Living Social, Medallia, SkyTeam, and Everbread make our roundup of the stories that are driving the travel tech conversation on 27 September.
Consolidation in the daily deal space
Websites selling consumers a mix of daily deals heavily weighted toward travel products may total about 500 today -- a number expected to shrink by half in 2013, says Daily Deal Media.
LivingSocial will likely survive as it is currently the strongest brand, with 65 million customers in 20 countries, and 130 staff cutting travel deals for its Escapes channel.
Most of LivingSocial's deals have been with hotels, though it is now inking contracts with tour operators and airlines and partnering with sites like BBC Travel to promote its offerings.
SkyTeam considers a revamped partnership platform
The recent alignment of Emirates and Qantasoutside of a major global alliance is spurring SkyTeam to see how it can include low-cost carriers in its alliance without requiring an expensive and complicated IT investment, says an article by the Centre for Aviation.
As expert Filip Filipov notes, "Everbread should be excited."
Medallia gets funding for its consulting business that focuses on hospitality
Medallia is an 11-year old, Palo Alto customer relationship management (CRM) software solution company whose clients include the Hilton and Four Seasons chains, and who has nabbed $35 million in funding from Sequoia and other firms.
The boutique analyses data from various corporate IT systems and social media and presents the information in a way for hotel owners and other consumer companies to see how they need to improve customer service.