Insights-Posts – Page 22

Opening Europe & Risking Tokyo Olympics 💭

→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox.

We are all witnessing the travel industry reinventing itself, but some companies like to take a more proactive approach: Amadeus has launched Nextwave, a startup incubator to stay on top of new opportunities for their business to go beyond retail and operating tools. Seems like they are already testing quite promising tech projects – nice!

But, let’s be honest. They are not the only ones thinking that tech startups really has the power to completely shape this new wave of the travel industry. As I went through this research from GlobalData saying that “Travel Apps Will Play Key Role in Tourism Recovery”, there was only one thought in my mind: Bring tech closer, now! Don’t worry – you’ll hear me saying that again.

What if travellers could use a digital solution to save their place on the queue for check-in? This is British Airways is ready to implement at Heathrow Airport.

Apart from many (many!) event organizers weighting their options and making decisions whether or not to go on with in-person events this year, there is one event that the whole world is watching. This week, Tokyo doctors call for cancelation of the Olympic Games.

A plan to ease travel restrictions in Europe was approved, allowing any fully vaccinated traveller to enter Europe for holidays (or non-essential reasons). Is it too early to pop a bottle to celebrate this decision?

On a move to attract tourists, the French government is covering the costs of PCR tests for those who want to visit France. I’m looking forward to see which other countries will follow?

Earlier this week we launched a poll on our Twitter account asking followers when they expect the global travel sector to come back to 2019 levels in terms of traveler numbers & revenues. You can see the final results of the poll in this link.

Interesting moment for an Icelandic discount airline to kick-off its operations. Play will start with four weekly flights connecting Reykjavik and London.

Airbnb’s CEO thoughts on how remote workers might encourage a new type of business travel caught my attention this week. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on how remote work and business travel will develop.

→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox.

Etihad is now offering to their passengers in Abu Dhabi the option to handle the hassle of traveling from the comfort of their homes. Think PCR tests, luggage check in, getting boarding pass and picking a seat. Passengers are ready to head to the airport hands free – and me too!

I do my best to stay objective when it comes to the impact of this pandemic, but I saw this news yesterday and can’t keep this number out of my mind: 47% of hotels in Thailand are expected to close in the next 3 months. Forty seven.

To support the “bringing back” of Summer in Europe, Google has joined forces with ETC. It might sound pretty obvious for some, but I still find it interesting to see that a tech company has such a strong influence over the recovery of the travel sector in Europe.

Live The World has just raised €300k on their pre-seed funding round for their digital slow travel guide, offering local and authentic experiences for travellers.

The conversation about how to travel more sustainably has been getting stronger over the past year. According to this article from The New York Times the effort has to come from the travellers themselves.

Sherpa has raised $8.5 million. With their API, travel companies can provide travelers with up-to-date information about travel restrictions in their destination. Let’s say it kind of makes sense, with so many travel restrictions shuffling right now. 🙂

→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox.

Just this week the traveltech startup Fly Now Pay Later announced a new investment round of €11.5 million, which will allow the company to grow in UK, Germany and launch in US.

A few weeks ago this could sound like a naive affirmation but hey — things are really getting better. And seems like I’m not the only one saying this. After a strict and challenging fight against the virus, in the beginning of this month China’s domestic travel topped pre-pandemic levels. Also interesting: a wave of investments ended up on 210 million dollars invested on travel startups last week, according to Skift. And when it comes to global hotel investment, the sector is expected to see an increase up to 35% this year. Amazing to see the travel industry gearing up for a comeback!

When it comes to tourism restrictions, seems like everyone is doing what they can to keep the wheel spinning. Like Italy’s minister Mario Draghi telling people that it’s time to book their holidays. Madeira is now offering free PCR tests for arrivals or departures and even the EU suggesting to relax the COVID-19 restrictions next month. But well, not everywhere: seems like Australia will stay closed for most international arrivals until 2022.

With the purpose of bringing back tourism UNWTO launched a partnership with Google to support African destinations to use data insights and digital marketing to recover from the current crisis.

Continuing with the stream of unusual deals in the travel industry during this past months, Expedia is selling Egencia to American Express Global Business Travel. We’ll keep an eye on how the conversations (and deals!) around business travel management evolves.

TUI will be offering PCR tests for travelers from less than €25. Seems like “getting tested” is the new “packing bags”, uh?

TripActions has acquired Reed & Mackay, an UK-based travel management company. In my opinion it is totally worth it to read this article and see how Fred Statford (CEO) justifies the “unusual marriage”. One quote that caught my attention: “It has become pretty clear that the future is tech and digital. The world is changing in terms of people’s thinking and how people have got used to working.” Well, I agree 100%.

What goes into a blog post? Helpful, industry-specific content that: 1) gives readers a useful takeaway, and 2) shows you’re an industry expert.

Use your company’s blog posts to opine on current industry topics, humanize your company, and show how your products and services can help people.