News Roundup: Finnair’s newly-launched Here/now aims to attract international tourists to Finland and the Nordic, ATPCO signs new expansion deal with Google Flights, Ypsilon join forces with Amadeus to streamline payments to low cost carriers.
Travel: Finnair flies into the tours and activities sector with new digital travel service
(Image credit: bluejayphoto/Getty Images)
Finland is known for its breath-taking arctic wilderness, exciting winter activities, the mesmerising midnight sun, the stunning auroras dancing on the Northern sky, its vibrant seaside capital of Helsinki and, of course, Santa and his reindeers.
To draw attention to these attractions and entice international travellers to the destination Finland’s national carrier Finnair has launched a new online service branded Now/here.
The platform aims to make Finnish and Nordic travel experiences easily accessible to travellers with a user-friendly website and online booking.
According to Finnair, Now/here addresses the growing strong interest towards the Nordics as a destination. The concept was tested in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, the UK and the US.
The service combines “insprational content with real-time inventory and availability for experiences, hotels and flights from a large number of sources,” it added.
The travel content is currently concentrated in Finland with other Nordic products to be added later.
The Now/here team has met with about 1,500 travel partners and hand-picked products like Reindeer Safari, Arctic Mindfulness with Huskies, Aurora Borealis Adventure, Forest Yoga & Hike and Private Island Experience to the pilot of the service. More destinations and experiences will be added during this year.
A check at the Now/here site shows these experiences are curated under sections – seasons, destinations, themes and travel inspirations – with detailed descriptions plus images. Booking can be done directly from the site, making it very convenient for travellers planning a Finnish/Nordic vacation.
And that is precisely what the service sets out to do – enables international leisure travellers to “find curated travel experiences in dynamic packages, with an effortless and fully digitalised booking flow”, said Kristiina Kukkohovi who heads the Now/here programme at Finnair.
As Now/here brings travel service providers to its digital platform, it is “an important step in building a travel related ecosystem that offers win-win opportunities for all parties involved,” she added.
For future growth plans the platform is looking for new partners to scale the business, disclosed Kukkohovi.
Now/here utilises the Bokun platform, the online booking software for tours and activities, as one of the key inventory sources for experiences.
Technology: Google Flights gains access to Routehappy content in deal with ATPCO
ATPCO (Airline Tariff Publishing Company) has signed a long-term expansion deal with Google Flights, which grants the metasearch website access to all Routehappy content.
In 2014, Google Flights was one of the first channels to integrate Routehappy’s Amenities data such as WiFi, seat pitch, inflight entertainment and power availability in its flight search results.
ATPCO said with the new agreement Google can now broaden its display options with Routehappy’s Universal Ticket Attributes (UTAs) and Universal Product Attributes (UPAs) content types.
UTAs provide information by fare about benefits and restrictions such as cancellation rules, baggage allowance, upgrade eligibility, check-in, and boarding priority, making it easier for flight-seekers to discover important ticket attributes associated with each flight.
UPAs visually highlight in-flight features through descriptive text, photos, graphics, and videos, improving the shopping experience for consumers.
Payments: Ypsilon, Amadeus partner to simplify LCC payments
(Image credit: SARINYAPINNGAM/Getty Images)
Ypsilon, an aggregator of low cost carriers content, has integrated Amadeus’ B2B Wallet solution within its booking platform to streamline agents’ payments to LCCS according to their business strategy.
With this integration agents can now automatically generate a virtual card quickly and simply within the booking flow. Each card can be unique to an individual booking, which can make reconciliation easier and reduce fraud.
The Spanish tech provider said the solution would also provide Ypsilon’s agents and OTA customers with other payment options that include credit, debit and pre-paid cards. This would allow them to tailor payments to their specific business such as prioritising cashflow or opting for the lowest cost approach.
The flexibility also means agents can pay LCCs according to the airline’s preferred methods.
Patrick Coulomb, Ypsilon’s VP sales and marketing, described the partnership with Amadeus as a “win win for agents and airlines” as it increases the payment options and making it easy for agents to make bookings.
“The integration with Ypsilon represents an important milestone with agents now able to pay all types of airlines easily,” commented Bart Tompkins, managing director of payments at Amadeus.
• Featured image credit (Snowy lake and forest at Aulanko nature park in Finland): ttretjak/Getty Images
