A disparate sector with few common standards for reproduction of inventory, confusing search engines and random levels of customer service – that’ll be vacation rentals?
About Valyn Perini
Valyn Perini is an experienced travel professional with more than fifteen years in operations, sales and marketing, systems, consulting, and software development in the hospitality and travel industry.
As chief executive of the OpenTravel Alliance, she oversees the operations of the organization, including developing and executing strategies to reach the goal of standardized electronic distribution of travel and traveler information.
Her travel career includes stints with InterContinental, Westin and SwissĂ´tel, with PricewaterhouseCoopers as a travel technology consultant, and as the director of product strategy for Newmarket International.
Originally from Atlanta, Valyn now lives in Boston.
Six new talking points around travel merchandising and one for Google
June 21, 2010 By 2 Comments
What happens when airlines, distributors and agencies come together to talk about merchandising?
Six of the big questions around travel merchandising
April 7, 2010 By 6 Comments
It’s official – the debate around merchandising has switched from the conceptual to the practical, perhaps meaning it is finally being taken very seriously.
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Will car rental firms finally put a brake on customer no-shows?
March 22, 2010 By 12 Comments
Like most travelers, when I book a trip in North America (and this generally applies to Australia and New Zealand, South America, South Africa and a few other regions) I take out my credit card.
Why travel technology standards should not be a snooze
February 12, 2010 By 9 Comments
Talking about technology standards can be mind-numbingly boring, and I should know – I talk about them all the time.
Travel technology, climate change and apathy – not a pleasant mix
December 8, 2009 By 3 Comments
Amadeus recently announced a partnership with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to provide the GDS’s customers information about their air travel carbon emissions.
Given the negative environmental impact of travel coupled with widespread online distribution of travel content (schedules, pricing, images, product details, etc.), I wondered how all the GDS’ were addressing the growing demand for more specific CO2 emissions data, specifically in air travel.
First, some terminology.
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Twitter, airports, hashtags and mobile
November 18, 2009 By 4 Comments
I have followed several conferences in the last few months on Twitter from my desk, but this week I followed my first conference on the go from Tweetdeck on my iPhone, and it was a pretty interesting experience.
The first day of PhoCusWright 2009 found me in transit from Boston to Orlando to get to the venue in time for the opening reception.
Here was my travel itinerary and corresponding Twitter usage:
Why the Long Tail of travel is wagging the head of the dog
November 4, 2009 By 17 Comments
PhoCusWright published an article recently with the premise that travel companies in the long tail are taking traffic away from the big online travel agencies.
Certainly that feels true, given all the movement in what I call the “emerging travel segments” – emerging referring to their recent adoption of electronic distribution as a viable sales channel – including golf, tours and activities, timeshares and vacation (villa/apartment) rentals.
Let me say at the start that my definition of electronic distribution is any information provided electronically (to trading partners, distributors, brand.com) about the product (the safari, the castle in France), not just the transaction.
