What else is going on in the world of travel tech? A round-up of other stories from across the industry.
- Tourism Australia has partnered with STA Travel on a Facebook campaign aimed at attracting student and youth travellers to take a working holiday to the destination. The campaign will also be promoted in universities and through travel blogs and includes a competition to win a working holiday with flights, visas and a job in each state and territory.
- Thomas Cook puts Europe-wide affiliate marketing into one shop, picking Affilinet to handle its partner programme across the continent. The consolidates 11 existing relationships to one single agreement after previously working with Affilinet in Germany and the Netherlands. The deal also puts the company's major country market affiliate activity on a single platform, giving Cook what it says will be a "centralised" approach to its partner programme.
- Interesting deal for GuestCentric after securing a partnership with Portugal Telecom to provide cloud services for boutique and independent hotels in the country. Around 2,000 properties will be included in the programme, the first of its kind where a major telecomms firm has moved into distribution of digital marketing for hotels as a business service. The system will allow hotels to communicate directly with customers on mobile, online and via social networks.
- Trinity of tech providers are uniting to provide a safety management system for airports ahead of new regulations in the US. The Federal Aviation Administration is implementing a new SMS which will need to be integrated with existing technology at airports across the country. SITA, JDA and Intelex will be working together to create the SITA AirportSafety Management tool for locations in time for when the ruling is in force, expected to be up to two years from mid to late-2012.
- EgyptAir plans to optimise its network and schedules via NetLine/Plan technology from Lufthansa Systems. The technology can apparently increase profitability by up to 5% by using optimal schedules and forecasting passenger flows, costs and revenues. NetLine/Plan can also be used to optimise transfer connections and codeshare flights.