Kathleen Tan leaves Expedia following global reorganisation as HQ takes charge
Rumours had been flying of leadership changes that would take place in the Air Asia Expedia joint venture after Expedia increased its stake to 75% this February, and this week the changes happened.A global reorganisation was announced this week to staff in Asia, along with news that CEO Kathleen Tan [...]
Booking Boss, powering tours & activities, secures new funding to expand to Europe
Booking Boss, the Australia-based provider of software solutions for the tours and activities sector, is set to expand further into Europe, as well as dig deeper into Asia, following the completion of a A$2m Series A financing round.The financing was led by Sydney investors Michael and Daniel Dempse [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The sky’s the limit for Booking and Expedia as they ramp up in Asia
Last year, Oliver Hua who had just joined Booking.com from Ebay as managing director for APAC said travel was just at Day 1 of the Internet and ecommerce. And as far as he is concerned, it’s still at Day 1.
“There are so many opportunities still for Booking,” he said at WIT Indonesia. W [...]
Content is King, Community is Queen, and Commerce is their Royal Offspring
This post is written by Morris Sim, CEO & Co-founder, Circos Brand Karma.
At WIT Middle East a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of digital marketing experts: Angel Lorente Paramo, Global Head of Digital Marketing, Ecommerce, Qatar Airways,Sumathi Ramanathan, Region [...]
Accor takes over FASTBOOKING, accelerating digital strategy
Accor has announced its take-over of FASTBOOKING, a digital services provider for the hotel industry.
A French company founded in 2000, FASTBOOKING provides daily support to nearly 4,000 global hotels. Hotel website development, distribution channel management solutions, digital marketing campai [...]
