Travel tech updates from Luxe Nomad, DestinAsian, Goibibo, TripAdvisor, Cleartrip, Room 77, SITA, Qantas, All Nippon Airways, Superfly and TaxiForSure makes to the shortlist of SCAN for March 20.
Trip Planning Websites:
Cleartrip's iPhone app has been featured as 'Editors Choice' app in the Indian app store. Also, the app made it to the list of "Top 10 Free Apps" list, with Cleartrip's app being the only travel app in the list. Below are few interesting data about the app:
- Cleartrip Mobile searches: 25-28% of total searches overall
- Cleartrip Mobile daily: make 8-10% share of desktop transactions
- The app has been downloaded 100,000 times since launch
The company has also launched a new feature in which customers will be able to book flight and hotel as a
package.
TripAdvisor has partnered with web/mobile app data provider Factual to integrate restaurant data from its Global Places data set to complement TripAdvisor's current dining options and reviews. On the flip side, TripAdvisor will provide Factual user-generated data to maintain the freshness and accuracy of its Global Places data.
On Monday, hotel metasearch site Room 77 launched a mobile optimized site that is the first hotel metasearch to compare mobile-only hotel rates with standard hotel rates across dozens of suppliers and OTAs. The site already has custom apps for iPhone and Android. In the past year, it has quadrupled to 15,000 the number of hotel listings for which it has created custom editorial information on room quality.
Goibibo, one of India's online travel agency has launched mobile app for Android platform. Users will be able to book bus and flight tickets in this app. The company already has an app for Windows platform and the app for iOS is in the works.
The Luxe Nomad, Singapore-based members-only luxury hotel booking site partners with DestinAsian, Asia’s premier luxury leisure travel magazine. The partnership will enable DestinAsian magazine sharing destination information where The Luxe Nomad hotel partners are located.
Travel Technology:
SITA has been awarded "IT Company of the Year" by Air Transport News (ATN).
TaxiForSure.com, India's online car rental aggregator platform has expanded its car rental service to Delhi and NCR region, after establishing its presence in Bangalore.
Airline, Airport:
All Nippon Airways (ANA) has launched "Let's Do Japan", a site that lets visitors create their own Japanese manga personality and learn helpful tips about Japanese culture and trends.This campaign is targeted at U.S. consumers. Visitors to the site choose to be either Executive, Fashionista, Gourmand, Designer or Aficionado to create their original manga hero and manga stories with their own pictures.
Superfly, the metasearch site for frequent flyers, now tracks miles via Yahoo Mail and AOL Mail -- not just Gmail, via its innovative email-scanning feature, Superbox, that collects balance points and helps users quickly find forgotten accounts and miles.
In the 11th Routes Asia event held in Mumbai, Singapore's Changi Airport was awarded the overall winner of 2013 Asia awards. In 2012, the airport witnessed over 50 million passengers through the airport, a first in its 31 year operating history.
Qantas has become the 30th airline to offer bookings for tours and activities through Viator for tours and activities. Fun fact: the 'i' in Viator is a long vowel and the stress is on the first syllable. It's the Latin word for traveler.
Hotels:
Trent Fraser, CEO of
Choice Hotels,
talks about about cloud management, going paperless, social media and other tech initiatives.