This week’s travel-shortened OTA & Travel Distribution Update features two stories detailing two recently announced unique partnerships, one between Accor and Air-France-KLM and the other between Expedia and Lufthansa. We also update the status on Booking.com’s continually evolving plans to charge commissions on resort fees and other similar service charges. Enjoy.
Booking Holdings Delays Charging Hotels Resort Fee Commissions in Major Reversal
Skift Travel News on Jul 2, 2019
Booking Holdings, which had announced it would begin charging hotels in the United States commission on their resort fees, has delayed implementing the new policy, Skift exclusively learned. The company, which owns brands including Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda and Kayak, is considering delaying the new commissions until January 1, according to multiple sources. The tentative new schedule for implementation — if the company goes through with it all — is subject to change. It is believed that Booking Holdings could be using the pause to reevaluate the whole policy.
Accor and Air France-KLM Link Loyalty Accounts in Unique Partnership
Skift Travel News on Jul 2, 2019
European business travelers have a new hotel and airline partnership to take advantage of. Paris-based Accor hotels and the Air France-KLM megacarrier announced a loyalty partnership that rewards travelers for using either product. Air France-KLM Flying Blue members can now earn miles for simply booking and paying for an Accor room, while hotel loyalty members can earn points for flying. Unique to this relationship is the sheer acreage that it covers. Unlike the recent American-Hyatt partnership, which only targets elites, the deal between Accor and Air France-KLM targets all loyalty members and effectively gives away points to anyone willing to sign up and link accounts.
Google And Amazon’s Disruption Of The Online Travel Industry Is Looking Inevitable
Forbes - Lifestyle on Jun 30, 2019
Is the travel industry heading for a new world order? There remains little doubt among travel experts that tech goliaths Google and Amazon will dominate the online travel arena, threatening to bust up the duopoly of Expedia Group (which owns Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, Trivago and Hotwire) and Booking Holdings (which owns Priceline, Kayak and Booking.com) that has reigned for years.
Cozycozy is an accommodation search service that works with hotels and Airbnb
Tech Crunch on Jun 30, 2019
French startup Cozycozy.com wants to make it easier to search for accommodation across a wide range of services. This isn’t the first aggregator in the space and probably not the last one. But this time, it isn’t just about hotels. When you plan a trip with multiple stops, chances are you end up with a dozen tabs of different services — on Airbnb to look at listings, on a hotel review platform and on a hotel booking platform. Each service displays different prices and has a different inventory. While there are a ton of services out there, most of them belong to just three companies: Booking Holdings (Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, Agoda…), Expedia Group (Expedia, Hotels.com, HomeAway, Trivago…) and TripAdvisor (TripAdvisor, HouseTrip, Oyster…). They all operate many different services in order to address as many markets and as many segments as possible.
Germany : Expedia Group and Lufthansa Group airlines Announce Strategic Air Technology Partnership
MarketWatch - All Company Press Releases News & Commentary on Jun 26, 2019
The Lufthansa Group airlines and Expedia Group announced that together, they will leverage cutting-edge technology to deliver the shared goal of helping more travelers access the best possible air travel options with Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines on Expedia Group sites. The new multi-year cooperation establishes greater technological collaboration between the companies thanks to an industry-leading Direct NDC API connection.
