Bonza ditches the meal trolley for food-by-app
Manish Raniga, CEO of Airline Investments, 777 Partners (owner of Australian low-cost start-up Bonza), has been talking to Future Travel Experience about the airline’s digitally native and customer-centric strategy, and the innovative tech it will utilise to help transform the passenger experience.
Ahead of his special keynote at the co-located FTE EMEA/FTE Ancillary & Retailing 2023, taking place in Dublin on 23-25 May, Raniga said the airline is utilising the Fly Bonza app before travel and inflight to engage with passengers.
Onboard, the service experience has been reimagined with no traditional trolley service and customers order from the menu through the app and have their purchases delivered directly to their seats.
“The app and digital strategy are at the heart of our proposition,” Raniga said. “It’s not an ‘add on’ but a central part of the Bonza brand experience, helping us be closer to customers and drive the commercial and customer metrics that matter.
“Our collective ambition from the get-go was to be an e-commerce company of choice – in a nutshell, an all-encompassing travel retail brand that happens to operate aircraft.”
Influencers beware: A watchdog is on your case
Australian’s consumer watchdog is sweeping social media in search of influencers who mislead with their marketing techniques.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is actively searching social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook, looking for social media influencers who do not disclose their affiliations with products they are endorsing.
The ACCC’s sleuths are targeting sectors where influencer marketing is particularly widespread, including fashion, beauty and cosmetics, food and beverage, travel, health fitness and wellbeing, parenting, gaming and technology.
Gina Cass-Gottlieb, chair of the ACCC, said, “Tip-offs reflect the community concern about the ever-increasing number of manipulative marketing techniques on social media, designed to exploit or pressure consumers into purchasing goods or services.
“It is important social media influencers are clear if there are any commercial motivations behind their posts. This includes those posts that are incentivised and presented as impartial but are not.”
Agoda calls for help from ChatGPT. Any good? Let’s see
Agoda had some fun this week by enlisting ChatGPT to compose poems celebrating the cities most popular for Valentine’s Day breaks.
Omri Morgenshtern, CEO of the global digital travel platform, said using ChatGPT to compose poetry “may be a gimmick”, but the artificial intelligence technology powering the chatbot is “beyond promising”.
Should Shakespeare be turning in his grave at the prospect of ChatGPT composing sonnets better than the Bard?
We don’t think so, but judge for yourself with ChatGPT’s poetic tributes to ta few of he cities of Asia:
Tokyo
‘Mount Fuji in the distance, a sight to behold. Tokyo, a city that never gets old’.
Bangkok
‘From Pad Thai to Tom Yum Goong, Bangkok’s food is a taste that lingers on’.
Singapore
‘The Gardens by the Bay, a wonderland. A nature’s beauty, so close at hand’
Bali
The beaches are a tropical paradise, with waves that gently roll. A place to find true serenity and leave the world’s woes a whole’.
Kuala Lumpur
‘Kuala Lumpur, a city of pride. A destination, always worldwide’
And finally…
Aviation analytics leader Cirium has signed a deal with Amadeus to provide its advanced flight schedules data into the Amadeus Travel Platform, benefitting Amadeus clients in the travel space.
Airbnb’s Chesky: “The office is now Zoom. The mall is now Amazon. The theatre is now Netflix.”
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has been hailing the company’s fourth quarter result, showing revenues of US$1.9 billion were up 24% from the same period in 2021. Net income for those three months was US$319 million, making it the company’s most profitable fourth quarter ever.
“Consumer confidence to travel remains really high,” Chesky said in a call with financial analysts. “I think part of that is no matter what happens in the world, people want to travel.
“For many people, the office is now Zoom. The mall is now Amazon. The theatre is now Netflix. Travel is going to become a very important way that people experience the world this year.”
Source: Phocuswire
