News & Stories
Nuremberg. Smartphones are again the powerhouse in the area of technical consumer goods. In addition to a new record in global demand for smartphones in the first half of 2017, the average selling price also increased. In the wearables segment, smart watches and fitness trackers form the highest share. Earables and virtual reality are only marginally represented.
Bern. Now even in Switzerland the air is getting thinner for OTAs. Ten days ago, the Economic Affairs And Taxation Committee of the National Council adopted Motion Bischof on the "ban on adhesion contracts by online booking platforms against the hotel industry".
Wiesbaden. Demand for Serviced Apartments is increasing, and in Europe too, more and more are being developed. This attracts the attention of booking platforms looking to fill the many new beds. New regional IT developments and foreign booking systems have entered into competition with existing marketing portals. Yet the promise of direct online bookability can only rarely be fulfilled in this still young segment. There are certainly pitfalls.
Rome. After France, Austria and Germany, Italy is also prohibiting online booking portals to apply so-called most-favoured customer clauses towards their hotel partners. The respective law was passed on Wednesday, after 851 days of debate.
Madrid/London. Just in time for the summer season, a Liverpool court is hopefully going to soon send a message to British tourists in Spain. Here, vacationers obviously pretended to suffer from food poisoning "as a result of bad hotel food" and brought an action against hoteliers for damages. A playground for lawyers, who had discovered a legal gap ...
Madrid. Idiso, the Spansih booking platform and service provider, is soon to enter the German market, targeting medium-sized hotels as well as chains and enabling its customers to pay for individual services "per use”. Idiso originates from Meliá Hotels.
Paris. Expedia has been sentenced to pay 1 million euros by a French court for "illegal practices". The group is not willing to accept this decision – in contrast to Booking.com earlier. Meanwhile, Expedia's competitor is building up benefits – by allowing its users to now book flights, cars and even restaurants.
London. Higher Google search volumes are strongly correlated with higher hotel demand levels, according to an analysis from STR and Google.
Mayrhofen. Digitisation at the highest level can bring tourism organisations better into play – for example, by supporting hotels with new forms of technology when it comes to pricing. Artificial intelligence will set room rates in the future. Chatbots in guest service and solutions for "headless Internet" provide further opportunities for destination management organisations in defining their role anew. "The DMO will become the digital hub within a region, as individual service providers are not able to cope with this task in terms of technology," said Reinhard Lanner, social media consultant from Salzburg, Austria, in the course of "Tourism Fast Forward", Austria's hotspot for tourism experts and e-business start-ups.
Nuremberg. The Semantic Web is changing the world. Machines recognise language and learn to speak with people – ever faster and increasingly better. The "great leap" is imminent, University Professor Dieter Fensel is convinced, Head of the Semantic Technology Institute at the University of Innsbruck. The internet has been around now for 25 years, Fensel reminds us. "Yet the future no longer belongs to websites, but rather to personal assistance services. Many young people, who only go online with their mobile phones, will no longer know the World Wide Web." The world will become a global village and privacy an illusion. And platforms such as Booking.com will soon disappear. Fred Fettner interviewed an academic who can explain the trend towards more Artificial Intelligence and a very different life.