This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel distribution in April 2017.
Thursday 27 April 2017:CityBookers signs with
Travelport- The Kuwait-based online travel agency will use Travelport to access travel products such as air tickets, hotels and ancillary content. The five-year-old OTA has plans to expand into other areas in the Middle East and also start targeting the international stage.
Travelport renews
Go4Travel deal
- Travelport will power the Portuguese network of travel agencies with access to GDS content, covering hotels, airlines and car rental services, as well as providing agents with the Smartpoint platform for bookings. The group has a team of 700 agents across the country.
Wednesday 26 April 2017:CheckMyBus gets flights from
Skyscanner- The CTrip-owned travel search engine will provide content for a new flight channel on the Germany-based CheckMyBus website. The idea is to provide users with the ability to check for connections when booking long-haul travel to destinations not on the CheckMyBus network.
Travelport signs
Nesma Airlines- The Cairo, Egypt-based carrier's schedules and fares will be available to all Travelport-connected intermediaries as part of the multi-year agreement. Nesma, which flies domestic routes in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region, will also use the Rich Content and Branding part of the Travelport Merchandising Platform.
MeetingsBooker adds
Regus spaces
- The business meeting reservation platform has partnered with Regus to include its inventory of content. Regus has meeting rooms in 20,000 rooms from 3,000 venues in 120 countries around the world, all with instant booking capability.
Tuesday 25 April 2017:Cheapflights unveils two-tap trips
- The travel deals website has launched a browser extension for Google Chrome enabling users to see cheap flight options to nearby destinations. The service, available in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, enables users to tap the 'Esc' key twice to launch the search. Results are drawn from Cheapflights' API and relevant to the users nearest airport.
Monday 24 April 2017:
Onur Air signs Travelport agreement
- The Turkish low-cost carrier will use Travelport to give third party agencies access to its fares, schedules, ancillaries and branded fares. Onur Air flies to 120 international and 14 domestic destinations from its base at Istanbul.
Air Seychelles partners with
Vayant- Vayant's FastSearch platform will be used to manage and optimise the airline's distribution of fares into travel agencies and metasearch engines. The Etihad-backed carrier runs services to Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as domestic routes around the Seychelles archipelago.
Wednesday 19 April 2017:
FlySafair strikes Hahn Air deal
- Hahn will act as a distributor for the South African low-cost carrier, placing its flights and inventory into Global Distribution Systems through the H1-Air and HR-169 connections. The airline is based Johannesburg and flies to seven domestic destinations in the country.
Tuesday 18 April 2017:
Hickory drives with Mozio
- The partnership between the travel management company and the ground transportation specialist will give corporate customers access to discounted rates on products featured in the Mozio search results. Mozio features rail, bus, taxi, shuttle, limos and other ground transport options from 2,000 airports in 150 countries around the world.
Thursday 13 April 2017:
eRevMax signs
PegiPegi- The Indonesia-based online travel agency will use a two-way connection to eRevMax so that hotels can update rates, availability and take reservations in real-time. PegiPegi has more than 7,000 hotels, alongside its other channels covering air and rail tickets.
Tuesday 11 April 2017:
Unisys and JR unite for NDC tech
- The pair will develop a joint system for connecting airlines to the IATA-driven New Distribution Capability standard. The system will combine two solutions required for airline adoption of NDC: the ability to create, communicate and manage product offering (OfMS from JRT) and a solution to manage the order (Unisys's AirCore Order Manager).
Monday 10 April 2017:
Finnair taps RentalCars for transportation channel
- The Priceline Group-owned car hire service will power Finnair's new, consumer-facing ground transportation service. For the first time, B2B division RentalCars Connect will include both its RentalCars and Rideways service within a single white label platform for a partner.
CWT to add VIPService to network
- The Russia-based consolidator will become part of the CWT Global Partner Network, giving CWT customers the ability to organise and manage travel in the country. The integration is expected to take place once CWT has sold its existing Russian subsidiary to VIPService.
Thursday 6 April 2017:
Travelport signs Schiphol Travel and Zuji
- The global distribution giant and travel management firm Schiphol Travel International have signed a new long-term agreement. Travelport has also extended its partnership with Asia-based online travel agency Zuji.
Tuesday 4 April 2017:Amadeus adds
Distribusion- Agents will now have access to more than 300 airport bus transfer as well as intercity bus operators following a deal between Amadeus and Distribusion. Travel intermediaries in central, eastern and southern Europe will be the first to have access to the content.
Vayant extends
Lufthansa partnership
- The air distribution specialist's deal with Lufthansa Group has been extended to a multi-year partnership enabling the carriers to distribute their products service across various channels.
NB: Travel distribution image via Pixabay.