Articles tagged “apps”

You can't judge the success of a food delivery app by counting the number of users who simply open the app.

The Facebook app now enables users to tap a Book Now button and has easy to use tap to call or messaging features with the venues. This is an important step by a company with a mammoth user base.

You don't need to be climbing Mt. Everest for it to be wise to take advantage of a few think-ahead travel services.

Smart destination marketing organizations will recognize that civil rights isn't just a hot-button political issue — it's a crucial part of a destination's identity, and with the right tech, it can draw visitors accordingly.

Is there a big enough market for travelers to track flights through push notifications and wait weeks or months to buy instead of going to a website and entering their itinerary details? Hopper, Hitlist, and others think Millennials and others will shop this way but there is skepticism about how large these businesses can become.

When it comes to new tech platforms and technologies such as voice-activated search with Amazon Alexa, the advantage, in the short term, goes to the big travel tech and marketing companies, including online travel agencies and metasearch companies, because they have the engineering staff and other resources to address these disruptions.

Gogobot likely paid some big bucks for the Trip.com domain, and it is making strides with a high-quality recommendation app. Still, everyone in the travel space, especially startups, is feeling like they are running uphill as Google tosses boulders downward. Slow, steady steps may win the day.

With Lola's acquisition of Room 77's metasearch tech, Room 77 essentially becomes a consumer insights and hotel search test lab for Lola. Room 77's original founders have essentially exited the business: Google licensed its tech and hired the bulk of its employees, Expedia acquired Room 77's pioneering room-view tech, TrustYou bought Room 77's Checkmate hotel-messaging app, and now Lola picked up the remaining technology.

Google is using its Google Flights capability to power its new Artificial Intelligence-filled Assistant to respond intelligently to queries about travel. The service's inability to respond to queries about your existing travel itineraries, however, is a huge missed opportunity for now.

Another app-based start-up has failed to live up to the hype. And we're still waiting for a company in the tours and activities field to translate marketing buzz into a scalable and profitable business.