TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY
prnewswire | June 02, 2023
Today, Travelex Insurance Services Inc., launched its new line of travel protection plans with an enhanced cancel-for-any-reason (CFAR) upgrade covering up to 75% of trip cost, competitive age-band pricing, and additional coverage benefits. Travelex's previous travel protection plans officially retired at 11:59 p.m. May 31.
"We really took some time and put a lot of thought into these products as we've designed them," said Shannon Lofdahl, President and CEO at Travelex. "The resulting plans offer enhanced benefits, coverages and age-band pricing. We're responding to the coverage and benefits our partners and travelers want — there's only good news here."
Enhanced plan highlights
Travelex's Travel Select plan's CFAR upgrade1 now covers up to 75% of the trip cost if travelers have to cancel their trips.
The Travel Select plan provides new trip-cancelation and trip-interruption coverage options, including adoption, attending childbirth, cancel for business reasons2, organ donor, theft of travel documents and school extension.
Competitive age-band pricing bases plan rates on each traveler's risk level.
"I truly believe travel insurance is crucial to travel today," Lofdahl said. "Travelex is committed to protecting you and your trip investment when the unexpected happens."
About Travelex Insurance Services
Travelex Insurance Services has been a leading U.S. provider of travel insurance. As a premier partner to the travel industry, Travelex offers an array of products designed to help travelers create and protect the moments that matter most while they explore the world. We are part of the Zurich family of global brands and a woman-led organization that appreciates diversity. Guided by our values, we are optimistic, caring and reliable. With forward thinking, determination and a sense of togetherness, we help travelers dream, explore, and travel on.
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HOSPITALITY TRENDS
SH Hotels & Resorts | May 29, 2023
1 Hotels, the nature-inspired luxury lifestyle hotel brand founded by hospitality visionary Barry Sternlicht, announces that its UK flagship and first European destination, located in the heart of London's historic Mayfair, is now accepting reservations with an anticipated opening date of July 13, 2023. The nine-story sustainable sanctuary overlooks the stately trees and verdant lawns of magnificent Green Park, just steps away from the world-class galleries, sophisticated boutiques, first-class restaurants and renowned emporia of Bond Street, Berkeley Square and Piccadilly.
1 Hotel Mayfair consciously creates an unexpected fusion of sustainability and luxury in the fashionable heart of London's most exclusive hospitality district. The hotel brings a fresh breath of air enlivened by a deep love of and respect for nature within easy strolling distance of capital highlights such as The Royal Academy, the West End theatre district, and Buckingham Palace.
"We are delighted to bring nature and our mission of sustainable luxury to Mayfair, the very heart of London, one of the most important travel markets in the world," said Barry Sternlicht, 1 Hotels Founder and Chairman of SH Hotels & Resorts. "We are thrilled to bring our unique fusion of fresh comfort, conscious sustainability, exceptional bespoke service, understated elegance, wellness and nutrition to London."
"We've reimagined the traditional luxury hotel experience for Mayfair by infusing our love for nature with effortless sophistication," said SH Hotels & Resorts Chief Executive Officer Raul Leal. "With this opening we celebrate our distinctive brand's entry into Europe and the dynamic and culturally rich city of London."
Opting for reconstruction over new construction, this urban oasis, built to BREEAM Excellent standards, utilised 80% of the existing structure, which was repurposed to minimise adverse environmental impact. Living green-trellised exterior walls transform former hard surfaces into natural vertical landscapes. A freshly cobbled and pedestrianised previous parking lot creates a harmonious outdoor public space, now gifted to the neighbourhood, where passing Londoners can connect to nature and the surrounding community.
Atop the building, two new complete floors were added and introduce 35 stunning suites with floor-to-ceiling windows and expansive outdoor spaces, inviting guests to entertain or relax while overlooking Green Park, one of London's eight Royal Parks. The double height Green Park Penthouse Suite features a sprawling footprint of 274 square metres which makes it the largest 1 Bedroom Suite in Mayfair. The Green Park Penthouse can be further expanded to 2 bedrooms at 304 square metres and 3 bedrooms at 340 square metres. It features a wrap-around terrace and retractable sliding doors that open fully to sweeping and dramatic park views. All 181 rooms including 44 suites invite guests to rest, revive and restore in an enveloping nest, warmly welcomed by walls lined with native British moss and more than 200 local and regional plant species thriving throughout the property. At every interior turn, guests encounter works exclusively commissioned from nature-influenced local artists designed to provoke a sense of closer connection to the venerable landscape of Britain.
Dovetale, the ground-floor restaurant from internationally renowned two Michelin starred chef Tom Sellers will feature seasonal, organic, locally sourced quality fare from hand-dived scallops to farm-raised lamb. The signature cocktail bar is named after Dover Yard, which has been painstakingly revitalised as part of the project. The menu offers creative concoctions rooted in local traditions. Neighbours Cafe offers light snacks and barista-made ethical fair-trade coffee at a central communal table. The Bamford Wellness Spa offers the best of bespoke treatments following in full faith Lady Bamford's holistic approach to health and wellness.
1 Hotel Mayfair effortlessly fuses the finest natural sources, resources and artisanal products inspired by British heritage with the buzzy creativity and contemporary charm of 21st Century London's most vibrant neighbourhood.
ABOUT SH HOTELS & RESORTS
SH Hotels & Resorts, an affiliate of global private investment firm Starwood Capital Group, is a sustainable hotel brand management company that operates 1 Hotels, a nature-inspired lifestyle brand that launched in 2015 with properties in South Beach and Manhattan and now includes Brooklyn Bridge, West Hollywood, Sanya (China), Toronto, San Francisco, Nashville and the recently opened Hanalei Bay flagship property with projects in development in London, Cabo San Lucas, Paris, Elounda Hills (Crete), Austin, Copenhagen, Riyadh and Melbourne; Baccarat Hotels & Resorts, a luxury brand that made its debut in March 2015 with the opening of its flagship property in New York, with projects under development in Brickell (Miami), Florence, Riyadh, Dubai and Rome; and Treehouse Hotels, which premiered in London in 2019 and with projects under development in Manchester, Sunnyvale, Brickell (Miami) and Riyadh. Leveraging its marketing, design, operational and technological expertise, SH Hotels & Resorts is the force behind some of the most groundbreaking and dynamic hotel brands in the world.
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TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY
prnewswire | June 01, 2023
AnyClip, The Visual Intelligence Company™ has announced that Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) has launched Travelflix, a branded, online, smart video portal for travelers leveraging AnyClip's AI powered video solution, Genius+. O.A.T. who holds the largest video archive in the travel industry has chosen AnyClip's proprietary AI technology to host and organize over 4,000 videos from their archives into curated, searchable, video-on-demand channels directly embedded on their own domain bringing streamlined navigation for an online viewing experience.
Revolutionizing the online travel experience, Travelflix is the most advanced intelligent video portal ever built for travelers. All Traveflix videos uploaded onto the Genius+ platform are automatically analyzed with millions of keywords and categories generated by frame-to-frame, audio, and textual analysis allowing viewers to search within every scene. This means that whether content was created by independent filmmakers from around the world, or O.A.T. travelers, viewers are able to instantly search and be directed to the exact moment in a video with no scrolling required. Genius+ also powers AnyClip's proprietary recommendation engine to match videos that capture user engagement, saving them valuable time in accessing relevant information. Furthermore Engage+, AnyClip's interactive overlay technology, triggers call-to-actions at key moments within a video to drive audiences to learn more and make travel decisions.
This curated, searchable and interactive video-on-demand service will be directly embedded on O.A.T. 's domain, demonstrating the transformative power of AnyClip's technology in the world of travel. With this, O.A.T. aims to drive new customers directly onto their site to easily and instantly in-video search through their library of travel-related videos and discover their destination of choice.
"When O.A.T. presented their convincing data highlighting that users interacting with videos on their site have notably increased conversion rates, we knew we had to join forces and craft a significant solution," said Gil Becker, President & CEO of AnyClip. "We take immense pride in assisting our partners at O.A.T. in realizing their vision to introduce Travelflix, a distinctive video experience for the travel industry that makes valuable videos well-organized, easily discoverable, and personalized. This provides captivating and relevant content that boosts conversions while granting users unparalleled accessibility."
"We have long been striving to become our travelers' top resource for inspiring content, as well as to provide a platform where they can share stories from their adventures. Our new Travelflix video library is a major milestone in pursuit of that goal. Thanks to AnyClip, our entire video collection is now available in one place, with an interface that is easy for our travelers to navigate and intuitive for our team to maintain. With AnyClip's tools and support, we look forward to continuing to grow our inspirational video library for years to come," said Brian FitzGerald, CEO, O.A.T.
O.A.T. not only boasts the largest video archive in the industry, but also takes pride in their large video viewership equaling approximately 1.3 million hours per year. This surfaces the importance of managing and hosting an extensive video library embedded directly on O.A.T's domain to maximize site visits without sending them to external pages, such as YouTube.
The launch of Travelflix is a significant milestone in the travel industry, showcasing the potential of AI-powered video platforms to provide travelers with engaging and immersive content. O.A.T. welcomes all travelers those traveling solo or with a partner to continue to post their personal travel videos onto their site to inspire fellow travelers to explore their next dream destination. Travelflix, is now available directly on O.A.T. 's
ABOUT OVERSEAS ADVENTURE TRAVEL
Established in 1978, Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) is part of Boston-based Grand Circle Corporation's family of travel companies, which also include Grand Circle Cruise Line and Grand Circle Travel. In 1992, owners Alan and Harriet Lewis established the nonprofit Grand Circle Foundation to support communities in which Grand Circle works and travels, including some 300 humanitarian, cultural, and educational endeavors worldwide—among them, 100 schools, in 50 countries. The Foundation is an entity of the Alnoba Lewis Family Foundation, which has pledged or donated more than $250 million since 1981.
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