Mr and Mrs Smith, the UK-based luxe hotel guide and reservation brand, has come a long way in the past few years, especially given its latest decision to scrap a technology partnership to start from scratch and build its own booking system. An existing agreement with TravelIntelligence, which saw the review company's Starfish platform plugged into the back end of the Smith system, will come to an end in December 2009 to be replaced with a piece of technology created in-house. The decision to create SAMS - Smith Availability Management System - is one which affects many travel firms which have in the past used third party software to power critical parts of their business.... Read More

Figures from the latest annual SITA report into passenger habits at six major airport hubs around the globe were released today and make interesting reading. The study, SITA-Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service (PSS) Survey, examined a variety of factors which impact on the airport experience including web and self-service check-in, interaction with airlines via mobile and security issues. The standout stats centre on the increased use of self-service check-in at the airports featured in the survey.... Read More

Being a journalist I'm partial to a good headline. And I figured I needed something to grab attention for my first post on Tnooz. I'm delighted to be in such talented company, but I wonder if I've got anywhere near the experience or knowledge of my newly acquired peers. In fact, it's this that has got me thinking. What am I here for?... Read More

Kayak undoubtedly has an unwelcome surprise for TripIt, Dopplr, Traxo and Sabre’s TripCase, among other contenders. That’s because Kayak has quietly introduced in beta Kayak Trips, an itinerary-sharing service, to about half of its registered users. The service also is being tested on Kayak’s UK site and in France. Kayak thus becomes the first metasearch engine to get into the post-reservations management game.... Read More

European - and increasingly global - metasearch engine Skyscanner has hired one of the UK's current dot-com darlings to become a non-executive director of the business. But Jason Stockwood's appointment following his departure as managing director of dating giant match.com probably says a lot about Skyscanner's intentions to push the brand around the globe - or as he puts it: harness the "huge potential to build an explosive global brand over the next couple of years". Perhaps the first dilemma Stockwood, chief executive and co-founder Gareth Williams and co will wrestle with is what to do about Skyscanner's marketing strategy.... Read More

In 2000, Roger Liew became employee No. 5 of Orbitz, the airline-owned website that was to launch the following year. In the seemingly irrational world of travel technology, with its mainframe computers, EDIFACT messaging and incompatible legacy systems, Liew and the 14 other technophiles who became Orbitz’s first employees had a few things going for them in addition to their MIT degrees. “Our advantage was that none of the early people knew anything about travel,” Liew recalls.... Read More

Forget for a moment the toe-curling commentary and soft-lighting in this promotion clip, many still consider this effort from Sheraton Hotels to be the best example of Microsoft Surface in action. The reason? It combines all the concierge facilities that a typical hotel would include offline (at a desk, in other words) into a single interactive application.... Read More

With a week under our belts and almost no official communication or marketing from Tnooz, we would like to briefly welcome you to the site and quickly outline some of the things on offer. The main product at Tnooz, of course, is the constant flow of news, analysis and commentary from our editorial team of nodes around the world.... Read More

Both Tim Hughes and Norm Rose have recently written about the emergence of mobile as an emerging distribution channel for travel (check previous Tnooz post Augmented Reality, mobile, search and (maybe) getting it wrong). I completely agree, but from a very different context. While the big players like Expedia and Air Canada are jumping on and creating iPhone and Blackberry applications to sell last minute hotels and speed up check-ins, I think the real opportunity exists for destinations and local in-market attractions and tours.... Read More

The European travel technology sector has seen its first major financial collapse of the current recession - BlueSky Travel Systems, based in Manchester, UK, has gone into administration this week. The company employs around 100 people and counts Thomas Cook, Mark Warner, First Choice and Slattery’s Travel amongst its roster of clients. Rumours of BlueSky's demise was confirmed by Steve Driscoll, former managing director and founder who still has a financial interest in the business.... Read More

TravelTainment, the Amadeus-owned technology brand, is well known for its focus on research and development - an area of the business championed by its enthusiastic chief executive, Andrew Owen-Jones. Add Microsoft Surface into the mix and the result is a rather exciting interesting technology prototype for travel agencies. TravelTainment purchased a Surface table earlier this year and started developing a number of applications over the summer.... Read More

British Airways will be hoping some of the features included in its new premium service from London City Airport to New York will deflect attention away from the negative press it has received in recent days. Much has been said about the unfortunate stopover for fuel in Shannon, Ireland, and the cost of a ticket coming in at around £4,000. Couple these with noise from the environmental lobby, which has taken the airline to task for launching a business class-only, transatlantic product with aircraft (Airbus A318) that have just 32 seats.... Read More

TripIt, the itinerary management company, has entered into its first distribution relationship with an online travel agency, Hotwire. Once the deal gets implemented in several months, Hotwire customers will be able to make a booking and click a button to automatically send their details to a TripIt itinerary. It would replace the current system, where Hotwire users - and customers of any other travel-booking service - have to e-mail their confirmations to TripIt to aggregate their reservations.... Read More

Virgin Atlantic has been quietly exposing elements of a new website to consumers over the past few weeks and is now ready to throw open the doors to customers around the world. The airline's core market in the UK will be the first to see a spruced-up homepage ahead of other new features being added on a regular basis over the coming months. Users of its country sites elsewhere will notice a switch shortly, say staff working on the project.... Read More

Facebook now has 300 million users and became cash-flow positive last quarter, perhaps a year ahead of projections, according to the Facebook blog. Suddenly, muse pundits like Alex Salkever of DailyFinance say Google should consider throwing in the towel. That’s because 80 percent of brands are now advertising on Facebook, and the ads are better- targeted and more cost-effective than Google pitches, which can’t go viral like Facebook ads, Salkever explains.... Read More