Raffles Hotel and Resorts opened its Raffles Bali property in July 2020, with 32 ocean view villas in Jimbaran. Accor Skift Take: You can’t really talk about a global recovery for the travel sector overall. Regions are out of sync, reveals new data from Travelport. Companies are affected differently, depending on their market exposure. — … [Read more…]
The Jal Mahal Palace near Jaipur, which is the capital of the state of Rajasthan, India. Sayan Nath / Unsplash Skift Take: One wonders whether some travel companies like MakeMyTrip Group must rethink parts of their business during the pandemic. They may continue to struggle to pay out millions in refunds to customers due to … [Read more…]
Eurostar, a rail operator, will in 2021 roll out new facial recognition technology powered by the vendor iProov for passport control and ticket identification. IProov Skift Take: Vendors are getting creative with pandemic-related services, like the following: Passport control via facial recognition. Contactless elevators. Food-ordering without needing an app. Luggage disinfection via ultraviolet light. Mask-detecting … [Read more…]
Cityscape of Buenos Aires, Argentina. JumpStory Skift Take: Despegar, Latin America’s largest online travel company, will pay much, much less than its original $136 million proposed price to buy Mexican travel agency Best Day. Expect similar tough haggling over deal terms by travel companies across the globe. — Sean O’Neill Read the Complete Story On … [Read more…]
A stylized view of Google Maps. The product has updated its versions in many markets to add filters for pandemic-related guidance. Google Skift Take: One more sign of how Google Maps aspires to be a superapp for travel. — Sean O’Neill Read the Complete Story On Skift
Dhruv Shringi, the co-founder of Yatra, has been CEO of the travel company based in Gurgaon for about 14 years. Yatra Skift Take: The crisis has caused several deals in the travel sector to come undone, such as an American Express GBT deal, Wex’s bid to buy Enett, and Sabre’s bid to buy Farelogix. But … [Read more…]
Sabre president and CEO Sean Menke speaks at a company conference in 2019. Sabre Skift Take: Sabre’s leadership team has been like an endurance runner in its strategy of patching up the security of the company’s software, breaking down internal business silos, and moving Sabre’s systems to the more stable cloud. This latest restructuring is … [Read more…]
A passenger checks in for a JetBlue flight. Associated Press Skift Take: Many travelers no longer want to take some trips this year for various reasons, even if their flights haven’t been canceled. A new automated solution will speed up the pace at which airlines can rebook passengers by overriding the restrictions on tickets bought … [Read more…]