JetBlue on Tuesday became the latest airline to agree to status match for Delta Air Lines customers after the carrier changed how passengers can earn status for next year.
07.09.2023 - 20:29 / skift.com / Justin Dawes / New Ai / Generative Ai
Most of the big travel companies — Priceline, Tripadvisor, Booking.com, and more — have released AI trip planning tools on their websites.
New companies keep popping up, as well, aiming for ways to capitalize on marrying generative AI and travel planning for consumers. Some started right away, like Tripnotes and Roam Around — which will have some updates to announce in the next several weeks. Others released their first products a little later, such as Roamefy and AI.Adventures.
And more coming out, all trying to make a name for themselves in an increasingly crowded market.
There have been four mergers and acquisitions of travel tech companies in the past week.
ArrivalGuides, which provides content to destination marketing organizations, has now been sold by its founders three times.
It has been acquired by travel marketing tech platform Smartvel, which was the company’s biggest competitor, for an undisclosed amount. It was sold by Lion Ventures, which is owned by Magnus Aideborn and Ola Zetterlöf.
The partners founded ArrivalGuides in 2004 and then sold it to Yellow Pages in Sweden in 2007. It was sold back to the founders for $1 during the financial crisis in 2009, according to Zetterlöf. It was then acquired by Lonely Planet in 2019, and the founders acquired it back for $1 during the pandemic-related financial crisis in 2020, Zetterlöf said.
He said ArrivalGuides suffered heavily during Covid, but it has grown close to where it was before the pandemic. It has more than 630 destination guides that are integrated into apps, social media, websites, and marketing initiatives of client travel brands.
Now, the founders are focused on the other companies in their portfolio, including short-term rental platform StayNordic.
Some other recent acquisition deals:
JetBlue on Tuesday became the latest airline to agree to status match for Delta Air Lines customers after the carrier changed how passengers can earn status for next year.
“Fire Island is a very special place, especially for queer people,” Jimi Urquiaga, a.k.a. Missleidy Rodriguez, told me. While that might seem like a statement of the obvious, Urquiaga has experienced the island from an atypical vantage point: for the past two summers, they've been packing up their life in New York City as a costume designer, producer, creative director and drag queen to come work at the Pines’ plant shop, CAMP. Urquiaga called me on their break, sitting behind a desk at the plant shop, with a view overlooking the bay. “So that’s the fantasy,” they said with a laugh after describing their surroundings.
The fall is (in many ways) the perfect time to travel. With moderate but still comfortable temperatures, beautiful fall foliage, lower prices ahead of the holidays and fewer crowds coming out of summer, you can enjoy a memorable vacation at many destinations across the U.S. and around the world.
Queenstown, New Zealand, wouldn’t be Queenstown if it weren’t far away from everything—more than three hours’ flight from the closet foreign city of Sydney, a long transpacific slog from the west coast of the U.S., a diabolically long distance from western Europe. (This part of the world is called the Antipodes for a reason.) But being tucked away in the snowy mountains at the bottom of the world is what gives it its character: It’s a cosmopolitan frontier town, full of ruggedly individualistic locals and generous transplants, ski bums and worldly chefs, shepherds and sommeliers.
From the shores of Lake Ontario and the Thousand Islands on the Canadian border, down through the Finger Lakes and the Catskills, and out to the tip of Long Island, New York State has something to suit every kind of traveler.
In Lonely Plan-It, we take you step by step through how we planned some of the most complicated travel adventures. Here, Craig McLachlan explains how to make the most out of your biking adventure to this South Pacific paradise’s deep south.
About 20 minutes west of Niagara Falls, Canada, is a house built on eight pine trees set 10 feet off the ground.
Wheels Up is again turning to Delta Air Lines for C-suite leadership. After appointing the Atlanta-based airline’s CFO Dan Janki as Chairman last month, the New York-based private jet flight provider is tapping Delta Board Member George Mattson as CEO.
Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, September 14. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Summer in New York City means outdoor festivals, al fresco dining, and day-long picnics in the park. But it also means mystery street smells, sidewalks so hot they could melt diamonds, and the dreaded subway car with a broken AC. Even die-hard New Yorkers need a weekend away from the mayhem, and when the weather is warm, there’s no better place to escape than the beaches near New York City.
10 travel tech startups announced over $78 million in funding over the past two weeks.
Thousands of Airbnbs and short-term rentals are about to be wiped off the map in New York City.