Monday 26 March 2018

The San Francisco Digital Summit 2018. In just two weeks. At the Hotel Nikko San Francisco!

Do you work in digital marketing, content marketing, social media, travel technology or data strategy for the travel sector? If you have answered yes to any of the above, then you need to clear your diary on April 9 and 10th.
Attendees confirmed to attend include Hyatt, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Fairmont, Hilton San Francisco, Accor Hotels, Kiwi Collection, Tourism Vancouver, Booking.com, Viceroy Hotel Group, Turkish Airlines, Diamond Resorts International and many more.
The EyeforTravel San Francisco Digital Summit 2018 will be a two-day celebration of fiery innovation, and will provide the perfect platform for your business to adapt, grow and be ahead of the curve in times of disruption and change.
The summit, just two weeks away will tackle topics such as the role of emerging technologies in travel, personalization, marketing strategies, utilizing data and technology to deliver an exceptional customer experience & more…as this is just the start.
The expert speaker line-up for 2018 includes Marriott, IHG, Jet Blue Technology Ventures, Choice Hotels, Facebook, Tencent, Winding Tree, OneFineStay, Cathay Pacific Airways, Lyft, Lola, Air Canada, Hopper, Hipmunk and more!
Emerging technologies such as voice, AI, machine learning, and blockchain are all being talked about by the travel industry, but are they truly getting dissected? The San Francisco Digital Summit 2018 is the only event that will cut through the noise, separate the real use from the hype, and enable travel brands to truly come to grips with the opportunities for digital marketing campaigns.
We have so much to talk about, and have split the event into two dedicated tracks - view the full speaker line up and agenda here
The show will be buzzing with insight on topics including:
-   AI Breaking New Ground
- Working Creatively with Personalization – Successfully Leverage Data & AI
- Redefine and Rebuild your Social Media and Digital Strategy
- A Holistic Approach to Enhancing the Physical Experience with the Right Digital Technology
- Blockchain Demystified - How will it Change Your Business?
- Incorporating Virtual Content and Mobile Video into Your Marketing Strategy
- Successfully Pioneer the Use of Data and Technology to Improve the Customer Experience and Drive Loyalty
- Reaching the Chinese Traveler
- The Power of Mobile to Drive Interaction; and much more!
This event is the only place you will be able to meet the cream of the crop in travel and walk away with insights you can implement as soon as you get back to the office.
Don’t risk losing out on insights that will catapult your business in 2018 and beyond - Does your strategy stack up? Click here to reserve your place or contact Renu on her details below.
Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com  
EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.
Renu Kannu
EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 | renu@eyefortravel.com)

The Chinese travel payment landscape in 2018

WeChat Pay and Alipay dominate the Chinese payments sector. They are the way in which most Chinese consumers make their purchases, allowing trillions of dollars of transactions, but they are little know in the West. Click on the podcast below to get familiar with these growing giants and how you can integrate them into your travel brand. 

To download the full report on the changing face of travel payments completely for free, click here. 

Wednesday 21 March 2018

Hopper to deliver a presentation at EyeforTravel San Francisco Digital Summit 2018 on April 9 & 10 at Hotel Nikko


Expedia, IHG, Accor Hotels, Lyft, Air Canada, Dorchester Collection, Tencent, Cathay Pacific, Choice Hotels, Lola, Booking.com, Turkish Airlines, Jet Blue Tech Ventures and more - some of travel's leading brands confirmed to take the stage at the West Coast’s largest digital travel summit, in just three weeks’ time.

Given the proliferation of mobile as a travel search, booking and engagement platform, EyeforTravel have invited Scott Brodows, VP – Hotel Supply from Hopper to deliver a presentation on Day 2 of the summit (April 10th). Scott will present on the following case study: The Hopper Way - Capitalizing on the proliferation of mobile for travel search, planning and customer engagement.

The session will explore:
  •        Mobile search - how has this changed the consumer behavior around planning a trip? Does a mobile platform better enable a holistic, end-to-end customer experience?
  •     The use of push notifications to drive sales - how can this be optimized?
  •        Artificial intelligence as a tool to redirect user intent and create a new marketplace - and the ability to shift user behavior to certain partners and routes
  •        Deliver high resolution vertical video, enabling hotel partners to convey their value-based differentiation

Furthermore, the summit will tackle topics such as the role of emerging technologies in travel, personalization, marketing strategies, utilizing data and technology to deliver an exceptional customer experience & much more!

Tim Gunstone, Managing Director at EyeforTravel said "Innovative customer engagement is at the heart of every successful travel brand – and we are at a tipping point where it is essential for travel brands to focus on the customer experience and deliver personalized messages and content. The proliferation of mobile has been a massive enabler allowing brands to engage and build loyalty with ‘connected travellers’ throughout the travel cycle.

The EyeforTravel San Francisco Digital Summit 2018 will be a two-day celebration of fiery innovation, and will provide the perfect platform for your business to adapt, grow and be ahead of the curve in times of disruption and change.

Attendees confirmed to attend include TripAdvisor, Fairmont Hotels, Japan Airlines, Disney Parks & Resorts, Expedia, Diamond Resorts International, Choice Hotels, Virgin Hotels, Singapore Airlines, Winding Tree, and so many more. 

There are tickets still available, please contact Renu Kannu at renu@eyefortravel.com

EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.
Renu Kannu
EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)

Why travel brands need to be preparing for a new payments landscape


Payment methods around the world are diverging and while this is creating complexity, there are also opportunities for travel brands willing to embrace the payments revolution finds a new free report.

An explosion is going on in fintech to cater to travellers and allow them to move money around more easily and pay seamlessly. Technological innovation, alongside cultural preferences, has led to a market where a customer might prefer to pay in cash, credit card, bank transfer, online payment, currency card, e-wallet or mobile app depending on where they hail from. Although this seems like a headache for travel brands, there is value to be mined from adapting to the payments landscape market-by-market according to The Death of Cash in Travel? report, which is free to download now.

The report notes that there are gains to be made from implementing localised payment methods through better conversion rates, improved data gathering, superior engagement, and fraud reduction.

Payments should become another part of a brand’s localization strategy as it makes the consumer more comfortable making the transaction and likely to trust the brand. “The more payment methods you can offer, the more chance there is to convert a customer,” says Jorge Rodriguez, marketing and e-commerce manager at easyHotel. 

Daniel Greaves, senior manager, marketing, payments at Amadeus IT gives an example of Latin America, where subscription services are highly popular: “We see it a lot with airlines entering the Latin American market and looking to improve sales. As soon as you implement installments, you will see an improvement in sales because that is how people are used to paying,” says Daniel Greaves, head of marketing for travel payments at Amadeus IT Group, underlining how localization in payment methods can add up

Innovation in payments will become a key differentiator amongst travel businesses, particularly among OTAs, says Edward Chandler, CCO at eNett International. “It will help them to offer bespoke customer experiences and enhance the quality of trips through real-time in-destination offers. For example, you could be on holiday in Rome and receive a discounted offer to buy tickets at the Colosseum,” he says. “One frictionless in-app purchase and you could be straight on the guided tour.”

Thomas Helldorf, VP for Airlines and Travel at Worldpay Helldorff sees this trend in the “The likes of Airbnb and other travel companies moving into the experience world, and starting to mimic that concierge experience you get in a hotel by giving extra recommendations. Instead of paying for a vanilla bed, they're enriching their guest’s experience by offering extra ancillary services around their stay. Removing the payment headache from the booking experience creates loyalty to their brand.”

“This intertwining of payments as part of the loyalty question is going to become deeper as social media companies become more embedded in the scene” says Alex Hadwick, head of Research at EyeforTravel. “Payments are also going to extend as social media companies become involved and machine learning advances allow for superior targeting and ‘contextual commerce’. WeChat Pay, for example is a leader in this. The future could well be contextual adverts based on social media app usage, followed by payment from within the app, meaning your customer could book their vacation in one go seamlessly and then communicate with your company’s chatbot to request their in-stay preferences. This is a way to create a concierge service and reach the consumer but also reduce barriers to conversion.”

However, having too many payment methods can lead to confusion says Peter Quinn, head of payment and revenue services at Eurostar: “Many companies and online merchants are starting to have very cluttered websites with many options of how to pay.” He points to pointing to Lufthansa, which has tabs of different payment methods, from EPS Online to UnionPay, Sofort Banking to Giropay, as well as the major types.

This means brands need to consider their capacity and ability to implement payment methods and work with partners. Paul Van Alfen, global head of airlines and travel at Ingenico ePayments, says: “Yes there is a lot of complexity in travel payments but that is typically where the middle man comes in. The more you move towards mobile, to alternative forms of payments, to local payments in South East Asia, China, Russia and Latin America, it becomes very complex very fast. The volume is relatively low but complexity is exponential.”

“Our selection methods for things like Paypal and also payment methods like Apple Pay, for web, in app and Apple Pay contactless in store, means looking at the impact they’ll have on conversion rates, the ease of use for the customer, the security it provides to customers and ourselves to reduce fraud rates and the cost of processing,” says Quinn.

Helldorff advises brands to “Ensure when you turn on the payment method that all the other parts of the organization are aligned and support that payment method as well. If you get that process right, you can turn on as many methods as needed wherever it makes sense for incremental revenue and a significant incremental reach in a particular market. That justifies the extra effort of adding a payment method.”

Eventually, the payments headache may be solved by payments being aggregated by tech giants. This is the view of Shachar Bialick, founder and chief executive of payments platform Curve. He believes the world of money will eventually consolidate into a powerful payments “operating system” that will aggregate all bank accounts, savings and credit and debit cards under one service. This is what Curve is attempting to do. In his opinion, “It is inevitable that a platform will converge all money into one operating system, one point of access. It could be one of the big tech companies, one of the GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), it could be a Paypal or Mastercard or it could be Curve, but it will definitely happen,” he says. However, this is a very long way out currently, so travel brands will need to explore the word of travel payments and prepare for diversity as payment methods explode.  

Download this free report now to understand how payments are diverging and how you can take advantage of the new environment as a travel brand through detailed analysis alongside insights from:
  • Daniel Greaves | Senior Manager, Marketing, Payments | Amadeus IT
  • David Nunn | Head of Braintree Europe
  • Richard Cole | Chief Marketing Officer | Caxton FX
  • Shachar Bialick | Founder and Chief Executive | Curve
  • Jorge Rodriguez | Marketing and E-commerce Manager | easyHotel
  • Edward Chandler | CCO | eNett International
  • Peter Quinn | Payments and Revenue Systems Lead | Eurostar
  • Ian Strafford Taylor | Chief Executive | FairFX
  • Paul Van Alfen | Global Head of Airlines and Travel | Ingenico ePayment
  • Anouska Ladds | European Head of Airlines, Hotels and OTAs | Mastercard
  • Ben Jackson | Director of Mercator Advisory Group’s Pre-paid Advisory | Mercator Advisory Group
  • Alex Fitzpatrick | Head of Global Payments | Travelport
  • Ovidiu Olea | Founder and Chief Executive | Valoot
  • Thomas Helldorf | VP for Airlines and Travel | Worldpay

Monday 19 March 2018

The Death of Cash in Travel?


Is cash in terminal decline? A new free report from EyeforTravel finds that the payment landscape is changing, with a host of new solutions rising in popularity across many key travel markets.

E-wallets, currency cards, peer-to-peer exchanges, and of course credit and debit cards, cash is now having to compete with a host of alternatives looking to be more secure and convenient than the traditional payment method of travellers. From WeChat Pay and Alipay in China, iDeal in the Netherlands, Sweden’s Klarna, and Sadad in Saudi Arabia, e-wallets are soaring in popularity to the extent that cash is used weekly by only 25% of Swedes and the value of e-wallet transactions now runs into the trillions of dollars in China notes the report.

Ovidiu Olea, founder and chief executive of Hong Kong-based fintech start-up Valoot, says Alipay and WeChat Pay are now part of the fabric of commerce in China. “More than just replacing cash, they have successfully replaced plastic as well. They have leapfrogged other parts of the world where there is a move to contactless and instead they have delivered convenience through QR codes,” he says.

The fintech sector is also jumping into the market using low-cost technology infrastructure and operating on razor thin margins. These innovative services are leveraging the mobile revolution to offer payment cards controlled by mobile apps, which allow for a high degree of flexibility in exchanging currencies. As Ian Strafford Taylor, chief executive of currency card company FairFX, says: “The pre-paid card market began to take off when consumers started to realize that high street banks were offering them a bad deal on exchange rates and fees for spending and withdrawing cash abroad. Debit and credit cards may be an easy option to default to, but the hidden fees soon start to pile up over the course of a holiday.” 

Proliferation in cash alternatives is causing some in the industry to believe that the days of cash are numbered. “Cash is in demise,” says Alex Fitzpatrick, head of global payments at travel commerce company Travelport. “We will be a cashless society eventually,” she adds. In her opinion governments want to move payments to a digital platform to increase oversight and transparency. Businesses would also prefer to do without cash.

However, for Thomas Helldorff, Worldpay’s vice president for vertical growth in airlines and travel, “Cash will still be a relevant factor when people go abroad and pay,” as catering “for every traveler from every country you would have to integrate every single form of payment out there. Not a lot of them have, so far, managed to get global reach. It has taken the likes of Visa and Mastercard decades to get there.”

The report finds that although consumers in some countries are highly engaged in the digital revolution sweeping payments, there is strong divergence between markets. In Germany and Austria for example, a strong preference for cash remains, with Germans carrying the most cash on average among European consumers. They also prefer to pay using bank transfer when shopping online and shy away from credit cards in comparison to Italy, for example, demonstrating that even within the EU there is a high degree of variation. Localisation needs to extend beyond language and cultural elements to payment methods for travel brands.  

Therefore, cash is a long way from finished but the travel industry will need to pay far more attention to the alternatives which are rising in markets around the world.  


Download this free report now to understand how payments are diverging and how you can take advantage of the new environment as a travel brand through detailed analysis alongside insights from:
  • Daniel Greaves | Senior Manager, Marketing, Payments | Amadeus IT
  • David Nunn | Head of Braintree Europe
  • Richard Cole | Chief Marketing Officer | Caxton FX
  • Shachar Bialick | Founder and Chief Executive | Curve
  • Jorge Rodriguez | Marketing and E-commerce Manager | easyHotel
  • Edward Chandler | CCO | eNett International
  • Peter Quinn | Payments and Revenue Systems Lead | Eurostar
  • Ian Strafford Taylor | Chief Executive | FairFX
  • Paul Van Alfen | Global Head of Airlines and Travel | Ingenico ePayment
  • Anouska Ladds | European Head of Airlines, Hotels and OTAs | Mastercard
  • Ben Jackson | Director of Mercator Advisory Group’s Pre-paid Advisory | Mercator Advisory Group
  • Alex Fitzpatrick | Head of Global Payments | Travelport
  • Ovidiu Olea | Founder and Chief Executive | Valoot
  • Thomas Helldorf | VP for Airlines and Travel | Worldpay
  •  


Wednesday 14 March 2018

How will the payments landscape change?

We have just released our new The Death of Cash in Travel? report, which you can download for free here now. To give you a flavour of the report, the following is the introduction from the report ...

The next billion consumers who will become regular leisure travelers will look different to those in established travel markets in the West today. They will come from mobile-first societies where the digital environment has evolved in a different way. This means they will bring with them new payment methods that travel brands will need to adapt to.
Mobile wallets are already hugely popular in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Kenya. In China, many consumers keep their plastic on hand solely for when they travel, instead using apps linked into the social sphere, such as WeChat Pay and AliPay, when they are spending at home. And that spending is soaring, already reaching into the trillions in dollar terms. Brands that can tap into the Chinese app space and allow payment through these giants are giving themselves a competitive edge in the world’s largest travel market.
Innovation isn’t just restricted to high growth economies in Asia-Pacific. Mobile wallets are gaining traction in the West, as are currency cards controlled from apps that make a compelling case to consumers through far lower fees and charges than traditional bank cards. Sweden is already a largely cashless society, and it is even asking the question of whether it needs to slow down in its transition away from cash.
So, is cash in terminal decline? Well, not quite. It will remain popular for many years to come and many pre-loaded currency card operators find travelers largely use them abroad to withdraw cash sums than to use them directly for payments. Geography is critical in the trajectory of cash and local preferences are key. Whilst some developing countries are sprinting ahead with digital payments, others are almost exclusively cash-based. In developed countries, ingrained behaviors and infrastructures are also supporting cash. Germans remain highly wedded to physical currency, carrying more than anyone else in Europe, for example, and this will take a long time to change. Cash has a feeling of security and trust for travelers that is hard to replace and is undeniably useful in a wide number of destinations. 
Nonetheless, the growing range of cash alternatives adds up to a more diverse payments landscape than anything that has come before and travel brands can reap the rewards from plugging in. Consumers are more likely to spend when they feel comfortable and secure in their purchase, which can be aided by localized payment formats. Introducing seamless payment methods will induce more consumer spending and travel brands that can adopt these methods successfully can help to reduce that most stubborn of e-commerce issues – purchase abandonment – as well as create a more inclusive brand experience that is embedded into social media applications.
There are other advantages as well, with newer payment methods and CRM systems richer data streams are possible that can allow operational decisions in real time. There is also potential to reduce fraud through more sophisticated authentication. However, there is also the risk of additional complexity and travel brands will need to consider their customer make-up and ability to adopt new payment methods rather than rush headlong into adopting a new medium.
So, please read on and discover how and where the payment environment is changing and we hope you enjoy this piece of EyeforTravel research.

Alex Hadwick
Head of Research, EyeforTravel 

Tuesday 13 March 2018

The Hottest Attendee List in Digital Travel – All Set to Convene in Hotel Nikko San Francisco on April 9 – 10 2018

EyeforTravel have put together a summit – the San Francisco Digital Summit 2018 (April 9 – 10), which will unite leading players from the travel market including hotels, airlines, OTAs and metasearch companies, travel technology companies, as well as the start-up community.

Attendees confirmed to attend include IHG, American Airlines, Hyatt, TripAdvisor, Fairmont, Expedia, Marriott, Choice Hotels, Accor Hotels, Winding Tree, Priceline, Booking.com, Cathay Pacific Airways, Lola, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, Disney Resorts and many more!

The event will see attendance from senior level digital marketers, customer experience, loyalty and technology experts, as well as e-commerce, product managers and data specialists - All of whom will tackle and examine the steps needed to develop and deploy a strong digital strategy, to create a customer-centric business which engages the connected traveller in a data heavy world.

Click here to see how you can join the summit: http://events.eyefortravel.com/san-francisco-summit/register.php
If you work in travel and focus on digital marketing, mobile, travel technology, and data - this is the only event which will enable you to separate the real from the hype and to walk away with actionable insights.

This event continues to bring something unique every year:

We have topics from Expedia covering AI breaking new ground, Choice Hotels discussing their Approach to Enhancing the Physical Experience Through Digital, Cathay Pacific and Facebook discussing their social media and customer engagement strategies, to Booking.com, Lola, Marriott and Accor tackling the use of data and technology for a seamless travel experience to drive loyalty.
The 6 BIG Ideas the Summit Will Tackle:
  • Nail Your Digital Strategy: Find out the digital tools, platforms and strategies required to understand and serve your customer better than your competition
  • Gain A Solid Understanding of Emerging Travel Technology: Between voice, AI, machine learning, VR/AR & blockchain – find out what technologies the top players in the industry are investing in right now and how this can be applied
  • Develop A Marketing Strategy That Works and Keeps Your Customer Coming Back: Know at the right time, with the right message what product your customers want. This takes your customer insight to a whole new profitable level and crucially these profits stay within the industry. And Implement proven strategies in social media, content, personalization, brand storytelling and more!
  • Enhance Your Mobile and Tech Strategy: Learn how to approach your products with a mobile-first mindset that allows you to personalize your products and messages to increase direct bookings and drive loyalty
  • Exploit New Platforms: Conversational commerce backed by AI allows direct sales, better service and cuts costs. Whether via web, brand app or through messenger apps (900 million FB messenger users compares favorably with 100 million Uber users) the industry is uniting chat, service and commerce.
  • Drive Data Enabled Personalization: Personalization of product, message, payment and the very relationship you have with your customer is being revolutionized through analytics, data partnerships and machine learning. The result is higher conversion rates, customer loyalty and profitability

With just 4 weeks to the event, now’s your chance to get amongst the movers and shakers in travel – click here to join the travel elite at the West Coast’s largest digital travel summit of 2018!

Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com  
EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.
Renu Kannu
EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)




Friday 9 March 2018

Lyft, Mozio, CIE Tours and Avoya Travel Discuss the Role of Industry Partnerships to Provide the Complete Customer Experience

This keynote panel discussion will be featured on Day 2 at the upcoming EyeforTravel San Francisco Digital Summit 2018 on April 9-10 at Hotel Nikko.

Expert speakers to present on this topic include:
  •         Amy Fox, Head of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, Lyft
  •         Emre Mangir, Chief Commercial Officer, Mozio
  •         Susan Black, Chief Commercial Officer, CIE Tours
  •          Jeffrey Lavender, Senior Vice President – Corporate Development & Contact Centers, Avoya Travel 

The panel will cover:

  • What is the impact of a changing device and data landscape on product and partnerships?
  • Driving the highest value in partnerships to own the customer journey and support a seamless end to end travel experience
  • Data dating - How do you sift through the painful flings and find beneficial committed data partners?
  • What is the role of the agency model in the current climate and what kind of partnerships does that involve? What is the role of the agent in providing this complete customer experience?

The San Francisco summit currently holds the hottest attendee list in digital travel with brands confirmed to attend including: Expedia, Marriott, TripAdvisor, IHG, Cathay Pacific, Accor Hotels, Hyatt, Air Canada, Choice Hotels, Singapore Airlines, Booking.com, Lola, The Travel Corporation and many more!

The West Coast’s largest digital travel summit will tackle topics such as the role of emerging technologies in travel, personalization, marketing strategies, utilizing data and technology to deliver an exceptional customer experience & much more. And this is just the start.  

Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com   

EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.
Renu Kannu

EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)