Priceline made available a new, free iPhone app, Hotel Negotiator Version 2.0, which uses the iPhone 3G's electronic compass functionality. With Hotel Radar, the name Priceline gives to the main enhancement in Version 2.0, users can point the iPhone in a particular direction and the app displays area hotels, including published room rate, star level and distance. Not a bad mobile option if you are wandering city streets looking for a place to stay or to have a drink -- or if you've already had a drink and are trying to find your hotel again.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending January 23 2010. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal is to launch its own "online travel agency" this week - joining the ranks of almost every other leading traditional newspaper brand on the web. WSJTravel.com, according to the pre-launch amble, will feature deals related to content appearing on the main online travel editorial channel on WSJ.com. Launching on January 28, WSJ says it will have around 50 planned trips on the system for users to purchase.... Read More

This week will probably see the launch of Apple’s Tablet – the iSlate (I had backed iTablet as the name but apparently there were copyright issues). So iSlate it is. The unveiling of the product will give a big boost to the eReader category and resulting adoption. Lazard Freres analyst Colin Sebastian has done an excellent research piece on the Tablet/Slate/eReader Market in his regular subscriber bulletin.... Read More

Mobile trip itinerary assistant TripChill wants users to Tweet their way through their travels by using a new tool to notify selected friends of milestones along a journey. The simplest execution of the service allows a member to update their Twitter account from within their mobile TripChill application, similar to other Twitter connections with a range of travel managements systems. The more advanced - and interesting - functionality lets users create databases of Twitter friends so that they can be sent a private direct message at different points along a trip.... Read More

There’s lots of discussions going round, especially in the consulting circus about the future validity of OTAs. Will they (we) be around in ten or even five years from now, and what will we look like? Metasearch websites, Google, Bing Travel and other new intermediaries are slowly paralyzing our industry.... Read More

What you missed on Tnooz this week, Sunday 17 to Saturday 23 January 2010. Read on to see the most commented articles, the most controversial topic, and every other article this week...... Read More

UPDATE: Rather bizarre turn of events two hours after this article was originally posted. TripAdvisor is either on a recruitment drive or has turned into one of those companies that likes to create quirky and edgy videos to show off how, err, quirky and edgy it is. Or both.... Read More

Aircell, which is implementing its Gogo Wi-Fi solution on the aircraft of major North American airlines, picked up $176 million in equity financing from new and existing investors. Aircell stated that the proceeds will go "for capital investments for network expansion and operating needs during this rapid growth phase of the business." The company says it has installed its Wi-Fi service on more than 700 commercial aircraft and has commitments from nine airlines. Among them are Air Canada, AirTran, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Virgin America and US Airways.... Read More

A new website -- coming "soon" -- forsakes the comprehensiveness gods and will focus on discount airlines only. Budget Center, which recently launched BudgetHotels through an affiliate deal with HotelsCombined, aims to launch BudgetAirlines.com in the next week or so, and plans to have an exclusive focus on low-cost carriers because "discounted flights and airlines are generally difficult to source on large travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity and are being under-serviced to online consumers," the company says. The company says BudgetAirlines will search discount airlines -- including Southwest, JetBlue and WestJet -- but "will not search for flights from the major carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific etc. as these airlines do not represent its target market."... Read More

There once was a day when consumers could visit an airline website and simply purchase a flight ticket. In North America, Air Canada kicked off the end of that simple process several years ago when the airline introduced branded fares -- Tango, Tango Plus, Latitude, and later Executive First Lowest and Executive First Flexible -- all with their own attributes. Now, along comes the new Continental Airlines chairman and CEO, Jeff Smisek, who took over these posts Jan. 1, and he apparently has a conceptual vision for Continental's future which parallels what Air Canada and other airlines have done. But to Smisek, it's all about pizza and lactose intolerance.... Read More

Twelve months ago almost to the day Tourism Queensland re-wrote the travel marketing rule book with its widely praised - and much copied - multimedia PR campaign. Ben Southall, winner of the Best Job in the World campaign, ended his tenure on the infamous Queensland island this week and is now hitting the talk shows in the US. The next phase of his "caretaker" job for Reef Island is as an evangelist-on-tour for Tourism Queensland, most notably on Fox News in the US this week alongside Anna Bligh, premier of the Australian state.... Read More

Read the headline again... That's right, the UK's official body which represents the interests of travel organisations and consumers has a rather interesting idea. But first, some background: two key distribution models are emerging in consumer-facing online travel.... Read More

Tom Klein - heir apparent? Sabre Holdings announced today that Klein, who had been executive vice president of Sabre's GDS and airlines solutions businesses, was appointed president of the company. In the history of Sabre Holdings, it has never had a presidential slot, the company says, and created the position for Klein's role. With Sabre - and Amadeus, too - reportedly mulling initial public offerings, Sabre competitor Travelport, raised eyebrows in November when it likewise created a new position, deputy CEO, and tapped Gordon Wilson to fill the slot.... Read More

Southwest Airlines chairman and CEO Gary Kelly says he'd welcome the prospect of other airlines stepping up their bag-fee increases because they have provided impetus to Southwest's market-share gains. "Let them charge $100 for bags," Kelly says. "We'll have 100% load factors." Speaking to analysts Jan. 21 after the airline recorded $116 million in profits for the fourth quarter, Kelly notes that overall the U.S. domestic airline market is not growing, yet Southwest picked up 1% in market share, which he labels "huge," on increased passenger traffic despite a capacity cut of 8%.... Read More