Travel Agents tips

Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, revealed its revamped rewards program for luxury travel agents on Monday.

Travel Counsellors, a UK-based tech platform for travel agents, has acquired Planisto, a similar company that specializes in trip planning and booking. 

The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) and American Airlines are going head-to-head in a complaint before the U.S. Department of Transport (DOT). Skift reached out to ASTA for the group’s latest position following a response from American Airlines last month.

Internova Travel Group, a network of travel agencies owned by private equity firm Certares, plans to expand its investments in the luxury space. That will help give its more than 100,000 travel advisors more boutique hotel offerings and packages to offer customers. 

Adventure booking platform TourRadar has added two new partners, Local Adventures and TRAVLR, to its business-to-business tool for selling organized multi-day adventure travel.

Qantas has sold its remaining 12.4 percent shareholding in Australian travel agency Helloworld Travel Limited for $22 million.

The Middle East’s almost year-long summer is its competitive advantage when attracting the European market. However, the region would do well to add more beachfront properties and curate experiences beyond its Uber-luxury eccentricities.

The leading group representing U.S. travel agents testified in D.C. on Thursday that it supports a federal proposal to require much fuller and upfront disclosures by the airlines of all their fees, but raised concerns about how much agents would be require to tell their clients in “offline” meetings or phone calls.

The potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to produce personalized travel recommendations and itineraries, as well as on-point content for travel companies, is setting the travel sector abuzz. 

Flight Centre, the Australian-based travel agency well known for its mass-market brands, is firmly fixed on tapping into the rising demand for luxury experiences with an expected 15 percent growth in revenue for the segment.

If the sudden dropping of all restrictions by the Chinese government caught travel agents and tour operators off-guard, it begs the question: why? 

Deploying travel advisors with zero travel booking experience sounds like a bad idea. But travel agency Fora believes it is leveling the playing field for individuals passionate about travel to earn extra income by planning and booking trips.  

During her Christmas holiday, a software developer created a tool to generate and map travel itineraries using generative artificial intelligence (AI). 

Mondee is scooping up Brazilian online travel marketplace Orinter for $40 million, its first acquisition since going public last year, the company said Wednesday.

Affluent U.S. travelers are ready to drop some serious money on their travel plans in 2023 and they’re keeping Virtuoso’s global network of luxury travel agents busier than ever.

Mondee has been going through a lot of changes over the last year, and the numbers shared during its latest earnings call reflect that.

Travelsoft, a company that offers software products focused on travel bookings, has added a third brand to its portfolio.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Monday, March 20. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The conventional wisdom back in 2015 was that travel agencies were a shrinking business. But that year, Spanish entrepreneur David Hernández thought he saw a whitespace for creating a fast-growing travel agency business, and he launched plans to create Pangea.

There are so many startups and other companies developing products powered by generative AI that it’s hard to keep track. 

Mention Bentley or Fabergé, and the brands are instantly recognizable as paragons of luxury. It’s the type of brand recognition that equates to valuable equity. Yet, marketing luxury brands of this nature is about so much more than selling a product or service.