Your watch is your flight buddy
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has created an app for Apple Watch that uses AI and motion sensors to give travellers up-to-date information about their flights. The app tells users when their flight is leaving or arriving, which gate to go to, and provides status updates.
The airport aims to make the process of departing, transferring, and arriving less stressful for passengers and will continue to make major investments in digital tools.
Hilton gets chatty with its guests
Hilton is expanding its mobile messaging platform to its more than 7,000 Hilton properties worldwide. The system, developed in partnership with Kipsu, an industry leader in real-time engagement, will enable messaging via the Hilton Honors app, SMS, WhatsApp and LINE, and soon, other messaging channels such as WeChat.
The digital messaging capability will enable a two-way, immediate exchange between guests and hotel teams to answer questions, address concerns and arrange experiences.
Hilton says there has been “a dramatic shift” in traveller communication preferences globally – and reinforces a journey that Asia Pacific was already on, where 65% of consumers prefer to contact businesses via chat rather than over email or phone.
Hilton doubled the number of Kipsu-enabled hotels across Asia Pacific in 2023 to more than 100 properties and saw the monthly volume of messaging conversations triple over the same period.
AirAsia on the MOVE with event tickets
Travel booking app, AirAsia MOVE (formerly airasia Superapp) has teamed up with Coras, a global ticket distribution platform to introduce MOVETIX, to offer 10,000 global events and activities complemented by flights, hotels, rides through one app.
MOVETIX is spearheaded by Hassan Choudhury, who will continue his role as CEO of RedRecords, a joint venture between AirAsia and Universal Music.
To kickstart the launch, StarHub and World Football Legends announced the appointment of MOVETIX as the official ticketing partner of the upcoming StarHub Football Festival on 20 – 21 April 2024 in Our Tampines Hub, Singapore.
The two-day festival features a match featuring English Premier League legends and Singapore legends.
The power of a visa waiver to move people
The 28 January mutual visa waiver agreement between China and Thailand has put the two-way travel market between the two countries into overdrive.
Data insights from Trip.com Group, following the mutual visa waiver agreement, found the search popularity of Thailand-related keywords on its Chinese platform increased by more than seven times month-on-month.
Further, searches for air tickets and hotels increased by more than six times month-on-month, with residents from Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Sichuan, and Shandong – among others – making more Thailand-related searches.
The most searched destinations in Thailand by Chinese tourists are Bangkok,
Phuket, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui and Pattaya.
On Trip.com Thailand, the search popularity of China-related keywords increased by more than four times compared with the previous day. Shanghai, Chengdu, Harbin, Shenzhen, Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing and Zhangjiajie were among the cities with the most searches by Thai tourists.
The new visa arrangement between Thailand and China becomes effective from 1 March.
Skyscanner’s COO search is over
Bryan Batista, former senior vice president of international at Gopuff, SVP Trips and CEO of Rentalcars at Booking.com has joined as Skyscanner’s chief operating officer.
He will lead Skyscanner’s teams focussed on developing the company’s business operations as well as non-flight verticals such as accommodation, car rental and future travel options.
Travellers checking out deals on Skyscanner in 2023 performed, on average, more than one billion trip searches every month.
