May 21, 2020
Digital. Season 2, Episode 17. The Top 10 Travel News Stories of the Week: Day In, Day Out
Listen to the weekly podcast:
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📉Tough times for metasearch engines: according to its CEO, Axel Hefer, Trivago’s “referral revenue [has been] declining by more than 95% in the last week of March 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.” TripAdvisor’s net loss in Q1 was $16M, and the company expects Q2 to be even worse than Q1. At this link, you can read the opinions of three former TripAdvisor employees that I interviewed over the recent layoffs.
🦠Google has been “piloting a commissions (per stay) program, allowing hotel ads partners to pay a commission only if a traveler stays at the hotel [and] minimize risk while driving future bookings in a responsible manner.”
🦠Last month, I wrote about the OpenPandemics project, an app running in the background (whenever devices are unused or in light use) and distributing processing power to IBM, to help scientists “study the world’s biggest problems in health and sustainability.” The app is, finally, live and downloadable at this link.
📉 Second round of job cuts for Uber: after the 3,700 layoffs of May 6, now the company is cutting 3,000 more jobs and shutting down 45 offices. Agoda is laying off around 25% of its workforce (1,500 employees), and TUI is reducing its workforce by 30% (8,000 jobs).
📉 Booking Holdings’ net loss in Q1 was $699M, with an adjusted EBITDA of $290M, a 60% decrease compared to Q1 2019.
🦠According to Drew Patterson, Co-Founder & Exec Chair at Transparent Intelligence, “OTAs will be weakened by the COVID-19 crisis, and Google will extend its dominance over the industry.” I agree with this statement and you can read the full article here.
đź’° VR adoption has been speeded up by the COVID-19 pandemic. Confirming the trend, Apple acquired the live streaming AR/VR company, NextVR.
💰 Fly Now Pay Later, the startup allowing its users to pay for travel in installments for up to 12 months, has raised £35M. “It’s predicted that once lockdown restrictions begin to ease,” CEO Jasper Dykes stated, “Fly Now Pay Later offers travelers a flexible and affordable way to pay for travel.”
đź’° Facebook bought Giphy for $400M and plans to integrate it into Instagram.
đź’ľ Serious data breach for EasyJet: the travel details (including over 2,000 credit cards) of 9 million passengers have been exposed.
