Articles tagged “distribution”

Yet another airline hurt by the pandemic is rethinking its distribution.

For years, airlines, travel agencies, and their technology partners acknowledged they could adopt more modern ways of selling plane tickets. The sticking point lately has been less technological than commercial. Thursday's deal is a seismic moment serving as a model for how the sector might afford to transition to the future.

We like to say there's always a way to create your own white space. HotelRunner is a startup looking at the crowded hospitality sector in fresh ways. Think the budget model of EasyJet or AirAsia, but for a hotel tech stack.

Sabre's arguments that UK regulators would merely fall in line if a U.S. court backed Sabre's merger with Farelogix were naive. The UK ruling was essentially correct about the proposed deal stifling innovation, and somewhere airlines are quietly celebrating the ruling.

Creating the connected trip means online travel agencies will have to become high-powered, tech-first, traditional travel agencies. It sounds cool but probably isn't feasible without major upheaval across the global travel market.

It's rare for airline contract disputes with distribution companies to reach this outcome. Finnair will suffer financially until it cuts a deal. Sabre, for its part, risks embarrassment if it's seen as bullying a midsize carrier. Nobody usually ends up winning in these classic games of chicken.

IHG represents a broader industry trend in that it's getting tougher with online travel agencies and wholesalers in the West while becoming more experimental with online travel sellers in Asia, where it needs help to grow its sales. Its use of new technologies to try to keep its strategy coordinated and to boost revenue are eye-catching.

Tech provider SiteMinder is the latest firm to make it easier for smaller hotels to adopt new tools from other third-party vendors to manage their properties. The trend could give the little guys more weaponry in online sales — and help SiteMinder become more valuable for hotels.

FareHarbor and Bokun act as if they're unstoppably on the way to becoming giants. But the market for booking systems for sightseeing and experience operators remains very much in flux.

Hotel merchandising and distribution were hot topics at this year’s Skift Global Forum in New York. In this video recap from the event, we learn about attribute-based selling, a strategy that helps hotels better align customer needs with property amenities during the booking process.