Travel Technology

Timeshifter, brandishing NASA-approved science, wants to revolutionize how the travel industry helps guests fight jet lag. The science has won consumers over — and is a no-brainer for airlines. But in Asia’s cutthroat hotel business, how it can integrate the app into different branded programs is perhaps a different science.

In today’s marketplace, it’s not enough for an airline to simply have an app. Cutting-edge functionality, efficient tools and, yes, fun bells and whistles are needed to engender consumer loyalty and drive increased revenue. The new app from Singapore Airlines ticks all the boxes and provides a new model for the industry.

Oyo promises a new type of hotel company. It’s an asset-light brand that seeks to connect the global long tail of mom-and-pop hotels through its tech and distribution platform. But can it live up to the hype? Skift Research dives deep into Oyo’s business strategy and financial performance.

Airlines are taking cues from sectors outside the travel industry, including dining, wellness, and retail to better target and engage with their passengers. The key to success is delivering personalized messages through the smarter and secure use of customer data, experts said.

A federal appeals court has asked for a partial do-over in antitrust litigation between US Airways and travel tech firm Sabre. After more than eight years and millions of dollars in expenses, the case has partly been reset to square one. Remarkable.

Airline tech vendor Datalex had a spectacular accounting meltdown in 2018. Lufthansa, its largest customer, wants to kill its contract. Meanwhile, Datalex's auditor threw up its hands and quit. What a mess.

Amateurs cut rates to fill hotel rooms. Pros take more sophisticated approaches, such as coordinating to stimulate demand from the most profitable customers.

When you're Google, you can take more than a decade to hone a product such as Google Maps and attract more than a billion users without having to worry that it isn't making lots of money. But the monetization of Google Maps will soon start in earnest, and travel marketers, for the most part, will hustle to get in.

New data from China's travel tech giant TravelSky shows that the country's pace of air travel growth slowed in the first half of the year. But the country remained the fastest-growing region in the world in terms of aviation and traveling.

When it comes to implementing and adopting the New Distribution Capability standards for airline retailing, there needs to be a strong focus on enabling scalability, across the entire retailing, distribution, and fulfillment process.