Argophilia

Αργοφιλία: For the love of the journey.

Travel Technology

TUI Growth 2014: Real Optimism or Reality Fluff?

Phil Butler

TUI AG, one of the world’s most successful and well known travel tour groups, has just announced their Half Year Financial report. Furthermore, TUI’s CEO, Fritz Joussen now says his company is well positioned for growth. With Europe rapidly becoming a stagnant market over east vs west tensions, just how solid are TUI or any other big tour company’s projections?

Travelers’ Hotel Choices: No Choice At All

Phil Butler

When Google acquired ITA flight software a couple of years back, a group of competitors went ballistic warning of unfair practices by the Internet search and ad giant. Most people back then blew off what FairSearch was contending, this author included. As it turns out, a half dozen court cases won and a lot of water under the hotel search bridge, and potential guests really have no choice at all. Google has rigged the hotel booking game into an ad recommendation one.

Choice Hotels & TripAdvisor Team Up for Mobile Bookings

Aleksandr Shatskih

Choice Hotels just announced being the first hotel chain to partner with TripAdvisor on that company’s new Instant Booking feature. TripAdvisor is currently testing Instant Booking, to empower travelers to complete hotel and other reservations using the TA mobile app and mobile website.

Meta Booking Hybrid Direct Rooms Adds 10 More Languages

Aleksandr Shatskih

Direct Rooms, a leading hybrid meta search entity for hotels, has just announced adding 10 additional languages to their service. According to the company they’re the first ever meta-search engine to offer rooms in Croatian.

Booking.com Releases “Best of Booking’s Best”

Aleksandr Shatskih

Booking.com just revealed their “Best of Booking’s Best” – the accommodations according to some 20 million real, relevant and recent customer reviews. The list provides summer travelers with more insight into the best places to visit and stay in the world.

Thomas Cook Goes to “Go-To” Digital Gurus

Phil Butler

adds digital gurus from around the social/digital web to their advisory board. According to news from TravelMole, hiring marketing guru Remo Masala from Kuoni set the tone for TC’s ongoing upramp into digital.

Q1 Profit and Loss: Weeding Out the OTAs

Phil Butler

In a 2014 economy seemingly stagnated OTAs and other travel businesses are feeling some pain. This is not the case for Priceline Group, which just showed a 1st quarter earnings jump of some 36% on international bookings. However, this company’s gain is evidently Orbitz’s and other digital travel business loss. Are we seeing a “weeding out” of good travel entities versus bad ones?

Five Cool Travel Startups You Maybe Never Heard Of

Phil Butler

The travel startup niche is a lot less active these days than it once was. The big names, TripAdvisor, Kayak, Airbnb, Uber, and a slew of others have snatched the attention and loyalty of many. Right now these, are in a sort of “no holds barred” competition to become the Facebook of travel, with a lot of niche value going on in between. Speaking of niches, there’s a lot of room for traveler utility and for developing to sell startup action too.

Vacation Home Rentals Now Part of TripAdvisor

Aleksandr Shatskih

Vacation Home Rentals has been acquired by TripAdvisor. The Massachusetts vacation rental service’s more than 14,000 properties worldwide become part of the current expansion by the world’s most prolific online travel review site.