Innovation

🎄 Blacklane's "Holiday Chauffeur-by-the-Hour" service, available until January 2, 2025, offers six hours of chauffeur assistance in London, including bag-carrying and door-to-door transfers. December 9th was last year's peak Christmas shopping day in major cities, with a surge in bookings prior to Christmas. The service caters to tailored journeys to popular destinations like Selfridges, Bond Street, The Langham Hotel, and The Rosewood Hotel, according to Blacklane's data. James Dow, UK general manager, emphasizes stress-free, luxury travels for festive activities.

💻 Open sourced "Moonshine" speech to text model outperforms OpenAI's Whisper, offering 1.7x speed boost and flexibility in processing audio lengths, with a 5x speed advantage on ten second clips. Moonshine requires less RAM, targeting transcription in 8MB or less, ideal for devices like Raspberry Pi. The model powers the Torre translator for near-instant translations, enhancing conversation flow and operates locally for privacy.

🏨 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.

📱 Accor research reveals professionals expect a 36% revenue increase with in-person meetings. The study included 9,000 global professionals, with 85% predicting revenue boosts from face-to-face interactions, and an estimated 37% more deals closed. In-person meetings are valued over virtual, with 92% deeming it important for external clients, and 85% for internal colleagues. One in-person meeting equals three virtual ones in impact; 41% find face-to-face more effective, especially for sales and company culture. Business travel is driven by deal closures (34%), client meetings (31%), and negotiations (30%). Despite digital tools, 68% prefer in-person client presentations, and 77% for site inspections. Sophie Hulgard of Accor emphasizes the irreplaceable commercial value of personal interactions.