This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel SYSTEMS in tourism and hospitality for April 2016.
Monday 25 April 2016
Rocketrip, the travel incentive platform, sees growth
- The New York City-based YCombinator alumnus, which helps companies reduce travel spend by rewarding employees for saving on travel, says its clients saved more than $1 million on business travel in the first quarter of 2016. The number of users and the number of trips booked have both more than tripled, year-over-year.
Wednesday 20 April 2016Lufthansa City Center (LCC) adopts a solution from Umbrella
- LCC, which has 650 agencies worldwide, has tapped the Swiss travel tech company Umbrella for its application “Umbrella Faces”, a tool that helps TMCs to manage and synchronize company and travel profiles in real-time to all relevant databases.
ATPCO and
Farelogix team up for ancillary sales
- A new Ancillary Offer Engine combines the power of Farelogix’ FLX Merchandise engine with the comprehensive Optional Services data of the largest clearinghouse of fare and fare-related data for airlines to let airlines distribute offers across channels. The tool will let any airline, GDS, OTA, or CBT access ancillary services specific to the passenger's itinerary and passenger details. It will be marketed and sold by ATPCO.
Tuesday 19 April 2016:Worldpay secures Despagar deal
- The Latin American online travel agency will use Worldpay to be its payments provider across the region. As well as automating processes such as chargebacks and dispute management, Worldpay will assist the OTA with its expansion into new markets.
Sabre expands virtual payment tool
- The new Virtual Payments Ticketer service gives companies the ability to change the same virtual card for an air ticket when the agency buys additional bags, seats or other ancillary services. Sabre claims the number of cards issued through its platform has increased by 150% globally in the last 12 months.
Talend to power
FlyBe back-office tech
- The Europe-based regional airline will use Talend Data Services as part of a project to overhaul its back-end systems. Central to the project is the integration of five platforms, using a number of plug-and-play technologies.
Thursday 14 April 2016:Sabre signs Lion Air
- The Indonesian low-cost carrier and its subsidiaries Batik Air, Wings Air, Malindo Air, and Thai Lion Air will use Sabre AirCentre’s airline operations, crew and disruption management technologies.
Tuesday 12 April 2016:Amadeus revenue management deal with Singapore Airlines
- The Singapore city state-based carrier will use the ALTEA Network Revenue Management platform from Amadeus. The system allows the airline to monitor commercial operations alongside merchandising tactics such as dynamic pricing and ancillary sales. Singapore Airlines will also take on the ALTEA Group Manager product.
Travelport signs four API customers
- Travel With Lia (South Africa), Skylord Travel (UK), OneTwoTrip (Russia) and Travel Loop (Spain) are using the Travelport API to allow the quartet of online travel agencies to design their own user interfaces. Each can modify elements such as search, reservations, payments, branded fares and ancillaries.
NB: Travel startups image via Shutterstock.