The Wrap is a round-up of news in the travel and technology industries, and to keep track of developments in these sectors as businesses adapt and reset to meet challenges in the era of coronavirus.
Marriott brings its hospitality experience to South-east Asia through partnership with Grab
Marriott International and South-east Asia’s leading superapp Grab have formed what they called the “first-of-its-kind integrated partnership”.
The deal will see the two companies collaborating across multiple verticals including food delivery, transport, payments, advertising as well as loyalty and rewards.
This is Marriott’s first extensive integration with a super app platform in South-east Asia and Grab’s most comprehensive agreement with a hospitality group, said both companies in a statement.
Through this partnership Marriot will integrate into Grab’s platform in phases across food delivery, payment, transport, loyalty and rewards, as well as advertising. The hotel group will also have access to the app’s customer base via GrabFood, GrabPay and GrabAds
Starting this month GrabFood is featuring about 600 restaurants and bars from the Marriott’s portfolio in six South-east Asian markets, and customers can enjoy food delivery from these outlets. They can pay for the orders through GrabPay at selected Marriott hotels.
Grab and Marriott will link their respective loyalty programmes, GrabRewards Marriott Bonvoy. From Q1 2021 Grab customers and Marriott Bonvoy members will be able to enjoy two-way points transfer, allowing them to convert GrabRewards points to Marriott Bonvoy points and vice versa.
In what Grab described as a “first in Singapore”, travellers will be able to make cashless payments through GrabPay at participating Marriott hotels from Q1 next year. F&B outlets that accept GrabPay can soon also access Grab’s Merchant Discovery feature to notify nearby guests of participating hotels about ongoing promotions and events.
As part of the agreement, both Marriott and Grab will also launch joint marketing campaigns utilising GrabAds solutions.
These initiatives are rolling out in Singapore this month, and will expanded in phases across the other South-east Asian markets – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
“The breadth of our collaboration reflects our value as a platform of choice in supporting global brands on their digitalisation journey in the new normal,” said Russell Cohen, Grab’s group managing director of Operations.
Rajeev Menon, Marriott’s president, Asia Pacific (excluding China), added that the group’s collaboration with Grab “is one way we are designing a more seamless travel experience” for its guests.
Trip.com Group’s live streaming events raise millions, sees steady domestic recovery
China’s Trip.com Group is currently hosting a month-long LIVE for Trip campaign from October 10 until November 11 as part of its Travel On initiative to support the recovery of international travel and celebrate its 21st anniversary.
The online travel services provider company said in a statement a marathon four-hour BOSS live show in the Chinese city of Chengdu on October 28, hosted by Trip.com Group’s chairman and co-founder James Liang, generated a cumulative transaction volume of over US$56 million and attracted 19.7 million viewers.
According to the Trip.com, the BOSS show and other regional live streaming events held since 23 March has raised around US$360 million in GMV (gross merchandise value), attracting more than 150 million global viewers.
Trip.com is collaborating with more than 100 hotel brands, including InterContinental, Accor, Hyatt, Shimao and Shangri-La, in the campaign, as well as showcasing destinations around the world.
Since the start of the pandemic the group has been working with numerous global companies to resuscitate the travel industry, and Travel On launched on June 22 at a Facebook ‘live’ virtual event is one such initiatives. It said that it has invested more than US$150 million in the travel industry to help in its recovery.
Meanwhile, Trip.com stated that it is seeing a steady progress in domestic travel recovery from bookings on its platforms. During China’s October Golden Week holidays the transaction volumes of short-haul hotel bookings increase by almost 60% year-on-year. The overall GMV of hotels grow by 300% in the four days before the Golden Week holiday, compared with this year’s May Day holiday.
“These are optimistic signs for travel recovery in domestic markets and, as travel restrictions are eased, provide strength to the recovery of international travel,” it added..
BIDTravel joins Sabre to drive its digital transformation
Southern Africa’s largest travel network, BIDTravel, is working with Sabre on its digital transformation journey through the inking of a long-term technology agreement.
BIDTravel is the cluster head of Rennies BCD Travel, Quadrel Travel Management t/a CWT, Travel Connections and Harvey World Travel providing travel management services to corporate businesses and leisure travellers.
The agreement enables the comapany’s agents to leverage the technology, data-driven insights and intuitive interface of the travel agency desktop Sabre Red 360, allowing them to further enhance the consultative services to travellers.
BIDTravel will also be able to tap into the technology to accelerate through the current low-demand period due to the pandemic.
CEO of BIDTravel Lidia Folli said the company, “after an extensive selection process”, chose Sabre to drive the digital transformation of its business due to the latter’s “relevance of its platform” and the “effectiveness of its APIs.”
“As the largest travel network in Southern Africa we need technology that is scalable, while enabling us to deliver a service that is personalised, cost-effective and consistent through every touchpoint,” she added.
Salman Syed, Sabre’s vice president EMEA, Travel Solutions, said the company’s partnership model for migration meant an on-time implementation even during the current turbulent times. “We mobilised our global teams across five different time zones virtually to accelerate this ‘go-live’; having the right technology in place will now help BIDTravel’s agents rebuild consumer confidence to travel while crafting differentiated experiences.”
Sabre recently announced the development of Sabre Travel AI TM, a technology that infuses withartificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to deliver relevant and personalised content to meet the changing demands of traveller.
Cebu Pacific extends booking validity until year end
The Philippines largest carrier Cebu Pacific (CEB) is giving its passengers options to extend their bookings until December 31 to give them more flexibility in rescheduling their travel.
The following options are available for passengers:
• The Travel Fund (virtual wallet), valid for two years, can be used to book flights up to 12 months provided transactions are done before the fund expires, meaning booking for trips until 2023. It can be used for flights (full cost of the ticket) and for purchasing ancillaries such as baggage allowance and seat blocking.
• Passengers may opt to rebook their flights many times, allowing passengers to better manage their travel plans. If applicable, a minimal fare difference may apply.
• Passengers with cancelled flights can have the options to place the ticket’s full cost in the Travel Fund, unlimited rebooking of flights with rebooking fee and fare difference waived if the new travel date is within 90 days, or getting a full refund.
Candice Iyog, CEB vice president for marketing & customer experience, said the options would give passengers more flexibility to schedule their travel.
• Featured image credit (W Singapore Sentosa Cove): Marriott International
