Hotelbeds and Wayra announce winners
HOTELBEDS and Wayra, Telefonica’s open innovation initiative, have announced the winners of the first TravelTech Lab by Hotelbeds challenge. Four start-ups rose to the challenge of finding disruptive solutions to create a frictionless travel experience.
The winning start-ups are:
Botslovers: Chatbots, virtual assistants with artificial intelligence for real companies with the objective of reducing the operational costs of your company by organising the customer service section.
Grain: A unique end-to-end integrated currency exchange solution that enables travel software platforms and marketplaces to eliminate currency exchange risk for their customers.
Smartvel: Offers a complete set of solutions to solve different needs throughout the customer’s journey, where the right content makes the difference. Its technology collects, categorizes, translates, enriches and validates both destination content and travel requirements.
Chekin: Helps owners of tourist accommodations to automate the entire check-in process, from the moment the reservation is created to the check-out. This generates up to 80 per cent time savings and increases revenue with each booking.
Choice Hotels takes GroupSync Instant Booking
GROUP-sourcing technology company, Groups360 and Choice Hotels International announce the rollout of GroupSync Instant Booking across Choice’s global portfolio in 2023 (13 brands, 7,100 properties).
The instant group-room booking capabilities are expected to be added for most of the properties by the end of the year.
Choice Hotels joins the ranks of Wyndham properties, which will begin using Instant Booking later this year for guest rooms with some properties may allow instant booking of meeting space.
Marriott offers instant booking of guest rooms, meeting space, catering, and audiovisual services at all North American properties. IHG and Omni offer Instant Booking for guestroom and meeting-space bookings in select markets.
Hilton offers Instant Booking for groups’ guest rooms at all properties worldwide. Accor will launch Instant Booking for groups’ guest rooms and meeting space later this year. Premier Inn offers Instant Booking for meeting space in their EMEA markets.
Baggage mishandling rates on the rise, SITA
AIRLINES and airports are facing a surge in baggage mishandling rates amidst the growing number of passengers, with the number of mishandled bags almost doubling from 2021 to 2022 to 7.6 bags per thousand passengers, according to SITA’s latest 2023 Baggage IT Insights report.
David Lavorel, CEO, SITA said: “After a decade where the mishandling rate more than halved between 2007 and 2021, it is disheartening to see this rate climbing again. As an industry, we need to work hard to ensure passengers are once again confident to check in their bags. We at SITA are working directly with airlines and airports to help solve key pain points in the baggage journey through smart automation, tracking, and digital platforms.”
SITA has developed the WorldTracer Auto Reflight system to handle this issue. This solution automatically identifies bags what are not likely to make their planned connecting flight and rebooks them on the next possible flight using the existing bag tag – all while keeping the passenger informed.
IBS Software partners with CarTrawler
IBS Software, a global leader of SaaS solutions to the travel and transportation industry, has chosen CarTrawler, a leading B2B technology provider of car rental solutions, to offer car hire & insurance services to IBS iFly Staff & Corporates customers.
This partnership will simplify and enhance the Whole of Trip (WoT) experience for iFly Staff & Corporate customers, in addition to expanding IBS Software’s footprint in non-air ancillaries in the global travel industry. Currently, airline staff and corporate travel involves navigating multiple applications to book essential add-ons. IBS Software’s partnership with CarTrawler enables iFly Staff users to book car rentals and car insurance through an integrated and seamless staff travel system.