TODAY: What’s driving Airbnb experiences one year later?, Google updates the travel search experience on mobile and Rotana adds two additional properties to its Dubai portfolio.

What’s driving Airbnb experiences one year later?
Thursday, 22nd February 2018

Millennials, Food Lovers Lead the Way: Research shows that younger people increasingly favor experiences over things – and that’s evident in the growth of social, people-driven travel. One year ago Airbnb announced Trips, our vision of bringing together where you go, what you do, and who you meet into one people-powered platform >>

Google updates the travel search experience on mobile
22 Feb 2018 : Recently, Google launched a new update for its mobile travel platform which combines flight and hotel search into a shared navigation bar. In addition to this most recent update, late last year, Google gave a facelift to the hotel search filters as well as an update to how Hotel Ads were incorporated into the mobile search for users booking hotels on their mobile phones >>

Rotana adds two additional properties to its Dubai portfolio
22 Feb 2018 : Making a significant addition to the UAE’s tourism and hospitality offering, Rotana has announced the soft opening of two stunning hotels in Dubai, the five-star Al Bandar Rotana, and a fully-furnished serviced apartments, Al Bandar Arjaan by Rotana, at Dubai Creek >>

Priceline announces name change to Booking Holdings Inc
22 Feb 2018 : The Priceline Group Inc announced that it is changing its name to Booking Holdings Inc, effective February 21st, 2018. Booking Holdings stock will begin trading under the new ticker symbol on February 27, 2018 >>

Spotlight on 2017 and key trends for the year ahead
22 Feb 2018 : 2017 was a successful year for our industry: Many airlines have seen more-robust balance sheets, driven by the strong and growing demand for air travel across the globe and as a reference source for key developments in the airline industry in 2017 and to help the industry innovate further during 2018, we’ve created the Global Airline Industry Almanac >>

HIGHLIGHT ARTICLE

The Growing Value of Hotel Bars
Thursday, 22nd February 2018

The days of sad, lonely, hidden-away hotel bars are long gone. Today, hotels are turning their bars into community watering holes, encouraging locals and guests alike to mix and mingle and providing a literal taste of the destination with local fare and libations.

With savvy design (and top mixologists behind the counter), midscale and upscale hotels alike are finding new ways to bring in foot traffic and increase revenue at the same time. It’s no surprise that when The World’s 50 Bars published its list for 2017, five of the top 10 were located in hotels, including the top four on the list >>

CRM: A Hotelier's Guide, part 2 — The expert view
Why is CRM important for hotels? Hotels are in the business of taking care of guests, but despite this the industry has always had a 'transactional' mindset – treating every booking and stay as if it were the very first. Channel management and optimization have, until recently, been about trying to manage the costs of booking and reducing dependency on third parties. This approach ignores the actual customer — the hotel selection and booking process, the reason for travel, and how the trip is being financed >>

Turning Potentially Negative Communications into Positive PR Opportunities
Welcome to When Legal Meets PR! Today every legal move has potential for PR ramifications and vice versa and that’s why it’s critical that your legal and PR work in tandem to produce the best possible product for the situation >>