Tag: Travel technology

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.” 

Seattle, Washington – In addition to its artificial intelligence and machine learning-powered tools, global travel platform Expedia has announced the beta launch of its new in-app travel planning experience powered by AI chatbot ChatGPT. 

With the new feature, Expedia members can now start an open-ended conversation in the Expedia app and get recommendations on places to go, where to stay, how to get around, and what to see and do based on the chat. 

The new trip planning experience also brings in intelligent shopping by automatically saving hotels discussed in the conversation to a “trip” in the app, helping members stay organised and making it easier for them to start choosing dates, checking availability, and adding on flights, cars or activities.

Prior to this, Expedia built a plugin for ChatGPT that lets travellers start a conversation directly on the ChatGPT site and select the Expedia plugin to bring a trip to life, but the conversational trip planning is now brought directly in the Expedia app.

“Every great trip can be made or lost while planning and shopping. As the leader in travel tech, Expedia continues to build out the core operating system for the industry, constantly enhancing capabilities and making trip planning faster, simpler and even more informative,” said Peter Kern, vice chairman and CEO of Expedia Group.

Kern also mentioned that by integrating ChatGPT into the Expedia app and combining it with its other AI-based shopping capabilities such as hotel comparison, price tracking for flights and trip collaboration tools, the platform can now offer travellers an even more intuitive way to build their ‘perfect trip’.

This collaboration with OpenAI is currently in the beta testing phase, allowing Expedia to evolve the experience based on its app users’ feedback and interaction.

The conversational trip planning beta experience is rolling out globally in the English language on the Expedia iOS app.

Singapore – Vouch, a Singapore-based travel tech startup that offers its guest experience platform to hotels in various markets, has successfully closed its US$1.1m seed funding, to which they aim to target to open European operations, starting off with the setup of their operations in London, United Kingdom.

This marks the company’s third in-country branch along with its presence in Indonesia and South Korea, to which they will be looking to build on its new and existing partnerships with hotel chains in these markets for expansion.

Vouch provides AI-powered technology to the hospitality and travel segment, including attractions and malls, to enhance productivity, boost revenue and elevate the overall guest experience. The company firmly believes that with technology as an enabler, properties now have the freedom and the ability to focus on things that truly matter.

Said funding was led by Forge Ventures, and will be used for expansion and product development for a new category of technology for hotels: the guest experience platform.

The company’s guest experience platform allows guests to check-in, make room requests, order food and beverage and get instant answers to commonly asked questions, just by scanning a QR code on their mobile phones.

Furthermore, Vouch has seen wide adoption of its platform in Asia to improve productivity through the streamlining of hotel operations and providing round the clock services for hotel guests.

According to Joseph Ling, founder and CEO at Vouch, the company has rolled out its services and partnered with noteworthy hospitality brands in Asia and is now looking to expand globally. For instance, they have covered 25% of all rooms in Singapore under international groups such as Frasers Hospitality, Hyatt Hotels, Pan Pacific Hotels Group and the InterContinental Hotels Group.

“There is a genuine need for a solution that helps hotels improve manpower efficiency and the pandemic has accelerated this need. Our plan this year is to expand aggressively into new markets that will benefit most from a productivity platform like ours, namely Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea and the United Kingdom,” Ling stated.

While travel and tourism have remained low across the world due to COVID-19, Vouch aims to help businesses and consumers in these sectors cope better in a pandemic.

“By incorporating Vouch into their operations, businesses can better plan for manpower requirements and avoid greater uncertainty associated with fluctuating pandemic intensity and accompanying social distancing requirements,” the company said in a press statement.