Category Archives: Technology

OYO Hotels & Homes have announced multilingual support for its customer app (Android and iOS) and mobile web platforms. With a consumer-first approach backed by innovative technology, through its newly launched multilingual support on the customer app and mobile web platforms, OYO aims to offer a hassle-free and customized booking experience to millions of users across the world. With Arabic language support, OYO aims to extend support to more users in UAE and reach out to the growing number of internet users. The Change Language Functionality will enable users to simply switch from English to Arabic and enjoy customized yet quality booking experience. Commenting on the launch, Anil Goel, Group Chief Technology & Product Officer, OYO Hotels & Homes, said, “At OYO, customer experience is a priority. Being a tech-driven hospitality business, we leverage the right technology and talent to deliver predictable, affordable, good quality stay experiences for everyday travelers and city dwellers. With this multilingual support, we aim to make user interactions hassle-free and convenient, further adding to the overall customer experience across the world. We believe that Arabic language support will make us more accessible to customers in UAE.”    

A decade after introducing corporate travel solutions to businesses in the region, Sharjah-based Musafir.com is on course to revolutionise the corporate travel industry with its brand new, state-of-the-art corporate booking tool, designed to streamline the relationship between the premium travel website and their corporate clients. The region’s  sole homegrown travel provider aims to usher its 900+ corporate clients into a new age of business travel with this augmentation to their unrivalled portfolio of services. In a bid to modernise business, the new online tool will feature Advanced travel policies: These help companies stay on budget with 20+ control checks including airlines, cities, classes, refundability and rating. Automated profiles: This allows for the efficient import of all employee passport details and preferences or connect with single sign-on. Easy to track spends: Tags are used to monitor spends and segregate them by department, designation, cost centre, travel intent and more. Paperless approvals: Detailed approval requests are sent to line managers and CEOs with one-click processing. According to Musafir.com, these key features coupled with the ability to obtain real-time reports and insights, are likely to result in up to 20 percent travel budget savings for clients.  “We have invested heavily in end-to-end automation on the corporate travel front. From the booking process to the reporting, we’ve leveraged algorithmic machine learning to make business travel a seamless experience,” says Sachin Gadoya, CEO, Musafir.com. “As we continue to grow technologically, we will also branch out geographically. We’re steadily expanding further into the Middle East and India markets and are in talks to progress into key economies in South East Asia as well.”  

As the next step in its continuing support for Qantas’ New Distribution Capability, including the Qantas Distribution Platform (QDP), Travelport, a leading technology company serving the travel industry, has begun handling its first bookings with Qantas using IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) standard. The bookings are being made through Travelport Smartpoint in a live production test environment as Qantas prepares distribution of differentiated NDC content from late 2019. This NDC connection to Qantas is the first by any GDS to the carrier and enables live bookings of NDC content to be made by selected agency partners taking part in the testing programme, including ATPI Corporate Travel, Globetrotter and Travel Beyond. The development is part of the airline’s plans for the QDP which is dedicated to offering an improved customer experience through enhanced and personalised content tailored to meet travellers’ unique needs. Having been the first GDS to make a live NDC booking in October 2018, Travelport has already connected to five European airlines’ NDC content. It will follow up with an API NDC connection channel through Travelport’s Trip Service API with Qantas’ content among the first to be available through this channel. The Trip Service API is also currently part of a testing programme with an Australia-based online travel agency successfully coding to it. Scott Barber, Managing Director Australia and New Zealand at Travelport, commented, “Qantas shares our vision that NDC has the potential to enhance the travel experience for its customers, offering personalised and differentiated choice and a seamless booking experience.” Peter Muller, International Board Director at ATPI Corporate Travel, added, “It’s great to be part of the team pioneering NDC for the Asia-Pacific region. We’re pleased to see …

Nor1, the global leader in hospitality upgrade, upsell, and merchandising technology, has announced the launch of game-changing merchandising features to their flagship product, eStandby. These inventory-based guest communications trigger bookings and upsell, and have driven conversion rates above 25 per cent, creating significant increases in revenues, direct to properties. “Today’s guests demand and deserve absolute transparency in the booking process,” says Jason G. Bryant, Founder and CEO, Nor1. “Accuracy and useful information are key. Our technology is different than anything else on the market because it reflects actual real-time inventory through our two-way integration. We serve up relevant data-driven offers based on a micro-segmented machine learning approach, as well as highlight what is in high-demand by others to prompt guests to make quicker and more confident buying decisions. Even without integration, we still know how many guests have requested an offer, or which offer is most likely to convert based on what similar guests have requested, or what hotels have awarded most.” Powered by machine learning, eStandby and its confirmed upsell sister product eXpress Upgrade, enable hotels to maximise revenue and drive real operational efficiencies to generate the highest ROI on upselling technology in the industry. The new merchandising banner features are designed to inspire guests to convert based on influencial buying triggers such as scarcity of product, popular demand, or customised offers. Jason adds, “By leveraging some of the top performing merchandising and recommendation mechanisms that travellers see and respond to on booking sites like Expedia, our latest enhancements level the playing field for hoteliers in their competition with third parties.”

Following the success of the first ever City-Experience Mini Programme launched by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing in collaboration with WeChat, the programme has been further enhanced with the launch of 10 new digital audio tours which are now available for visitors to use while exploring the city. Inviting the users of China’s most popular social networking site to easily access Dubai’s tourist attractions during their stay, the newly re-branded ‘Dubai Mini Assistant’ elevates the existing programme to a more advanced digital maturity, now offering sophisticated chatbot capabilities, powered by Tencent’s AI technology, to provide seamless experiences and services to Chinese travellers. With robust growth in overnight visitors from China in the first quarter of 2019, the new audio tours further add to the ease of accessibility for these tourists when visiting Dubai, allowing them to discover the city’s many historic sites and cultural landmarks through their mobile phones. Reconfirming its continued commitment to one of the emirate’s top source markets, Dubai Mini Assistant forms part of the Department’s city-wide ‘China Readiness’ strategy, focused on designing an enriching and memorable experience for Chinese travellers. Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), said, “China is quickly emerging as one of the fastest growing source markets for Dubai’s tourism industry, with the city welcoming more than 290,000 visitors in the first three months of the year, representing a stellar 13 per cent increase when compared to the same period in 2018.”  

Al Murshed Travel and Tourism has inked an exclusive deal with Sabre Corporation to gain continued access to Sabre’s portfolio of innovative technology and its intelligent platform Sabre Red 360, allowing it to effectively harness data and deliver superior content to its travellers.  This unique technology will help enable the travel company to differentiate its offering, compete more effectively and grow faster in the region, as well as expand into the online sector. “As its long-standing technology partner, we are committed to supporting its plans to enter the online space and providing industry leading technology to support its growth. This is aligned with our desire to empower travel companies to become true travel consultants, and to grow and compete with global players,” said Abdul-Razzaq Iyer, Vice President, Sabre Travel Network Middle East. As a key part of its goal to leverage the growth of online travel in the Middle East, Al Murshed Travel is investing in the latest technology and solutions to advance the services and content it offers its travellers. “We are working to leverage its expertise and innovations to grow in the online space and serve our customers even better and more efficiently in the future,” said Salah Al Murshed, Commercial Director, Al Murshed Travel and Tourism.  

One of the leading travel agencies in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Al Khunaizi Travel, has signed a long-term agreement with Sabre Corporation, the leading technology provider to the global travel industry. Under this agreement, Al Khunaizi will continue to access Sabre’s marketplace of more than 400 airlines, 750,000 hotel properties, and hundreds of tour operators, rail, car and cruise providers, giving Al Khunaizi the opportunity to sell personalised travel packages from suppliers all over the world. The agency accesses the marketplace through the Sabre Red 360 platform, which features a customisable and intuitive user experience using data-driven insights to guide travel consultants. “New technology is driving changes in consumer behaviour and traveller expectations, and there’s now a greater demand for more personalised services,” said Ammar Al Khunaizi, CEO, Al Khunaizi Travel. “Sabre’s advanced technology and expertise, combined with its skilled team, have helped optimise our business, and cemented our position as a pioneer in delivering new traveller experiences. We look forward to growing with Sabre and delivering a superior personalised travel service to our customers.” “As traveller expectations evolve, so must the travel industry, and travel management companies that embrace advancements in data, online and mobile will continue to stay relevant in today’s fast-changing world,” said Abdul-Razzaq Iyer, Vice President, Sabre Travel Network Middle East. “Our advanced technology and network of travel suppliers will help Al Khunaizi to offer a wealth of choice to its travellers and provide personalised and seamless traveller experiences.”

Sam, FCM’s ground-breaking ‘Smart Assistant for Mobile’ is now available to its clients in the Middle East.  An industry first, Sam is technology that entirely enhances a traveller’s experience whilst on the go. The mobile app blends a powerful mix of Artificial Intelligence with the expertise of real FCM travel consultants to deliver personalised, relevant information to business travellers’ mobile devices through a chat-based interface. The highly interactive, travel-savvy app supports business travellers with all aspects of travel via a conversational interface to answer questions, make recommendations and perform actions before, during and post trip. As of now, two versions of Sam are available to FCM clients and business travellers in the Middle East:  A premium version exclusively for FCM customers with additional features that are configured for these customers as part of their tailored rollout. These premium features include auto-synching the traveller’s bookings, integrated self-booking tool, live chat with an FCM consultant to provide service and make or amend bookings on the move; weather, restaurants, traveller tips and the option for the user to ‘share location’ as part of a mobile duty of care feature.  A basic free version  enables any user to add their trips manually, view weather, traffic and flight alerts, and connect with local ground transport options. Ciarán Kelly, Managing Director Middle East & Africa, FCM Travel Solutions, commented, “As a leading global TMC, we are the first to offer AI to our business travellers, and our Middle Eastern clients are now using Sam’s ground-breaking interactive and supportive features while they are on the move. Sam supports the business traveller, and the Travel Arranger in an organisation, understanding and reacting to their circumstances and enhancing their …

Global Travel and Tourism, one of the leading travel agencies in the Kingdom of Bahrain, has signed an exclusive multi-year agreement with Sabre Corporation to continue use of its innovative technology and platform to manage travel. Under this agreement, Global Travel will continue to access Sabre’s portfolio of innovative technology and its intelligent platform Sabre Red 360, allowing it to harness more data, content and flexibility to differentiate its offering, compete more effectively and grow faster in the region. “As a key customer for Sabre for more than a decade, we’re thrilled to continue to support the future growth and plans of Global Travel,” said Abdul Razzaq-Iyer, Vice President, Sabre Travel Network Middle East. “We are constantly evolving our technology, enabling us to offer agencies faster innovation and more flexible solutions infused with data-driven insights.” Online travel is growing significantly in the Middle East driven by high adoption for consumer technologies and high expectations from the travel players. Studies indicate that online travel bookings represent approximately 32 per cent of the overall ME travel market and this is projected to reach 40 percent by 2021. “We are delighted to renew our long-standing partnership with Sabre to support our plans to enter the online space,” said Suhaib Kidwai, CEO, Global Travel and Tours. “We have enjoyed a very successful long-standing partnership with Sabre and now it’s time to extend this privilege to use their global expertise to establish our online presence in the region. We are sure Sabre is the right partner to lead us through this transition and trust that it has the technology, expertise and the right team to make this happen.”

Etihad Airways and Swae, an award-winning startup based in Vancouver, have partnered to launch iFikra, an artificial intelligence-powered platform aimed at unlocking the full potential of Etihad’s workforce by enabling every employee to contribute to innovation. Designed to harness the collective creativity of the organisation, the iFikra platform is a pilot aimed at promoting intrapreneurship by allowing employees to propose innovative solutions to address Etihad’s ongoing business challenges and untapped opportunities. Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Aviation Group, launched the new platform, reaffirming the importance of innovation within the organisation. He said, “We recognise that there is an abundance of great ideas right here in our organisation and no one knows our business better than our employees, so we developed this tool to give them the platform they need to innovate.” The new platform leverages artificial intelligence to support and augment written business proposals generated by staff, while enabling an open feedback and collaboration learning loop, based on the principles of transparency and meritocracy, to help escalate the best ideas forward efficiently. For the first time, employees have the power to shape organisational strategy by voting, commenting and providing constructive feedback on their colleague’s ideas, playing a direct role in the decision-making process.  Ideas that ‘graduate‘ from the platform will be provided with seed funding and support through Innovate Lab, Etihad’s innovation lab. The Lab supports rapid trial and iteration of promising ideas and projects, accelerating the delivery of prototypes, pilots, proof of concepts and minimum viable products. Soushiant Zangenehpour, Chief Executive Officer of Swae, said, “We’re excited to partner with Etihad on this integration of Swae. We believe Swae’s platform can help Etihad improve the inclusivity and …