The Lux Group, which owns online travel business Luxury Escapes, has bought Scoopon Travel and BonVoyage as part of a complicated, multi-faceted transaction with the Catch Group that will create a pure-play online travel business with $300m turnover and enormous buying power while clearing the way for further growth. In what the companies are calling Australia’s largest “home grown” e-commerce […]
Tag: Travel
Big moves in holiday park sector
The rapid consolidation of Australia’s tourism asset ownership has continued with news motoring organisation NRMA has bought Australian Tourist Park Management and control of its 27 properties while it’s been reported the sector’s largest ever single park sale has just closed. The ATPM deal means the NRMA now owns and operates 34 caravan and holiday […]
Agoda goes rogue on pricing
Agoda, the original Asian OTA, has gone rogue on pricing. Multiple hoteliers say Agoda regularly sells unauthorized static wholesale rates through the site, undercutting them on price without any regard for contracts. Other times the feeling is Agoda takes a contracted rate and shaves its margin to push the price below competitor and hotel pricing. Agoda’s […]
Turu.com.au moves to booking engine and commissions
Holiday park site Turu.com.au has revamped its revenue model and will introduce a booking engine in the next few weeks, taking commission on each transaction. The move to a booking engine has come earlier than anticipated in the brief history of the site, launched in late July. General Manager Robert Gallagher said the roll out has been […]
Hotels driving many TripAdvisor reviews
TripAdvisor has started revealing the source of reviews for properties that use its guest followup tools – an initiative that reveals hotels can in many cases drive most of the comments. For example, a survey of the first 40 current reviews in several Sydney hotels show that most resulted from management pro-activity. At 57 Hotel, 75% […]
Chinese company wins approval for Club Med purchase
French travel icon, Club Med, will be likely Chinese-owned by February 9 after regulators approved the takeover bid by Fosun International, which has offered €24.60 per share for the resort operator, valuing it at around €939 million. Fosun has been in a bidding war with Italian businessman Andrea Bonomi for Club Med since May, 2013, the […]
Former Rydges on Swanston to rebrand as Crowne Plaza
The former Rydges on Swanston, the incubator for 90% of Victoria’s deadly second COVID wave, will be refurbished and rebranded as Crowne Plaza Melbourne Carlton. New owner Ross Pelligra bought the property for $35 million in September, and says: “We plan to lift the game and give this property a full refurb and a fresh […]
Tumbarumba proves NSW needs more rail trails
Tumbarumba – a sleepy timber, grape growing and grazing town in the bucolic Snowy Valleys of NSW – is undergoing a quiet tourism revolution. It’s all down to a new ‘rail trail’ that’s attracted more than 12,000 riders since a low-key opening during peak-COVID last April. Now other towns in the region want to join […]
Australia’s Hottest 100 Travel Websites
As references change online all across the world, Australia’s 100 travel websites ranking also witnessed a significant shift: Can we say Farewell to Webjet and Adios to Wotif? Not quite, just joking, but they are no longer top of the heap. Booking.com is now Australia’s biggest and fast-fastest growing online travel agent, leaving local rivals […]
Join the FutureTravel Pitch Competition 🚀
→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox. We really want the first edition of the FutureTravel Summit to reflect how the travel industry navigates the pandemic, as well as the possibilities that lay ahead. Very challenging times, which brought business leaders to shift priorities and operations, adopting new tech solutions very fast, while being […]
Finnair, Thatch, Kocomo and more ⚡
→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox. Let’s head directly into our weekly curation of the top news on innovation, trends and startups in the travel industry. Ready? Finnair seems very committed with their goal to become carbon neutral by 2045 – and that’s reinforced through […]
Should we worry about fake boarding passes? 😨
→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox. I’d like to appreciate the positive response to our first premium report – thank you! It’s been amazing to see how interested you are on startups in the travel industry. Now we are now planning new way to keep you up-to-date with the most […]
👀 Busy days for travel tech
→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox. Here is your weekly roundup of the top travel innovation, trends and startups news: In March Hopin announced a $400 million investment round. Now the event management platform has raised an extra $450 million. With this money, the company has been […]
🚙⚡ Personalised roadtrips? Here we go!
→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox. Here is your weekly overview of the most relevant news about innovation, trends and startups on the travel industry. Ready for it? Still on the effects of the pandemic, TravelPerk will go hybrid, combining remote and in-person work formats. In […]
Fintech stepping into travel 👀
→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox. As we head for the weekend, we wrapped up the most relevant news about innovation, trends and startups on the travel industry. Here it goes: German startup Acomodeo announced a strategic partnership with Booking.com. Their platform now offers accommodation types specifically curated for […]
🚩 News from Stayfolio + TravelPerk + Airasia
→ Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly curation of the top travel news, straight to your inbox. Here is your weekly overview of what’s going on: Together with Deutsche Bank, Emirates has just started rolling out a new payment solution: Emirates Pay will allow passengers to buy flight tickets without a debit or credit card. Currently only available for customers from UK […]