DESTINATION AND TOURISM
Trek Travel | July 28, 2022
Arch RoamRight Travel Insurance today announced that Trek Travel, a leading luxury cycling vacations tour operator in North America, has selected Arch RoamRight as its primary travel insurance provider.Trek Travel customers now have access to Arch RoamRight’s travel insurance protection plan and award-winning customer service and claims teams when they book through Trek Travel. Arch RoamRight’s plans offer protection against financial losses caused by trip cancellations and interruptions, coverage for baggage and personal effects, and 24/7 global travel and medical emergency assistance.
“Adventure travel continues to grow as more travelers wish to create lifetime memories and experiences, We’re pleased to offer our travel protection through Trek Travel, providing our excellent travel insurance to their valued customers.”
-Cory Sobczyk, Vice President of Business Development, Arch RoamRight
Trek Travel guests interested in purchasing Arch RoamRight’s travel insurance to help protect their travel plans can work with their trained trip consultants to understand and purchase coverage that meets their specific travel needs.
“We’re thrilled to be working with Arch RoamRight as they have demonstrated a track record of exemplary customer service, technology innovation and responsiveness,” said Rich Snodsmith, Director of Sales for Trek Travel. “Our partnership with Arch RoamRight provides our travelers with confidence, knowing that they are protected if an unexpected event happens that prevents them from going on their trip, or an unfortunate mishap occurs during their trip.”
About Arch RoamRight
Arch RoamRight (www.RoamRight.com) is the co-branding of Arch and RoamRight® marks used by Arch Insurance Company to market its travel insurance that insures U.S. residents traveling around the world. From trip cancellation to travel medical insurance plans and an award-winning mobile app and website, Arch RoamRightTM is an industry leader in innovation and technological solutions. In 2021, Arch RoamRight won multiple American Business Awards® and was named one of the Best in Travel Insurance for 2021 by Money.com.
About Trek Travel
Trek Travel provides cycling vacations of a lifetime in the world’s most beautiful destinations. From luxury experiences to easygoing self-guided adventures, the bike tour brand has a trip for every rider out there. Their trips include the use of award-winning Trek bicycles, including e-bikes, so you can ride the best routes with the best gear. Trek Travel has been crafting unforgettable cycling vacations for 20 years, and was most recently recognized by Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards 2022 as one of the top tour operators in the world.
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TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY
Barceló Hotel Group | June 20, 2022
Talkdesk®, Inc., a global cloud contact center leader for customer-obsessed companies, has been chosen by Barceló Hotel Group to provide a cloud-based destination to centralize the hospitality brand’s contact center operations and improve customer experience (CX) for their clientsBarceló Hotel Group is the hotel division of the Barceló Group, a Spanish tourism leader. Founded in 1931 by Simón Barceló, the hospitality company has continued to flourish under the leadership of three generations of the Barceló family. Barceló Hotel Group manages 60,000 guest rooms in more than 270 four- and five-star urban and leisure hotel properties across 24 countries. Their company philosophy of “forward hoteligence” inspires the brand to continue elevating the benchmark for guest experience – earning them recognition as one of the 30 largest hotel brands in the world.
Talkdesk CX Cloud™, an end-to-end customer experience solution, helped Barceló achieve digital transformation within their contact center. The flexibility and scalability of the Talkdesk platform eased the brand through a critical pivot from geographically siloed contact centers to one centralized virtual hub for managing all customer interactions. Previously, Barceló Hotel Group contact center agents – working from various locations across the globe – were only able to focus on customer inquiries within their own geographic areas. With the Talkdesk solution, every Barceló Hotel Group agent can assist any customer at any time. Talkdesk for Salesforce™ provides agents with real-time access to key customer details, ensuring guest needs are anticipated and met. Individual agents can also access all of their communication channels, tools, and customer data on a single screen, resulting in streamlined workflows and increased efficiency. AI-powered features like Talkdesk Interaction Analytics™ and Talkdesk QM Assist™ offer valuable, real-time coaching opportunities to help agents mine every interaction for the customer insights that lead to outstanding guest experiences.
“The Barceló commitment to excellent guest service is one of the main strategic objectives of the company. It’s not just our vocation, it’s the passion that drives us forward, We also believe that delivering excellent guest experiences, and offering additional value during the reservation process through our contact centers, begins with giving our employees access to the best tools integrated into an omnichannel experience with Barceló.com. The Talkdesk solution presents our contact center agents with a simpler way to leverage complex data and provide a more personalized, seamless guest experience – before, during, and after staying at any one of the hotels managed by Barceló Hotel Group.”
-Iñigo Onieva, global digital business director, Barceló Hotel Group.
In hospitality and tourism, the customer journey extends beyond those moments spent enjoying five-star hotel accommodation. The brands who strive to also provide five-star guest experiences – from first inquiry to those thoughtful post-visit touchpoints – will be recognised as pioneers in the quest for guest loyalty,” said Kathie Johnson, chief marketing officer, Talkdesk. “With the Talkdesk solution, Barceló agents will have the capabilities and support needed to guide guests on that complete journey. We’re proud to partner with Barceló in achieving their customer experience goals.
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DESTINATION AND TOURISM
HotelRunner | June 08, 2022
Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ: WIX), a leading global SaaS platform to create, manage and grow an online presence, announced the relaunch of its new solution for the hotel industry. Wix has partnered with HotelRunner, a complete platform tailored to support all accommodation businesses, to redevelop Wix Hotels. The new platform is a major improvement to the existing solution and includes a full suite of professional tools for every touchpoint needed to launch, manage, and grow a hospitality business of any size and maximize revenue.Wix's comprehensive online platform combined with HotelRunner's end-to-end travel technology provides the ability for users to create a website, manage their property, guests, bookings, and sales channels all from one platform. Whether running a bed and breakfast, boutique hotel, chain hotel, vacation rental, resort, or unique accommodation, business owners are equipped with the operational tools they need to efficiently run their business online and on premise.
Benefits for users of Wix Hotels by HotelRunner include:
Connect to leading online sales channels and travel agencies such as Booking.com, Expedia, Hotelbeds, and Airbnb, which can help increase revenues
Receive direct reservations and secure payments from their website
Manage rates and availability with user-friendly calendars on a single reliable platform to manage reservations and keep all inventory in sync while implementing complex pricing and revenue management strategies
Real-time inventory updates on all sales channels
Manage front desk operations including check-in and outs
Manage policies and taxes, offer extras, promotions, deals, and coupons, engage with guests, and promote their property on sales channels via the channel manager
"We are constantly improving our offering to provide business owners with a complete solution for any type of business, and we're thrilled to relaunch our hotel solution for the hospitality and tourism industry, As travel has begun to increase in the post-pandemic era, we're seeing a rise in the demand for digitalization in the hotel and hospitality industry and we're proud that we have developed a strong solution for these businesses and grow the addressable market. Wix has invested resources into building out the proper infrastructure to support privately owned businesses and large franchises, both for restaurants and hotels, and this new partnership with HotelRunner is another step in creating the go-to solution for businesses to efficiently manage their operations and grow."
-Ronny Elkayam, SVP Mobile, App Market and Strategic Products at Wix.
HotelRunner has been introducing innovations for more than a decade to build a bigger travel economy. Wix Hotels by HotelRunner has been developed by leveraging both companies' deep expertise in both travel and technology and positioning our award-winning platform, recognized globally by the leading travel industry players, as its foundation," said Ali Beklen, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner. "Our unique partnership with Wix will be the driving force that will take the hospitality and tourism industries to the next level by accelerating the digital transformation. Thousands of accommodation properties from all over the world will benefit from an affordable and comprehensive set of products, thanks to the new Wix Hotels by HotelRunner, added Arden Agopyan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner.
Wix Hotels by HotelRunner is in beta with a gradual rollout in English first and then to other languages. Existing users of the Wix Hotels solution will move to the new solution after the beta. To sign up for the beta version click here.
About Wix.com Ltd.
Wix is a leading platform to create, manage and grow a digital presence. What began as a website builder in 2006 is now a complete platform providing users with enterprise-grade performance, security and a reliable infrastructure. Offering a wide range of commerce and business solutions, advanced SEO and marketing tools, Wix enables users to have full ownership of their brand, their data and their relationships with their customers. With a focus on continuous innovation and delivery of new features and products, anyone can build a powerful digital presence to fulfill their dreams on Wix.
About HotelRunner
HotelRunner is a SaaS-enabled unified sales, operations, and distribution management platform and B2B network for accommodations, travel agencies, and payment providers. HotelRunner has thousands of accommodation and travel agency partners globally. HotelRunner is a Booking.com Premier Connectivity Partner, Expedia Elite Connectivity Partner, Airbnb Software Partner, Agoda Innovative Supplier, Oracle Gold, Hotelbeds, and Google Hotel Ads strategic partner.
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