Travel tech tips

Guests staying at select Renaissance Hotels will soon have access to RENAI, a virtual concierge.

Mobile virtual cards aren’t new. A virtual card assigns a unique number to a transaction or a specific period of time. Companies can set spending controls on these card numbers so that employees don’t go over a limit. You can store these virtual cards on your phone. 

Guesty, the property management platform for short-term rental businesses, said Wednesday that it has raised $130 million in series F funding. 

TravelAI has purchased and relaunched Casai.com, the domain of the short-term rental operator startup that closed last July after raising more than $48 million. 

Hilton said Tuesday it is jumping into the new era by pledging to enable guests to make requests by text at all of its 7,000-plus hotels by the end of 2024. Guests will be able to send messages via the Hilton Honors app, by smartphone via SMS, WhatsApp, and other platforms before and during their stays.

Four travel tech startups announced fundraises over the past two weeks totaling more than $15 million.

The shift from desktop to mobile created new winners in various industries. Will the current innovations around artificial intelligence do the same? That’s unlikely, according to Spencer Rascoff, co-founder of Zillow and CEO of 75 & Sunny Ventures.

TUI Group has consolidated its digital activities in Portugal by opening a new tech center in Porto.

CDS Groupe, a hotel booking platform for business travel, is expanding into the German market through an acquisition. 

When George Limbert began as president of Red Roof, he met with franchise operators of the hotel brand to better understand what was going well — and what was not. 

The pandemic has pushed airlines toward innovation — typically supplementing their old, limited technology with newly created pieces of software. 

Big Tech companies are laying off tens of thousands of people. 

The hotel tech services company owned by hotel giant Accor is strengthening its offerings through the acquisition of a digital marketing agency. 

Sam Gilliland, who was the CEO of Sabre Corporation for 10 years, is taking the top role at Accelya.

Something shifted this weekend, the zeitgeist on the real possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) became excitingly, palpably and perhaps scarily real these past few days, with the launch of the first large-scale, general purpose chatbot using OpenAI‘s GPT3 AI engine.

U.S. startups have honed the process of failing fast and learning through minimal viable product adaption — a lesson the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) funding ecosystem should leverage.

Travelers across the board want a future where technology makes payments easy and seamless. 

Tek Travels, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Indian travel distribution platform TBO.com, has fully acquired BookaBed, a business-to-business (B2B) accommodation wholesaler for an undisclosed amount.

CIC Hospitality is opening 30 boutique Aiden by Best Western hotels in Scandinavia, but they won’t come with staff in the flesh and blood standing at the front desk. 

T.J. Clark, property manager Vacasa’s new chief commercial officer, is in the proverbial hot seat, charged with reversing unacceptably high rates of homeowners leaving the platform, and increasing sales after the company laid off up to 300 sales and marketing staff and 1,000 field personnel in January.

Yanolja Cloud has acquired Innsoft, an Oregon-based provider of hotel management software, for $8.3 million.