In flight news , the Open Allies for Airfare Transparency organization has just released survey results showing the vast majority of online travel agency users want airline fee transparency.
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Mobile Already Edging Out PC Booking: Travel Trends
Recent news indicates that anticipated move toward mobile booking and buying in travel is really already here. As anyone in the developmental end of the hospitality development business already knows, smart device connects will soon represent a disproportionate share of all sales.
Big OTAs and Big Hotels in Price Fixing Lawsuit
A federal lawsuit naming the likes of Expedia, Orbitz, Booking.com, Travelocity, Trump International Hotels Management, Intercontinental, Kimpton, Sabre Holdings, Priceline, Marriott, Starwood, and Hilton alleges the companies conspired to fix hotel room prices. According to the news from Reuters, the suit claims the travel giants did so in an effort to fend off competition from smaller online retailers.
Treovi Opens: Just Book!
A couple of weeks ago we announced hotels could load their inventory onto Treovi. Yesterday the Swiss startup announced having opened their beta doors to guests, inviting the world to not only search desired destination hotels, but to just plain “book!” This niche of travel booking entities is growing pretty fast, but Treovi thinks their model is the only truly free one.
Lifestyle Hotels & Other Booking Filters
Are you looking for something or someone to filter your digital world? Argo Travel News takes a look at another travel accommodation filtering channel, Lifestyle Hotels, with mentions of a few others. If ever there were a need for good suggestion engines, the travel space is in dire need. How do you decide where to go, where to stay, what to do? Let’s look at regional players in travel booking.
Library Hotel Collection Moves With WIHP
Selected to reinvent all Library Hotel Collection’s websites, hotel marketing agency WHIP expands their already considerable brace of interdependent hotel clients with four extraordinary boutiques in New York, and more to come from Budapest to Toronto in the coming weeks. The hospitality sensation of ITB Berlin, WIHP Convert website design renders a result ending the way Every hotel website should look like, at least according to Robin Wauters at The Next Web.
Treovi To Revolutionize the Online Hotel Industry
Revolutionizing the online hotel industry, Treovi reservation service recently announced their main objective of excluding all existing online commissions and founding an equitable collaboration between hotels and their customers. Now this is news.
The Curious Case of Room Key
A news release yesterday via Business Wire tells of conglomerate hotel booking site Room Key’s coming out of Beta status. What’s curious about this news is not so much the fluffy nature of it, but claims of millions having flocked to the startup to book their hotel rooms. At least this is the feel of the announcement. A bit of one of those “non-event” specialties creative PR agencies excel at perhaps? What’s the real story?
Airfasttickets Opens London Office
Airfasttickets, a global online travel agency (OTA) has announced the opening of new offices in London. As part of the company’s overall expansion across Europe, the UK offices will support UK and Ireland serving as a local agent there.
5 Luxury & Lifestyle Sites to Live for
Surfing the web is a pass time for some, a job for others, but a necessity for finding anything good on the web. No matter what service one signs up for, which social network they cotton to, without Googling for some excellence or even relevance, a lot is missed. Argo Travel News tries to bring some surfing gems to you periodically. So here are some luxury sites you may not have skimmed across yet.
Travelport Adds NTV Italian High Speed Rail
Some good news from Travelport, clients will now be able to book rail travel on the much talked about Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV), the first Italian private high-speed railway. The strategic partnership tells of NTV distribution via Galileo-connected travel agencies in Italy and around the world.
1000 More Hotels Join Global Hotel Exchange
In online travel agency (OTA) news, the California Lodging Industry Association (CLIA) and the Independent Lodging Industry Association (ILIA) have added a thousand plus independent hotels to upstart booking platform Global Hotels Exchange (GHX). Even prior to the official launch of GHX, it appears many hotel owners and support organizations are willing to flock to the new channel.
Who’s the Big Bad Wolf of Hotel Marketing?
Just out, the Distribution Channel Analysis study via the American Hotel Lodging Association (AH&LA) and STR, has been released. The detailed study, supposedly aimed at helping “all” hoteliers better understand hotel room distribution, discusses distribution channel mix, among other salient hotel profitability instances. But, is the study really meant for all hoteliers, or just the fat cats?
Ready or Not -Travel Republic Acquired
In online travel news, Travel Republic has been bought by a subsidiary of Emirates Airlines. The deal finalized December 29 was first reported on Reuters telling of Dnata World Travel’s acquisition for an undisclosed sum.
Magnuson’s GHX Adopted by 1000’s Already
In news from PRWeb London, via Digital Journal, Thomas Magnuson’s Global Hotel Exchange (GHX) announced today thousands of hotels adopting the not even released new online travel agency (OTA).
OTA CEOs: Part II
Yesterday we began a series on online travel agency CEOs, and a recent interview conducted by USA TODAY’s Veronica Gould Stoddart and Roger Yu. We analyzed a bit, some key decision makers’ mindset on the question of whether consumers want (will get) richer content from these industry giants during their travel searches. Expedia, Orbitz, TripAdvisor, parent Expedia, Travelocity, and Priceline bosses all had their views there.
US Travel Market Growth Predicted to Stall Next Year
Travel markets in the US have shown a marked improvement this year and are set to recover all the ground lost during the recession which began back in 2007, yet we shouldn’t get too excited as this growth is about to hit a brick wall, reports Travel Weekly.
Hotelbeds Drives Revenue – Gets Rebrand
TUI Travel’s Hotelbeds wholesaler platform says sales may increase by as much as 25 percent this year. Expansion plans for the Americas and Asia were also announced as one of TUI’s most successful arms flexes its muscles.
As Travel Costs Go Up, So Shall Profits…
So far this year, there have to have been 50,000 news reports suggesting profits and growth are headed upward for the travel industry. And on the other hand, many are asking, “How?” Hotels starting to charge for tidbits of service like the airlines, currencies and countries on the brink, and the other side of news suggesting growth is impossible, what are we to believe?
Orbitz Worldwide & Travelport: Ups & Downs
Travelport and Orbitz are in the positive and negative news again today. Travelport for any number of announcements of business dealings, and Orbitz for a very negative S & P rating they just received. Since it was announced that Travelport needed to restructure its dept, it seems as if neither of these online travel giants can catch a break.