Travel Weekly Group Ltd

🏨 Net Affinity, a hotel tech provider founded in Dublin in 2000, serves over 400 UK and Ireland hotels. Partnering with PXP, they aim to simplify hoteliers' reservations and payments, enhancing guest experiences and securing transactions. PXP processes over €30bn yearly and offers advanced fraud detection to reduce chargebacks. Net Affinity's William Cotter and PXP's Christopher Gilderson highlight the partnership's focus on streamlining payment management and fraud prevention for hotels. Future plans include new payment features and improved fraud detection for the hospitality sector.

🧮 TUI Musement research, conducted in June 2024 by Appinio with 1,200 adults in Germany, Spain, and the UK, found that only 22% of UK participants can easily distinguish AI-generated images, compared to 9% in Germany and Spain. Gen Z and Millennials (17%) claim to distinguish better than Gen X (11%) and Baby Boomers (6%), yet all groups struggled. 88% prefer a mix of professional and user-generated content for trust and purchasing influence, and TUI manages over 35 million images with AI, avoiding AI-generated destination images to maintain authenticity. CEO Peter Ulwahn emphasizes balancing innovation with transparency in AI deployment.

🎫 Christian Terrill joined Expian as strategic project manager to assist the company's growth, backed by recent project wins with P&O Ferries and Historic Royal Palaces. Expian, an experience-centric ticketing platform, is expanding its management team to accommodate increasing demand. Terrill, formerly with the Royal Ballet and Opera and LW Theatres, will focus on delivering ticketing technology solutions and supporting AI development. Expian's managing director, Yiannis Maglaras, emphasized Terrill's transformative project management experience as valuable for scaling operations and enhancing venue sales.

🐛 Valpas, in partnership with Canon Marketing Japan Inc. (Canon MJ), is entering the Japanese hotel and short-term rental market to address a €15bn bed bug issue. The company received an investment from Canon MJ through the Canon Marketing Japan MIRAI Fund, after a €4 million seed funding led by Zenith VC. Valpas aims to protect 2 million beds worldwide by 2030 and will showcase its chemical-free bed bug prevention technology at Hotel Restaurant Show 2025 in Tokyo from February 4-7. Canon MJ's investment is propelled by Valpas' smart bed leg technology, which stops bed bugs at first contact. Canon MJ sees the partnership as an opportunity to cater to the safety needs of an increasing number of travelers.

🏖 Goliday, an Austro-French start-up founded in 2020, offers a platform for holiday rental owners to create commission-free websites with an integrated booking system. Already hosting 5,500 websites, it has generated €9 million in bookings. As of the end of 2024, Goliday partnered with Google Maps for direct bookings. With EU funding and a pre-seed round completed, it plans to launch a B2C platform and expand into Italy, Spain, Croatia, and the US.

🏖️ Travelgenix partners with Mercury Holidays, a trusted UK tour operator, to offer holiday packages, escorted tours, and river cruises via Travelgenix’s websites and widgets. This integration enables travel agents to access deals like second- and third-week free offers, no single supplement options, and early booking discounts. Mercury Holidays joins Jet2 Holidays, Etihad Holidays, and Every Holiday in Travelgenix’s API feeds, facilitating live, online package bookings for agents, enhancing customer experience, and fostering competition with industry leaders.

📱 Canary Technologies launched its AI Voice platform, a suite of AI-powered hotel assistants designed to manage guest calls, drive bookings, and streamline operations. The platform includes AI Front Desk Assistant, AI Concierge Assistant, AI Central Reservations Assistant, and Canary’s AI Booking Agent. Co-founder and president SJ Sawhney emphasized the platform's role in improving guest communication and service, as well as handling peak demand to prevent a compromised guest experience and missed revenue.