This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel people moves in tourism and hospitality for March 2017.
Wednesday 29 March 2017:
Travelport boss for Germany and Switzerland
- Dieter Rumpel becomes country manager for the pair after running the tech provider's business in Switzerland - he will report into Simon Ferguson, managing director for Northern Europe. He has previously worked for HRG and Kuoni.
Flight Centre Group digital advisory board
- The agency network will have Nicolas Brusson and Hugh Crean will work alongside Atle Skalleberg on its digital commerce advisory board. Brusson is CEO of French ride-sharing service BlaBlaCar and Crean is a well-known (ex-Microsoft) entrepreneur in the US.
Tuesday 28 March 2017:Peakwork ramps-up sales force
- The tech provider has Jacqueline Lacoste as its head of sales for the Amercian, with Dimo Pashov in a similar for EMEA. Lacoste comes in from Webjet offshoot Lots Of Hotels, where she was regional manager. Pashov was previously director of business development for North and Eastern Europe at TeamAmerica/USA.
Monday 27 March 2017:Travelport hires product chief
- The company's EMEA region will have Jasmeen Kaur as its head of product and solutions. She is moving over from a previous role as director of regional product and strategy in Northern Europe. Prior to joining Travelport in July 2012, Kaur had worked for Pegasus since 2000.
Adara overhauls ad sales team
- Brandon Meyers becomes chief revenue officer and the travel data and analytics company, moving over from his position as vice president of global platform solutions. Mike Aronow becomes vice president of sales in North America, whilst Denise Harrell will be sales director in the same region. Pete Kelly assumes the same vice president role for Europe and Philipp Neubert becomes sales director for the DACH region in Europe.
Travelport Locomote lands Telstra exec
- Benjamin Jones joins corporate travel technology provider as its new global operations manager, based in Australia. He was most recently head of operations support for Sportsbet and had a 16-year stint at Telstra in a variety of roles.
Thursday 23 March 2017:MeetingPackage bolsters exec team
- The web platform for booking meeting rooms and packages has hired a chief operating officer and a head of research and development. Himanshu Mittal takes the research brief whilst Henri Nystrom (ex-CEO of Varusteleka) will oversee operations.
Tuesday 21 March 2017:FCS gets new commercial director
- Craig Dennington takes on the role for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands at the hotel technology provider. He joins from CMS Hospitality where he was director of marketing and partnerships.
Hahn Air secures third reappointment at UATP
- The Universal Air Travel Plan will have Jorg Troester as one of its board of directors for the third selection process in a row. Troester is head of corporate strategy, industry and government affairs at Hahn.
Chelsea Clinton lands
Expedia board seat
- The daughter of US presidential candidate Hillary and former-president Bill is joining the 14-member board of Expedia Inc, chaired by Barry Diller, a long-time supporter of the Clinton polticial family. The younger Clinton, who is also a director of Diller's other interest, IAC/InteractiveCorp, recently signed a book deal with Penguin Young Readers.
Monday 20 March 2017:Grab opens and expands R&D centres
- Southeast Asia's biggest taxi app Grab is opening new R&D centres in Bangalore and Ho Chi Minh City and is also expanding its main Singapore base and its year-old Seattle centre as well. With premises in Beijing and Jakarta, it now has six facilities and plans to increase its R&D workforce by 800 over the next two years.
Friday 17 March 2017:Peakwork sales boss
- Jan Gerlach becomes chief sales and marketing officer and a member of the travel technology and distribution provider's executive board. The promotion comes eight months on from joining the company as vice president of project and key account management. He had earlier stints to Loft System and Metro Cash & Carry.
Wednesday 15 March 2017:Travelport has DMOs in its sights
- Atlyn Forde becomes regional head of destination marketing for EMEA at Travelport's Digital Media Solutions division. She was previously director of marketing in Europe for Saint Lucia Tourist Board, an organisation she joined in June 2011, as well as serving as a board member for the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.
Seedrs CTO has travel background
- Crowdfunding platform Seedrs has added some travel tech know-how to its senior team with the appointment of Ricardo Brizido as its chief technology officer. He held the same role at Rocket Internet's African hotel booking site Jovago (before it became Jumia Travel) and also spent some time as a software engineer for Travelfusion (before it became part of Ctrip).
Tuesday 14 March 2017:OpenTravel appoints new exec committee
- The travel technology standards body has ratified the results of its election to appoint an executive committee. Jim Jandrew (Disney) becomes chairperson; Susanne Auinger (DB Systel) is vice-chair; Brian Bell (LinksRez) is secretary; and Matt Blackmon (SuperShuttle) is treasurer.
Friday 10 March 2017:Concur expands into Brazil
- Valeria Soska will head the expense management and tech provider's move into the country, having joined as managing director for Brazil. She was most recently a senior vice president at parent company SAP, overseeing its strategic customer service programme in Brazil.
BookingKit launches in 11 new markets
- Italy, Spain, France and the UK are among the list of countries being targeted by the tours and activities tech supplier. The Germany-based company will have local teams in place in each of the new markets as it looks to develop local language versions of its suite of products.
Iglu promotes within for global supply
- The cruise specialist has promoted managing director, Simone Clark to senior vice president, global supply. Iglu says the new role will help drive the company's overseas expansion.
Tuesday 7 March 2017:Travelport hires air commerce boss
- Philip Saunders becomes vice president for air commerce in EMEA, with responsibility for airline partnerships. He joins from Kuwait Airlines where he was chief commercial officer and is a veteran of Air Malta, Caribbean Airlines, British Airways and Brussels Airlines.
LodgIQ expands to global stage
- The revenue management technology provider is to roll out its LodgIQ ONE tool to 250 markets global, following its launch in October last year. The company has opened offices in five countries worldwide and has reps in 40. The machine learning-based tool allows hotels to organise their rates in real-time and using competitive analysis.
Wednesday 1 March 2017:SiteMinder hires two new chiefs
- Ken Aoyama has become chief product officer at the hotel distribution provider, with David Jaros also moving into the role of chief marketing officer. Jaros joined the company in October last year from Noesis Finance, whilst Aoyama was hired in November after stints at Microsoft and Cybozu.
NB: Travel people moves image via Shutterstock.