Lufthansa to charge consumers and agents extra for not booking direct, Amadeus responds
Lufthansa Group announced today that beginning September 1 it will charge consumers and travel agents an extra $17.80 (16 euros) per ticket for flights booked beyond Lufthansa Group websites, service centers and airport ticket counters.
In light of this announcement, Amadeus has responded to Luf [...]
Letter from Tokyo: So much easier to enjoy, and things are just getting started
Arrived in Tokyo Monday morning on the Japan Airlines red-eye from Singapore. There’s a lot to be said when travelling to a foreign country on their home carrier – it prepares you for the destination.
We spend a lot of time lambasting national carriers and how wasteful and inefficient they ar [...]
Lastminute.com takes on new meaning and life with global ambitions
As far as names go, you couldn’t get better than a name like lastminute.com. It’s one of the legends of the dot.com era, founded in 1998, and thus when it came onto the market, Bravofly Rumbo Group snapped it up and for a song.
The acquisition, finalised in March, saw the Swiss travel group t [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: Tujia’s Melissa wants to make travel better for Chinese travelers
At the WIT Conference last year in Singapore, we recognised 11 individuals whom we felt have had the most influence on the development of online travel in Asia Pacific. This is the third article in a series of interviews profiling our WIT Warriors.
Melissa Yang returned to China after a successfu [...]
Expedia sells eLong to Ctrip & others, and now there’s Ctrip and Qunar
It was a short statement, announced today in Bellevue – if you weren’t paying attention, you would have missed it entirely – which would have meant missing possibly the most significant development in the Chinese online travel market.
Here’s what the statement said:
“Expedia has sold [...]
Travel disruption alert and who owns the customer journey
With all the talk in the industry about who owns the customer journey, Yeoh Siew Hoon wonders if travelers want to be owned.
Many things were said at Phocuswright Dublin including how as part of Expedia’s test and learn strategy, 1,500 changes were made in 2014 versus the 200 changes made in to [...]
It’ll get hard for anyone in the middle who isn’t Google, says Ryanair’s Jacobs
Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, who says he has the best marketing job in Europe, is on a mission of digital innovation at Europe's first and largest low fares airline which flew 18 million passengers last year.
Speaking at Phocuswright Europe, he said, “We caught up on [...]
WIT Warrior Spotlight: How it all started for Rosenstein and “watch out, big shakeout ahead”
At the WIT Conference last year in Singapore, we recognised 11 individuals whom we felt have had the most influence on the development of online travel in Asia Pacific. This is the second article in a series of interviews profiling our WIT Warriors.
Rob Rosenstein’s love affair with the web sta [...]
Buying Abacus means the “Asianisation of Sabre”, says Webb
Just got off a Skype call with Greg Webb, president of Sabre Travel Network, and Robert Bailey, president and CEO of Abacus International, about an hour after the two consummated the deal in which Sabre will buy Abacus outright.
Both men sounded visibly excited and thrilled, jesting they’d [...]
Traveloka claims pole position as Indon market heats up
In the space of one year, it is clear that Traveloka has streaked ahead of its competitors, and that position is no doubt making its rivals nervous and uneasy.
Rumours abound as to what its burn rate is and how much it is spending a month on search and customer acquisition.
Observers point to [...]
