Travel Weekly Group Ltd

✈ Ryanair launched its "Prime" subscription for frequent flyers last month at €199 per year, offering fast-track security, reserved seating, priority boarding, and other benefits. Consumers globally are members of an average of 10 loyalty programs, with airlines now seeking to build loyalty beyond traditional rewards. Successful loyalty schemes must deliver long-term value, anticipating needs and making the entire travel experience seamless. Partnerships, like British Airways with American Express and Delta Air Lines with Starbucks, Hertz, Shake Shack and ExpressVPN, demonstrate a focus on the overall travel experience. Airlines are encouraged to create journeys, not just sell tickets, and to integrate their services into the daily lives of travelers for true loyalty.

📍 Travel Counsellors have launched an interactive itineraries feature, developed in-house over 12 months, to offer a more personalized and immersive travel planning experience. Designed to enhance traditional travel documents, it includes rich multimedia content and has been rolled out to their global community of over 2,000 agents after a successful pilot with around 80 homeworkers. The technology aims to save agents time and improve customer engagement, following the acquisition of Planisto, which aided content development. The launch marks an advancement in the company's use of technology to enrich personal client relationships.

📅 At the Arabian Travel Market 2025, Mabrian Technologies and Almawave Group co-hosted a roundtable titled "Successful Market Strategies With AI and Data Intelligence". The event, part of the Global Travel and Tourism Resilience Council and involving Travolution, gathered 20 senior executives for a 90-minute discussion on AI and data intelligence in travel. Attendees included representatives from Visit Oman, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Authority, NEOM, PATA, the Egyptian Hotel Association, and consultancies like McKinsey & Co., BCG, and Roland Berger. Emphasis was placed on leadership and collaboration for effective use of AI, with a focus on operationalizing insights for the Middle East's tourism sector.

🏡 Cloudbeds has expanded its integrated payments solution, CB Pay, into Thailand, becoming one of the few hospitality platforms offering end-to-end payment options for hoteliers in the country. The platform enables hoteliers to automate onboarding, manage ledgers, settle payments in local currency, and securely process both local and international credit cards. In partnership with dLocal, Cloudbeds facilitates fast settlements in Thai Baht, optimizing cash flow and financial management for Thai hotels. CEO Adam Harris highlights the solution's ability to handle collection to reconciliation on a centralized platform, aiming for global deployment.

💻 KAYAK, a travel metasearch engine, launched KAYAK.ai, an AI platform, using OpenAI's technology combined with their own data. KAYAK.ai features over 400 providers' pricing, aiming to transfer successful features to KAYAK.com. CEO Steve Hafner announced the new platform and the appointment of Yaron Zeidman as CTO, a former Agoda veteran with 29 years of experience, to lead KAYAK's 400+ product and engineering teams in AI advancement.

📈 Clermont Hotel Group partners with IDeaS for revenue management and operational efficiency. This includes implementing IDeaS' RMS G3 package and Optix tool across Clermont's UK portfolio, aiming to enhance revenue strategy, boost efficiency, and drive growth. Optix enables real-time reporting, actionable insights, and strategic decision-making for properties like The Tower Hotel, The Cumberland, and the Royal Horseguards Hotel. The partnership emphasizes accurate pricing, time and cost savings, and after-sales support, transforming revenue trend analysis and reporting.

🏨 Indian travel solutions firm Technoheaven launched the Smart Markup module at the Arabian Travel Market event in Dubai. Utilizing AI, it analyzes over 50 million daily searches, booking history, search behavior, nationality trends, and seasonal dynamics for predictive pricing, enabling travel businesses to set dynamic margins for maximum profitability. Vinod Kelwani, CEO of Technoheaven, emphasizes control and adaptability in pricing with their new inventory system that also helps businesses become a Bedbank.