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Top travel sites then and now: How usability has evolved in travel
DigitalWhat did Expedia look like before the site and its peers turned the bricks and mortar travel agent industry on its head? And how did airlines connect with customers online when dial-up connections were the norm? It seems like another lifetime when these online travel sites broke onto the scene in the mid- to late- [...]
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Local governments in New York get class action status in hotel tax suit
DigitalA group of local governments in New York State has won class-action status in a lawsuit that accuses online travel booking companies of failing to pay millions of dollars in hotel taxes, one of dozens of cases in a legal battle playing out all across the country. Nassau County filed the lawsuit in 2011 on [...]
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Hawaii adds $70 million penalty in tax case against major online travel companies
DigitalPopular travel sites are being told to pay Hawaii a $70 million penalty for skirting state general excise taxes over the past 10 years. A tax appeal court has ruled that online travel companies including Orbitz Worldwide Inc., Priceline.com Inc., Sabre Inc.’s Travelocity, and Expedia Inc., including its subsidiaries Hotels.com and Hotwire, have been selling [...]
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Travelocity ad campaign is ready for prime time, but hotel product isn’t
DigitalTravelocity is part of a private company, Sabre, so the online travel agency’s new “Go & Smell the Roses” prime time advertising campaign, launched yesterday on The Amazing Race TV show, amounts to a sort of public gut check on where Travelocity thinks it’s at. Travelocity more than a decade ago was the leading OTA in [...]
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Study finds online booking giants aren’t satisfying travelers like they used to
DigitalFacing increasing competition from startups and search engines and mired in a relatively stagnant user experience, online travel agencies Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and Priceline got dinged in a recent major customer satisfaction report. Released Tuesday, the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) rated overall satisfaction with the online travel agencies, also known as OTAs, at 76 [...]
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Travelocity shuts down India site as operating costs rise
DigitalIt appears that Travelocity has pulled the plug on its India specific website Travelocity.co.in: the site currently informs visitors that “This India-specific site is not operational anymore; however we are re-directing you to our global site, Travelocity.com where you will find all the options you may be looking for!” Travelocity India was launched in 2007, and initially focused on [...]
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Travelocity launches free concierge service, but does it matter?
DigitalFacing stronger competition from disruptive travel startups like Airbnb and the behemoth of Priceline/Kayak/Booking.com, Sabre-owned Travelocity is looking to up its game with extras. Today the company announced that it would launch a new concierge service, offering restaurant reservations, driving directions, tickets to local events and more. The service, it says, is free for users who book flight-plus-hotel [...]
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Airlines say happy holidays with higher airfares this year
TransportThe average round-trip domestic airfare is $414 this holiday season, reports Travelocity. This is an increase of about $24 from last year’s tickets and $28 more expensive than the average airfare during Thanksgiving. Priceline reports a slightly higher airfare average of $444 for holiday tickets. Every holiday period, online booking sites come out with the average round-trip [...]
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Travelocity founder warns hoteliers to take risks or die
DigitalThe founder of Travelocity.com told leaders of Nevada’s hotel-casino and tourism industry the explosion of information available to consumers on the Internet and through social media makes it more important than ever to listen to what they want. Terry Jones, now the chairman of Kayak.com, also told about 250 business leaders at the tourism conference [...]
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Airfare is more expensive than last Thanksgiving, but cheaper than the Fourth of July
TransportThe average round-trip domestic airfare is $386 this Thanksgiving, reports Travelocity. This is an increase of about $30 from last year’s tickets, but $5 cheaper than airfare over the Fourth of July. There is some disagreement among booking sites whether holiday airfares have indeed increased year over year. Orbitz also reports that holiday airfares are [...]
