What else is going on in the world of travel tech? A round-up of other stories from across the industry?
- AirAsiaX claims a first for the Asia-Pacific region with a promotion targeting its fans in social media where the winner of a competition gets to travel together with his or her pals from Sydney to Malaysia (and back again, incl three nights accommodation) on their own chartered Airbus. The competition winner and up to 300 of their Facebook friends will be the only passengers on the flight. The Australian press is not impressed with T&Cs though.
- Corporate travel specialist AirPlus has released a City Safari application to let business travellers boast about how much they know about various destinations and pit themselves against other travellers. Users have to answer 200 questions about a city and complete a series of tasks to win points. At the end of May highest ranking travellers will be awarded prizes.
- Expedia has enhanced its connectivity for hotels and reservation system supplier with the release of Expedia Connect 2. The technology, which enables hotels to build direct interfaces directly into Expedia, has been upgraded to ensure companies continue to get the most accurate pricing and availability data. The system also enables hotels to make last-minute rooms available for mobile and other late-booking channels.
- The Blackberry travel app, powered by WorldMate, is slowly spreading around key markets. The service is now available as a free beta product for users in Indonesia following its launch in February 2011 in the US, UK, Canada and Spain. The latest version now includes additional content in Brazil, Portugal, Indonesia and Portugal.