McKinsey’s tech for a ‘golden age’ of travel
More people are traveling to less visited destinations, luxury-hospitality is growing faster than any other industry segment, and younger generations show significant, growing interest in travel, according to a new McKinsey report.
In addition to these trends that are reshaping the industry, McKinsey has identified the technologies and trends that will define the next “golden age” of travel.
“For one, Generative AI (gen AI), is equipping the industry to reimagine what it means to plan, book, and experience travel,” say McKinsey’s Ben Ellencweig and the report’s authors.
“Gen AI could take the form of a digital assistant that interacts with customers throughout the journey.
“It can provide personalised trip itineraries during discovery and booking, offer tailored recommendations based on preferences and real-time constraints during the trip, and help resolve unexpected disruption,” Ellencweig added.
Costco checks in with Mystifly
Costco Travel is the first customer to deploy Mystifly’s Smart Selling Platform (SSP), an enterprise platform as a service (PaaS).
It is designed to simplify and revenue-optimise the sourcing, selling and servicing of heterogeneous air content for any travel seller.
Costco Travel uses SSP to sell and service Hawaiian Airlines’ exclusive NDC content.
“SSP is the industry’s first cloud-based solution purpose-built for selling and servicing air at scale with a particular focus on enabling sellers to optimise their business,” said Rajeev Kumar, founder and CEO, Mystifly.
“Our industry has outgrown traditional distribution and selling systems,” Kumar added.
“Air content fragmentation is at an all-time high, forcing travel sellers to endure disconnected systems that add complexity, and unsustainable IT costs.”
SSP aggregates disparate air content (e.g. NDC, direct connect, GDS), and applies artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to enhance source data for improved accuracy.
It also enables post-booking automation, leading to reduced agent call time and lower operations cost.
In addition to partnerships with all major GDSs, Mystifly has 45-plus airline direct connect integrations, including 25 NDCs. As well as Hawaiian Airlines, it partners with American Airlines, United Airlines, TAP Portugal, Vueling, Emirates Airlines, Qatar and Qantas.
Beware of pop-ups in bed
A survey by the cybersecurity company NordVPN has warned that while it might be fun to lie in bed with your significant other planning a holiday on your iPad, too much night-time scrolling could lead to poor sleep and security dangers.
NordVPN’s survey revealed more than 80% of people globally bring their devices with them to bed.
Among the gadgets used in bed, people prioritised smartphones (88%), followed by watching TVs (43%) and using laptops (33%).
“However, since smartphone usage in a relaxed environment is typically connected with scrolling, people are less vigilant about online security measures and the respective secure behaviour,” says Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN.
“Research showed that people often check emails and messages in the morning, while in the evening people scroll through social media. When people are relaxed, they might not notice suspicious activities on their device, such as a stranger accessing it or suspicious pop-up messages appearing on the screen.
“Sharing the bed with your device might end up meaning you share your data with hackers,” Warmenhoven warns.
A quarter of respondents to the NordVPN survey also revealed that they use devices when sharing a bed with a significant other.
“This not only impacts their sleep but also leaves them exposed to privacy risks. Late-night browsing can lead to impulsive decisions, like overspending or falling for deceptive ads,” Warmenhoven says.
Wealthy tech czars eye EPL
London-based businessman and lawyer Vatche Manoukian is leading a bid to buy English Premier League (EPL)soccer club Everton alongside an unnamed Saudi royal and families with a high-net worth from the United States.
Manoukian, 45, is a partner at tech investment firm IMS Digital Ventures and is backed by Australia’s Myer family.
Michael Dell of Dell Technologies and Kenneth King of investment firm A-Cap are understood to be interested too.
According to the BBC, Manoukian and his consortium see Everton as a “sleeping giant” of English football with potential to secure a place “at the top of world football again”.
Spotnana flies with Kyte
Spotnana, the world’s first Travel-as-a-Service platform, continues to build partnerships, the latest with Kyte, a technology company specialising in providing access to low-cost inventory via a modern and standardised API.
The partnership will enable Spotnana to access airline content from leading low-cost carriers through Kyte’s advanced API.
Kyte’s platform is designed to standardise access to diverse airline inventories, ensuring travel management companies and other travel sellers can offer a comprehensive range of airline options.
For Spotnana, the partnership allows the platform to offer a wider range of low-cost flight options and to include ancillaries and bundles, thereby providing more travel inventory to corporate customers.
Siteminder and Cloudbeds cuddle up
Siteminder and Cloudbeds have established a strategic partnership to expand connectivity between platforms and create new revenue capabilities for more than 60,000 hoteliers globally.
The collaboration will provide Cloudbeds customers with direct access to SiteMinder’ revenue platform, while SiteMinder customers can explore the PMS platform offered by Cloudbeds.
“In late 2023, we announced our mission of making sophisticated revenue management accessible to every hotel in the world. We are excited to partner with an industry leader like Cloudbeds to propel this mission, by removing the friction that comes with having critical data hidden away in isolated systems,” said Sankar Narayan, CEO and managing director at SiteMinder.
