Booking platform Archives - MARKETECH APAC

Manila, Philippines – Philippine Airlines (PAL) joined forces with travel technology company Expedia Group to launch its one-stop travel website, PAL Holidays, that offers travellers a convenient and comprehensive platform for all their travel needs.

Powered by Expedia Group’s White Label Template technology, the all-in-one travel website is designed to help passengers effortlessly plan and book their entire journey with PAL.

PAL Holidays offers a convenient location for passengers to book all their travel essentials, including their PAL flights, hotel accommodations, transportation, and other travel activities. This means that travellers can tailor their preferred itinerary without the hassle of having to juggle multiple booking websites.

The partnership between PAL and Expedia Group will also allow travellers using the new platform to access over 900,000 properties worldwide. The global travel platform brings with it a wide selection of accommodations that fit a traveller’s preferences and budget.

In line with this launch, PAL Holidays will also feature exciting promotional deals and exclusive offers aimed at encouraging travellers to explore more destinations with their loved ones.

The launch of PAL Holiday marks a significant milestone for the airline in its commitment to enhancing the travel experience of its valued customers. The new site is now live in the US, Canada, Australia, and the Philippines.

Bud Britanico, VP for Sales at Philippine Airlines, said, “We are thrilled to introduce PAL Holidays, our new one-stop booking platform that simplifies and enhances the travel planning process for our passengers. By partnering with Expedia, we are confident that our customers will enjoy unparalleled access to a superior range of great offers for hotels, experiences, and transport that can go together with the Philippine Airlines flights that they book. PAL Holidays reflects our dedication to providing exceptional travel experiences, and we look forward to serving our customers in a more convenient and efficient way.”

Meanwhile, Greg Schulze, senior vice president for strategic travel partners at Expedia Group, also shared, “We are thrilled to team up with Philippine Airlines for PAL Holidays. We share the same vision of transforming and easing the way travellers plan and book their journeys. With our combined expertise and service, we are excited to offer a seamless travel platform that will be of great help to travellers.”

Philippines — Just in time for International Women’s Day, Grab Philippines is opening a fresh offering in its super app – where users can now make bookings for salon and wellness home services. This is specifically in partnership with PH-based beauty and wellness service platform Parlon.

Staying true to the theme of IWD, the said partnership in fact aims to encourage women to celebrate and get pampered safely and conveniently at the comfort of their homes. This campaign marks the first salon home service partnership in the region and features popular salon favourites Marqed Salon, The Secret Lounge, Benibana Beauty Hub, Vine Aesthetics, Lay Bare, and Passionails. Home service appointments on haircuts, beauty treatments, and grooming services from these salons are now available via the Grab app with more Parlon partner salons expected to be onboarded after launch.

Claire Ongcangco, CEO of Parlon, said that this is a very important milestone for Parlon because it has always been their mission to digitalize the salon and wellness industry.

“We’re not just here to create a marketplace or software. We aim to build an ecosystem and we strongly believe that home service will play a part in the industry’s future as we continue to navigate a post-pandemic life. We’re very happy to be sharing this breakthrough with Grab and we’re hoping that this partnership is just the beginning of many revolutionary firsts for both of us,” Ongcango said.

Anton Bautista, head of deliveries for Grab Philippines, commented, “We are delighted to have Parlon and their partner salons available in the Grab app through GrabMart. As a leading everyday super app in Southeast Asia, Grab is constantly looking for ways to make lives better for each and every Filipino. This International Women’s Month, our partnership with Parlon will bring the most-trusted salon brands closer to every Filipina and even bring excellent beauty services right to their homes through a tap of a button. This partnership strengthens our mission of creating an ecosystem of different everyday essentials easily available to our consumers.”

The promotion values at a minimum of PHP 3,000 excluding the transportation fee, customers may book home service via the GrabMart option, selecting their chosen salon and service, picking a time slot, and checking out their appointments—just like how food is ordered. Multiple services from one salon also can be booked for a total pampering experience.

“We’ve entered this partnership with both the consumers and the salon industry in mind. At Parlon, we want to give consumers easily accessible options to book their home service appointments while keeping the comfort of salon owners and staff as well. We’re confident that with Grab’s strong reputation of delivering safe and convenient rides, our beauty providers won’t have to worry about the hassle of travelling with all their tools and equipment,” Ongcangco said.

Through this collaboration, stylists and beauty technicians will enjoy hassle-free car transport services to and from their client’s houses for every appointment.

Singapore – Digital travel platform Agoda has launched GoLocal Tonight, a new feature to allow users to create and plan their spontaneous travel itinerary, a direct response to the increase in demand for last-minute travel searches for same-day and next-day overnight hotel stays.

Through the platform, travelers looking for spontaneous last-minute travel can benefit from even greater savings from Agoda’s GoLocal Tonight deals when they make a same-day booking.

With the launch of GoLocal Tonight, thousands of hotel and accommodation providers across Asia Pacific have signed up to offer travelers up to 30% additional discount off last-minute reservations.

Data from Agoda noted that Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand are the top three Asia Pacific markets to embrace the impromptu travel experience searching for same-day check-ins. These markets are followed by travelers from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, India, the Philippines, South Korea, and Singapore.

“There’s a growing group of travelers choosing last-minute adventures – couch dwellers who might make spontaneous decisions to either watch a show or book a staycation for the thrill of it. GoLocal Tonight appeals to this new segment of canny, impulse travelers who are looking out for and are incentivized by low prices to take advantage of same-day deals. It’s a win-win for both partners and travelers,” said Enric Casals, regional director at Agoda.

Singapore – Renowned Singaporean filmmaker Lincoln Lin, known for multiple awards in Mumbai International Film Festival and Singapore World International Film Festival, has launched a global platform Filmplace, which provides filmmakers booking options for filming locations.

Filmplace is the Singaporean filmmaker’s first foray into business where the platform also aims to help the local community in earning revenue for their home spaces.

Through the platform, filmmakers can source for film locations within minutes rather than spending days with a fixer or location manager. Users are able to source locations from anywhere in the world.

“With Filmplace, the production companies can book venues for a few hours or even minutes within their fingertips and there is transparent pricing that is negotiable. In addition to that, there are fresh locations daily that these companies can choose from,” the company said in a press statement.

Filmplace has already been rolled out in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea with a supporting office in India.

“Currently, production companies need to hire a location manager which costs $300-$500 per day to nail down a couple of locations. The companies will then need to receive the locations, so it is very labor-intensive and manual,” Lin commented.

According to Lin, homeowners can monetize their home spaces in the platform where hosts can earn $500 -$2000 for a month, or around $800 per 10 hours, a contrast to earnings from the booking platform Airbnb, where homeowners earn $50-80 per night.

*Singapore filmmaker Lincoln Lin, who is also the CEO of Filmplace*

In order to get someone’s space enlisted on the Filmplace platform, users must sign up and provide needed information such as pictures of the location that’s going to be listed and the pricing for the company to verify.

Having reached more than 1600 users, the company said they are beginning to roll out more incentives and convenience for registered hosts.

From 1 January to 28 February 2021, venue owners and homeowners can enjoy reduced service fees from Filmplace for every booking. Regular hosts will be charged a 5% service fee instead of 12% and Pro Hosts will be charged a 3% service fee down from 9%.

With the Pro Host program, space and homeowners can enjoy getting their location featured more prominently on Filmplace. A tier-based rewards system will be introduced sometime mid-2021 so the more bookings that a host gets, the more discount they can enjoy on service fees from Filmplace.

Filmplace will also roll out a mobile app version of its platform this year .

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – MHholidays, the tour operating arm of Malaysia Airlines, has launched a new product, “Trips and Tours”, an offering of a wide selection of activities, attractions, and experiences in addition to the existing flights and hotel packages.

The new product features more than 40,000 selections of travel experiences worldwide. These include trips, concerts, attractions, museums, and excursions across 1,000 international and domestic cities within and beyond the airline’s network.

“Trips and Tours” is in support of the Malaysian government’s initiative of reviving domestic travel and tourism sectors. Through the government’s “Green Travel Bubble Initiative”, there are now over 100 new activities and attractions on offer across 12 domestic cities Malaysia Airlines flies to.

“The introduction of Trips and Tours further builds on MHholidays’ aim of making travel seamless by providing an all-in-one travel booking experience leveraging technology. Currently, MHholidays packages are only available for MH operated flights, and we are working towards expanding it to include Firefly codeshare flights in 2021. In line with our Fly Malaysia campaign, the MHholidays’ Trips and Tours highlights the amazing attractions we have across our nation while playing our part to support the revival of domestic tourism travel by curating safe, secure, and amazing experiences for all our customers,” said Malaysia Airlines’ Group Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Lau Yin May.

The product is now on offer on the MHholidays’ official website or through Malaysia Airlines’ official mobile, available on download at the Google Play Store or at the App Store.

Hong Kong – Travel and leisure booking platform Klook officially unveils the newest feature on its app, an interactive livestream called Klook Live!.

While users on Klook have only been enticed of new food and travel offerings via images and text on the app, users will now be able to view up-close the offerings through interactive and instant video content on Klook Live!.

The feature has been formally launched in August in five APAC markets Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.

During this period, Klook released a series of hyper-localized content on Klook Live!, featuring offerings from food and dining to hotel staycation packages, where the five markets have reported a 4 times average uplift in conversion rates. This is compared to in-app conversion rates on an average day.

According to the brand’s data, in Thailand, a staycation surprise deal has been sold out in just eight minutes, while in Singapore, two out of three staycation bookings made within 24 hours were direct conversions as a result of the livestream. Both countries also experienced about a two times uplift in revenue compared to an average day.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, a number of food and dining exclusive deals were snapped up in less than five minutes.

With the new feature, the brand aims to introduce traveltainment, to which it refers to as a new form of immersive content that elevates users’ ways of discovering and booking both local and overseas hospitality offerings.

“The pandemic has made users even more critical and discerning when making a purchase. With Klook Live!, we enable users to gain a more authentic look at our offerings, as well as directly ask questions in real-time before buying,” said Marcus Yong, vice president of APAC marketing.

“Our early success demonstrates that users are increasingly demanding a new way to discover things-to-do, starting from their backyard. It also signals that users prefer a more entertaining, social, and personalized customer experience,” added Yong.

During the livestream on Klook Live!, customers can interact directly with merchants, express their feelings through emoji and polls, redeem exclusive promo codes and check-out; all while watching a live episode.

According to the company, Klook Live! is designed to cater to the region’s growing demand for online video content on mobile devices. It refers to a study by digital research brand eMarketer, that over 1.2 billion Asia-Pacific users consume video content on their mobile devices in 2019, and that this is expected to increase by over 75% to 1.6 billion by 2023.

The company also looks to leverage the forecast that video content is expected to be a norm post-pandemic as people consume more video content. According to a study by market research firm Globalwebindex, Gen Z respondents said that they expect their increased levels of consumption of social media, videos, and streaming services to continue even after the outbreak.

On the merchant side, Klook is confident that the new feature will aid vendors in targeting their audience reach which has proven trickier amid the pandemic.

“With international travel restrictions in place, merchants require creative platforms to showcase their offerings to local audiences and encourage them to support local businesses that depend on tourism. With Klook Live!, merchants of all sizes can bridge that gap and build stronger connections with local users, boosting brand awareness and sales,” the company said in a press statement.

In the coming weeks, Klook Live! will be rolling out more content and products, including episodic programs to unveil a new local carnival in Taiwan and indoor recreational parks in Malaysia among others

Klook Live! can be accessed by downloading the Klook app on Google Play or the App Store.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – The Malaysia branch of indoor edutainment center KidZania has appointed Hong Kong-based travel and services booking platform Klook as its exclusive online travel agent (OTA) partner. This will be KidZania Kuala Lumpur’s very first appointment of an OTA partner.

The parties will be co-investing in initiatives to enhance and refresh visitors’ overall experience at the theme park as well as curate marketing and promotional activities. The collaboration also aims to reignite visitation demand following the country’s lockdown amid COVID-19.

In support of KidZania Kuala Lumpur’s mission to provide interactive and inspirational role-playing experiences for kids, Klook will be developing an interactive experience zone that would encourage kids to explore and be inspired by the journey of building a tech start-up.

“Malaysians’ purchase behavior have shifted to booking their tickets online, especially with a leading OTA such as Klook, which provides a plethora of options for families looking for fun weekend activities. With this shift, we are confident that our partnership with Klook will result in a better customer experience overall by speeding up the entry process, especially with additional safety measures that we are taking such as temperature checking, ” said Shahrul Nizar Ahmad, Mayor of KidZania Kuala Lumpur.

Commenting on the partnership, Klook General Manager Chuan Sheng Soong for SEA said, “We are honored to be appointed as KidZania Kuala Lumpur’s first exclusive OTA partner, which signifies the trust in Klook’s ability to help drive visitorship to the center as well as enhance guests’ overall experience through Klook’s suite of merchant solutions. Our mission has always been to be an enabler for our merchants to reach new target audiences, increase their digital marketing capabilities and equip them with technology-enabled solutions.”

Meanwhile, Dato’ Dr. Ammar A. Ghapar, tourism Malaysia director of domestic & events division said that the government supports partnerships as such that help boost tourism.

“Tourism Malaysia encourages such strategic partnerships in the tourism industry which is in line with our post-COVID-19 domestic tourism initiative, and will further spur growth for the industry. We are honored to have witnessed this momentous event and look forward to more partnerships of this scale. Tourism Malaysia will lend our support to further promote this partnership via our marketing channels,” said Ghapar.

In celebration of the exclusive partnership, KidZania Kuala Lumpur and Klook will be offering a Buy One Free One promotional offer. The offer will be limited to the first 100 bookings on the Klook website or mobile app, which has already started in 17 September and onwards.

Manila, Philippines – In its efforts to boost domestic tourism in the Philippines, AirAsia has partnered with local hotels in the country to launch SNAP, a new flight and hotel platform on airasia.com which offers convenient fly and stay packages.

The airline will be offering an introductory SNAP promotion of up to 50% off on flights when consumers book a flight and hotel via the platform. This special promotional fare will be available on airasia.com from 21 to 27 September 2020, for travel from 21 September 2020 to 25 March 2021.

The airline assures in its press statement that it will be complying with advice and regulations from the local government, civil aviation authorities, and global and local health agencies, including the World Health Organization.

The company said that guests can expect enhanced safety measures throughout the entire journey, including pre-flight, in-flight, and arrival processes. These include the mandatory wearing of face masks to be permitted to travel, among others. Guests will also be advised to check and comply with measures implemented by local airport authorities for a smooth travel experience.

AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricky Isla said, “We are pleased to launch SNAP in the Philippines to be able to provide new and affordable offerings on airasia.com, especially for business travelers and those planning for their future getaways once leisure travel is permitted.”

Isla added, “Aside from developing airasia.com as Asia’s fastest-growing super app, this initiative has opened up opportunities to work with partner hotels, as we start to recover from the effects of the pandemic which have devastated the travel and tourism industry. We look forward to forming more partnerships with more hotels in the future.”