Micros eCommerce, HGK, Rome2Rio, MapBox, Google+, Aviasales, Minube, Voyage Privé, TripFlick, Viator, Minube, GuestLogix, all appear in our roundup of the stories making news and driving opinion on 20 November.
DISTRIBUTION
A survey finds that many independent hotels aren't including up-sells in their booking paths. Micros eCommerce, a seller of property management systems, has published a report that studied 156 independent hotels (opens as a PDF) for a snapshot of technology adoption. There's apparently room for hotels to push add-ons during booking.
Search engine optimization is also still important for independent hotels. About 40% of the 156 hotels didn't appear in the first page of Google search results for their keywords. Less than 10% had mobile-optimised websites for booking hotels on the go.
A new booking portal will be unveiled in Germany at the end of the month.HGK's portal aims to underprice HRS on commissions and offer hotel owners a booking engine for their websites and a channel manager for handling OTAs and Google Hotel Finder.
MOBILE/DEVICES
Multi-modal search (air, rail, road and sea options, compared side-by-side) takes a new turn. Melbourne's Rome2rio has unveiled an Apple iPhone app, and it is making the source code for the app available to licensees, who can customize design and the outbound links to capture bookings on either their own app or site or through their own partnerships.
Google+ platform adds deep linking for iOS and Android apps. Let the linkbacks begin.
Russia steps up its mobile metasearch game. Aviasales has released an Android version of its flights metasearch engine (in Russian, here), which is more streamlined than its original iPhone/iPad application — which happens to be the most popular flights metasearch app in the Russian appstore, with 11% of the company's sales coming through it.
Voyage Privé releases an iPad app for English speakers. The flash-sale company says is it is seeing 20% of its traffic coming through mobile, and expect its new iPad app to boost that figure. In a novel twist, the ap has recommendation feature that generates itineraries based on opening and closing hours, distance, and current location of the user.
This fall, American Airlines has debuted an app specifically designed for iPad. (It's here.) In a marketing twist, the app has a game, with players' names featured on the airline's Facebook page leaderboard and with the top scorer each week receive an entry in a contest to win 100,000 bonus miles.
Two Singapore startups cooperate to build an app. Travelogy has partnered with travel-guide builder TripFlick to launch the Android app for the travel portal ComeSingapore, enabling travelers to plan their itinerary before and during their stay in Singapore.
Emirates Airlines is touting its Windows 8 business app for its pursers and cabin crew. The Knowledge Driven Inflight Service (KDIS) tool sounds impressive. Unfortunately Windows 8 is being nicknamed Windows Meh by the tech community.
STARTUPS
New York is beaten by Tel Aviv, LA and Seattle in a new global ranking of the top 20 startup ecosystems. That's according to a new report by Startup Genome of 20 cities, notes TNW.
How did Hipmunk make its new hotel search so pretty? The darling metasearch of Silicon valley used MapBox maps, whose developer tools are built on open source tools.
GuestLogix has been named one of Canada's fasted growing technology companies. The seller of on-board retailing tools for airlines and rail companies has been recognized by the 15th annual Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards.
DIGITAL MARKETING
Tour and activities booking leader Viator has posted a collection of 65 professionally produced videos, with 300 more in the works. "The videos are shot by the winners of the tour booking site's Win Your Dream Travel Job Contest, and provide a peak into what travelers can expect from some of Viator’s most popular activities," says a company spokesperson.
SOCIAL COMMERCE
Spain's hottest social travel startup recently launched its first English-language app and website. In its Spanish edition, Minube, claims 160,000 users uploaded content so far this year and that its app has been downloaded a million times since launch. The new English language Minube for iPhone hopes for similar success. The company has submitted to Apple an in-app purchasing module to let travelers buy theme-specific mini-guides to destinations that have been generated by Minube users.
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