This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel MARKETING in tourism and hospitality for March 2016.
Thursday 31 March 2016:
HotelQuickly rebrands for third birthday
- The last-minute hotel booking service for mobiles has a new look for its app and website this week. HotelQuickly now also gives users the ability to make multi-room bookings, view available offers by location on a new mapping system, and filter results by taxes and other elements. The rebrand also coincides with the launch of a Special Gift service, where hotel partners can give users vouchers, "treats" and other services, such as airport transfers.
Wednesday 30 March 2016:AirAsiaBIG big on tours
- Touristly is the latest tours and activities portal to work with Air Asia's loyalty scheme AirAsia BIG. Clients booking via Touristly will earn BIG points and can redeem them with the scheme's other partners. Hong Kong's Klook signed a similar deal with the scheme at the start of the year.
Wednesday 23 March 2016:TripAdvisor launches Arabic service
- The user review and hotel metasearch site will be available in Arabic at ar.tripadvisor.com, coinciding with the recent opening of an office in Dubai in a bid to expand in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The site is now available in 28 languages.
Monday 21 March 2016:Revinate lands 30,000th hotel customer
- The well-funded travel reputation management system says that more than 30,000 hotels have signed up for its services. The San Francisco-based startup (see the Tnooz TLabs profile from 5 years ago) offers tools to attend to reputation management, guest satisfaction, email marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), and on-site guest engagement.
Thursday 17 March 2016:Pegasus Airlines relaunches website
- The Turkish low cost airline has introduced a number of new features to coincide with a complete overhaul of its online presence. Alongside existing flight search and booking services, the new website has web check-in, hotel reservations, car hire, parking, as well as city guides and calendar of events. Pegasus first began in 1990 as a charter carrier, before launching scheduled, low cost flights in 2005.
Wednesday 9 March 2016:Kayak lands TV sponsor deal for F1
- The metasearch engine will back the UK's coverage of the motor racing championship on Channel 4 throughout its ten scheduled races during 2016. The site will get brand idents during the TV programming, as well as fronting the online coverage of the races.
Hotwire launches adventurous ad campaign
- The new ad spots follow on from the Expedia-owned brand's Be Slightly Adventurous campaign from 2015, with a series of 30-second slips promoting different types of trips. The idea is that consumers should think about their next trip as part of a pre-death bucket list.
NB:Marketing image via Shutterstock.