Travel tech news from iXiGo.com, Travel Intak, Travelocity Business, Urban Adventures, Everplaces, RateTiger, RateGain, Airline Reporting Corporation, Utrip, Hertz, China Auto Rental, Eurostar, theTrainline and Samsung make it to our scan for April 18th.
Travel Portals
iXiGo.com, India’s travel planning & search engine has unveiled its new look today. The change will reflect across all the user touch points and devices such as website, mobile and social media.
Travel Intak, part of one of the largest travel insurance brokers in North America, has added travel-related insurance plans from RoamRight.
Mobile
Travelocity Business' TBiz Chat has gone mobile, allowing business travelers to chat one on one with TBiz agents prior to and during their business trip through the TripCase mobile app.
Urban Adventures, the day tour arm of Intrepid Travel, has tapped into the knowledge of their local staff to produce tourist guide series. The guides are built on Everplaces self-publishing app technology.
Hotel Applications
Premier Inn India, a mid-market hotel group has increased its online bookings by 20% by using RateTiger's RTSuite 3.0 channel manager.
Santika Indonesia Hotels & Resorts, one of the largest hotel chains in Indonesia has chosen RateGain's Rate Intelligence Solution to augment their pricing decisions.
Others
Ticket transactions in the United States for Q1 2013 decreased 1.81% over the same period in 2012 to 38.4 million, according to a report issued by ARC (Airlines Reporting Corporation).
Oren Etzioni will be joining Utrip's Board of Advisors. Etzioni is an expert in artificial intelligence and a seasoned entrepreneur.
Hertz Corporation has agreed to invest in China Auto Rental (CAR), China's domestic market leader in short and long-term car rentals. Hertz will acquire a stake of approximately 20%, on a fully diluted basis, in CAR and hold a seat on CAR's Board of Directors. Hertz and CAR will be co-branded at the latter's full service rental locations countrywide, and Hertz's car rental locations and operations in China.
Eurostar says sales generated online for the US, its largest overseas market increased 20% in the first three months of the year. The company has just unveiled a new website which it says has reduced the time taken to book a ticket by 40% to four-and-a-half minutes. The train company is planning further digital investment with additional features to come.
TheTrainline is increasing the availability of print your own tickets for travel management companies and corporate customers. The PYO technology uses barcodes and enables tickets to be printed from home on A4 paper and using any standard printer.
Samsung continues pushing into content delivery for hospitality brands via a partnership with hospitality self-service guest technology provider Intelity. Samsung’s LYNK SINC will interface directly with the hotel's property management system, allowing properties to offer dynamic Video-On-Demand via a widget-based system without any technology upgrades. The Internet-based widget allows properties to customize Welcome screens, offer video content and apps like Facebook and Twitter to guests on their TVs.