Category Archives: Technology

The UN Migration Agency (IOM) and Turkish Airlines have signed a long-term partnership agreement for the promotion of safe, orderly and regular migration. The deal has been signed between General William Swing, Director IOM and M İlker Aycı, Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee, Turkish Airlines. The cooperation will focus on the organisation’s migration application (MigApp), which leverages the widespread use of telecommunications technology to provide practical information about services available to the migrants globally. “The agreement opens a whole range of possibilities for cooperation both in terms of Turkish Airlines’ commitment to social responsibility and our own commitments to migrants and refugees. It will allow us to do a lot in terms of informing migrants, promoting their rights and training to sensitise airline officials to smuggling and trafficking — one of the heinous crimes of our times.” Swing said. Commenting on the partnership, Aycı said, “As the national flag carrier of Turkey, we are glad to strengthen our collaboration with IOM. Through this agreement, we see a way to promote the idea of living together in peace and travelling freely and legally as envisioned under the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.”

Travelport has announced signing a new multi-year content agreement with Etihad Airways. The deal involves continued use of the company’s leading merchandising tools, Travelport Rich Content and Branding and Travelport Sponsored Flights, as well as its business intelligence solutions for airlines, Travelport Business Intelligence. Further, Etihad has also renewed its contract with Travelport Digital to continue to extend their digital reach and deliver innovative mobile services to its customers. Etihad, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, uses Travelport Rich Content and Branding to provide Travelport’s 68,000 connected agencies with a graphically-rich experience when searching for and booking its branded fares, as well as greater access to its ancillary offers. The Travelport Sponsored Flights digital media offering is then used by the airline to further promote its flight options through highly-targeted advertising solutions. Travelport Business Intelligence is used by Etihad to arm its sales, marketing and network-planning teams with the information required to respond effectively to industry change, minimise operating costs and increase profits.

Sabre Corporation has announced the launch of Business Travel Services, the new consolidated solution suite from Sabre Hospitality Solutions offering hoteliers easy-to-use tools with time-saving automations and simplified processes, access to industry insights and expert guidance, unlimited access to travel management companies and consortia partners – all in one place. InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is set to be one of the first hotel companies to use this solution. Business Travel Services will be available to hoteliers of all sizes from Summer 2019. The suite will consist of three historically separate elements that connect both sides of the corporate market – Nexus platform: A system of record for hotel groups used to manage all corporate contracts, sales performance and planning across teams and properties. Sabre Hotel RFP: An exclusive lead-generation tool that manages corporate business travel for more than 2,700 of the most travelled companies in the world. Corporate travel buyers make bids for properties to accept. Consortia Services: A tool that provides access and services to hotels looking to complete submissions to the top 30 consortia programmes. “As we listened to customers, it was clear there was a need for a more holistic approach to corporate hotel bookings,” said Clinton Anderson, President, Sabre Hospitality Solutions. “By combining our existing offerings and collaborating with IHG to further develop this solution suite, we will provide hoteliers, from enterprise to independent, the opportunity to make their rates available to a much broader audience.” “IHG has a long history of digital and technological innovation – and we’re currently rolling out our own hotel management tool, IHG Concerto, which allows us to partner with a range of solution providers. So, choosing to work with Sabre …

Travelport is using new cloud technology for the onboarding and management of new car rental content, provided through Travelport’s new partnership with AutoEurope. Travelport’s cloud-based platform enables quicker content acquisition, with AutoEurope’s content available through Travelport’s commerce platform within six months of the agreement being made. This increased speed and partnership approach will become the benchmark for future content addition, as well as providing a model to enable Travelport to grow and evolve with its customers. Commenting on the use of cloud technology, Travelport’s Chief Architect, Mike Croucher, said, “We’re constantly looking at how the deployment of new technologies can improve the way our platform delivers for our customers. Through using cloud-based management, we’ve significantly decreased the time-to-market for our new rental car content, bringing increased choice to our customers and their customers faster than before.” On Travelport’s partnership with AutoEurope, VP and Global Head of Rental Car and Ground Transport Sourcing, Steve Matise said: “The growth of our car business is a key pillar of Travelport’s content strategy and we’re delighted to have partnered with AutoEurope, who are a global leader in supplying rental cars. The ability to pre-pay for rental cars is common in many parts of the world, meaning this new partnership offers real choice for our customers and their customers.” AutoEurope provides car rental services at over 20,000 locations in 180 countries, globalizing Travelport’s bookable car content and increasing choice and flexibility for Travelport’s agency partners. Travelport’s XML solution for car enables the display of car providers content in the way they prefer to sell it.

Travelport and IBM have introduced IBM Travel Manager, an industry-first AI platform designed to help business manage corporate travel spend. Delivered via the IBM Cloud, the platform uses IBM Watson capabilities to track, manage, predict and analyse travel costs in one place to fundamentally change how companies manage and optimise their travel programmes. With annual global business travel spend estimated to reach a record $1.2 trillion this year, as projected by the Global Business Travel Association, corporate travel managers continue to look for new ways to reduce costs. Currently for businesses to get a full picture of travel patterns a travel manager might have to sift through data silos from travel agencies, cards, expense systems and suppliers for end-to-end visibility of spend and compliance across all travel subcategories but this is usually undertaken in a historical view rather than in real time. The new platform features advanced artificial intelligence, and provides cognitive computing, predictive data analytics using “what-if” type scenarios, and integrated travel and expense data to help travel management teams, procurement category managers, business units, finance and human resource departments optimize their travel program, control spend and enhance the end-traveler experience. IBM Travel Manager gives users complete, unified access to previous siloed information, which, when combined with travel data from the Travelport global distribution system (GDS), is then used to create real-time predictive analytics recommending how adjustments in travel booking behavior patterns can positively impact a company’s travel budget.

Amadeus has acquired TravelClick from Thoma Bravo, an equity investment firm, for US $1.52bn. TravelClick provides innovative cloud-based solutions, including an independent and mid-size hotel Central Reservation System (CRS) and Guest Management Solution (GMS), as well as business intelligence and media solutions. This portfolio gives hotels distribution reach across all channels, both digital and traditional. It also allows them to improve digital interaction with guests, increase revenues and performance, reduce cost and create a strong brand. The addition of TravelClick’s solutions to the Amadeus portfolio will create a hospitality leader providing a broad range of innovative technology to hotels and chains of all sizes across the globe. As part of the acquisition, approximately 1,100 TravelClick employees are expected to join Amadeus. “TravelClick has a great team, great technology and a broad customer base, and we are looking forward to welcoming such a successful business into Amadeus,” said Luis Maroto, President and CEO of Amadeus. “Our ambition is to provide the hospitality industry with the tools they need to grow their businesses and deliver a great experience to their guests. The combination of our two portfolios will allow us to provide that to hotels of all shapes and sizes across the world.” “This deal marks the next stage in TravelClick’s incredible journey of success in delivering groundbreaking solutions for hoteliers,” said Larry Kutscher, CEO of TravelClick. “I couldn’t be more proud of our team or more excited about the impact our combined companies will have on the hospitality industry as we begin to deliver the next generation of innovation for hoteliers.”

Wego and Airbnb have announced a partnership to include properties listed on Airbnb in Wego search results in a move to offer Wego users more accommodation choices. With the addition of listings on Airbnb, travellers using the Wego metasearch apps and websites will have easier access to a wide range of local homes and other unique types of accommodation in destinations worldwide. Wego users simply have to enter their destination city and dates of travel, and to follow the recommended filters to search for a wide array of Airbnb vacation rentals. This announcement comes at a time when MENA based travellers and inbound visitors to the MENA region, have demonstrated an appetite for innovative travel experiences and cost-effective holiday options. As the leading travel metasearch player across the MENA region, Wego helps users to quickly compare the widest possible range of accommodation options available in the marketplace, including hotels, serviced apartments, homes and villas and to compare rates across local and global travel agencies, hotel direct websites and other merchants. Anna Trushkina, Director, Hotels at Wego, commented, “We are excited to be entering into this partnership with Airbnb which will significantly expand the supply of alternative accommodation on Wego and which is perfectly matched with types of demand we see from Saudi Arabia and the other GCC markets. Analysis of search and booking data from across the 60 countries worldwide that Wego operates, shows that users from GCC countries have the longest length of stay, highest spend per night and most frequent instance of multiple room bookings to accommodate family groups. We also know that many families from the GCC place a premium on privacy when travelling.”

As corporate travel behaviour continues to evolve in the Middle East, Amadeus has launched a new corporate self-booking tool to support business travellers in the Middle East and North Africa in managing busy schedules while reducing travel costs. The engine was designed taking into account feedback from travel management companies and business travel trends in the region, recognising that today’s business travellers require the latest technologies to keep them connected, productive and on the move. Amadeus Online Corporate Traveller uses automated processes to integrate all phases of travel management, thereby uniting the business traveller, travel management companies, travel managers, and financial officers with one ultimate shared destination – business success. It is being launched in partnership with BirdRes, a leading B2B application developer including automation tools, which is also a reseller of Amadeus products in India. Antoine Medawar, Vice President, Amadeus MENA, said, “Corporate travellers in the region require quick and convenient tools that meet their business needs—and often demanding schedules. The Amadeus Online Corporate Traveller fulfils these requirements by connecting the traveller with every person involved in the booking process, from the finance team through to the travel management company. This will deliver a seamless experience to the end user while enabling all involved to benefit from more streamlined processes.” Ankur Bhatia, Director, BirdRes, said, “One-stop solutions are in demand in the MENA region as travel management companies seek the most convenient way of meeting the varied needs of their customers. The Amadeus Online Corporate Traveller is suited to the region’s latest travel policies, demonstrating a deep understanding of consumer preferences and needs.”

Travelport has partnered with SecurityMetrics to help agents achieve proof of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance at preferential rates. The online wizard tool for PCI compliance from the SecurityMetrics PCI Customer Portal is a quick and easy option for Travelport-connected agents to get started and complete a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) on their payment processing environment. Merchants and agents can then show proof of compliance through the completion of an Attestation of Compliance. Alexandra Fitzpatrick, VP Travelport Global Payment Solutions, commented, “The ability to demonstrate proof of PCI DSS compliance is key for agencies to be seen as trusted partners to their customers. The PCI DSS certification program in partnership with SecurityMetrics is a simple way for our customers’ businesses to operate within a compliant environment and adhere to regulations”. “We are honored to help protect agents and customers and streamline their PCI compliance process. We believe our security tools, cloud-based PCI compliance module, and award-winning 24/7 support, combine to make the best PCI solution in the world”, said John Bartholomew, SecurityMetrics VP of Technology.

The digital transformation of the hotel guest experience will be a major competitive advantage for hoteliers in 2018, according to a new report from Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR) in cooperation with Altimeter, a leading research firm. The Sabre Hospitality Solutions report found that digital transformation can be challenging for hoteliers and outlines how brands can use it to improve the guest experience. The Digital Transformation of the Hotel Guest Experience goes behind the scenes of the digital transformation initiatives and priorities of top hospitality brands with exclusive executive interviews. Key findings from the new report include, Guest experience transformation is a priority, Digital Darwinism means constant evolution, The Modern Guest Experience Blueprint. The report explores a wide range of areas where hoteliers can improve their digital guest experience strategies and offers data-driven insights and suggestions on how brands can lead the charge in continuing to innovate and meet customer needs. To learn more, download the full report – The Digital Transformation of the Hotel Guest Experience. “Our customers who embrace modernization are having great success, resulting in much higher guest satisfaction,” said Clinton Anderson, president of Sabre Hospitality Solutions. “In order to meet the expectations of today’s tech-savvy consumers, hoteliers must adopt flexible solutions that allow them to further personalize both the guest’s digital and physical experience. This report not only outlines trends we’ve seen in the space, but it also provides step-by-step guidelines for hotels to enhance their technology plans.” “For digital transformation to excel, it must have a purpose. And among the most progressive hoteliers and hospitality brands, that purpose is centered on guest experience,” said Brian Solis, principal analyst and futurist at Altimeter, a Prophet company. “Modern …