Northstar

TECHNOLOGY www.travelweeklyweb.com TripAdvisor launches vacation rentals SINGAPORE – TripAdvisor is making it easier for holiday makers from Singapore and Malaysia to search and compare vacation rentals when looking into their accommodation options. Options that range from villas, chalets, apartments, houseboats, castles and even treehouses. "As vacation rentals continue to grow in popularity, we continue to expand TripAdvisor Vacation Rentals around the world. We're thrilled to give travellers in Malaysia and Singapore access to a vast and growing global collection of holiday homes through our site. Travellers can now find pictures, reviews, descriptions and booking information on our 400,000+ properties, while home owners can list their property for free and benefit from TripAdvisor's unsurpassed audience of 260 million users per month," commented Dermot Halpin, president, TripAdvisor Vacation Rentals. Booking a vacation rental property is simple: through the 'Vacation Rentals' tab on TripAdvisor, travellers can find pictures and detail on hundreds of thousands of properties. Users can filter properties by date of stay, destination, size, amenities/options such as 'private pool' or 'pet-friendly', and more. When a suitable property is found, travellers can quickly and easily arrange payment and/or contact the owner with more questions. For more information on how to list a holiday rental on TripAdvisor, visit www.tripadvisor.com.sg/vacationrentals. Travelport partners Hong Kong Airlines HONG KONG – Travelport has announced a new multi-year content agreement with announces a new multi-year content agreement with Hong Kong Airlines (HX) and its low-cost, sister airline – Hong Kong Express Airways (UO). Damian Hickey, vice-president, Global Distribution Sales and Services, AsiaPacific, Travelport Both carriers have selected Travelport as their GDS in Hong Kong, providing Travelport-connected travel agents access to up-to-date route information and fares from both the airlines. "We are extremely pleased to welcome both Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Express Airways as Travelport's newest airline partners. These agreements are testament to our commitment to delivering unrivalled travel content to our global travel agency customers, whilst helping to grow bookings on both airlines via Travelport's GDS platforms," said Damian Hickey, vice-president, Global Distribution Sales and Services, Asia-Pacific, Travelport. "We look forward to working with Travelport to deliver our service offering to more travel agents worldwide and to continue to grow our business in the Asia-Pacific," commented Jiang Yu Tao, deputy director, Hong Kong Express and Hong Kong Airlines. Hong Kong Airlines operates scheduled regional passenger and cargo services to 10 destinations within the People's Republic of China and Vietnam, including codeshares with Hong Kong Express Airways, which provides service to 9 destinations in Asia, including China, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand. Amadeus launches Consulting Services BANGKOK – Amadeus has launched its Consulting Services, a new initiative aimed at assisting travel agents in the Asia-Pacific to improve their business processes and boost their bottom line. Travel agents today face stiff competition from a growing number of online players, while travellers expect much more than a simple transactional service. The Amadeus Consulting Services was created specifically to help travel agents overcome these challenges by providing insight into how to improve their business to ultimately give them more time to focus on their customers' needs. Bruno des Fontaines, vice-president, Customer Solutions Group said that to succeed in today's travel industry, you need more than the right attitude and the right tools. "Asia-Pacific is a vast region, but our customers here all face similar issues – they need to improve productivity, but they don't always know the right way to go about it. Amadeus Consulting Services 12 | ■ TRAVELWEEKLY ASIA | DECEMBER 2013 makes personalised, manageable recommendations that really reduce the stress of changing business processes. So, ultimately our team can do the hard work on behalf of our customers," said des Fontaines. Among the extensive range of services available, travel agents can choose an Amadeus Discovery Workshop where Amadeus engineers conduct an onsite assessment of a travel agent's work flow, tools and operations. The end result is a set of easy to implement recommendations to maximise business and operations. Amadeus also provides onsite support and expertise with Project Management Services which helps travel agents manage complex technology developments or migrations. They can even contract an Amadeus expert to manage the project on their behalf. The Amadeus Consulting Services are now available to existing Amadeus customers and interested travel agencies across Asia Pacific. www.travelweeklyweb.com

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