The weekly news roundup: Rome2rio’s new booking model and partnerships, Travelport’s merchandising technology for Fly365.com, AirAsia’s enhanced one-click payment
MARKETING: Rome2rio adds onsite bookings, announces new partnerships
Online bookings expand for coach operators in Europe and North America (Image credit: juananbarros/iStock)
Travel search engine Rome2rio is reaching a key milestone as it nears the 100 million visitor mark, a number it plans to leverage in its shift from pure search to a hybrid search/booking model.
The company recently inked a number of partnerships to expand its onsite booking capability.
Its partnership with SilverRail, which saw the rollout of onsite bookings for UK rail in the middle of this year, has been expanded to include Amtrak.
In Italy, its new collaboration with Trenitalia will see the availability of onsite bookings for the Italian rail before the end of the year. Bookings for rail travel in Germany, France and other key European markets will follow in early 2017.
In the fast growing coach marketplace partnerships with Busbud and Distribution expands online bookings to coach operators in Europe and North America including National Express, Greyhound, Eurolines, Alsa and Flizbus.
The company added that a recent deal with Travelport would see the site offering direct flight bookings in selected market early next year.
Rod Cuthbert, Rome2rio CEO, said its strategy of forming partnership with players in the various transport sectors was in response to queries from its users on the best way to get from one place to another.
“Answering these question properly requires a full complement of air, rail, bus, rideshare, ferry and self-drive options, which no other online player offers.”
Cuthbert added the company was also seeing a growing demand from users to find an online resource for booking all their trip components – air, ground, accommodation and activities.
“We currently enjoy a great relationship with Booking.com for hotel bookings, and we’re now looking to secure agreements for other forms of accommodation, tours and activities.”
He expects to see continued strong growth in both traffic and revenue with the creation of this well-rounded resource.
According to Rome2rio, its repository of transit data currently contains route information from over 4,800 transport operators in 158 countries.
TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY: Fly365.com first APAC OTA to implement Travelport’s merchandising technology
Fly365 first in APAC to use Travelport’s merchandising technology
Australia-based Fly365.com has become the first OTA in Asia Pacific to use Travelport Rich Content & Branding with the utilisation of the travel commerce platform’s merchandising technology.
Fly365.com can now offers its customers direct access to branded fares and ancillaries from over 180 airlines on Travelport’s travel commerce platform. This enables its customers to better compare and understand an airline’s full offering prior to making their bookings.
Scott Mayne, Fly365.com chief operating officer, said the the OTA has seen an increase in its margins and sales since implementation of Travelport Rich Content & Branding.
“Fly365.com is the only OTA in Australia that can offer Flexible Fare options, giving our customers more choice and a more transparent view on what is included in each fare category,” he added.
Travelport Rich Content & Branding is used by numerous OTAs including UK-based Skylord Travel and Russia’s OneTwoTrip.
AVIATION: AirAsia upgrades one-click payment, makes booking seamless
Seamless booking on AirAsia with Xpress Pay
Low cost carrier AirAsia has revamped its one-click payment system, Xpress Pay, making it even easier for travellers to store and use credit or debit cards on airasia.com and its mobile app.
Formerly known as BIG Pay, this payment feature is available only to AirAsia BIG Members (loyalty programme) to store their card details securely for purchasing flights.
“This speeds up payment for a quicker, more hassle-free checkout, making it easier for users to snap up highly sought-after promotional fares,” the airline said in a statement.
Travellers just need to select one of up to 10 pre-stored cards (three cards previously), and enter in the card verification value (CVV) to buy with one click.
Xpress Pay accepts any credit or debit card issued by Visa, MasterCard, American Express or JCB.
• Featured image credit: train-m71/iStock
