EyeforTravel News
Post this move, the brands will continue to operate separately on the high-street. The changes were aimed at improving performance across the two TUI Travel-owned retail chains, which already work on the same back-office systems.
The updated Amadeus SMS solution, developed in Asia Pacific, allows travel agents to contact their customers via SMS regardless of the traveller's location anywhere in the world.
The new version is now fully integrated into the Amadeus Selling Platform, allowing travel agents to quickly generate traveller data – including information on flight changes and confirmations, warnings about time limits on bookings, as well as e-ticketing and insurance – directly from the Amadeus PNR database.
The HuBBub social media platform is a turn-key marketing service which leverages travel 2.0 technologies to extend a hotel's online branding, marketing and communication strategies.
HuBBub combines blogging, RSS feed syndication, Twittering and email harvesting with hotel profiles on Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, Photobucket, Squidoo, Wikipedia and others.
The airline's premium traffic volumes have been falling heavily for four months but the pace of the decline accelerated in December with a drop of 12.1 percent year-on year.
However, despite the weakness in these numbers, Willie Walsh, the chief executive, remained buoyant about the carrier's prospects for this year.
People staying in budget hotel rooms may be shocked to discover what is lurking beneath the bed sheets, warns a new undercover investigation by Which? Holiday. During a four-day period in September 2008, Which? Holiday inspected 16 rooms in budget chain hotels in London and Manchester. These were all within a one-mile radius of London King's Cross station and Piccadilly station, Manchester.
The top 10 charges imposed on travellers currently include:
1. Excess Baggage
2. Airport Taxes & Fees including Air Passenger Duty
3. Credit Card Payments
4. Priority Boarding
5. Airport Check-in vs. Online Check-in
6. Meals
7. Checked Luggage
8. Fuel Tax Charge
9. Carrying Infants
10. Travel Insurance
A recent poll asking users what low cost airlines would charge for next revealed that 51 percent believe they'll soon be charged for using the loo.
With this application users can compare hotel rates across multiple travel websites and then book directly on the site, are provided with a contact number to call agents/the hotel directly, or can request rates from OTA's and hotels via e-mail.
The company shared that driven by feedback from its active member base, this widget smartly completes the loop between honest user contributed hotel reviews and allowing a traveller to book a hotel at the best price available.
This extended access is made available via APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). APIs are building blocks that allow sites to easily share functionality. A company gives these building blocks to partners by publishing its API. Partners then can use these blocks to build new websites that incorporate functionality from the API.
The company has managed a growth of 14 percent in comparison with approximately $158 million for the same period last year.
During the same period despite a generally reported downturn in Australian air travel volumes, total transaction numbers increased by approximately 19 percent on the same period last year which reflects the substantial reduction in air fare ticket prices as airlines move to reduce fuel surcharges and provide the market with aggressively priced bargains, according to the agency.
The move, announced towards the end of 2008, comes as Thomson and First Choice unveil a wide range of early booking offers and launch a national advertising campaign for both brands.
"The message from the UK's largest travel company is clear – book early to secure the lowest prices for 2009, and with confidence that your holiday is protected," stated the company.
