Travel Weekly Group Ltd

🏨 Cristina Panizo joins Mabrian, a global travel intelligence company, as head of insights & tourism advisory, enhancing its consultancy capabilities. Panizo has over a decade of experience in the tourism and hospitality sectors, including technology innovation, business strategy, and destination marketing. She has held leadership roles at Hesperia World and worked with Deloitte and THR as a consultant. Panizo is a graduate of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, with specializations from ESAN, Cornell University, and UC Berkeley.

🏨 During a Phocuswright panel in Arizona last week, Mirai CEO for the Americas Pablo Delgado recommended hoteliers to diversify their marketing strategies beyond AI-based placements by 2025. He emphasized brand protection campaigns and established social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Delgado noted AI's importance in gaining a first-mover advantage but also acknowledged the persistent dominance of Google and OTAs in the marketing landscape. He didn't dismiss potential new entrants like Amazon, Meta, or Microsoft in the travel space.

🚡 Talixo, a global transfers operator, partners with GoNexus Group's NexusCube, expanding the B2B mobility marketplace. Talixo offers pre-booked rides in over 1,100 cities and 130 countries, including three ride classes and eight vehicle types. The partnership aims to enhance travel retailers' profits by integrating private airport transfers and point-to-point rides into their offerings, potentially adding €1 million in annual profit per 10,000 monthly flight or hotel bookings. NexusCube, with this collaboration, now boasts over 220,000 experiences, 8,000 mobility options in 1,000+ airports, and access to 3,000 theme parks, serving 17,000 B2B travel partners globally.

🏕️ Civitatis, a Spanish tours and activities marketplace, partners with Latin American 'superApp' Rappi, launching a new vertical on Rappi's platform. This union grants over 50 million Rappi users access to 90,000+ experiences globally, all in Spanish. Civitatis expands its Latin American presence, while Rappi Travel enhances its offerings which include flights, hotels, and car rentals. Alberto Gutiérrez, CEO of Civitatis, highlights the strategic position strengthened in Latin America, with access to 22 million active users. Guido Becher, global head of Rappi Travel, emphasizes the ease this partnership brings to users across Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay, now able to book various travel services in one app.

📣 Arival's "Global Operator Landscape: The State of Experiences, 3rd Edition" report, the largest of its kind, surveyed over 7,000 tour, activity, and attraction operators. Findings show nearly 40% lack a reservation system, despite one-third of bookings coming from online travel agencies. CEO Douglas Quinby emphasizes the crucial need for technology adoption to remain competitive, citing benefits such as efficiency and revenue growth but acknowledges barriers like cost and complexity.

💵 Payment solutions provider CellPoint Digital secured $30 million in funding from Toscafund and Penta Capital to accelerate the launch of its Offer Order Service Delivery (OOSD) payment orchestration platform, designed for the travel industry. The investment aims to fuel global expansion and enhance payment services, including the expansion of its Alternative Payment Method (APM) hub. This move will support partnerships and client optimization, including a contract with Riyadh Air and a growing partnership with Sabre. CEO Kristian Gjerding highlighted the growth and demand recognition, while Penta Capital's Steven Scott emphasized CellPoint Digital's market leadership and responsible expansion.

🛫 In 2024, 78% of business travelers experienced disruptions on work trips. TravelPerk's annual Travel Disruption Report, based on a survey of 4,000 business travelers and global aviation data, indicates cancellations (27%) and transport strikes (21%) were prevalent causes. U.S. had 139,777 flight cancellations from March to September, with weather-related disruptions impacting 30% of U.S. travelers. China leads in cancellation rates at nearly 5%. Only 57% of July flights were on time due to a Crowdstrike outage. TravelPerk uses AI to double customer query handling from 2023, maintaining human agents for support.