Search Results forPriceline
Priceline and Sabre sign expanded, multi year distribution agreement
Sabre Corporation and Priceline, a leading online travel agency (OTA), today announced a new expanded, multi-year agreement to deliver joint growth in travel retailing. Under the new agreement, Priceline will adopt Sabre Direct Pay to support its travel payments needs, delivering a more secure, automated, and integrated payment process. Additionally, Priceline will leverage Sabre’s rich GDS content and shopping APIs to support its continued leadership in delivering the best flight and package inventory to customers. “At Priceline, we are focused on giving consumers access to the best deals, best inventory, and best tools to book their travel. Ensuring that we have access to the broadest air content is a prerequisite to achieving that vision,” said Matt Bell, Vice President, Flights, for Priceline. “Sabre’s robust content and technology solutions will help Priceline deliver on our vision for our customers.” “We look forward to extending and expanding our long-term engagement with Priceline as we work together to deliver better travel retail experiences for consumers,” said Andy Finkelstein, Senior Vice President Global Agency Sales, Sabre Travel Solutions. “Priceline and Sabre share a spirit of innovation and we’re excited to evolve our relationship to enhance the travel marketplace.”
Priceline Expands Into the Activities Sector
Today, online travel agency Priceline is introducing Priceline Experiences, further expanding its booking capabilities into ticketed activities and excursions. From museum visits and theme park tickets to off-the-beaten-path local tours and guided excursions, Priceline Experiences enables consumers to quickly discover and book more than 80,000 activities in more than 100 countries around the world, making […] Priceline Expands Into the Activities Sector
Travelport brings together Priceline, Qantas and United at NDC Leadership Council
Travelport has rolled-out the findings discussed in the September meeting of its NDC (New Distribution Capability) Leadership Council, where Qantas and United Airlines representatives met with teams from American Express Global Business Travel, BCD Travel, DNATA Travel and Priceline The NDC Leadership Council brings together leaders from airlines, travel agencies, travel management companies and corporations with Travelport’s own technology, product and air commerce teams to discuss NDC developments and technical considerations necessary to successfully implement NDC across the travel industry. As a result of their discussions, the NDC Leadership Council identified focus areas to ensure the development of an NDC solution that is able to operate at scale across the travel industry. The topics discussed included: Architecture and technology representatives will consider the opportunities and challenges of NDC, including latency and asynchronous search with the aim to tackle issues before they arise. Given the complexity of deploying NDC for certain travel intermediaries, the NDC Leadership Council will also evaluate how to eliminate roadblocks in making technical changes for those intermediaries, for example, consolidators. Commenting on the actions resulting from this meeting, Ian Heywood, global head of New Distribution at Travelport said: “Our NDC Leadership Council is focused on discussing best practices in the implementation of NDC and committed to sharing the learnings from our discussions with a wide audience. NDC will be most beneficial if it works for all parts of the travel industry so getting a group of leaders together to identify developments is a productive way to continue to drive the NDC conversation and for airlines, travel intermediaries, corporate partners, and consumers to fully realise the potential benefits of NDC. We’re grateful to our airline, agency and corporate partners for lending both their time and their expertise to the Council.” The NDC Leadership Council meets three times each year. The next meeting will take place later in 2019.
Priceline Group rebrands as Booking Holdings
In the business of travel, names matter. So why has the Priceline Group come out under a new name? The parent company operating the travel aggregating websites Priceline.com in the US, Agoda in Asia and Booking.com worldwide now introduces itself to the public as Booking Holdings Inc. Even its NASDAQ stock ticker will transition from PCLN to BKNG starting February 27th. A move thought to be overdue as shared by the likes of Forbes and Fortune, this name change reflects the fact that Amsterdam-based OTA subsidiary provides an estimated 80% of the company’s US$92 billion gross bookings and operating profit. It will be recalled that today's Booking.com is actually the product of a joint acquisition. The former Priceline Group merged online hotels service Bookings B.V. with UK-based hotel reservation service Active Hotels in the early 2000s, which helped it recover from the dot-com bust. With more than 1.5 million properties, Booking.com is said to have generated a daily average of over 1 million bookings and a revenue of around US$11 billion to date. Booking Holdings Inc CEO Glenn Fogel Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel shared through his LinkedIn page that the name change also aligns with how Booking.com is more famous worldwide. In a Bloomberg interview, he added: “The company has evolved significantly over 20 years. There isn’t an awareness of how big our business is.” The shift not only caused a lift in company shares (Business Insider and Financial Times gave conflicting reports as to the exact percentage, but an early version of the 2017 annual report is available here). It also comes at a time when travel sites face meet direct competition from Google, Airbnb and traditional hotel operators. That said, Fogel is confident this will help market and grow the group’s brand portfolio, which includes Kayak, RentalCars.Com and OpenTable. "We are now doing things that enable people to book hotels, homes, apartments, rental cars, flights, dinner reservations. Booking Holdings unifies all of these different things," Fogel told CNBC. So why rename itself now, of all times? Fogel explained through the group's official statement: “We are at a defining moment in our company’s history – making this change to more accurately align our company name with our largest business, connect our collective brands to a name that shares our shared capability to help customers book amazing experiences, as well as better reflect the truly global operation that we have become today.” Americans need not fear what will happen to Priceline.com, whose now-defunct ‘name your own price’ offer was its original claim to fame. Once promoted by actor William Shatner for this very reason, it will continue to live on in its home market. A Business Insider follow-up indicates that Booking Holdings will retain its Norwalk, Connecticut headquarters in the USA.
Priceline help Meituan-Dianping raise $4 billion
Meituan-Dianping, China’s largest service-focused e-commerce platform, today announced it has raised $4 billion in a new Series C financing round. This latest funding round was led by Tencent and includes new investor The Priceline Group and other key investors including Sequoia Capital, GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Trustbridge Partners, Coatue Management, IDG Capital, Tiger Global Management, and China-UAE Investment Cooperation Fund. Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan-Dianping, stated: “Meituan-Dianping is leading a major transformation of China’s traditional services industry by creating a powerful new e-commerce ecosystem that covers customers’ whole day lifestyle scenarios. We pride ourselves on being a global pioneer that is creating one-stop service offerings under a unified platform. Customers are able to access various types of services, from restaurant reservations to on-demand delivery, hotel and travel bookings, and entertainment, all through a single mobile application. The strong support from a number of innovative and strategic global investors in this financing round is strong validation of our business model and strategy.” “Meituan-Dianping presently has the largest service-focused e-commerce platform in China but even so, numerous parts of our diversified business are in early stages of growth and the opportunities for further expansion are enormous. We look forward to investing wisely to build out our platform and offerings and to fully leverage AI-based and analytics-driven technology, for the benefit of our consumers and merchant partners,” continued Wang Xing. Meituan-Dianping's market focus With this new funding, Meituan-Dianping will further strengthen the already market-leading positions of its four business groups: In-Store Dining, Lifestyle & Entertainment, On-Demand Delivery, and Travel & Leisure. As part of its long-term strategy, the Company will continue to invest in cutting-edge technology to create innovative solutions and drive further efficiencies for local businesses, all to better serve the very large active buying consumer base in China. The Company will also focus on expanding into key target verticals with high potential and that complement the Company’s existing services. Tencent has been a critical long-term strategic partner to Meituan-Dianping and will continue to help the Company invest thoughtfully, expand the business, and remain the industry leader in China. In addition to welcoming The Priceline Group as a new investor in the current funding round, Meituan Travel, Meituan-Dianping’s travel and leisure platform, has entered into a new strategic partnership agreement with Agoda.com, a global online accommodation reservation company under The Priceline Group, to create a mutually beneficial commercial relationship between both companies. Martin Lau, President of Tencent, commented: “We are glad to continue providing Meituan-Dianping with both strategic and financial support as it fulfills its vision of transforming China’s food and lifestyle services industry. The Company is executing smoothly and at scale across multiple categories, is providing convenience and value to consumers, and is contributing to a healthy and diversified China Internet ecosystem.” Todd Henrich, global Head of Corporate Development of The Priceline Group (fronted in US advertising by William Shatner, pictured above, since 1997), said: “We are excited to support Meituan-Dianping, the well-recognized leader in China’s local services industry. Our commercial relationship between Agoda.com and Meituan-Dianping will help each company benefit from the other’s expertise and capitalize on the opportunities presented by China’s exceptionally large travel market.” Since the 2015 strategic cooperation that created Meituan-Dianping, the Company has built a unique one-stop services platform dedicated to meeting consumers’ evolving needs while empowering merchants and brands through online and offline integration. Using innovative technology, the Company connects more than 280 million annual active buying consumers with more than five million annual active local merchants across China, all of whom have access to an extremely wide variety of services and product categories via Meituan-Dianping’s diversified platform. Wang Xing concluded, “We are very grateful for the confidence that both our long-standing and new investors have in Meituan-Dianping and we look forward to working together to further build on our many important successes to date.”
Priceline completes deal for Momondo
The Priceline Group has completed its acquisition of Momondo, the European travel meta-search company that offers flights, hotels and car rentals. The agreement, which is worth approximately US$550 million, will now see Momondo and its subsidiary, Cheapflights, merged into Priceline's Kayak brand to create a global travel search business. "Momondo and Cheapflights are premium brands that have garnered a loyal customer base throughout key markets in Europe, and we couldn't be more excited to welcome the Momondo Group team to the Priceline Group family," said Glenn Fogel, Priceline's group president & CEO. Under the terms of the cash transaction, Priceline has acquired all the outstanding shares of the Momondo Group, which was founded as Cheapflights in 1996 and acquired the younger Momondo brand in 2011, before merging under the Danish company’s name. Plans for the acquisition were first announced in February this year. Following the completion of the deal, Momondo will be overseen by Kayak CEO, Steve Hafner. "Adding Momondo and Cheapflights to Kayak's portfolio of brands helps further our mission of providing the world's favourite travel planning tools," said Hafner. "We're eager to learn from each other to make each brand and business even better." The Priceline Group operates six main online travel brands: Booking.com, Priceline.com, Kayak, Agoda.com, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable.
Priceline buys Momondo to create global travel search brand
The Priceline Group has confirmed plans to acquire Momondo, the European travel meta-search company. The agreement, which is worth US$550 million, will see Momondo and Cheapflights merged into Kayak to create a global travel search brand. "Meta-search is appealing to consumers and we're keen to expand our global footprint," said Glenn Fogel, CEO of the Priceline Group. "Momondo and Cheapflights will be nice additions to our meta portfolio under Kayak." Under the terms of the cash transaction, Priceline will acquire all outstanding shares of the Momondo Group, which was founded as Cheapflights in 1996 and acquired the younger Momondo brand in 2011, before merging under the Danish company's name. Hugo Burge, CEO of Momondo Group, commented; "The Priceline Group has a proven track record of operating successful, customer-centric travel brands all over the world. We couldn't be more excited to join such an esteemed group of loved brands and join forces with Kayak to bring the best in meta search to our growing customer bases worldwide." The acquisition is expected to close later in the year, subject to regulatory approvals. Following the deal, Momondo will be overseen by Kayak CEO, Steve Hafner. "Momondo and Cheapflights have built great products serving loyal users across Europe," said Hafner. "We're looking forward to learning from them and sharing best practices as our brands expand globally. The Priceline Group operates six main online travel brands: Booking.com, Priceline.com, Kayak, Agoda.com, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable.
Amadeus reports strong 2023 results and grows shareholder remuneration
Representative Image Amadeus continued to see a steady evolution through the fourth quarter, resulting in strong financial performance for 2023. Across the full year, Revenue, EBITDA and Adjusted Profit grew by 21.3%, 29.8%1 and 59.8%1, respectively. Free Cash Flow amounted to €1,148.6 million, supporting Net Financial Debt of €2,140.6 million at December 31, 2023, representing 1.0 times last-twelve-month EBITDA. Excluding non-recurring effects: (i) in 2023, impacts from updates in tax risk assessments, fundamentally due to the positive resolution of proceedings, which resulted in an increase in EBITDA of €42.0 million and in Adjusted profit of €73.6 million, (ii) in Q4 2023, a payment to a third partydistributor due to a change in our distribution strategy, which resulted in a reduction in EBITDA and Adjusted profit of €10.9 million and €8.2 million, respectively, and (iii) in 2022, a non-refundable government grant, which resulted in an increase in EBITDA and Adjusted profit of €51.2 million and €38.9 million, respectively. Excluding after-tax impact of the following items: (i) accounting effects derived from PPA exercises and impairment losses, (ii) non- operating exchange gains (losses), and (iii) other non-operating income (expense). Defined as EBITDA, minus capital expenditure, plus changes in our operating working capital, minus taxes paid, minus interests and financial fees paid. Free Cash Flow grew by 42.6%, to €1,116.7 million, in 2023, vs. 2022, if we exclude the following non-recurring effects: (i) a collection of €42.8 million from the Indian tax authorities, in Q2’23, (ii) a payment of €10.9 million to a third party distributor, in Q4’23, (iii) a non- refundable government grant of €51.2 million received in Q2’22, and (iv) €29.1 million cost saving program implementation costs paid in 2022. Based on our credit facility agreements’ definition. Luis Maroto, President & CEO of Amadeus, commented: “In 2023, Amadeus experienced strong growth, expanding profitability and high cash flow generation. This has allowed us not only to resume a dividend payment, but also to announce share repurchase programs in aggregate amounting to over €1 billion in 2023. Amadeus has long been a story of expansion and diversification, and over the year we’ve continued to invest. We believe we can make a positive impact through technology at more touchpoints along the traveler journey, which means expanding our addressable markets and customer base. This is evidenced in our recent announcement that we are acquiring a leading provider of biometric solutions for airports, airlines, and border control customers, in addition to the upcoming implementation of a new mid-sized ACRS customer. As we advance with our strategy, we are optimistic about our growth in 2024 and beyond.” Business evolution in the year In 2023, Air Distribution revenue increased by 23.6% relative to the previous year. Our Air Distribution bookings increased by 13.6%, with average revenue per booking growing by 8.8%. During 2023, our best performing region was Asia-Pacific, where bookings expanded by 63.7%, followed by Western Europe, which grew by 13.3%. Over the year, Western Europe and North America were our largest regions in terms of bookings, each representing 28.2% and 27.0% of Amadeus’ bookings, respectively. Priceline, part of Booking Holdings, a major online travel agency in the U.S., will be able to access NDC-sourced content from some of the world’s leading airlines via the Amadeus Travel Platform. In Air IT Solutions, revenue grew by 21.6%, supported by our passengers boarded evolution, which increased by 26.8%, driven by global air traffic growth and Amadeus’ new customer implementations, mainly Etihad Airways, ITA Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, Bamboo Airways and Allegiant Air in 2023, as well as Air India in 2022. Asia-Pacific was our best performing region, delivering 55.4% growth, and Western Europe and Asia- Pacific were our largest regions, representing 32.7% and 29.4% of Amadeus’ passengers boarded, respectively. Israir, the integrated tour operator and airline, is deploying Amadeus Altéa PSS as well as other solutions, such as Amadeus Disruption Management and Revenue Integrity solutions. Our Hospitality & Other Solutions revenue grew by 14.2% in 2023. Both Hospitality, which generates the majority of the revenues in this segment, and Payments, delivered strong growth, supported by new customer implementations and volume expansion. In Hospitality, we are advancing on our Amadeus Central Reservation System (ACRS) strategy. We will soon start implementing a new undisclosed ACRS mid-sized customer and its implementation is expected to start in the first half of 2024. In Payments, Amadeus’ wholly-owned payments subsidiary, Outpayce, expects that the e-money license it applied for in 2022 will be granted in the first half of 2024. Outpayce intends to offer pre-paid virtual card issuing within its B2B Wallet solution, which travel agencies use to pay travel providers such as airlines and hotels. Corporate news in the year On December 15, 2023, Amadeus announced that its Board of Directors proposed a 50% pay-out ratio of the 2023 profit, for the 2023 dividend. Also, the Board of Directors approved the distribution of an interim gross dividend from the 2023 profit of €0.44 per share, which was paid on January 18, 2024, for a total amount of €193.4 million. Additionally, in June 2024, the Board of Directors will submit to the General Shareholders Meeting for approval a final gross dividend of €1.24 per share, representing 50% of the reported profit. Based on this, the proposed appropriation of the 2023 results included in our 2023 audited consolidated financial statements includes a total amount of €558.6 million corresponding to dividends pertaining to the financial year 2023.
Users who haven’t cleared their browsing history could pay up to $254 extra on travel vacations…
In an era where online platforms dominate the travel booking landscape, consumers often rely on checking multiple sites to find the best deal. One report revealed, 77 percent of travelers considered online booking to be the most important factor for their holiday booking experience. Almost every website uses cookies, to remember important details about you and your preferences. And a recent survey revealed that while 81 percent of Americans are concerned about how websites use their data, nearly half still accept all cookies on a website. And it seems these concerns could be valid, as new research from web hosting service provider KnownHost reveals that holidaymakers doing research online may pay a hefty price for their search history. Knownhost’s study shows that cookies can influence the price of your vacation– often costing holiday-goers hundreds of extra dollars. KnownHost analyzed the cost of a trip for two from New York to Los Angeles in July on 30 different travel booking websites using two distinct Google Chrome accounts. One account retained its cookies and cache, mimicking the experience of a regular user.The second Google Chrome account had its history, cache and cookies cleared to represent a fresh user experience. The study then compares the cost of booking the trip on each of these accounts, to highlight how much prices are increased for users based on their cookies and search history. Booking.com was the most visited travel and tourism website in the world, in September 2023, with over 554.5 million visits. However, the study revealed that Booking.com has the highest average price increase for users who don’t clear their browsing history. There were 10 price hikes recorded on the website, with the average cost of the trip increasing by a staggering $254.20. In second position, for the highest average price increase is Priceline.com. Our research showed that for users who hadn’t cleared their cookies or search history, the average price increase was $209.00. Costco Travel has the third-highest average price increase for users who haven’t cleared their search history. Cookies and previous searches can result in travelers paying an extra $132.64 for their trip. In fourth and fifth position respectively with the largest price increase are AA and American Express. Users on the AA website who haven’t cleared their search results could spend an average of $63.36 more on their trip. American Express is one of the most popular travel websites in the US, but travelers who use the website could have an average price increase of $59.86 if they don’t clear their search history. Travelers who are looking to save some extra cash by searching for the best deals online may be caught off guard by websites with the highest percentage price increases for repeat visitors. Costco Travel, AA and American Express websites all had a 100 percent price increase for website users who hadn’t cleared their search history. This striking increase in prices indicates a strong use of search history to determine pricing on these websites. For travelers, this highlights the importance of strategic browsing habits to uncover more favorable pricing options. Staying informed of the way data can be used to influence the pricing website visitors receive can also help ensure the greatest savings. Here are some tips on how to ensure that your search history doesn’t impact the price of your holiday: Use Incognito:Most browsers offer an incognito mode that prevents the storage of cookies and browsing history. When you use this mode, websites are unable to track your previous visits or store cookies that could influence pricing. Regularly clear cookies:Clearing your browser cookies regularly can help reset your online identity and prevent websites from accessing past data to adjust pricing. Opt out of cookie tracking:Some websites provide options to opt out of cookie tracking. Look for privacy settings on the websites you frequently visit and adjust your preferences accordingly. However, keep in mind that not all websites offer this. Disable third-party cookies: Look for options that allow you to disable third-party cookies in your browser settings. While this may affect certain functionalities on some websites, it can prevent third-party trackers from gathering information about your browsing behavior. Daniel Pearson, CEO at KnownHost commented: “For many website users, the most convenient option is to accept all cookies when browsing a new website. "However, this study offers a shocking insight into how cookies and our search history can impact the costs of services and products. “Savvy-savers should be sure to look at how their search history is used to determine pricing and look for ways to limit the impact of their history on their upcoming trip.”
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