Travelport renews BidTravel, HRS wins Tauzia hotel deal, and more...

This is a roundup for product news and announcements for travel DISTRIBUTION in tourism and hospitality for October 2016.

Monday 31 October 2016:

Travelport renews BidTravel deal

• The travel services division of Bidvest will continues to use Travelport for GDS content and IT, including the Smartpoint desktop for its agencies. BidTravel includes the local resellers for CWT, HRG Rennies Travel, Harvey World Travel and Travelwise.

Thursday 27 October 2016:

HRS wins Tauzia deal

• The Indonesian hotel management company will connect to HRS to push its portfolio of properties to GDSs, travel management companies and online travel agencies. Tauzia has 45 hotels in its management and another 60 in the pipeline.

Air Canada taps Routehappy and Farelogix for distribution tech

• Air Canada will deliver targeted merchandising content, dynamic pricing, and rules-driven offers to distributors worldwide in a single API. It's the first airline to use the integrated platforms of Farelogix, the tech company, and Routehappy, the merchandising content platform for flight shopping, in a partnership Tnooz covered earlier this year.

Wednesday 26 October 2016:

Sabre gets Air Canada ancillaries for agents

• The airline will give Sabre-connected travel agencies access to its preferred seating programme and upgrade services a part of the new agreement. The deal comes after Sabre secured branded fares for Air Canada through the Sabre Red platform.

SilverRail powers CheapOAir train tickets

• The deal with CheapOAir-owner Fareportal will see the online travel agency have rail options alongside flight tickets for the time on the site. The deal also includes OneTravel and will feature services from Amtrak in the US.

Tuesday 25 October 2016:

AccorHotels strikes Hotelbeds agreement

• The new deal between the pair is designed to support one another's distribution strategies by aligning and managing inventory, through rate analysis on XML connections. The new agreement was tested earlier this year and is said to have seen the best booking rates for the hotel chain in the partnership's long-term and existing relationship.

Amadeus signs Derbysoft deal

• Hotels will be able to distribute their content to metasearch engines and online travel agencies through their existing connection to the Amadeus GDS. The deal is targeting small and medium-size chain hotels that have traditionally had issues gaining visibility in search platforms.

DHISCO agrees trio of new deals

• Ultimate Jet Vacations, Rustar Tourism and Nuitee have all signed agreements with the hotel distribution switch. DHISCO has around more than 110,000 properties available for the trio to sell as part of their packages.

Friday 21 October 2016:

AtlasGlobal Airlines signs with Travelport

• The Turkish carrier will make its fares and inventory - services to almost 50 destinations in three continents - available to all Travelport-connected travel agencies. The deal includes use of the Travelport Rich Content & Branding service.

Travelport renews Air Astana deal

• The national carrier of Kazakhstan has signed a new long-term partnership with Travelport to distribute its fares and operate in the Travelport Rich Content & Branding platform. The airline is a joint venture between BAR Systems and National Welfare Fund Samruk-Kazyna and has a network of 64 routes in Asia and Europe.

Thursday 20 October 2016:

ETTSA gets Lastminute.com Group on-board

• Lastminute.com Group, the umbrella company behind a collection of online travel agencies, will join the European lobbying organisation for travel technology companies. Others include the three leading GDSs, Expedia and eDreams Odigeo, as well as Skyscanner and TripAdvisor as associate members.

Travelport signs East West Travel Group

• East West Travel, a specalist corporate travel agency that represents BCD Travel in Egypt, has agreed a new multi-year deal with Travelport. The deal will give East West access to Travelport's GDS content from agency desktops.

RTS deals with Travolutionary

• The global wholesaler will use the Travolutionary platform to expand its hotel distribution network. The 12-year-old company has more than 150,000 hotels in 15,000 destinations around the world, with a particular focus on properties in Asia-Pacific and the Far East.

Tuesday 18 October

Passport Online partners with Virtuoso

• North American members of luxury travel agency consortium Virtuoso will have access to Passport Online's Tandem cruise booking engine from next month for B2B and B2C bookings. Passport is the first official cruise tech partner for the group, and has been working as part of its Virtuoso Incubator program.

Monday 17 October 2016:

Ctrip adds to non-hotel options

• Chinese OTA Ctrip has signed a distribution deal with Bridge Rentals, a Singapore-based B2B platform for instantly bookable vacation rental properties, to increase its options for independent Chinese outbound travellers. Bridge is a sister company of B2C short-term rentals site Roomorama.

Thursday 6 October 2016:

Musement and 15below unite

• The passenger communication specialist has integrated with Musement to give airlines the opportunity to promote destination activities and attractions (including links for bookings) within their customer notifications. The system will also be used to push services that can be used during disruption to a flight. Musement has around 3,500 products in 350 cities around the world on its platform.

SilverRail green signal with Concur

• SilverRail's SilverCore platform will be plugged into the Concur travel and expense management system, with the ability for employees of a company to book rail tickets directly through Concur and added to its an existing expense account. The collaboration will initially be available in Spain and Sweden, with other countries to follow. Concur existing rail provision with other operators will run in tandem.

Wednesday 5 October 2016:

GTA taps Bokun for ground services

• The global distributor will use the Bokun platform to provide 16,700 sightseeing tours, attractions and transfer providers in over 100 countries and 1,000 destinations worldwide. Bokun has real-time availability and bookings.

Ixigo rides with Uber and RedBus

• Users of the Indian online travel search engine's rail mobile app will be able to book Uber cars and select bus tickets from their device. Uber services are available in over 28 cities in India and RedBus sells tickets on 70,000 routes across the country.

Monday 2 October 2016:

BookLogic nets Skyscanner deal

• The hotel revenue management company will give its customer base additional distribution through its new partnership with Skyscanner, via the metasearch engine's hotel search service. BookLogic's technology will handle the bookings on behalf of hotels.

Musement gives Travelport more activity

• Musement, the activities and ticketing company, has developed an app for travel agents that will sit in Travelport's commerce platform, Smartpoint. The agents will be able to book tours and activities for their customers in more than 450 cities in 55 countries.

NB: Travel distribution image via Bakhtiar Zein/BigStock.