Cruisebound, a new online travel agency for cruise travel, has opened with US$10 million in Series A funding, led by former Booking Holdings chairman and Priceline CEO Jeff Boyd and PAR Capital Ventures.
Other participants are TripAdvisor founder and former CEO Steve Kaufer, Concur founder and Madrona Venture Group managing partner Steve Singh, Link Ventures founder Dave Blundin, and Plug & Play Ventures.
Cruisebound, led by co-founder and CEO Pierre-Olivier Lepage, says it offers the customer service of an offline agency and price comparison and instant booking of online travel agencies.
The site targets cruise ships first with a mobile-first approach intended to attract millennial and Gen Z travelers.
Cruisebound says during the beta test year, 91% of bookings were made on mobile devices.
Users can compare prices, itineraries, ships and cabin types from major cruise lines including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises and MSC.
Every booking includes live customer service post-booking via phone, text and email.
“When booking my first cruise, I was surprised how difficult it was to research and book online – and almost impossible on a mobile device. My travel site for booking flights and hotels was not designed to sell complex cruise products. This is clearly a leading factor in the divide between cruisers and non-cruisers,” said Lepage.
Cruisebound works with many major cruise lines by offering offline agency customer service with price comparisons and instant bookings from online travel agencies.
“We designed Cruisebound to sell cruises and only cruises. We offer an easy-to-use site optimized for mobile, where younger travelers prefer to research and book vacations. Then we combine the instant booking of an online travel agency with direct customer service of the offline agent.
Boyd said that the technology company has improved the travel planning and booking process for customers in flights, hotels, vacation homes and tours “and there is an opportunity for an experienced and innovative team to build scale with a single focus on building the best consumer experience. on a cruise ship” .
“Cruisebound’s founders have a proven track record of solving customer pain points by leveraging data science and experimentation to build great products.”
Cruisebound’s founding team also includes Rocket Travel founders Jay Hoffman and Bjorn Larsen. Advisors include Agoda founder Bryan Lewis, Priceline Partner Network founder Andrew Loewen and Atle Skalleberg, former COO of Flight Center Travel Group.
Source: Focuswire
Eviivo, the hospitality software company, has released a list of the top travel trends for 2023 with – unsurprisingly – mobile apps, automation, APIs – which Eviivo calls the ‘Holy Grail technology’ – and omnichannel platforms leading the way.
Eviivo also has high hopes for virtual reality that says, “will wear a crown to determine the place to visit”.
“Although the majority of people say virtual-only travel leaves too much to be desired now, 46% admit that they will be more likely to travel to new places after visiting them virtually, and with Metaverse introducing virtual and augmented reality, travelers will soon have many to choose from.
“Virtual reality will also become more common on websites to offer virtual tours, which are known to increase bookings, improve guest review scores and simply stand out from competitors,” the Eviivo survey found.
One key finding from Datalex’s The Digital Airline 2023 report is the difference between how travelers view airlines on the topic of innovation versus how airline executives rate their companies.
Only 11% of travelers surveyed say that Airlines is ahead of other e-commerce websites like fashion, Amazon, etc. in terms of modern online retail strategy. Yet 24% of the executives surveyed believe their company is ahead of other sites and 17% believe they are on par.
“These findings show that airline executives are hugely underestimating the reality of the perception gap that exists between airlines and their customers,” said Datalex chief technology officer Brian Lewis.
“Unbeknownst to me, perhaps one of the factors behind the travel industry’s delay in catching up with other e-commerce sites, is the oxymoron of people who ‘know too much’.
“The travel industry is full of experts and industry stalwarts who know the business inside out, and because of this there isn’t much input to learn from the rest of the industry, giving credibility to the saying that ‘knowledge equals inertia.'”
Three large OTAs – Booking.com, Agoda and Traveloka – topped the STAAH Booking Engine list as the world’s top online booking channel that generates the highest booking revenue to hotels in 2022.
The top 10 online booking channels worldwide are ranked as follows:
- Booking.com
- tease
- Traveloka
- Expedia
- STAY
- GO-MMT
- Tiket.com
- Trip.com
- Airbnb
- Hotel beds
“The pandemic has evolved the behavior and preferences of travellers. Our data shows accommodation providers across the board are leveraging a combination of traditional and new channels to attract visitors for a more holistic and dynamic distribution, guest booking and revenue strategy,” said Tony Howlett, CEO of STAAH Ltd.
Airbnb continues to be a strong competitor in the accommodation sector especially with more traditional hotel businesses using its channel in recent years, reflecting the continued convergence of hotels and short-term rentals.
However, OTAs are not the only racking in hotel bookings. An increasing number of tourists also make direct bookings on the hotel’s website.
For countries that have reduced international travel in the past few years, STAAH data also shows a higher preference among travelers for their own regional online channels.
For Malaysia, Traveloka, Tiket and MG Holidays are at the top. In the Philippines, it’s Ctrip and Hotelbeds. In Indonesia, it’s Traveloka and Booking.com.
The list of top OTAs separated by different countries is as follows:
OTAs most preferred by tourists from Singapore in 2022
- Booking.com
- Trip.com
- Expedia
- tease
- Traveloka
- Tiket.com
- STAY
- Hostelworld Group
- Hotel beds
- MG Group
OTAs most preferred by tourists from Malaysia in 2022
- tease
- Booking.com
- Trip.com
- Expedia
- Traveloka
- Tiket.com
- STAY
- Hotel beds
- Airbnb
- WebBeds
The most preferred OTA by tourists from Indonesia in 2022
- Traveloka
- Booking.com
- tease
- Tiket.com
- Expedia
- Hotel beds
- MG Group
- STAY
- Trip.com
- Pegipegi
OTAs most preferred by travelers from India in 2022
- GO-MMT
- Booking.com
- tease
- Expedia
- STAY
- Travelguru
- Airbnb
- HRS
- EaseMyTrip.com
- Hotel beds
OTAs most preferred by tourists from the Philippines in 2022
- Booking.com
- tease
- STAY
- Expedia
- Trip.com
- Hotel beds
- Airbnb
- Traveloka
- Tiket.com
- WebBeds
Source: Travel Weekly Asia
Carnival Corp. is the latest cruise line to launch faster internet services across all its brands to meet customer demand for video calls, streaming content and Instagram and Tik Tok posts – just like they do on land.
Carval Corp will use SpaceX’s Starlink satellite technology to provide low latency (the time it takes for data to reach a device) and high connectivity.
The company first launched Starlink on Carnival Cruise Line and Aida Cruises ships in December and plans to install Starlink on Princess, Holland America Line, Seabourn and Cunard Line and international brands P&O Cruises in Australia and the UK and Costa Cruises.
Royal Caribbean Group also plans to install Starlink across its entire fleet, including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea brands. Hurtigruten also uses Starlink, and Windstar has been exploring whether the service could work for some of its ships.
Source: Focuswire
