Groupe Floirat, the long-standing leader in French luxury hospitality, announces its rebranding to Floirat Signatures, reflecting the group’s continued commitment to delivering exceptional experiences while embracing a refreshed identity.
Taking as its slogan ’The World of Travel Lives Here’, ITB Berlin 2025 is taking place from 4 to 6 March 2025. Fully booked halls and a record number of 5,800 national and international exhibitors (5 per cent more than in 2024) from over 170 countries underline the global reach of the World’s Leading Travel Trade Show, while the ITB Buyers Circle with its 1,300 senior buyers is an indicator of the industry’s upturn. Particularly in the key travel segments of Cruises and Travel Technology for example, but also in the dynamic markets of Southern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Arab states, there has been significant growth. Albania is presenting itself as the host country with the slogan ’Albania All Senses’. Taking as its heading ’The Power of Transition Lives Here’, the ITB Berlin Convention will address the challenges and opportunities of a changing market with high-profile speakers from companies including Expedia, DERTOUR, Google, Uber, Booking.com, Microsoft Advertising, Wyndham, UN Tourism, TUI, Ryanair and many more. The latest World Travel Monitor® findings of IPK International reflect the industry's positive mood.
Truly, there’s no place like Rome. The Eternal City is forever a delight to visit for work or for pleasure. Over the past five years, the Italian capital has gone through a hospitality renaissance, with incredible hotels opening (or reopening) throughout its ancient center. This has forced every market participant to step up their game.
According to guest evaluations, the best hotel in Bulgaria for 2024 is the five-star Voya Beach Resort in Sveti Vlas, closely followed by Kashmir Wellness and Spa (Velingrad) and the Grand Hotel Millennium Sofia.
The challenges and tasks facing a tourism industry in transition are the focus of the ITB Berlin Convention 2025, which takes place from 4 to 6 March at the Berlin Exhibition Centre. Under the motto ‘The Power of Transition lives here’, trade visitors can look forward to an ambitious and comprehensive programme with high-profile presentations and discussions on the future of travel.
UN Tourism’s (former UNWTO) new headquarters presentation is expected to take place amid upcoming elections for the Secretary-General, which will be held in May in Madrid, the capital city that hosts the UN agency.
Traditional SEO is not dead, but traditional search is! Consumers simply do not search as they did 10 or 15 years ago. Social search is now a big component of the customer journey: from TikTok to YouTube to Instagram, the platforms are diverse and usage greatly vary depending on age and traveler habits.
In spite of all the buzz around genAI, the AI Search market share today is estimated around 6% of the total search market, and estimated to go up to 14% by 2028 (Search Engine Land). Google's own Gemini AI has already been made available to Google's 84 billion monthly users - compare this to ChatGPT's 121 million users!
I don't believe that SEO is dead. I am of the view that the role of SEO is going to develop in alignment with the evolution of search. After all, it doesn't resemble the way it began with the incumbent approach. The challenge remains how to be found.
The Hotel Marketing Association (HMA) is delighted to announce the 30th annual HMA Hotel Marketing Awards – marking three decades of recognising and celebrating marketing excellence within the UK's hotel industry. This milestone event will take place in June 2025, honouring outstanding marketing campaigns and exceptional talent that have significantly contributed to the sector’s success.
We can hope regulators will someday "reimagine" policies to enable innovation, but let's face it: this is entirely beyond the industry's control. Expecting governments to grasp the complexities of hotel tech is like waiting for a no-show guest to miraculously fill your occupancy gap.
Technical fragmentation has long been a challenge in all aspects of hospitality. Some of this is a reality. Some of it is by choice and driven from vendor marketing propoganda about 'Best of Breed'. The reality is that to overcome this general challenge in industry, consolidation and unification is required.
Website analytics in isolation from the rest of the hotel tech stack has lost its importance. Combined with the property's CRM, RMS, a personalization engine and the rest of the tech stack, it is priceless and impacts many revenue-generation functions: Revenue Management: The website browsing behavior, booking engine denials, time spent on web pages of various packages, offers and hotel amenities are important data signals for the RMS and property pricing strategies.
Mercure’s hotels are a gateway to the destination, inspiring guests to explore, connect and discover, while building a legacy of capturing and connecting to the essence of each destination, through meaningful experiences. The Accor (unpacked) video series returns to uncover more captivating stories from our hotels and brands through the voices of our teams.
Known for helping people experience the world, this December, Booking.com is offering the chance to travel back in time, as it opens the doors to the ultimate 1980s Christmas home, bookable for a one-off stay.
The online ticket shop is open now for tourism professionals and offers attractive early bird rates until 14 January 2025. Ticket holders have automatic access to the new ITB Match & Meet networking function. Senior buyers can apply now for the exclusive ITB Buyers Circle.
The short answer is no.
The threat by the genAI search engines has to be taken seriously and this is exactly what Google is doing. First, Gemini AI and its latest version Gemini 1.5-pro-002 is comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4o and better in more complex tasks like coding and problem-solving.
It's an interesting situation. Those who've always had the information and also the commerce. Versus those that have started with the information retasked to be more informative. But not yet the commerce. My view is that the more informative information coupled with commerce will prove out in the end.
Tripadvisor Group today announced the opening of its new office in Oxford, replacing its previous location in the city with an updated facility to support Tripadvisor’s activity-based work model.
Zoku Paris is set to welcome its first “Writer-in-Residence” from November 8-10 as part of an innovative new project that delves deeper into the meaning of hybrid hospitality, and how it supports both a sense of belonging and productivity for today’s professionals.
The 24th Hospitality Awards ceremony is fast approaching, and the results of the nominations for the three finalists in each category have been validated by our international jury. On 28 November, in the presence of leading figures from the world of tourism and hospitality, we invite you to the InterContinental Paris Le Grand to discover which of the 30 pre-selected finalists will be the overall winners.
P3 Hotel Software, a leading innovator in hotel booking solutions, has announced that Herbert Park Hotel and Park Residence, a renowned four-star boutique in the heart of Dublin, has achieved significant boosts in revenue and direct bookings by implementing P3's Custom Booking Engine.
Following HSMAI Europe’s recent successful launch into the Greek market, we are thrilled to announce yet another major step in our expansion through a new strategic partnership with Xenia 2024 exhibition, taking place from November 23-25, 2024 in Metropolitan Expo exhibition center - Athens, Greece. This collaboration represents a significant milestone in HSMAI Europe’s growing presence within the Greek hospitality sector.
Specialist hotel operating company, Resident Hotels, announced it has signed a franchise agreement with Marriott International to convert its four Sleeperz Hotels to the Four Points Flex by Sheraton brand. Following the purchase of a majority stake in Sleeperz Hotels by Mactaggart Family & Partners, the portfolio has been operated by Resident Hotels (also majority owned by the same family office) since November 2022.