· Just one per cent of travellers plan trips in the last 24 hours
Despite the rise of same-day booking services, apparently just 1% of leisure and business travellers plan their trip within the final 24-hour window. Digital marketing agency Sociomantic asked 1,000 consumers about their travel preferences to understand at what point they make a booking for a trip.
· Airbnb CEO spells out the end game for the sharing economy
Airbnb, recently made some very bold predictions about how he and his industry will reshape the global economy. In essence, the company wants a world more like the villages of old: highly trusting and filled with micro-entrepreneurs who shared their assets to make a living.
· Turning casual browsers of travel to loyal customers of brands
Across the travel landscape, airlines and online travel agencies (OTAs) are struggling to understand how their customers interact digitally with their brand: Google calculates that 90% of consumers use multiple devices to accomplish their online goals — when planning and booking travel, however, this figure drops to 46%. This article is a viewpoint from Jonathan Collins, a data scientist at Boxever.
· TripAdvisor launches offline feature for its smartphone app
The new feature allows travelers to download TripAdvisor reviews, photos and city maps before they go and then access this information on their trip when no data connection is available.
· Booking.com and Sabre blow their hotel inventory trumpet
The Leonardo Hotel in Berlin becomes the latest addition to the Priceline-owned accommodation site which claims more than 625,000 room nights booked a day. Booking.com now offers accommodation in 201 countries and 61,702 destinations.
· How to avoid negative online reviews from hotel guests by being great offline
In the hotel industry, no matter how much you are on top of your game, and how hard you try, sometimes things simply do not go as planned. No worries, it is natural that mistakes or mishaps happen from time to time. The question is what are you doing about it?
· Opaque bookings on the wane: Priceline, Hotwire, and a changing landscape
Priceline built its business in 1998 on opaque bookings, or buyer-driven pricing. But the supply of opaque deals appears to be shrinking for it and all players in the industry, according to Tnooz interviews. But a survey of bids shows the steepest discounts are still available on Priceline.
· Expedia Acquires Australia’s Wotif Group for $703 Million
With brands in the Asia-Pacific region that include Wotif.com, Lastminute.com.au, Travel.com.au, Asia Web Direct, LateStays.com, GoDo.com.au and Arnold Travel Technology, the Wotif Group expands Expedia’s presence in the region and would supplement brands such as eLong in China, for example.
· Rome2Rio takes $1.1 million, aims to add 100,000 attractions to trip planning tool
Multi-modal travel search engine Rome2rio has secured a further $1.1 million as it looks to extend its coverage to include attractions. The grant comes from the Commercialisation Australia, an investment program launched by the previous Australian government which is now being wound down.
· BlaBlaCar turns ignition on global expansion with $100 million funding round
BlaBlaCar has raised $100 million in a Series C capital round led by Index Ventures. Existing investors — Accel Partners, ISAI and Lead Edge Capital — also participated in the round for the the Paris-based long distance-focused car ride sharing service. The company says it will use the fund to expand into new markets (“explore every large market in the world”) and will also look for acqui-hire opportunities.
· Smarty pants meet Smarty Pins, the new travel game from Google
“Putting trivia on the map” is the tagline from the new travel trivia game from the Google team. The game places trivia questions within the context of a map, which creates an engaging place-specific means to explore and test understanding of the world.
· Checking in with CheckMate, Drew Patterson’s B2B hotel tech mobile tool
CheckMate, a mobile tool for hotels to digitize and monetize the process of guests checking in. The product’s ascent coincides with investors’ expanding interest in mobile platforms for travel and hotel tech business-to-business services.
· Happiness Blanket stunt sparks debate for British Airways
British Airways‘ latest marketing stunt has sparked a debate related to the relative merits of this new invention, handidly called “the Happiness Blanket.”.
· In an evil world, great travel content is THE essential weapon
Aside from the usual marketing activity, little is said about how Google is needed in times of real crisis, as Malaysia Airlines discovered after Flight MH370 disappeared without trace. With over 67% of global search traffic originating via Google, the search giant was vital, as EyeforTravel reported in May, in helping the airline to understand what people wanted to know and enabled it to separate its commercial activity from managing disaster related communications. In other words, in some respects, Google helped Malaysia Airlines to stay in business under extremely challenging circumstances.
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