News Roundup: Million+ hotel listings and trip planning on new integrated travel platform BlackBook, Wirecard’s partnership with China’s Yeepay to “internationalise” payments, Grab’s extension of rides to Japan and the Middle East
Hospitality: Book rooms and plan trips on new travel platform BlackBook
BlackBook, the new Singapore-based integrated travel platform, is set to offer “the largest hotel inventory” of over 1.8 million hotel listings when it launches in December.
The platform, which seeks “to solve traveller pain points”, also has trip planning and management features. One is myBlackBook, the in-app companion for BlackBook users to discover new destinations and build itineraries, as well as check bookings, share itineraries, currency conversions and map access.
The company said that through its multi-sourced travel engine travellers will be able to book hotel stays at “highly competitive rates” via the platform’s price benchmarking service that sifts through 9.5 million search points daily, making it “ideal for deal-hunters seeking the best prices”.
The system is also able to sieve through price disparities around hotel details – a long-standing issue faced within the travel industry.
Additionally, users of the platform will not need to search for separate third party reviews of shortlisted hotels as the engine integrates reviews from multiple sources, making it easier for them to research and make their final selection.
“It was important for us to be able to offer clarity as we aggregate information from various travel suppliers and engines with varying categorical differences — such as calling rooms differing names — and to do that in our deduplication efforts without losing data integrity,” said Ravinder Namboori, CTO of BlackBook.
“BlackBook Uno, the backbone of our app, lets us do this ensuring that it doesn’t matter who we procure from, large global distributors or small territorial suppliers, or how well categorised their inventory is.”
The platform also offers what it terms as a “cross-chain” rewards programme. It provides flexibility for travellers to use points earned through bookings across multiple hotels to either offset their next stay, pay for a drink at the hotel lounge or convert into cash in their credit cards.
“Having worked in the hospitality industry for several decades, I’ve noticed a gap in terms of rewards and travellers either getting locked into other proprietary programmes or be offered rewards that are mostly unreachable by a large majority of the audience. It can be very inflexible,” said Iqbal Jumabhoy, CEO and founder of BlackBook,
“From what we know of the industry, 17% of top tier airline travellers and 24% of hotel members has ties to more than one loyalty programme. This means that points are trapped in various loyalty programmes at any one time, which can be a bane for travellers, especially when those programmes limit travellers to using points within a single hotel group.
BlackBook was developed to “set the bar right for rewards”, added Iqbal.
Looking ahead the company plans to add travel-related services such as flights, local ride hailing, car rentals and insurance. It is also looking to expand beyond Singapore to other regional countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, as well as further afield.
Payments: Wirecard partners with China’s YeePay for international payments
German fintech company Wirecard has formed a partnership with Chinese e-payment service provider Yeepay to process payments outside of China.
A leading independent mobile and online acquirer in China for the airline and travel industry, Yeepay serves all Chinese commercial airlines and major travel agencies.
Wirecard will assist all Yeepay’s customers in the airline industry to ‘internationalise’ their businesses and transactions, it said when announcing the partnership.
Last year the Chinese company reported a transaction volume in airline and travel of €34 billion, with nearly all transactions generated by online activities. The potential transaction volume for Wirecard from its collaboration with Yeepay is over €17 billion annually.
The two companies will leverage their payment technology and licenses to give Yeepay’s customers a “convenient and regulatory checkout process”.
According to Wirecard, travel agencies, airlines and consumers outside of China will benefit from this improved offering.
“Wirecard is already one of the largest international acquirers for airlines outside of China, working with more than 100 airlines globally,” said Jörg Möller, EVP travel & mobility at Wirecard. “This cooperation with YeePay and its customers enables us to further expand our presence in this ever-growing market segment,”
Bin Tang, CEO at YeePay, added: “With Wirecard we are extending our footprint on a global scale and, as a result, can offer our customers a modern and innovative payment experience, no matter where in the world they are.”
Transportation: Grab extends service to Japan and Middle East in deal with Splyt
South-east Asia’s leading superapp Grab, which operates across seven countries in the region, is now offering rides in Japan and the Middle East.
This new service is part of the ride-hailing company’s enhanced collaboration with Splyt, the London-based B2B mobility marketplace. Grab was a participant in a Series A funding round for Splyt worth US$8 million in June.
“This new service is rolled out in partnership with Splyt to give travellers convenient access to ride-hailing services around the world,” said Grab.
Rides in Japan are available through JapanTaxi and in the Middle East through Careem.
JapanTaxi has a fleet of 70,000 vehicles and users can find rides in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sapporo and Okinawa.
In the Middle East Grab’s collaboration with Careem allows customers to get rides in 94 cities across 13 countries – UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan.
Careem, which was acquired by Uber for US$3.1 billion, has more than one million drivers.
The service is currently available to Grab users in Singapore and the Philippines. They can book rides via the app in their native or preferred language and pay for them with GrabPay Credits.
Grab aims to extend this service to users in other South-east Asian countries in 2020, subject to regulatory approval.
• Featured image credit: rilueda/Getty Images
