Travel tech updates from Vayable, JetRadar, Letsgo, TaxiForSure, MakeMyTrip, Minube, Rakuten, Philippine Airline, On Air, Spirit Airline, Samoa Air, Go Group, Concur, Mobikon, AwardWallet, Mountain Travel Sobek, WorldVentures makes to our scan news for April 4th.
Travel PortalsVayable.com, travel experience portal has launched Vayable Destinations, a what-to-do resource for travelers looking to experience the best a city or region has to offer.
JetRadar.com, Russia’s leading online travel portal enters the European and American markets.
Letsgo, the travel portal for students has launched a new iOS app that allows users to pick the full city guides they want to purchase.
TaxiForSure.com, India's online car rental aggregator portal has listed its inventory in MakeMyTrip.
Rakuten, the Japanese travel agency, says it sees revenue growth of 30% year-to-year on average in Southeast Asia and China. In the past year, it has opened offices in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia, to work with hotels in each country.
Minube, the social travel planning site has launched a new feature in its iOS app that will allow users to plan and discuss about their future trips in real-time.
Airlines, Airport
Philippine Airlines has signed a deal with On Air to provide inflight connectivity to passengers, including GSM and wifi Internet. The connectivity usage will be charged in users phone bills. On Air’s coverage is provided through roaming agreements with some 350 mobile network operators around the world, as well as Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband network.
Spirit Airlines and other US airlines lost their final battle in its war against new federal rules that require carriers to include taxes in their advertised fares. The last stop in the battle was the Supreme Court, which has refused to take on their case.
Samoa Air, a small island-hopping airline, has begun charging passengers by weight, its website says. It's a whole new revenue opportunity for ancillaries.
GO Group, LLC has launched an updated iOS app that allows travelers to book a GO airport shuttle from their iPhones. The new version stores users' personal information, which speeds up the booking process.
Hotels, Restaurants
Concur announced that InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has signed on as a Concur Open Booking partner. Now, corporate travelers whose Concur profiles are linked with their IHG loyalty program account will be able to book directly from IHG’s brand websites and still receive their company’s negotiated rates.
Singapore based Mobikon’s cloud-based product Konekt Feedback has now launched in Android. Konekt powers over 350+ Restaurant and Retail outlets in Asia.
Others
AwardWallet, a B2C tool for managing frequent flier and loyalty programme accounts, has launched an iPhone app. The company reports that across its site and apps it has 144,268 total active users, managing an average of 9 award programs per user—putting it ahead of rivals in user engagement.
Mountain Travel Sobek, the adventure travel pioneer, has announced that Greg Slyngstad will join its board. Greg has deep roots in the online tech and travel industries. He has worked for 14 years at Microsoft as group program manager for Microsoft Word, and was the leader of the Microsoft team that founded Expedia in 1996. He was also a founding member of Kayak, co-founder of Vacation Spot and Trover.
WorldVentures, the direct-selling industry’s largest seller of vacation club memberships, has expanded its service to Iceland, in addition to its service in 22 other countries.