HomeAway, Tripvillas join forces to bring more holiday rental options for vacationers

Holiday accommodation website, Tripvillas, and leading online marketplace for holiday rentals, HomeAway, Inc., have inked a partnership that gives travellers access to more than 2,000 holiday homes across the Asia Pacific region, including popular destinations like Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia.

“With the interest in Asia-Pacific vacation destinations increasing dramatically, we are happy to work with HomeAway to bring some of the best private family-owned homes on our site to global travellers,” said Tripvillas chief executive officer and founder, Roshan D’ Silva.

HomeAway chief executive officer, Brian Sharples, said the partnership with Tripvillas would enable vacationers to experience more options than ever when visiting Asia-Pacific

The 2,000-plus Asia Pacific holiday homes listed on Tripvillas are now available to book on HomeAway sites, includingHomeAway.com, VRBO.com, HomeAway.co.uk, HomeAway.es and Abritel.com. All bookings will continue to be fully protected by the Tripvillas Protection service, where the rent is disbursed to the owner only after the traveller physically inspects the property.

BTSocial makes business travel more social and personal

Business travellers can now connect with like-minded professionals and make new friends in the process with BTSocial, which recently launched the first social travel app for business trips.

The app allows business travellers to share travel locations to meet like-minded travellers while on the road.

“Business travellers can now find current friends and colleagues and meet new ones through the app,” said Tim Hines, BTSocial president. “The app is for business travellers looking to get out of their hotel rooms and create a social experience by meeting other travellers in real life.”

Built for the mobile web the app is accessible on web-enabled phones, tablets and traditional web browsers.

“We built a responsive app so that it works on any device business travellers prefer,” said Karl Jackson, BTSocial CTO. “All of our features, including check-ins, function on any device. Plus users can avoid the clutter of a multitude of apps on their devices.”

Users can check-in to any location around the world, whether it is a specific venue or an entire city. Once checked-in, they are visible to other users within the vicinity.

Users can also use the Trips feature to plan to network during their travel downtime. Unlike other travel apps it does not ask for your itinerary, but focuses on the gaps of time during trips. When users create a trip they can enter gaps like layovers or time between meetings to meet other travellers. This feature also allows users to see other travellers who share similar gaps of time to entice meeting up.

Strong growth for AirAsia X in Q1 2013

AirAsia X, the longhaul affiliate of AirAsia, recorded strong growth in Q1 2013, carrying 650,000 passengers, an increase of 20.9% over the same period in 2012.

In terms of passenger traffic the airline recorded 3.3 billion Revenue-Passenger-Kms (RPKs) in Q1 2013 while capacity was at 3.9 billion, resulting in a load factor of 84% and solidifying its position as the second-largest low cost carrier in Southeast Asia after AirAsia.

Its RPKs and Average-Seat-Kms (ASKs) increased by 21.7% and 26.7% respectively, compared with Q1 2012 for continuing routes.

Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X (pictured left), said the airline would continue to focus on increasing capacity in its core markets including Australia, China, Taiwan Korea, and Japan.

“The addition of seven aircraft in 2013 will see AirAsia X expand further in the long-haul segment across Asia Pacific.” he added.

Azran said AirAsia X is also seeking ways to maximise its passenger revenue, and develop new ancillary revenue streams. “We aim to grow our fleet of new fuel efficient aircraft to meet passenger demand and our expanding route mix and continue to implement initiatives to strengthen operations quality and cost structure.”.

AirAsia X’s fleet as ofMarch 31 this year remains at nine Airbus A330s and two Airbus A340s, while the 10th A330 was delivered last month.