This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel DISTRIBUTION in tourism and hospitality for October 2014.
Tuesday 28 October 2014:
Sabre agrees new distribution partnership with South African Airways
- The multi-year deal gives all Sabre-connected travel agencies and OTAs access to fares, schedules and availability. This will include the published fares featured on the carrier's own website.
Monday 20 October 2014:Travelport and WestJet sign merchandising package
- Travelport will provide the Canadian carrier with the Rich Content and Branding part of its merchandising platform to give WestJet additional exposure and management of fares and content on agency desktop.
HotelsClick gets
TripAdvisor distribution
- The Italian online travel agency will be included on the Instant Booking feature on mobile devices currently being rolled out for TripAdvisor's hotel metasearch service. HotelsClick currently has around 120,000 properties included on its portfolio of hotels around the world.
Friday 17 October 2014:Sabre and HRS agree hotel inventory partnership
- The deal means over 50,000 hotel properties from the HRS system will be available to Sabre-connected agencies via the GDS. In addition, HRS's Corporate Discount service will be included in the agreement, giving travel management companies discounts on over half of the properties added to the Sabre system.
Travelport sets up new
CemAir agreement
- Commuter and regional carrier CemAir will distribute and make its full range of content and web fares available to agents using Galileo, Worldspan and Apollo, as part of a multi-year agreement. CemAir was created in 2005 and has its operations based in Johannesburg.
Vayant taps up
TAP- The Portuguese national carrier has signed an agreement with the airfare search technology provider so it can distribute price and flight information directly to tour operators. In particular, TAP will use Vayant's pricing Cache service in a bid to strengthen its position in the German market.
Tuesday 14 October 2014:Sabre renews PriceTravel distribution deal
- The online travel agency, which targets travellers in Mexico, Colombia and other Latin American countries, has re-signed its agreement with to provide it with fares and availability data for airlines and other travel services. The pair first collaborated in 2000 at PriceTravel's launch.
Fastbooking nabs
Park SuitesAppart'City- The recently merged hotel hotel chain has selected Fastbooking to handle its distribution, channel management and be its booking engine provider. The group has a total of 116 properties in France, covering 14,000 apartments. The Park & Suites Group was founded in 2000.
Friday 10 October 2014:TripIt adds additional loyalty tracking options across its platform
- TripIt has added new features for "Pro" (paying) members. First, expiration alerts: (Sign up to be told by text or email if your points or miles are about to elapse). Second, manual reward-program tracking: If a member doesn't see one of your programs, he or she can add their program details manually to stay on track.
RezNext captures
ClearTrip integration
- The Indian online travel agency will use the RezNext distribution platform to powers a real-time hotel booking service on its website. The RezNext integration will include the main India website as well as regional versions in the UAE, Sri Lanka and Africa.
Wednesday 8 October 2014:Tourico Holidays pushes car rental distribution service
- The wholesaler says it has expanded its car rental partners to 18 branded chains, giving it coverage in more than 100 countries. Those connected to Tourico are able to search in real-time by city or airport and view locations of available vehicles of map, as well as filtering by supplier, car type and amenities.
Monday 6 October 2014:Travelport woos Aeroflot to Rich Content and Branding
- The Russian carrier becomes the first in the country to adopt the desktop element of the Travelport Merchandising Platform. The tool gives the airline the ability to set and manage how its product is featured on agency interfaces, following similar adoption by the likes of Delta, British Airways, Ryanair and United.
Friday 3 October 2014:Pathway GDS connects The Travel Network Group agents to rental distribution
- The agency consortium will get access to villas, apartments, condos and chalets on the Pathway system, currently over 300,000 properties around the world. The Travel Network Group has more than 800 agency members, including the Worldchoice franchise.
Thursday 2 October 2014:Sabre gets Peruvian Airlines
- The multi-year agreement sees Sabre-connected agents given access to all Peruvian's fares, schedules and services, as well as seat maps and Low Fare Search tools. The carrier began life in October 2009 and services destinations including Lima, Cusco and Iquitos.
Travelport enlists three new board members
- The new non-executive members of the Travelport board of directors include Elizabeth Buse (currently co-CEO of global payment service Monitise), Michael Durham (ex-Sabre CEO and now board member of Hertz and Cambridge Capital Acquisition) and Douglas Hacker (ex-United Airlines executive of vice president of strategy and currently board member at Aircastle).
Wednesday 1 October 2014:Vayant unveils new version of OneSearch tool
- The pricing and shopping engine carries a number of new features including integration of ATPCO's Tax Collection and Distribution tool and a pilot of IATA's NDC Shopping API for ancillary services. There are also changes to how it handles custom and third party fares.
Amadeus gets
Air Asia India- The low cost carrier has signed with Amadeus to allow agencies around the world to book its fares and and obtain schedules and other content. Air Asia India will also use the "light ticketing" technology so agents can compare its fares alongside existing, full-service carriers on the GDS. The airline currently operates flights between Bengalaru and Chennai, Kochi, Goa and Jaipur.
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NB2: Travel distribution image via Shutterstock.