The Wrap: Jambo Kenya! Tune Hotels sets foot in East Africa
Making the news this week are Tune Hotels with its first hotel in Africa, Etihad Airways' partnership with Google Flight Search, Travelzoo China’s new lifestyle channel, TripAdvisor's offline feature for its mobile appJambo Kenya! Tune Hotels sets foot in East AfricaWith a “Jambo (Hi) Kenya!” [...]
New social travel site, Spottly, goes for picture-based reviews
A social travel site in Asia has lofty aims of being the largest user generated travel platform in Asia. With competitors like TripAdvisor, GoGoBot, Trippy and WAYN, of which at least TripAdvisor is very active in this part of the world, that seems like a very bold statement to make.Meet Spottly, a [...]
WIT Start-Up: Packnada next time you travel to Singapore
Ever travelled to a place so frequently that you wish you had a set of clothes and stuff there and you didn’t have to lug along wherever you go? Well, if you are one of those frequent travellers, a new start-up in Singapore aims to ease your woes by providing a storage service for you for your tri [...]
Expedia to buy Wotif for A$703 million
There's definitely an appetite for acquisitions – Priceline buying Open Table last month and now Expedia Inc has weighed in with news that it's buying Wotif.com. The Australia-based online travel company has had a couple of challenging years on the homefront but particularly so in Asia where it ha [...]
Hold the date: WIT heads to Sydney June 21
Tapping into the growing interest in Asia in Australia, WIT will be holding a one-day conference in Sydney, Australia on June 21.Themed “Marketing To The New Traveller in Asia”, WIT Australia will be targeted at suppliers in Australia who are looking to the region for new customers, and engage w [...]
Hooray, porridge and prata for breakfast in Oz at last
Having breakfast at my Sydney hotel for the fourth day, I found myself hankering for chicken porridge and roti prata but there was none to be found. That’s because I realized I am not staying in one of those Accor hotels that have embraced the group’s newly-launched, fully accredited “Optimum [...]
Hotel wholesalers will fade and travel apps will favour intermediaries, Fogel predicts
Hotel wholesalers will decline or disappear over time and suppliers who thought they were beginning to get control of the distribution channel need to think again according to Glenn Fogel, executive vice president of corporate development of the world’s largest online hotel seller, Priceline.Spea [...]
Hotels.com and Columbus Internet launch ‘Hotels WithMe’ app in Asia Pacific
The 'Hotels WithMe' Facebook app enables friends, families and colleagues to get together through Facebook and collectively choose and book a hotel, ensuring that everyone is happy with the choice.For the first time, groups can collaboratively choose a hotel without having to sit in front of the sam [...]
Hotels.com bets on scale and localisation
Would you believe it that I've never booked a hotel via an online travel agency site? Nor an airline ticket for that matter. If I book online, I always go directly to the source. So it was fascinating to talk to Johan Svanstrom, the VP and MD of Hotels.com in Asia Pacific, about this very competiti [...]
How channel management yielded results for Caribbean Islands Travel
For Caribbean Islands Travel, life before it installed a channel management solution was cumbersome. To load inventory, its team had to open two sessions – one to check inventory and the other to load it.“We wasted a lot of time”, said Luis Medina, manager of Caribbean Islands Travel, a Florid [...]
