finalizing a long-term, sustainable agreement with Qatar Airways that is beneficial for all parties in the travel ecosystem.” Sabre’s technology enables Qatar Airways to effectively market and sell its expansive roster of fares globally through the Sabre marketplace. Reaching a network of more than 425,000 travel agents, it is one of the world’s largest marketplaces, processing over US $120 billion in estimated travel spend. Thierry Antinori, Chief Commercial Officer, Qatar Airways, said: “Working collaboratively is pivotal to our reputation as a trusted and reliable business partner for both customers flying Qatar Airways, and the travel agencies that serve them. As international travel recovers, the landscape has become extremely complex, and we don’t want …

Adyen the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, today announced the launch of its integration with Shiji Payments, providing hospitality businesses the ability to utilize the Adyen platform together with Shiji, a leader in the provision of technological solutions for the hospitality, food service, retail, and entertainment industries. This new integration simplifies the payment process for hospitality businesses by removing the need for a list of platforms and suppliers which usually includes separate processes for property management systems, food and beverage point of sale, and guest experience platforms not to mention the different payments service providers for each. “Our partnership with Adyen allows us to further improve the operational efficiency of our customers by providing a platform that guarantees a truly seamless and personalized experience for their hotel guests,” said Michael Balzer, VP Shiji Payments, Shiji. With only two companies, Adyen and Shiji, hotels can consolidate all of these front-end business systems and payment needs, including having the same point of sale setups across regions and easier reconciliation across all channels. This, in the end, provides the best possible customer service. These integrated features power the seamless journey that customers expect nowadays. Commenting on the partnership, Sander Maertens, Head of Middle East at Adyen, said: “Adyen is excited to partner with Shiji Payments. This is a long term strategic collaboration for us in the region. With Shiji’s leadership in hospitality sector, covering over 91,000 hotels and 200,000 restaurants, and a strong footprint in the Middle East, we aim to leverage this partnership to implement new digital innovations in the payment space. The hospitality sector will benefit from our combined, seamless payment integrations with specialist …

Aleph Hospitality has announced the launch of its hotel Innovation Lab to help drive innovation in the travel, tourism and hospitality as the industry recovers post pandemic. The company is on the lookout for dynamic and innovative startups that are transforming the travel, tourism & hospitality sector, and that seek support on their journey from a dynamic, experienced, and entrepreneurial team of senior industry professionals. “At Aleph Hospitality we operate with an entrepreneurial spirit in everything we do, and we pride ourselves on our culture of innovation. As a team we have been looking at ways to help drive innovation in travel, tourism and hospitality, in a time our industry needs it the most”, said Bani Haddad, Founder and Managing Director of Aleph Hospitality. “Through the Innovation Lab we want to support and promote entrepreneurs that are changing the face of our industry and offer them a springboard to launch and grow their business by providing office space, business support and advisory, product testing facilities and investment opportunities.” Aleph Hospitality is looking to onboard the first start-ups in its Innovation Lab in the company’s headquarters in Dubai by the end of September 2021.UAE based start-ups – and international entrepreneurs willing to relocate to Dubai – with innovative products, solutions and/or technologies in the fields of Artificial intelligence (AI), hotel guest & employee guest experience, sustainability & renewable energy, food & beverage and/or community service(s) are encouraged to apply for the Innovation Lab. Candidates can register their interest on the Aleph Hospitality website and the submission deadline is 2 September 2021. Shortlisted start-ups will be invited for a face-to-face meeting at the Aleph Hospitality offices in Dubai in September, with the …

Worldwide leader in travel retail, Travelport, announced a multi-year technology agreement with ITL World, one of the leading travel management companies in the Middle East. The agreement will see Dubai-based ITL World implement Travelport+, Travelport’s recently launched next-generation platform that creates a simplified, capability-rich, marketplace for travel retailing.   The move to Travelport+ will see ITL World benefit from advanced retailing capabilities including a modern, lightweight, highly functional microservices API, as well as a sophisticated point of sale solution and tools for enhanced value generation – all in one place. Travelport and ITL World also intend to implement various NDC initiatives in the future, leveraging Travelport’s NDC connections with multiple airlines.   Additionally, ITL World will use Travelport’s Branded Fares and Ancillary Services, giving its agents a graphically rich experience when searching and booking fares and ancillary offers from the approximately 275 airlines using the solution.   “Deploying Travelport+ supports our commitment to deliver travel management solutions which are innovative, yet cost-effective”, said Dr Siddeek Ahmed, Chairman & Managing Director at ITL World. “Travelport+ will enable us to simplify complex travel retailing processes, respond with agility to the needs of all our customers, and create increased value.”   Kathryn Wallington, Head of Middle East & Africa at Travelport said: “We are proud to be partnering with a market leading travel management company like ITL World. We will continue to work closely with ITL World to enhance capabilities, improve pain points and ensure we are generating value from every trip. ITL World’s upgrade to Travelport+ will also enhance its competitive edge as the industry approaches a full return to travel.”   Founded in the 1980s, ITL World is an award-winning travel …

Accor, a world-leading augmented hospitality group, with more than 400 hotels and resorts across India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, is introducing a bespoke 1 year Sales & Distribution learning program for Saudi Talents across Accor properties in the Kingdom. With over 30 years of presence in the Kingdom, the group is continuously finding new ways to contribute and comply with the Kingdom’s Saudisation vision of 2030. Accor is building strong partnerships with educational institutions, local authorities and NGOs, recruiting Saudi role models to support new recruits and working with the government to provide placements for university students. Learning & Development opportunities are crucial to attracting, recruiting and retaining Saudi talent, with a focus on accelerating career development, Accor has rolled out several initiatives exclusive to the hospitality group, including the Saudi Management Training Programme (SMTP), the first initiative of its kind in the Kingdom, launched in 2014. Fairmont Riyadh –  In June 2021, the Sales & Distribution learning program began for 150 Saudi nationals, “Heartists”, across the Kingdom with the objective of building a new sales generation in compliance with local regulations. Participants of this immersive program benefit from the opportunity to acquire and build competencies in sales knowledge and skills, interaction and learning from peers and subject matter experts, and can participate in the program from any business function. The program will be taking place virtually and participants will be enrolled through Accor’s digital platform, INES. Over the four months before being certified, each participant will have to attend 3 sessions and only successful participants will be part of the second phase of the Sales Up-Skilling program starting in October 2021. Sofitel Al Khobar – “Learning and Development …

Travelport, a worldwide leader in travel retail, today announced it has appointed Tom Kershaw as its new Chief Product and Technology Officer. Tom is a seasoned product and technology executive, with more than two decades of experience leading innovation, technical strategy and execution within both emerging and mature organizations undergoing transformation. He most recently held the title of Chief Technology Officer at one of the largest independent advertising platforms in the world, Magnite, Inc. (which recently acquired SpotX, following the merger between Telaria and Rubicon Project in 2020). In the role, Tom restructured and led an engineering and product team of approximately 600 developers, overseeing the integration of product and engineering into a common organization. While at Rubicon Project, in 2017, Tom also co-founded Prebid.org, an open-source software organization dedicated to cultivating a new standard for cooperation in independent advertising exchanges to address industry challenges by facilitating collaboration and innovation. He grew the organization to more than 100 corporate members, over 1,000 contributing engineers and thousands of web publishers, and lead prebid.js to become the dominant form of advertising monetization on the Internet. Prior to Rubicon Project, Tom was a Director of Product Management at Google where he led the Google Ads and Commerce product team in the APAC region, overseeing all global products built for publishers and buyers.  While at Google, Tom also led product management for the Google Cloud platform where he focused on infrastructure development and was heavily involved in re-structuring Cloud infrastructure pricing. During his career, Tom has also held leadership positions at Ericsson, VeriSign Inc., and Unisys Corporation. Greg Webb, Chief Executive Officer at Travelport, said: “As Travelport+ is the central focus of our strategy, …

Innovative flight compensation company, Colibra, is now live for users in the United Arab Emirates to use. For the first time the ‘Fly Now, Pay if Okay’ service allows passengers with a valid UAE residency to book flights that they only pay for if their flight arrives on time. They now have the privilege to be the first in the world to use the pilot version of the product and test this disruptive travel technology. The Colibra app guarantees UAE residents that if the flight is cancelled or delayed for more than three hours, passengers do not have to pay for their plane tickets at all. This service is entirely free for users of the app, allowing them to book tickets within 30 days before departure (and arrival) and then pay the regular ticket fare if their flight arrives on time or within three hours of its scheduled departure. The Colibra app is now available to download on the Apple Store for IOS users, as well as on the Google Play Store for Android users. How the app works: The passenger chooses a flight – it must depart and arrive within 30 days from booking date Adds his/her personal data – Colibra doesn’t charge at the time of booking Colibra charges the passenger upon arrival if everything goes smoothly and the service is delivered (ticket’s price is at no extra cost). In all other cases, the user travels for FREE.

Sabre Corporation recognized the needs of clients during this challenging time and the necessity to innovate quickly, reported by a survey by McKinsey. The Company took rapid action to employ technology and resources to transform to digital-only onboarding (integrating and acquainting customers with the Sabre platform), ensuring that the delivery was quick, simple and efficient for customers, from airlines to agencies. Typically, implementation processes involve working hand and hand with the customer on the data migration, holding a comprehensive series of face-to-face meetings and training sessions, and thereby quickly establishing a good communication and trust between all parties, something that is critical for the change management. Having to change to a virtual-only implementation process almost overnight involved rapid transformation, innovation and adaptability. “When Sabre was thrust into the remote work environment, we did not let our inability to physically work side-by-side with our customers get in the way of delivering on our commitments,” said Cem Tanyel, Chief Services Officer at Sabre Travel Solutions. “The way in which our teams at Sabre and our customers have collaborated to pioneer complex migrations virtually is truly impressive. Through adaptability, agility and innovation, we have been able to deliver successful implementations under new and challenging circumstances. We have gained valuable insights that have and will continue to change the way in which we operate in the years to come.” On the airline front, since the beginning of the pandemic, multiple airlines, including ASKY, which is the first Sabre-hosted carrier in the west and central African market, Croatia Airlines, Gulf Air, and Vietnam Airlines, successfully migrated to Sabre Revenue Optimizer, Sabre’s leading revenue optimization solution, via remote delivery. Croatia Airlines migrated in August 2020. Implementation …

dnata Travel is revealing the top destinations UAE travellers are booking for a summer holiday in 2021. Experts at the UAE-based travel brand, part of the dnata Travel Group, are revealing where travellers from the UAE are seeking to take a break between July and October 2021, with a focus on destinations with clear regulations, no rules for quarantine on arrival, and direct flight options. The top ten most booked holiday destinations for summer 2021 at the time of publishing include the Indian Ocean islands of the Maldives, Seychelles and Zanzibar; European city, beach and countryside hotspots across Turkey, Greece, Russia, Georgia, Italy and Cyprus; and travel to popular locations in the USA including Orlando, Florida and New York, New York. Emily Jenkins, Head of Leisure UAE at dnata Travel, commented, “Ahead of the summer travel season, we have witnessed a surge in destinations easing requirements and opening up for vaccinated travellers. With the UAE’s impressive vaccination drive, our residents have seen the number of destinations open for them to explore increase significantly. Traveller confidence has also grown, particularly in travel to destinations which have been open for some time and with clear regulations, offer quarantine-free travel, and direct flights. An ideal example of this is the number one international destination of choice for summer 2021, the Maldives, which has been open for UAE travellers since July 2020. “Traveller confidence and interest in travel to Europe is at an all-time high, as its popular locations continue to open for international tourists. Each country has its own set of guidelines, yet trends remain consistent in eased requirements for vaccinated travellers. Most popular for travel from the UAE include Turkey, Greece and …