In the news: Amadeus and Agoda partner in sharing hotel content, Cloud solution for The Ascott in managing rapid growth, artificial intelligence to fight jet lag,
Corporate Travel: Agoda gives Amadeus agents access to its pre-paid hotel content
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Agoda has joined forces with Amadeus to make its pre-paid hotel content from 150,000 properties globally available to travel agents to help prevent corporate out-of-policy travel bookings.
Referring to research from American Express Global Business Travel, Amadeus disclosed the top reasons why employees book travel outside of their company’s travel policy has to do with the location of their accommodation – to stay in the same hotel as the client, to be closer to the meeting/event location, or to stay in a safer location.
To encourage more employees to stay within policy employers need to ensure their corporate travel provider has good accommodation options, and that the reason for the parties working together to solve this problem, added Amadeus.
The partnership enables travel agents to view Agoda’s content – available at the same price as Agoda’s website – and compare it to other content through a single screen with the bookings in one PNR with other travel content.
Business travel agents can now book Agoda inventory for employees, and add it to a single PNR with their other trip arrangements. As the OTA’s content is pre-paid, this is a viable option for employees without a company credit card.
“This is our first partnership with a B2C company in Asia, and an important one because it will enable travel agents to offer a competitive and seamless service while reducing costs and increasing efficiency,” said Christian Lukey, Amadeus’ head of hotels, mobility & insurance, Asia Pacific.
Agoda sees the partnership fuelling its growth in the business travel segment.
“This partnership with Amadeus gives Agoda access to the global travel agent market and specifically the business travel sector, which is forecast to grow 5.8% annually to reach US$1.6 trillion in 2020,” said Ernst Hemmer, senior director for Agoda.
Hotel Technology: Ascott moves into Cloud to support its global growth
(Image credit: Ascott)
Singapore-based The Ascott Limited (Ascott), the wholly owned lodging business unit of CapitaLand, has chosen Melbourne-based RMS Cloud to be its sole property management system (PMS) as it widens its presence worldwide.
Alfred Ong, Ascott’s head for global operations, said its partnership with RMS was one of the company’s “digital initiatives” to support its fast-growing business.
“Ascott achieved record growth last year, crossing 100,000 units globally. We expect to continue with this strong growth momentum to achieve our target of 160,000 units worldwide by 2023. As we expand, we need systems that are scalable and the RMS solution meets this requirement.”
Ascott’s expansion is on track as it has just clinched contracts to manage 14 properties with over 2,000 units in eight countries – China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia – of which three are under its coliving ‘lyf’ brand located in Fukuoka (Japan), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Shanghai in China.
Apart from lyf, the company’s serviced residence and hotel brands include Ascott, Citadines, Citadines Connect, Somerset, Quest, The Crest Collection, Préférence, Vertu, Harris, Fox, Yello and POP!.
RMS Cloud said in a statement it has started its pilot with Ascott early last year in three properties – Ascott Orchard Singapore, Ascott Raffles City Chengdu and Citadines Bastille Marais Paris.
The global rollout started last month across 30 countries. This included RMS PMS, central reservations, distribution and built-in channel manager technology to support online bookings, maintain channel management and operate a front office system in a single application. The rollout is expected to be completed in May 2020.
According to RMS, with its open API architecture design “Ascott is able to fast track many digitalisation initiatives to drive better operational efficiency and achieve improved customer satisfaction.”
RMS founder and managing director Peter Buttigieg said the Ascott partnership was a “major step forward” for the business. “Our global partnership with Ascott will also enable us to accelerate the development of our technology, something that will benefit all our users.”
Aviation: This airline is helping passengers fight jet lag with AI
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One of the biggest dreads facing most travellers on long international flights across multiple time zones is jet lag, but relief is here in the form of a solution to combat the syndrome.
Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the UAE, is partnering with Panasonic Avionics Corporation (Panasonic) to develop and trial wellness solutions using artificial intelligence (AI)
The first of these is the Jet Lag Adviser developed in collaboration with Detalytics, a “human analytics platform”. Etihad will be the first airline to trial this new solution, which will be integrated into the airline’s passenger app.
This how the solution helps travellers overcome fatigue from jet lag: it takes a range of passenger inputs including chronotype, circadian rhythms, height, weight, the nature of travel and travel information such as flight times, routes and zones. It then uses its AI engine to produce personalised jet lag plans for passengers with tailored advisories to help them feel less tired.
Passengers will receive a combination of generic route-based and personalised ‘jet lag impact scores’, which gives them a summary of how severe jet lag may be on that route in general and their own travel specifically.
The personalised jet lag plan incorporates the pre-flight, flight and post-flight phases, and provides a schedule of different recommendations and tips for specific times in each phase on what to do to reduce jet lag such as sleeping, exposure to light, exercise, hydration, and the type of food to consume.
Throughout each phase of the travel experience, the Jet Lag Adviser will send reminders with recommended actions to passengers via the app.
Robin Kamark, Etihad Aviation Group chief commercial officer, said with this solution the airline can now leverage AI to improve the travel experience. “This will be the first of many wellness initiatives we will explore together, and we are excited about our partnership with Panasonic and the possibilities that lie ahead.”
Panasonic said it is looking into further innovative wellness technologies with Etihad as the carrier readies itself to move to the new Midfield Terminal at Abu Dhabi International Airport.
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