In the news: Winners of TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Destinations 2016, Kaligo Business Plus from Visa and Kaligo, eNetts VANs for Mobile Travel Agents as supplier payments.
New Delhi is top Asian city on the rise for 2016
Old market in New Delhi. (Image credit: TBoyajiev/iStock)
Two Indian cities, New Delhi and Bengaluru, topped the Asian ranking as the top destinations on the rise, with New Delhi being the only Asian city that earned a spot in the top 10 global list.
This was revealed by travel site, TripAdvisor, in its list of winners for the Travellers’ Choice Destinations on the Rise for 2016.
In addition to Asia and world, the list for Europe, South America, and the South Pacific, revealed the beach resort town of Tulum in Mexico as the number one in the world.
The travel site said the awards highlighted 52 destinations around the world selected by using an algorithm that primarily measured the year-over-year increase in positive TripAdvisor traveller feedback and interest in accommodations, restaurants and attractions, across destinations worldwide.
“Our well-travelled community has helped us identify the destinations around the world that are gaining in interest and popularity,” said Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer for TripAdvisor.
“We hope these destinations inspire those planning their travel for 2016 to book trips to these locales that feature excellent hotels, restaurants and attractions, and also provide a great vacation value.”
Travellers’ Choice Destinations on the Rise – Asia
- New Delhi, India (+28% booking interest YoY)
- Bengaluru, India (+46% booking interest YoY)
- Khao Lak, Thailand (+27% booking interest YoY)
- Colombo, Sri Lanka (+52% booking interest YoY)
- Karon, Thailand (+11% booking interest YoY)
- Sanur, Indonesia (+18% booking interest YoY)
- Yerevan, Armenia (+51% booking interest YoY)
- Nha Trang, Vietnam (+14% booking interest YoY)
- Phnom Penh, Cambodia
- Hue, Vietnam (+3% booking interest YoY)
Travellers’ Choice Destinations on the Rise – world
- Tulum, Mexico (+74% booking interest YoY)
- Cartagena, Colombia (+49% booking interest YoY)
- Porto, Portugal (+39% booking interest YoY)
- Gatlinburg, Tennessee (+67% booking interest YoY)
- Moscow, Russia (+27% booking interest YoY)
- Brighton, United Kingdom (+60% booking interest YoY)
- New Delhi, India (+28% booking interest YoY)
- Banff, Canada (+43% booking interest YoY)
- Lima, Peru (+33% booking interest YoY)
- Foz do Iguacu, Brazil (+34% booking interest YoY)
See the complete list of Travellers’ Choice Destinations on the Rise award-winners for 2016 here.
Kaligo partners with Visa to help SMEs manage travel expenses
New business solution for SMEs from Kaligo and Visa. (Image credit: DragonImages/iStock)
Global hotel booking platform, Kaligo.com, has formed a strategic alliance with Visa to offer Kaligo Business Plus, billed as a “rewards-centric hotel booking solution” for SMEs (small and medium enterprises).
The new product provides Visa and card tssuers with product differentiation, deeper SME engagement, and greater travel policy compliance.
It also “makes it convenient for travellers to find the ideal business hotel with tailored review scores and special filters for business travellers,” said Visa in a statement.
Companies can easily configure travel policies and realise cost savings. With just a few clicks, an administrator can create employee profiles within the company’s Kaligo Business Plus account. Tracking company spend by employee category or team is easy with real-time dashboards and reports.
Other benefits for SMEs include:
- Reward business travellers with thousands of attractive miles and points on their hotel bookings, so they can fly for free on their next holiday.
- Easily set daily rate limits by city and by employee category, reflecting the desired travel policy, reducing travel spend.
- Quickly view reports to see the entire company’s booking activity in one place, and export data to feed into other SME tools for accounting or analysis
- Leverage Kaligo’s rewards to drive more spend compliance on the Visa commercial card
According to the statement, more SMEs are moving away from relying on traditional travel agents and allowing their staff to book their own travel.
“It is this band of frequent travellers — business executives, sales representatives, those who travel regularly for work — Kaligo is targeting. In a study commissioned by Visa and conducted by RFi Group, it is estimated that between three per cent and five per cent of all business expenses are on travel,” it added.
MTA turns to eNett for secure supplier payments
It’s eNett VANs for MTA to pay suppliers.
Mobile Travel Agents (MTA), the Australian owned and operated travel agency group, has partnered with eNett International to provide a secure payment solution for its national network of expert travel advisors with Virtual Account Numbers (VANs).
A VAN is an automatically generated 16-digit MasterCard number used for supplier payments. Because a unique number is used for each new booking or payment transaction, VANs are a secure way to pay or be paid, and are used in locations worldwide where MasterCard is accepted online.
Don Beattie, MTA CEO, said the move to partner with VANs was a further example of where the company continues to add functionality to its in-house developed IT system.
“This agreement means all of our travel experts across Australia will be able to access eNett VANs via seamless integration with the MTA virtual office.”
Anthony Hynes, eNett Managing Director and CEO, added that VANs simplify supplier payments by seamlessly integrating with existing booking and accounts platforms.
“Allowing payments from within the workflow increases efficiency, while allowing agents to spend less time on processing payments, and more time with customers.”
