This is Travelabs Insights — a monthly summary of the most important news from the travel tech industry around the globe, picked up for you by the Travelabs team. You can see what happened in travel tech world previously in our Insights Archive, check out upcoming travel tech events and currently open programs in startup accelerators on our website.


Travel Tech Insights from October 2019


We couldn't ignore the sad fact that Thomas Cook, one of the pioneers in the travel industry, has collapsed last September, and the impact it had in the hotel industry in Turkey, Tunisia, Spain, and other destinations popular among their customers. Despite the growth of OTAs, metasearch platforms, booking engine, and channel managers in the last years, such collapse remembers the lesson for hotels diversify their business mix as tour operator contracts are negotiated 12-18 months in advance.

Thomas Cook was not the only big player to fall in the travel industry. Anoma also fell in September, so as SuperBreak and LateRooms in August. Apart from politics and management issues that we don't know, a particular question comes up: how far the big travel players are paying serious attention to the innovations impacting the industry?

Adapt to changes in the tech scene is not so simple as it looks like, especially when old practices rely upon corporate politics, business models, remuneration and profit systems. We are bad on predicting as shown by the author Nicholas Taleb in his book "The Black Swan". One example he suggests reflecting upon is mention right now the three big technologies recently implemented that impact our lives, and compare to what was their initial purpose. Are we using the internet for military purposes, for example?

Admitting or not, we are unable to guess what's the next innovation that will impact the travel industry as if we were storytelling retroactively for the sake of making sense of the past. In the corporate world, knowledge and processes can lead us to trust things as they've always worked instead of taking actionable insights, then we end up falling in the trap of predicting based on a "thinking outside the box using different boxes that worked in the past". Disruptive brands, in the end, are often the ones that address a need that has been uneconomic for traditional players to serve or a need not identified before.

So here we share the most important news on travel tech divided by the following topics:

• Business: Travel companies are looking for new channels to outreach customers, the challenge of preventing frauds in travel and online travel in Southeast Asia.
  
  
• Hospitality: Airbnb on Google's vacation rental, new features on Booking.com and TripAdvisor, and Korean group investing in budget hospitality in Southeast Asia.
  
  
• Startups: Building relationships when fundraising, funding landscape in the travel industry and more news on travel startups.
  
  
• Events: WiT launches event in Cape Town for 2020.
  
  

Business

TripAdvisor launched TripAdvisor Connect, the challenge of fraud protection for travel companies and online travel in Southeast Asia.

The travel and tourism industry is increasingly looking for new channels to reach customers in ways that appeal to their need for convenience, speed, and user-friendly digital experience.

TripAdvisor launched TripAdvisor Connect, which will offer brands the scale of Facebook and Instagram with an added layer of data to reach customers actively searching for travel or dining options.

According to Angela Whiteford, what makes travel unique from the fraud perspective is that all interactions need to occur in real-time. The fragmentation of the customer journey has opened up more weak links and made travel more vulnerable, and fraud protection has to work across the entire journey.

Online travel is one of the pioneering segments in Southeast Asia, while local economies are booming and travelers are attracted to the region for its beauty, activities and friendly locals. Execution is the main challenge for Southeast Asian startups facing fragmented markets and the lack of transparent regulations.


Hospitality

TripAdvisor introduces a direct-booking feature, Airbnb listings on Google's vacation rentals, Booking.com on the way to connect private owners to property management companies and Yanolja invests in Southeast Asia.

Korean billion-dollar travel group Yanolja doubles down its investment in Southeast Asia budget hotel franchise ZEN Rooms to enhance customer experience, reduce operating costs and reinvent budget hospitality in Southeast Asia.

TripAdvisor is introducing a direct-booking feature to its Sponsored Placements product for accommodation providers designed to help them boost revenue.

Airbnb listings have begun appearing for the first time in Google's vacation rentals feature in several European cities and it could be a test to see if participation is worthwhile.

Booking.com plans to create a mechanism to allow private owners to connect with property management companies, as one of the initiatives to improve the relationship with the private accommodation community.

Startups

The importance of building relationships when fundraising and Phocuswright's report on funding to travel startups, Wheel the World working on traveling without barriers, Kiwi.com looking for collaboration, and the struggles of Culture Trip.

Fundraising is time-consuming, so travel startups must invest in building relationships as early as possible, nurture them while applying a strategical approach and share their progress on the road.

Phocuswright annual State of Startups Report tracks $19.7 billion that has been raised by travel startups since 2009 alongside the global online travel outlook and investors' support for new business models potentially scalable.

Indian startup RateGain sells software that helps hospitality and travel companies streamline their revenue management decision support, rate intelligence, digital distribution, and brand engagement.

Audi-backed German startup Holoride has teamed up with Ford and Universal Pictures to showcase the world's first "in-car virtual reality experience"

Culture Trip has done a great job on its SEO strategy but struggles to justify the $102 million funding in the middle of the high turnover and shifts in the management roles.

Kiwi.com is looking for collaboration with travel startups, scale-ups, and talents to carry their ambition to connect anyone from any A to any B.

The US-based Wheel the World intends to use all of the available technologies to make barriers disappear for travelers with disabilities and to become the most disability-centered company in the world.

Events

WiT is launching its event in Cape Town, WiT Africa, on May 28, 2020. The event aims to showcase the growth of the travel industry on the African continent.



With lots of love, yours truly,
Valentin Dombrovsky, Chief Alchemist at Travelabs,
Andre Fernandes and Travel Tech Newsletter Team


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