News

The State of Florida and six Florida counties sued Expedia and Orbitz Nov. 3 over the hotel tax issue, ratcheting up the cross-country flurry of litigation. The usual M.O. is for cities and counties to sue on this issue, but Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum says Florida, with its large hotel business and tourism destinations like Orlando and Miami, is the first state to do so. He says the state suit will help sort out the applicability of state tax laws to Internet travel firms. In thinking about the hotel tax issue, one point that many people may be missing about the depths of the problem for the OTAs is that they are being hounded with scores of tax audits and assessments in addition to the lawsuits.... Read More

Trivago is celebrating after an official complaint it made to Google regarding review rival TripAdvisor's use of Google AdWords has been accepted. The Germany-based review and metasearch engine reacted angrily after discovering Tripadvisor was bidding on its brand name and including the trademarked name in its ad copy. It has since emerged that Google responded quickly to Trivago and said the matter had been dealt with and TripAdvisor would no longer be using the term in its ad copy.... Read More

Focus on the customer: A travel brand’s first concern should be its customer, as they are the most valuable asset. They should consider what customers will respond to and what will improve the relationship they have with the brand.... Read More

Tnooz is the exclusive media partner for this year's TravelBlogCamp - a fast-growing and informal event organised by Travel Rants which takes place during London's World Travel Market. The event on Tuesday 10 November is in its second year and attracts bloggers, journalists, PRs, technology providers and marketing and social media experts from across the travel, tourism and hospitality industry.... Read More

The earthquake that rocks the world of distribution was quietly delivered in a session at CASMA last week. Cory Garner, the newly appointed director of merchandising strategy for AMR subsidiary American Airlines, made an unequivocal statement about the future direction of AA’s distribution. Further clarification came for the team with Don Bender, manager of distribution strategy, highlighting the components of the strategy.... Read More

European internet booking system provider FastBooking has launched Collection-Hotels, a high-end portal for the four and five star hotels in its system to give them another route to consumers. The site is entering a growing marketplace and follows in the footsteps of other European sites such as Mr & Mrs Smith and Escapio. FastBooking also joins a number of other B2B technology providers that have seen the consumer route as a potentially lucrative add-on to their businesses.... Read More

Formalising a strategy: Once a brand has decided on the AR vision, the next step will be to formalise a plan with clear objectives. This should be formalised in the same way a loyalty programme is, however be cautious not to confuse the two.... Read More

The world's top airports spent 3.2% of their overall revenue on investment in software and hardware in 2008, a survey by aviation technology specialist SITA has found. The figure is a decline of 0.3% on the previous year but is likely to be reversed considerably in 2010 as airports begin to invest heavily in passenger self check-in booths, RFID scanners and automated baggage drop zones. Technology is expected to become an integral part of airport owner investment and development over the next three years, with a number of key areas taking the lion's share of activity... Read More

European car hire giant EuropCar reckons it can reinvigorate the online car hire experience by throwing its efforts into developing highly interactive tools using Microsoft Silverlight and Surface. Tnooz has exclusive access under the hood of an ongoing web development project between EuropCar and web agency Fortune Cookie to see some early-stage, conceptual designs. The pair are working on a number of initiatives which will, they say, revolutionise the way consumers select, book and experience what is probably one of the dullest components in travel - booking a car.... Read More

The Big Four U.S.-headquartered online travel companies -- Expedia Inc., Priceline.com, Orbitz Worldwide and Travelocity -- were socked with a $20.6 million hotel occupancy tax tab as a federal jury in San Antonio, Texas, ruled against them in a class-action civil lawsuit brought on behalf of 173 of the state's cities and towns. The U.S. district court jury in City of San Antonio v. Hotels.com found that the OTCs were "controlling hotels" when they sold room nights on a merchant-model basis, and thus were liable for tax on their retail rates and not just the wholesale deals they got from the hotels. And, that $20.6 million potential liability does not yet even take into account the penalties and interest that might be imposed.... Read More

Amadeus, the airline IT and GDS vendor, plans to integrate data from the International Civil Aviation Organization's carbon calculator in all of Amadeus' reservations platforms my mid-2010. In the announcement, Amadeus notes that more than 1 million passengers fly daily after booking their flights through reservations processed by Amadeus. So, that's a lot of travelers who may at least be reminded that -- regardless of the flight deal they may have found -- air travel comes at an environmental cost.... Read More

After a 27-year absence, global hotel company Hyatt is expected to go public late this week with an initial public offering priced between $23 and $26 per share. With the market's unsteadiness, interested parties which likewise may be considering public offerings, including Kayak, Amadeus, Travelport and Sabre, as well as the entire lodging and travel industry, will be watching how Hyatt fares as it takes the IPO plunge. But, Hyatt is expected to receive none of the roughly $900 million in proceeds from its projected sale of 38 million Shares of Class A common stock in the IPO.... Read More

Ancillary revenue (AR) has been the focus of ever increasing media attention as airlines struggle through the global economic downturn. Airlines worldwide reportedly collected $10 billion in AR in 2008, according to the Guide to Ancillary Revenue and a la Carte Pricing published recently. That’s an annual increase of 345% year on year.... Read More

Not content with letting Kayak take all the headlines for its new TV ad, UK-based engine Skyscanner has a rather more strategic announcement to make. The company has today launched domains across the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India and China. The suite of new launches follows a similar roll-out over the course of 2009 in Norway, South Korea and the US.... Read More

Metasearch engine Kayak clearly sees its new TV ads as a pretty big step for the company, as Tnooz outlined last week. So much so that CEO Steve Hafner felt sufficiently moved to comment on our original post, albeit reminding people when the ad is first being aired. Anyway, those without any interest in the NFL in the US (ie - the rest of the world) can see what all the fuss is about.... Read More