Another airline hands iPads to flight crews, hotel rates in North America are growing, and more items in our roundup of the stories that are making news and driving opinion on 24 August.
Qatar Airways to equip crew with iPads
It’ll help with customer service, says the fast-growing airline.
Contest for under-18 coders in Europe
First prize is €2,000 plus $5,000 Amazon Web Services credit. Get your aspiring young coders to sign up at hacknow.org.
Travelfusion launches hotel API
Today, the leading travel content aggregator with offices in London and Shanghai, said it is launching a Hotel API solution featuring 30 plus consolidators and building on the company’s flight & rail APIs.
Travelfusion’s prepay solution bypasses the traditional credit card payment system and is managed directly with the supplier.
North American hotel rates are growing faster than inflation
Average daily rates (ADR) rose 6% at business hotels and 3% at leisure, year over year to July. Pegasus Solutions. analyzed more than $16 billion a year in bookings at nearly 100,000 hotels.
Google Local update
Did you know you can merge your Google+ Business page with your Google+ Local page to have the Google+ Local information with all the social features of Google+ on the same page? Well, you can.
Friday Fun: Check out Mark Ovenden’s imaginative Tube map of the world…
How great would it be to hop on a train from Tel Aviv to Tokyo? The author of Transit Maps of the World makes a guess.
Major mid-size UK hotel chain opts for IDeaS RMS
Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, the UK’s largest privately-owned hotel group, is installing the IDeaS Revenue Management System (RMS) across its 40 hotels. In 2008, the company rolled IDeaS RMS in 7 hotels.
Directline Holidays makes appointments
Sally Balcombe and Drew Thomson are becoming non-executive directors at the UK’s Directline Holidays. Sally was once CMO at Travelport. Drew led the turnaround of BA Miles.
Frankfurt Airport launches an app in Mandarin
Fraport’s app aims to help Chinese passengers with maps of shops and a flight board.
TiVUS goes to India
TiVUS, a leading hotel technology Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) company, has opened operations in Asia Pacific with an office in New Delhi. TiVUS, founded in 2009 in the US, books about a $1 million a year in revenue and share ad-revenue for content screened at chains, such as some DoubleTree hotels.
Are airline alliances “yesterday’s news”?
Brian Higgs at TTG Asia says, Yes, probably.
Filip Filipov at Travel Cookbook says, No, they’re here to stay.
Trip-planning tool uEncounter.me launches custom maps
The startup’s newest feature lets users assign pins to customized maps, separating different trips.
Cardola’s app for iPads being adopted by a few hotels
Hotel guests at The Marbella Club Hotel and The Hotel Puente Romano can access hotel services on their own iPad via the VirtualHotel app from Cardola.
Ikea’s real estate division is building a city district in Hamburg
Germans are handing over the Allen key, or InnensechskantschlĂĽssel, to the city.
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