Concur, Traveldoo and Hillgate Travel give a business travel slant to the scan but Vayant Travel Technologies, Berlitz, Minube, 3BaysOver, IFE Services and Cardola also make the grade in the round up of stories making news and driving opinion on January 25.
For anyone who wonders what a month in the life of data surrounding travel and expense transactions looks like, the infographic below is for you. What it means is that Concur, a specialist in T&E technology, is providing public and private cloud hosting in Europe after unveiling a new datacentre. The service includes sites in France and the Netherlands enabling customers in Europe to host their data locally. The datacentre is part of Concur's global cloud strategy which aims to bring together all the travel and expense processes including elements such as VAT services. Full inforgraphic here
Egencia-owned Traveldoo has partnered with the Institute of Travel & Meetings to provide technology workshops and consultancy services to members throughout 2013. The travel management firm has also appointed Gary Povey as senior sales manager for the UK. Povey has previously held sales roles across BCD, InterContinental Hotels and Omega World Travel.
Hillgate Travel has added an expense facility to its GateWay travel portal following a partnership with Concur. Travellers will use TripIt to capture their travel plans which automatically be fed through to Concur Expense. Hillgate plans to demonstrate its integrated booking, expense management and business intelligence service at the Business Travel & Meetings Show on February 5 and 6 at London's Earls Court.
Vayant Travel Technologies has developed Fare Alert to monitor airfares and provide subscribers with live updates. The technology is aimed at online travel agents and airlines enabling them to select the markets and fares they want to track and react to changing prices. The alerts cover price, cabin type, negotiated and private fares, trip type, specific airlines and geographic locations.
Berlitz has unveiled a quiz-style iPhone and iPad application to help with learning a language. It's available in French, Italian or Spanish and includes audio from native speakers to aid pronunciation. Users can test their knowledge via some free questions and then purchase more for £1.99.
3BaysOver, the network for the travel trade, has opened itself up to South American tour operators and accommodation provides who want to promote their services to the industry worldwide. Travel companies in Europe and North America looking to connect with these suppliers are also encouraged to join the b2b marketplace. The startup (TLabs Showcase here) intends to make the platform more widely available in the next few months.
Social travel application Minube has developed a version of its service for Android. The Madrid-based startup aims to provide recommendations of places to stay, see and eat based on a community of 500,000 travellers. The app is available in English, Spanish, Italian and Portugese and includes an 'inspiration' screen with suggestions for users based on mood, type of trip or distance from home. The service also enables travellers to create 'favourites' lists by themselves or with others and find like-minded people to track and share information with.
Guests at El Lodge Resort in the Sierra Nevada, Spain, now get an iPad equipped with a VirtualHotel service from Cardola. VirtualHotel enables travellers to check hotel facilities including restaurants and spa, see what is around locally, ski equipment and book lessons. Cardola was founded by MC Hotels, which operates El Lodge Resort and other properties.
IFE Services is to provide Maldivian Airlines with television programmes as well as a safety film (English and Dhiveli) and other inflight content for use on overhead screens.