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Digital. Season 2, Episode 2. Special Guest: Karla Brooklyn
Digital #10
Booking.com abandons scarcity marketing: from June 2020 (the latest), the OTA will have to stop showing messages such as “only one room like this left,” “other persons showed interest in this hotel in the last 24 hours”, “the room is popular,” or “time-limited offer”. The European Commission and National Consumer Protection, in fact, identified these techniques as “manipulative”.
Digital #9
Meanwhile, in Russia, the Federal Anti-monopoly Service found Booking.com to be in breach of Russian anti-monopoly laws (a crime punishable with fines from 1% to 15% of the revenue generated in the Country). The reason? Booking.com seems to have asked hotels to offer the same rates on competitor hotel reservation websites.
Digital #8
Uber co-Founder (and former CEO), Travis Kalanick, resigned. After the New York Times accused Kalanick (that, once wrote: “for the first time in my life I was leading an organization that wasn’t on the brink of failure each day”) of deceiving regulators in 2017, Expedia’s Dara Khosrowshahi took over the CEO position. Kalanick sold all of his stocks in Uber, and he has now, officially, nothing tying him up to the carsharing app. The market, according to the stock, didn’t seem to care.
Digital #7
Google confirmed a local search algorithm update. According to Third Door Media co-Founder, Danny Sullivan, the update is separated from the recent BERT update. If you’re (still) not optimizing your GMB listing, now you have another reason not to procrastinate.
Digital #6
AI-powered flight assistant bot, Eddy Travels, completed a $500,000 pre-seed round. The startup offers in-chat flight deals on, amongst others, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Slack. CEO and co-Founder, Edmundas Balčikonis, (unsurprisingly) played the super-app card: “We want to expand into other products (…) into tours and activities, expand into travel insurance and other categories.”
Digital #5
OYO will fire 2,000 employees by the end of the month. The company is known for his inclination to automatize processes whenever possible, so this may not necessarily be a bad omen. More alarming, however, is another rumor: owners are complaining that they are not being paid by the Indian unicorn, with due invoices dating as far as May 2019…
Digital #4
The Information Commissioner’s Office stated that Marriott had “agreed to an extension of the regulatory process” (for the infamous Starwood data breach) “until 31 March 2020,” and there is speculation the original $123M fine will be drastically reduced.
Digital #3
According to Skift, U.S. hotels increased National TV ad investments by a striking 32%, with Marriott alone increasing its spend by over $50M. Is this part of the design to be less Google-dependent? With Hilton putting $103M in the old school media, and Marriott echoing with $90M, the question is legitimate. When it comes to predicting the future, however, I tend to trust airlines better than hotels: and, in 2019, they cut TV investments by 47%…
Digital #2
According to Lindy Andersen, director of global accounts at Expedia Group, artificial intelligence can “alleviate stressors and drive better efficiencies of our entire platform.” The statement was given during a recent EyeForTravel webinar titled Customer experience lab: automation, partnerships and the human touch. According to Andersen, creating a “frictionless travel” experience will be one of the main focuses of Expedia in 2020.
Digital #1
Not strictly travel-related, but another step to ASI (and to a cancer-free world) has been made: Google’s health research department has developed an AI system that can outperform radiologists at detecting breast cancer. The system was trained by data coming from thousands of mammograms. On the more sci-fi side of the spectrum, Samsung unveiled its artificial humans (or glorified video chatbots, to be more realistic), called Neons.
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Digital #10
Booking.com abandons scarcity marketing: from June 2020 (the latest), the OTA will have to stop showing messages such as “only one room like this left,” “other persons showed interest in this hotel in the last 24 hours”, “the room is popular,” or “time-limited offer”. The European Commission and National Consumer Protection, in fact, identified these techniques as “manipulative”.
Digital #9
Meanwhile, in Russia, the Federal Anti-monopoly Service found Booking.com to be in breach of Russian anti-monopoly laws (a crime punishable with fines from 1% to 15% of the revenue generated in the Country). The reason? Booking.com seems to have asked hotels to offer the same rates on competitor hotel reservation websites.
Digital #8
Uber co-Founder (and former CEO), Travis Kalanick, resigned. After the New York Times accused Kalanick (that, once wrote: “for the first time in my life I was leading an organization that wasn’t on the brink of failure each day”) of deceiving regulators in 2017, Expedia’s Dara Khosrowshahi took over the CEO position. Kalanick sold all of his stocks in Uber, and he has now, officially, nothing tying him up to the carsharing app. The market, according to the stock, didn’t seem to care.
Digital #7
Google confirmed a local search algorithm update. According to Third Door Media co-Founder, Danny Sullivan, the update is separated from the recent BERT update. If you’re (still) not optimizing your GMB listing, now you have another reason not to procrastinate.
Digital #6
AI-powered flight assistant bot, Eddy Travels, completed a $500,000 pre-seed round. The startup offers in-chat flight deals on, amongst others, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Slack. CEO and co-Founder, Edmundas Balčikonis, (unsurprisingly) played the super-app card: “We want to expand into other products (…) into tours and activities, expand into travel insurance and other categories.”
Digital #5
OYO will fire 2,000 employees by the end of the month. The company is known for his inclination to automatize processes whenever possible, so this may not necessarily be a bad omen. More alarming, however, is another rumor: owners are complaining that they are not being paid by the Indian unicorn, with due invoices dating as far as May 2019…
Digital #4
The Information Commissioner’s Office stated that Marriott had “agreed to an extension of the regulatory process” (for the infamous Starwood data breach) “until 31 March 2020,” and there is speculation the original $123M fine will be drastically reduced.
Digital #3
According to Skift, U.S. hotels increased National TV ad investments by a striking 32%, with Marriott alone increasing its spend by over $50M. Is this part of the design to be less Google-dependent? With Hilton putting $103M in the old school media, and Marriott echoing with $90M, the question is legitimate. When it comes to predicting the future, however, I tend to trust airlines better than hotels: and, in 2019, they cut TV investments by 47%…
Digital #2
According to Lindy Andersen, director of global accounts at Expedia Group, artificial intelligence can “alleviate stressors and drive better efficiencies of our entire platform.” The statement was given during a recent EyeForTravel webinar titled Customer experience lab: automation, partnerships and the human touch. According to Andersen, creating a “frictionless travel” experience will be one of the main focuses of Expedia in 2020.
Digital #1
Not strictly travel-related, but another step to ASI (and to a cancer-free world) has been made: Google’s health research department has developed an AI system that can outperform radiologists at detecting breast cancer. The system was trained by data coming from thousands of mammograms. On the more sci-fi side of the spectrum, Samsung unveiled its artificial humans (or glorified video chatbots, to be more realistic), called Neons.