Search Results for767
Ethiopian Airlines refurbishes B767-300 fleet
Ethiopian Airlines Group has fully refurbished its Boeing 767-300 ER fleet utilised on routes to India, Middle East and Africa destinations. It is fitted with new full flat-bed seats in Cloud Nine, modern IFE with high resolution 17 inches screen and in-seat power outlets (inflight entertainment), lighting and other modern cabin products. Customers in the main cabin will also have new seats, multiple channels of inflight audio and video entertainments accessible with their own mobile devices /tablets. Ethiopian Group CEO, Mr. Tewolde GebreMariam, remarked; “As a customer focussed and market driven airline, we are always committed to offering unmatched travel experiences for our customers. We have invested more than USD 6 million to retrofit our B-767-300 ER fleet, which will surely provide more choice and greater comfort to our customers. By December 2017, all our B767 fleet will be fitted with flat-bed seats in Cloud Nine with access to a range of video programming available for wireless streaming in all cabins. I would like to congratulate our engineering and maintenance team at Ethiopian MRO for the job well done and wish to pledge to our customers that we shall always strive to ensure their extra comfort every time they fly with us.” Ensuring the right fleet mix for their ongoing mission, Ethiopian Airlines has currently deployed 92 of the youngest (five years average fleet age) and most modern fleet, with future plans to receive a further nineteen A350-900s, four B787-900s and five Q400s.
Air New Zealand bids farewell to Boeing 767s
Air New Zealand's Boeing 767 Air New Zealand has retired its fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft, more than 30 years after the aircraft were first introduced. The airline's last remaining 230-seat 767-300 aircraft took off from Sydney on Friday, for a trans-Tasman flight to Auckland. Upon arrival in New Zealand, the aircraft will be removed from service. Since entering the national carrier’s fleet in 1985, the 767 has flown the majority of Air New Zealand’s long-haul routes. In recent years however, it has been progressively replaced by the larger and more fuel-efficient 787-9 Dreamliner. The airline has a total of 13 787s on order, with deliveries running until late 2018. "The Boeing 767 aircraft has been a stalwart at Air New Zealand for more than 30 years now but moving to operate the modern 787-9 Dreamliners on our long-haul routes will allow us to be more efficient and have a consistent wide-body fleet which will deliver benefits to both the business and customers," said Air New Zealand's chief operations integrity & standards officer, Captain David Morgan. "The use of the larger Dreamliners will result in a capacity increase of around 3% on the trans-Tasman and Pacific Island routes. Customers also get to experience our business premier and premium economy cabins on the 787-9 aircraft.” The move also forms part of Air New Zealand's bid to simplify its fleet, with a three-model fleet consisting of single-aisle Airbus A320s and twin-aisle 777s and 787s.
ATPI India wins Corporate Travel Agency of the Year at TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2025 – Asia
ATPI India leads the way in next-gen corporate travel management with technology-driven, scalable and cost-efficient solutions. ATPI has been recognised as the Corporate Travel Agency of the Year at the prestigious Travel Daily Media Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2025 - Asia, reaffirming its position as an innovator in delivering exceptional technology-powered, scalable, and cost-efficient travel management solutions to global corporations and Indian enterprises. Celebrating the pinnacle of excellence in travel, the TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards Asia spotlights organisations that define industry standards and consistently elevate customer experiences. ATPI’s win underscores its strong performance across key parameters, including innovation, service delivery, industry specialisation, content excellence, and operational efficiency. ATPI India’s client impact is most strongly reflected in its crisis management excellence, having successfully executed the contingency evacuation of travellers during the India–Pakistan airspace closure—demonstrating unmatched agility, leadership and rapid-response capability in moments of disruption. This proficiency extends into everyday programme optimisation as well, with ATPI enhancing digital transformation for PayPal India by increasing online adoption from 60% to 90% through AI-enabled booking tools, improving efficiency, self-service, and compliance. Additionally, for another customer, ATPI delivered a 20% improvement in booking turnaround time, reducing traveller stress and strengthening overall satisfaction through streamlined operations. With India projected to cross USD20b in corporate travel spending by 2030, price sensitivity remains a defining market characteristic. ATPI’s unique blend of cost optimisation, traveller care, and operational agility ensures unmatched value delivery that few competitors can replicate. ATPI India’s in-house visa services team gives clients an unparalleled advantage in a market where most TMCs rely solely on outsourced processes. This centralised, expert-led capability eliminates delays, reduces errors, and ensures smooth, coordinated documentation support for travellers across markets. Speaking on the recognition, Ali Hussain, Regional Managing Director – Asia, ATPI, said, “This award reflects ATPI's unwavering commitment to delivering leading-class travel management services and our ability to adapt to the evolving needs of Indian corporates. Our focus has always been on innovation, personalised service, and excellence at every touchpoint. This recognition reinforces our resolve to continue empowering organisations with smarter, sustainable and future-ready travel solutions.” Jeet Sawhney, Managing Director, ATPI India, added, “This award is a testament to the dedication of our team and the trust our clients place in us. At ATPI India, we are committed to delivering meaningful value by leveraging global expertise, innovative technology and deep local insight. As the corporate travel ecosystem evolves, our focus remains on delivering smarter, safer and more sustainable travel solutions that help organisations optimise their travel programmes whilst elevating the traveller experience.” ATPI India’s strategic presence across Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Gurugram, combined with access to 100+ countries, offers clients both deep in-market problem-solving and globally consistent travel programme management. Backed by global scale, advanced technology platforms, and deep industry expertise, ATPI India is uniquely positioned to support large enterprises, high-growth companies, and specialised sectors with technology-enabled, scalable, and future-ready travel management solutions. ATPI’s capabilities have been further enhanced by its acquisition by Direct Travel in September 2025, creating a global powerhouse operating in 100 countries and managing more than USD 6 billion in annual travel volume. Indian corporates now benefit from expanded global scale, stronger buying power, advanced technologies, and comprehensive travel content. The TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards - Asia programme acknowledges the pinnacle of excellence in the travel industry and spotlights key players that consistently redefine industry standards and elevate customer experiences. It honours industry leaders who push boundaries through groundbreaking technologies, sustainable practices, and unparalleled service. The TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2025 - Asia is presented by Travel Daily Media Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. For more information on the awards programme, you may contact Danica Avila at (+65) 3158 1386 or danica@traveldailymedia.com.
ATPI Singapore conferred prestigious Global Travel Management Company of the Year award
Ali Hussain, Regional Managing Director, ATPI - Asia Pacific (far right) and Kelly Jones, Managing Director, ATPI - Southeast Asia & China (far left), receiving the award for Global Travel Management Company of the Year at the TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards in Singapore The company was recognised for its commitment to excellence and innovative, industry-leading solutions and services. ATPI Singapore has been recognised as the Global Travel Management Company of the Year at the prestigious TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2025 - Asia. The acknowledgement underlines the company’s commitment to travel management excellence and its industry-leading solutions and service levels that address industry-specific challenges and requirements. ATPI Singapore took home top honours in a category that awards the travel management company offering seamless, scalable travel solutions for multinational corporations and global enterprises. The award winner provides integrated travel services across multiple regions and manages intricate travel needs whilst ensuring cost efficiency, security and an outstanding experience for business travellers worldwide. The TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards - Asia acknowledges the pinnacle of excellence in the travel industry and spotlights key players that consistently redefine industry standards and elevate customer experiences. It honours industry leaders who push boundaries through groundbreaking technologies, sustainable practices, and unparalleled service. The win reinforces ATPI’s standing as a long-time global leader in corporate and specialist travel management. The company was acquired by Direct Travel in September 2025, creating a powerhouse that combines worldwide strength with personal service, bringing unmatched expertise and a client-first culture across 100 countries, which drives over USD6b in annual travel volume. “This award reflects our continuous commitment to delivering leading-class travel management services with a deep emphasis on innovation, personalised services and an unerring adaptability to evolving industry trends,” said Ali Hussain, Regional Managing Director, ATPI Asia. “We focus on excellence at every touchpoint via award-winning account management that builds lasting partnerships, industry-leading solutions and service levels and unmatched content provisions that empower smarter decision-making.” Accomplishments that redefine business travel ATPI specialises in delivering innovative, highly bespoke solutions across various industries, including corporate, marine, energy, sports, group travel, and event management. Its service philosophy of “big enough to matter, small enough to care” sets new benchmarks in consistency and service. The company’s Net Promoter Score of 53.67, exceptional SLA response times within 90 minutes for email requests and a 14-second average phone pick-up outperform the industry standard. These components are supported by a high staff retention of 98%, which preserves long-standing expertise. Innovation at ATPI is not an add-on but a strategic backbone, designed to reimagine how global enterprises manage travel at scale. These purpose-built solutions, utilising technology that is integrated, intuitive and aligned to how organisations operate, address the most persistent pain points in business travel - complexity, risk management, sustainability, and user adoption. These include Avenir: Travel Edition, the industry’s first truly open, all-in-one SaaS booking platform transforming global travel management from the ground up. The platform’s impact has been recognised across the industry, landing it on Business Travel Magazine’s 2025 Tech Hotlist, standing out amongst 15 recipients as a travel tech innovation genuinely shaking up the sector. Other specialised proprietary platform ecosystems include ATPI TravelHub, a single global gateway to unify all aspects of travel management; CrewHub and CrewLink for seamless, end-to-end crew travel management; and ATPI Traveller Tracking System, which anticipates disruptions before they escalate by overlaying location data with geopolitical, weather and transport intelligence. The industry’s most accurate travel carbon calculator, ATPI Halo, meanwhile, keeps sustainability front and centre by using actual flight data rather than carbon impact estimates at the point of booking to allow for more responsible choices before tickets are purchased. ATPI’s philosophy towards innovation is proactive rather than reactive, where challenges are anticipated, disruptions prevented, and strategic priorities embedded into everyday travel. This combination of technology, responsibility and traveller wellbeing is where the company sets industry milestones. During regional unrest in Asia, for instance, their Traveller Tracking System proactively identified at-risk travellers, rerouted them and informed client teams before the crisis escalated, turning what could have been a major disruption into a minor itinerary adjustment. The Global Travel Management Company of the Year award is a testament to ATPI Singapore’s ability to manage global programmes whilst emphasising the individuals behind every booking. This deep-seated commitment to operational excellence, customer experience and traveller wellbeing enables the company to provide global services with seamless consistency across borders and deliver the responsiveness and local knowledge that complex operations demand. The TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2025 - Asia is presented by Travel Daily Media Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. For more information on the awards programme, you may contact Danica Avila at (+65) 3158 1386 or danica@traveldailymedia.com.
Royal Caribbean opens Royal Beach Club in The Bahamas
Royal Caribbean International has officially opened its Royal Beach Club on Paradise Island, The Bahamas, offering holidaymakers an all-inclusive beach day experience. The club, which welcomed its first guests on 23 December, combines the beauty of The Bahamas with Royal Caribbean's signature touches. The opening followed a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Bahamian government officials, VIPs, and community members. Michael Bayley, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean, stated, "Guests told us they were looking for more ways to make the most of their holidays in The Bahamas, and that's exactly what we've created with Royal Beach Club Paradise Island." Fun for everyone The Royal Beach Club offers a variety of experiences for families, party-goers, and those seeking relaxation. Guests can enjoy two pristine beaches and three pools, including The Floating Flamingo, the world's largest swim-up bar. For families, The Shallow End pool and the Ultimate Family Cabana provide entertainment and relaxation. Sunseekers can unwind at Chill Beach, whilst Party Cove offers DJ beats and drinks at The Floating Flamingo. Bahamian to the core The destination features Bahamian influences in its design, entertainment, and culinary offerings. Developed through a public-private partnership with the Bahamian government, the club supports local businesses and entrepreneurs, creating hundreds of jobs. Royal Beach Club Paradise Island joins Royal Caribbean's Perfect Day at CocoCay and is part of a series of upcoming destinations, including Royal Beach Club Cozumel and Santorini in 2026, and Royal Beach Club Lelepa and Perfect Day Mexico in 2027. More information on day passes can be found on Royal Caribbean's website. ```
Qatar Airways Lands Inaugural Flight in Hail, Saudi Arabia
Qatar Airways marks the launch of three non-stop weekly flights between Hamad International Airport (DOH) in Qatar and Hail International Airport (HAS), its 13th destination in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Hail Province, located in north-central Saudi Arabia, is known for its rich history, cultural heritage, and distinctive desert landscapes, making it an appealing destination for travellers seeking nature experiences and adventures. Historically a key stop along ancient trade and pilgrimage routes, the region is home to UNESCO World Heritage Sites featuring rock art that reflect thousands of years of human presence. Today, Hail continues to grow as an important cultural and regional centre within the Kingdom. The new route underscores the airline’s strategic focus on expanding its presence across the Kingdom, highlighting the importance of the Saudi market in its global network. Aligned with Qatar Airways’ long-term commitment to enhancing regional connectivity, the new service is set to boost travel from Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and Southeast Asia to the north-central region of Saudi Arabia. With the addition of Hail, Qatar Airways will now operate over 150 weekly flights to 13 Saudi destinations including Abha, AlUla, Dammam, Jeddah, Medina, NEOM, Qassim, Riyadh, Tabuk, Taif, The Red Sea, and Yanbu. Voted the World’s Best Airline by Skytrax in 2025, Qatar Airways offers passengers from across the Kingdom seamless and world-class connectivity to more than 170 destinations globally through its award-winning Doha hub, Hamad International Airport. Qatar Airways flights to Hail International Airport (HAS) Departing every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday: Hamad International Airport (DOH) to Hail International Airport (HAS) – Flight QR1228: Departure 14:20; Arrival 16:30 Hail International Airport (HAS) to Hamad International Airport (DOH) – Flight QR1229: Departure 17:30; Arrival 19:25 Qatar Airways Privilege Club members can make their trips more rewarding by collecting Avios on their flights as well as shopping and dining at Qatar Duty Free at Hamad International Airport. Members can spend their Avios on travel and lifestyle rewards of their choice including bidding on money-can’t-buy experiences with Privilege Club Collection.
STAAH reveals India’s top booking channels for 2025
STAAH, a leader in hospitality distribution technology, has unveiled the top 10 hotel booking channels in India for 2025. The report, based on data from January to December 2025, highlights the platforms that significantly influenced hotel bookings across the country. This year's findings underscore a surge in domestic travel, value-driven consumer behaviour, and a preference for direct booking tools. GoMMT has maintained its dominance in India's online travel market, attributed to its extensive inventory and competitive pricing. Agoda, with its mobile-first approach and marketing investments, secured the second spot, whilst Booking.com retained third place. Cleartrip climbed two positions, benefiting from its affordability and strong airline partnerships. STAAH SwiftBook, a direct booking tool, ranked fifth, as hoteliers increasingly favour commission-saving channels that offer greater brand control. Newcomers Travelguru, EaseMyTrip, and HyperGuest also made the list, reflecting the robust growth of India's travel sector. Shoaib Ali, National Sales Head at STAAH India Ltd, noted, “2025 has seen a significant surge in travel, both domestic and international, with Indian travellers increasingly turning to digital platforms for every stage of their booking journey.” He emphasised the importance of balancing online travel agencies (OTAs) and direct channels to optimise revenue and build loyalty. India's travel market continues to expand, driven by increased spending, improved connectivity, and a demand for premium experiences. The STAAH report, compiled from anonymised booking data, aims to guide hoteliers in making informed distribution decisions. ```
FuelFest debuts in Middle East with Doha event
Visit Qatar has announced that the Middle East will host its first-ever FuelFest, a globally renowned automotive and entertainment festival, in Doha on 23 January 2026. The event, taking place at Katara South Parking, is organised in collaboration with FuelFest and regional promoter Melt Live Middle East. FuelFest, hosted by Cody Walker, is celebrated for its unique blend of high-performance car culture, global music talent, and immersive fan experiences. The festival has previously captivated audiences in the US, Japan, the UK, and Germany. The Qatar edition underscores the country's growing reputation as a hub for world-class entertainment and international events. The event promises an unforgettable experience with appearances by Fast & Furious stars Tyrese Gibson and Jason Statham. The festival will also feature a live performance by DJ Infamous and culminate in a concert with music icons Ludacris and Busta Rhymes. Oweis Zahran, Managing Director of Melt Live Middle East, remarked, “FuelFest Qatar represents a major milestone for the region’s automotive and entertainment scene. In partnership with Visit Qatar, we are proud to introduce a globally recognised festival that celebrates car culture, music, and community, whilst honouring the legacy of Paul Walker.” FuelFest Qatar is part of Visit Qatar’s strategy to enhance Doha’s profile as a destination for large-scale international festivals. A portion of the event's proceeds will support Reach Out WorldWide, a non-profit founded by Paul Walker, dedicated to disaster relief efforts worldwide. ```
The Great Travel Reset: How Travel Is Becoming Local, Intelligent and Unified Again
According to Christodoulou, travel is moving away from decades of fragmentation and back toward consolidation—this time powered by AI, localisation and unified platforms. Romain Christodoulou, Vice President Supply, Agoda shares insights on “The Great Travel Reset: Local, Transparent, Intelligent and Unified” while presenting at the TDM Global Summit Singapore 2025 Romain Christodoulou From Fragmentation to Unification once more Explaining his topic on the Great Travel Reset, he says: “If you think about travel, I think travel is going through a cycle, it’s getting back to earlier stages than what it was before. Think 1890s, think about France. I picked a country randomly. At this stage, if you want to travel, you would go to one of the domestic counters, you would probably use a queue, and then you would order in one place, with one desk, your entire travel. You would order a train ticket, a boat ticket, you would get your insurance. So, it's a very global and duly integrated experience. Let's call it phase one. Then you have phase two.” “In phase two you experience scale coming. So, scale is coming with airlines going global. Scale is coming with GDS starting to distribute rooms and seats all over the world. Scale is coming with Internet, and you have meta-searches, you have search engines, you have OTAs, and everybody starts owning a piece of travel, which means that we are moving from a very local, very fully integrated experience to a more standardised, to a more fragmented experience. And that's phase two. And now I'm calling it the Great Travel Reset, because I think with technologies like AI, you're eventually getting back to global players, localising their experience, and demand and supply is getting consolidated again.” Various styles of tie dye, Japanese Shiori technique. Textile print for bed linen, jacket, package design, fabric and fashion concepts Sharing the four main travel trends he adds: Trend 1: All Global players are LOCALISING experiences “Take any major industry, and you take those global players, they all end up localising their experiences for customers in order to be able to win. It's not specific to travel. Christodoulou adds: “Think about on-demand services. Here in Asia, Grab and Uber, Grab ended up acquiring Uber activities because they managed to go with very local payment methods. They managed to offer mobility such as motorbikes, which was critical in some markets like Thailand or Indonesia. Other players include Shopee taking over from Lazada. Taobao taking over from eBay, and in India, Zomato taking over from Uber. Same logic, same pattern. And I do believe that travel is no exception to this rule.” What is going to make travel localised? Product “If you think about the product, the question you want to answer is, how can I offer a very native experience to local consumers? It means that you need to have a localised product team. At Booking Holdings and Agoda, we have localised products crowds that are working specifically for Japan, for Indonesia, for India. And you want to test constantly on search, inventory display, prices, languages, etc” Payment On Payment he adds: “Everybody will think about integrating payment methods, and it's true that the core of the game is so. You want to integrate payment methods. If you think about markets like India, you want to be able to display credit card discounts and to have the banks that offer these discounts displayed on your platform, so you offer the right prices. And it goes along the way with buy now, pay later, the wallet, among other options.” Partnerships Even as a global player one needs to have the right partnerships locally. He adds: “This will enable you to capture the local segments of travellers that you might not capture easily with your co-operating model.” Giving an example he continues: “When you think about marketing, you would think micro-influencer, for instance. How will you partner with micro-influencers so you can tap into a demand that is not easy to access? And that's the case for supply and demand.” Young Japanese Woman in Traditional Kimono Dress at the Phoenix Hall of Byodo-in Temple in Kyoto, Japan with full bloom cherry blossom in spring Understanding the Japanese market Sharing case studies from the Agoda experience he says: “I’m talking about Japan, and I'm talking about Onsens and Ryokans. Onsens and Ryokans are, let's say, the WG 10 to 20% of the inventory of hotels in Japan. So, it's definitely a segment you want to crack. So how do you crack Onsens and Ryokans to offer the right experience to local travellers? The first thing is you need to reduce at all costs the number of clicks and to make the experience seamless. So, you're going to bring back a category more visible to the customers, and you're going to simplify the navigation. So, we will display what are the different Onsen destinations. We, will take back an AD test regularly and the different keywords that matter to those customers. And then you go further. You want to display the right map, for instance.” People walking in Gion Shijo Kyoto, the Old Town part of Kyoto. Kyoto has a population of 1.4 million people “And Japanese travellers are going to search by prefecture. So, you will do a prefecture map, and then you will add this search experience, this first intent experience with the right quality and seamless navigation. Then the customers will go to an Onsens hotel, and they need to see the right level of description for the activity. So, you need to standardise the way you're going to bring the information to the travellers. So not only do they find what they need, but there is a pattern when they navigate between different suppliers. And then it goes further. Japanese travellers are booking families. There is an entire range of, I would say, child policies. So, you need to be able to support them in booking for the family with different prices for the kids, for the parents, etc.” “So that's very specific in Japan. That's part of the product development that we do. And you close on payments. I was talking about payments earlier, but if you think about Japan, you think about cashless transactions. 20% of the transactions in Japan are done through PayPay, secure payments capturing very much young travellers. And so, if you want to capture those young travellers, you need to have these payment methods available. This is another example of how Agoda, as a global OTA, is seeking local to offer a native experience to consumers. The outcome of that is that Agoda today is the number one, which was not the case before. The number one player in app downloads and most top three-monthly active users.” So global players, following this internationalisation of travel, are getting local to keep the success to be able to meet the demand in a very specific manner. Young woman traveler walking at Shibuya Crossing the popular pedestrian scramble crossing in Shibuya, Tokyo Trend 2: Unify the travel experiences for consumers He elucidates: “The second thing I'll talk about is how we unify the travel experiences for consumers. We were talking about this consolidating offline through, for example, the Thomas Cook counter, then moving to a very fragmented experience. And now what we see is that more than 60% of the customers, they want to be able to book their flight, their activities, their hotel into one-stop shop. So, you need to offer that to them. So, what the customer wants, the following question for us is, do we think it's yielding the reward when you're doing it? And the answer is yes. If you take the holding growth impact, booking only reported that we have 30% growth on multi-vertical bookings, meaning customers are booking more than one vertical. But further than that, on the very long-term, we see very different pattern of customers that are able to book several verticals at the same time, has higher chances to repeat than the customers that book only one vertical. So, moving from this consolidation to fragmented, that information where customers would go through very different providers in order to book their entire trip, consolidating this again.” Trend 3: Intelligent Travel element with AI AI is accelerating the Great Travel Reset on both the backend and frontend. On the backend, AI is improving efficiency across departments—from code development to partner management and sales support—freeing up resources that can be reinvested into localisation and customer experience. On the frontend, AI is reshaping how travellers research and plan trips. What once involved hours of research across dozens of websites and hundreds of tabs is becoming far more consolidated. Backend efficiency He says: “So on the company side, I'll just give you two points. So, the first one is that we are constantly registering and recording, and we are constantly gathering all of these cases about AI, and it touches every single department. You can think about technology. Technology and how the developers are going to save time because now AI is supporting them to use the code or decode itself. Those efficiencies, you can reinvest them into local travel. We manage partners, AI can help you and help the sales team to prepare the sales pitch to alternate airlines, and then it can transcript what has been the call in the meeting minutes and then send it directly to partners or automatically raise escalations. So that's the back end. Now on the front end, there is one thing that is sure. This consolidation is happening. Travellers, they used to spend five hours to prepare their trip, 38 websites, 277 tabs, and it's getting to something that is way more consolidated, whether it be, you know, the occurrence of the large-scale models on the road or on your online travel agents or on direct bookings. So big question, is how will that translate over time? To answer this question, we need to divide it into many different parts. The first part is what we talked about, that research and search.” Large-language models On the frontend, AI is reshaping how travellers research and plan trips. What once involved hours of research across dozens of websites and hundreds of tabs is becoming far more consolidated. Large language models are transforming search and trip discovery, capturing intent more effectively than traditional search or meta-search. He adds: “Large-language models are going to offer a great experience when it comes to, searching what is the right trip for you and getting to know the right intent of which who gets it there. So large-language models will capture shares from meta-searches and search engines. But on the UTS side, when you think about the key success factor, the key success factor to offer a personalised experience to travellers is the data we have about these travellers. And we have property-in-time data about the way customers are navigating on our platform. We have historical data about the way travellers are booking. Then if you pair that with AI, then I'm guessing the traveller assistance, then you can offer one of the best experiences for travellers in order to plan their trip at the very beginning. So I would say that LLMs and OTAs are going to benefit from AI in order to capture a share of traffic at the end of the day. The following question is, can large-language models operate supply-directly? Operate bookings and payments directly? Can they operate post-booking directly? Because they have very limited time. I'll make it short, but supply, contracting, maintaining contracts, managing, you know, escalations, tax, huge effort and cost.” Aerial view of young woman lying on transparent canoe in blue sea at sunrise, Summer in Zanzibar Trend 4: Transparent Travel The final pillar of the Great Travel Reset is transparency, particularly in payments and post-booking processes. “Payments and booking, you need to comply with finance regulations, which means, you know, KYC, AML, DCI, et cetera, which is definitely complicated. And then you need to manage cost, charge back, and so on. And then post-booking, same logic. And that's a similar reason why search engines in the past, or meta-searches that controlled the upper funnel, did not go bottom funnel. Because think about their business model. Most of their business model takes 30 seconds, not minutes. That's the reason why, you know, in the past, Google Shopping, your RTA, APA, did not necessarily go as much as meta-searches, did not go bottom funnel, because it's a trade-off between your net profit on the road you're at, versus what you can really make on the bottom funnel.” He concludes with: “I really think that we are operating in a cycle, and we are getting back to where travel, by many aspects, used to be very consolidated, less fragmented, very localised experience.”
Norwegian Cruise Line unveils winter 2027/28 voyages
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) has announced its winter 2027/28 deployment, featuring over 370 voyages across nearly 50 countries, alongside the return of its popular Free at Sea Plus package. This offering includes premium perks such as unlimited Starbucks, streaming WiFi, and premium drinks, enhancing the cruise experience for guests. The new season, running from September 2027 to April 2028, offers itineraries ranging from two to 22 days, with a focus on destinations like the Bahamas, Caribbean, Bermuda, and the Mexican Riviera. Notably, the deployment includes 71 late departures and 70 overnight stays, allowing travellers to immerse themselves in local cultures. NCL's president and CEO, Harry Sommer, expressed excitement about the new season, stating, "Our itineraries are designed for flexibility and choice... making it easier than ever to relax and focus on what truly matters." Making port in San Juan For the first time, two Prima Class ships will homeport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, offering distinct itineraries to the Southern Caribbean. Norwegian Prima will operate seven-day voyages from November 2027 to April 2028, whilst Norwegian Viva will provide additional options until January 2028. Florida homeports will host seven ships, offering diverse itineraries to the Bahamas, Caribbean, and Panama Canal. Enhancements at NCL's private island, Great Stirrup Cay, include a new pier, heated pool, and waterpark, promising an elevated island experience. The deployment also includes culturally enriching itineraries in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, with Norwegian Spirit offering extended voyages and overnight stays in the region. The return of Free at Sea Plus ensures guests enjoy premium amenities, enhancing their cruise experience. ```
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MTE Hanoi 2025 – Unlocking Opportunities in Vietnam’s Hospitality & Real Estate
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