Innovation

💸 EasyJet holidays, through its first impact report, has committed to sustainable trips by introducing electric vehicle transfers in Rhodes for over 5,200 passengers, covering 152,000km and saving approximately 27 tonnes of CO2. Partnering with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, they offer sustainability courses for hotels in Spain, Greece, and Turkey, with over 300 signed up and 37% of top-selling properties certified. AI technology in Costa Adeje saved around €100,000 by reducing food waste. With partnerships including Abta and UN Tourism, they strive to benefit local economies and aim for rapid sustainability progress.

🏖️ Summer 2025 package holiday prices in the UK have increased by 4.2%, outpacing inflation. Epsilon's research shows 46% of travellers value personal recommendations and seek trust, variety, and expertise when planning trips. Airlines like easyJet use customer data to personalize experiences, commemorating its 20th anniversary by creating individual customer stories. Travel businesses are urged to utilize first-party data and AI-driven recommendations to foster loyalty through personalized and emotionally engaging experiences.

🍕 Deliverect, a global food tech SaaS company, launched Pulse Sentinel to eliminate unnoticed delivery platform downtime, safeguarding revenue and operations. Research indicates a restaurant brand with 100 locations suffers an average 5% downtime weekly, amounting to 322 hours offline and an estimated £50,000 lost weekly revenue. Burger King UK, with 321 locations, relies on Pulse Sentinel, which has improved uptime to over 99% within six months and restored connectivity an average of 4,000 times per month. Pulse Sentinel acted 892 times in one week alone to prevent outages, driving revenue and customer retention for Burger King UK.

📍 Deliverect, a global food tech SaaS company, launched Pulse Sentinel to address unnoticed delivery platform downtime. Their data reveals a brand with 100 locations experiences an average of 5% downtime weekly, equating to 322 hours and an estimated loss of £50,000 in revenue. Burger King UK, using Pulse Sentinel across 321 locations, improved uptime to over 99% within six months and automatically restored connectivity 4,000 times per month, ensuring near-perfect uptime and revenue protection. Pulse Sentinel brought Burger King's restaurants back online 892 times in a single week.

💰 Deliverect launched Pulse Sentinel, a tool to eliminate unnoticed downtime on delivery platforms, which can cost a restaurant brand with 100 locations an estimated £50,000 in lost weekly revenue due to an average of 5% downtime or 322 hours weekly. Burger King UK has utilized Pulse Sentinel across 321 locations to combat downtime, recovering lost sales and boosting uptime to over 99% in six months. Pulse Sentinel restored connectivity an average of 4,000 times per month, and in a recent week, it was triggered 892 times. Deliverect's Pulse platform offers marketplace visibility and competitive monitoring, while Pulse Sentinel provides automated re-opening flows and notifications for maximal uptime and growth.

📱 Stayntouch partners with Crestline Hotels & Resorts to implement their Property Management System (PMS) across four independent properties including The Nordic Lodge, Phoenix Park Hotel, Waldorf Towers South Beach, and The Delphi. The system offers user-friendly design, advanced automation, group functionality, and access to over 1,200 integrations. Leah McFarland, SVP of Revenue Strategy at Crestline, emphasizes PMS's support for independent properties, seamless integration, and proactive service from Stayntouch.

📈 Hotels traditionally use room occupancy and square footage to measure profitability; however, this can be misleading. New metrics like Full Day Delegate (FDD) and delegate-based data provide a more accurate picture of revenue potential. For example, a hotel's five meeting rooms with a combined comfortable capacity for 180 delegates, available from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., have a theoretical maximum of 1,800 delegate hours or 180 FDD. A practical calculation with multiple groups resulted in 52.5 FDD, a more precise occupancy rate than traditional room counting. By focusing on ADR (Average Delegate Rate) and RevPAD (Revenue Per Available Delegate), hotels can better forecast and optimize pricing. The Demand Calendar platform centralizes real-time data for improved decision-making, tracking future delegates, historical performance, profitable segments, and enabling continuous improvement in Meetings & Events management.

📅 The 8th Global Business Travel Review, published by The Advantage Travel Partnership and Travelogix, analyzed 33.7m business travel bookings from Jan 1, 2019, to Dec 31, 2024, totaling £16.5bn. In 2024, transactions increased by 15.5% over 2023, except in June, which saw a 15.48% decline. The average transaction value dropped from £429.35 in 2023 to £399.81 in 2024. Economy class bookings rose to 79.81% in H2 2024, while business class bookings decreased to 14.69%. The average trip duration also dropped by 33% to 4.62 days. Factors include economic pressures, corporate policy changes, and sustainable travel trends. Forecasts predict an 8-11% growth despite macroeconomic challenges.