Tnooz is a big fan of mashups and any graphical reproduction to illustrate how the airline industry operates. The buzz and traffic around our recent coverage of the Casper mashup of Schiphol flights illustrates that readers are too. So for this week's fix of geekness, check out this visual representation of every flight around the world over a 24 hour period.... Read More

Privately held Sabre Holdings -- heretofore organized into Sabre Travel Network, Travelocity and Sabre Airline Solutions -- introduced a new business division, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, over the summer and is readying a "hard launch" of the unit in early 2010. Felix Laboy, president of Sabre Hospitality Solutions, says the unit consists of SynXis, the CRS and hotel distribution company; Sabre media for hotels; E-site Marketing; and Sabre Hotel RFP. One of the early fruits of the creation of SHS is that the unit has been able to blend technologies from SynXis and E-site Marketing to offer hotels mobile websites and mobile booking capabilities.... Read More

Nothing seems to ruffle Expedia Inc. CFO Michael Adler as the globe's largest online travel agency is sitting pretty, at the top of the world. Addressing analysts at the Friedman Billings Ramsey Capital Markets Investor Conference in New York Dec. 1, Adler calmly states how he likes where the trends are trending, and sort of sums up the whole thing thusly: "We think over the last several years we've proven we know how to run a travel company." That may be true, but there was little pushback at all from the assembled financial gurus during a Q & A with Adler. There wasn't much said about Priceline's gains in Europe, about adverse hotel tax rulings in the U.S., or other competitive challenges, although Adler did mention how the fee-cut frenzy turned out OK as it stimulated a lot of traffic and transactions.... Read More

Trip planning and destination guide service PlanetEye has joined the ranks of similar sites with a new division to show off its specialist content and move to bolster existing media revenues. The Toronto-based company recently created PlanetEyeTraveler as a standalone e-magazine brand to publish destination-specific news, information and reviews. In addition, chief executive Jonah Sigel says, each article utilises the existing PlanetEye mapping technology which has gained the site plenty of plaudits courtesy of its unique and exclusive technology partnership with Microsoft.... Read More

Virgin Atlantic is embarking on a new round of development work for its much-hyped VTravelled social network and says only after that will it focus its marketing efforts on passengers. The site was launched in June 2009 to coincide with the 25th birthday of the airline and aimed to be a destination guide-trip planner coupled with sharing facilities for user generated content and photographs. Virgin will not say how many people are registered with the site ("we have increased registrations by 55%") but those listed on the site stretching from before VTravelled launched to December 2009 reach around 1,660.... Read More

Google hosted a private half-day conference yesterday for folk across the travel sector in the UK. Gracing the 150 or so delegates with their presence - and presentations - were the likes of Google UK boss Matt Brittin, futurologist Patrick Dixon, and officials from Ebookers, Hilton, lastminute.com and Virgin Atlantic. The idea behind the event is to "share insights, debate fresh perspectives and discuss best practices to harness the online opportunity for the travel market moving into 2010".... Read More

My Tnooz colleague Tim Hughes is a fan of the concept of Augmented Reality. And being a bit of a geek myself I rather like the idea. But is this an end or a step on the way and if so to where or what? Professor Chris – also from Down Under (where they clearly have too much time on their hands) – recently forwarded to me a very interesting piece from TED on sixth sense technology – wearable technology that interacts with data.... Read More

Get Organised: Great websites are organised. Before you create anything, sit down and draw a map, showing all the ways a user could possibly enter your website and how from there they will get into your sales funnel.... Read More

Travel Intelligence has secured its first major white label partnership under the stewardship of ex-Ebookers managing director Alan Josephs - a purpose built hotel booking engine for high-end publisher Conde Nast Traveller. A version of the TI Starfish platform is working behind the main CNTraveller site to provide a fully functioning search and booking facility for around 3,000 hotels around the world. It replaces the old system which saw visitors sent away to the hotel's own website in order to check availability and book a room.... Read More

A dearth of investment in public-funded institutions aimed at tourists is leading some to consider actions which might have the culture vultures spluttering into their lattes. CultureLabel is a shopping service - launched in July 2009 - normally attuned to selling high-end gifts and retail items of the fashion, home living and entertainment variety. But the company is attempting to meet the travel industry head-on with a new initiative to target tourists with ancillary sales coupled with online bookings for museums.... Read More

Amadeus and Fourth Dimension Software integrated some of their tour operator offerings and entered into a co-marketing pact that could give FDS a larger footprint in Europe and fill in some technology gaps for Amadeus. And, oh yeah, the partnership could make things more efficient for tour operator customers, enable them to better package scheduled, charter and net-rate flights using the two companies' integrated services, and provide them with broader options through TravelTainment's multi-channel distribution platforms. Several things drove the arrangement. TravelTainment provides a desktop solution and booking engine for tours, but many tour operators still are using decades-old technology for back-of-the house kinds of things such as inventory management, so there was a need to fill that gap. As Amadeus, like other GDSs, looked to diversify leisure offerings, it went looking for a tour technology partner.... Read More

It may seem astonishing to some but the consortium of rail companies planning a pan-network booking system across Europe - now unceremoniously axed - had actually failed to approach any external companies about the project. RailTeam launched the project at the organisation's inception in 2007 with the promise that travellers using high-speed trains around Europe would eventually be able to buy a point-to-point ticket through a single transaction. It has since emerged that the companies involved had spent the past two years talking amongst themselves about how best to implement such a system but hadn't approached any travel technology firms for advice or to take matters forward.... Read More

Continental Airlines today became the latest airline to introduce a cashless cabin for on-board purchases. So, starting Dec. 1, if you want to purchase an alchoholic beverage or headset on a Continental mainline flight -- with the exception of China routes -- you will have to bring some plastic in the form of a credit or debit card. Hand-held devices, which the airline began testing last Summer, will read the cards, crunch the transactions and help the airline manage product inventory.... Read More

Start with a Great Brand: Building a great website gets a lot easier when you have a solid brand to start out from. But branding doe not necessarily mean putting together a nice logo.... Read More

New Zealand might have secured some hits with its online presence in recent years but it has a long way to go before it reaches the pinnacle of DMO branding achieved by its Pacific neighbour in the fo... Read More