AIRLINES AND AIRPORTS
Sabre Corporation | November 20, 2020
Croatia Airlines and Saber Corporation, the software and technology organization that controls the worldwide travel industry, declares the carrier's fruitful innovation movement to Saber Revenue Optimizer, Saber's driving income advancement arrangement. Considering the progressing COVID-19 pandemic, the requesting venture work was done essentially distantly, with the genuine innovation execution and preparing took care of basically.
Last year, the two accomplices declared the Croatian banner transporter's move up to Revenue Optimizer, to empower the aircraft to adopt a 360-degree strategy to determining, breaking down, and streamlining its income streams. The arrangement gives constant perceivability into the complete income for each flight, each geological region and each takeoff date and assists break with bringing down information storehouses that may exist across aircraft frameworks.
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HOSPITALITY TRENDS
Newmark | October 07, 2021
Newmark Group, Inc. announced the expansion of its Lodging Capital Markets Group with two new hires and the relocation of two Newmark professionals. With these moves, the Group has established three new locations in California, South Florida and Texas. The new hires include Nick Pappas, a Senior Managing Director based in Los Angeles and Parker Sherrill, a Director based in Dallas. Lawrence Wolfe, one of four co-heads of Newmark's Lodging Capital Markets Group, is relocating to Miami from New York City and Director Greg Morgan is relocating to Los Angeles from Washington, D.C.
With approximately $4.5 billion of hotel transactions currently under contract or in the market, this geographic expansion will further cement Newmark's Lodging Capital Markets Group as one of the leading platforms nationally. The company's recent transactions include arranging the sale of the Potomac Yards hotels in Washington, D.C.; the financing of the Edition West Hollywood and the recapitalization of the Graduate Hotel platform. The impressive collective career resume of Newmark's hospitality professionals includes more than $250 billion of transactions, including some of the most high-profile lodging deals ever completed, such as the sales of the Waldorf Astoria and Baccarat Hotel in New York, Miami Beach's Setai Hotel and Four Seasons Washington, D.C.; as well as the recapitalization of Kiawah Island Resort and the financing of the London West Hollywood. The Group focuses on all lodging and leisure capital markets transactions, including sales, joint ventures and financings.
"As 'drive-to' leisure destinations throughout the U.S. are already seeing increasingly strong demand, the hospitality industry's recovery is expected to be fueled by the return of group and corporate travel as well as international tourism in 2022. We are thrilled to announce the continued expansion of Newmark's lodging capital markets platform. We have always been active in the southeast and Texas and on the West Coast, and we believe those three regions will be among the most active markets in our business over the next several years."
said Adam Etra, Vice Chairman, Co-Founder and Co-Head of Newmark's Lodging Capital Markets Group.
Pappas joins Newmark from Canyon Partners and will team with Director Greg Morgan in the Los Angeles office. The two will focus on California, the Pacific Northwest and the Mountain Region. Sherrill, who joins Newmark from JLL (and previously HFF), will focus on Texas and the Southwest Region. Wolfe, who helped originally establish Newmark's lodging business with Etra, Mark Schoenholtz and Miles Spencer in 2018, will focus on Florida and the Southeast, while continuing to work on the platform's high-profile transactions throughout the country.
With new locations in California, South Florida and Texas, the Lodging Capital Markets Group will further entrench themselves in some of the highest-performing and most pandemic-resilient markets. Newmark's expansion covers four of the five markets with the highest year-to-date revenue per available room (RevPAR) – Miami, Tampa, San Diego and Los Angeles, according to STR. Additionally, the Pacific Region has had the highest RevPAR in the country over the past two years, according to STR. Economic fundamentals and demographics also continue to outpace those of other regions – eight of the top ten metropolitan regions with the largest increase in construction employment were in the Western U.S. or Florida, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and numerous cities throughout the West and Florida have some of the fastest growing populations.
About Newmark
Newmark Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: NMRK), together with its subsidiaries ("Newmark"), is a world leader in commercial real estate, seamlessly powering every phase of the property life cycle. Newmark's comprehensive suite of services and products is uniquely tailored to each client, from owners to occupiers, investors to founders, and startups to blue-chip companies. Combining the platform's global reach with market intelligence in both established and emerging property markets, Newmark provides superior service to clients across the industry spectrum. Newmark generated revenues in excess of $2.2 billion for the trailing twelve months ending June 30, 2021. Newmark's company-owned offices, together with its business partners, operate from over 160 offices with approximately 6,200 professionals around the world.
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TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY
ATPI | July 06, 2021
When faced with a crisis, the travel industry reacts in a variety of ways. ATPI’s solution to the pandemic is to join the other mega-agencies that offer technology to other travel agencies. What ATPI may discover: licensing may be a complicated process.
ATPI’s track record with technology companies works to its advantage. For example, it recently invested $1.4 million in TapTrip and almost $350,000 in Singapore’s Greywing platform. According to its CEO, it now wants to “liberate” its platform and generate money by licensing it to other companies that may not have the means to create their own.
“The technology stacks that we’ve developed, we’re going to move into a different division so that, in addition to a travel management business arm, we’ll have our technology arm,” Ian Sinderson said.
ATPI has fared quite well in comparison to many of its rivals due to rising ties with the robust marine and cargo transport industries. It had a profit of $15 million last year, although that number was 50% lower than in 2019. Selling software could compensate for income lost.
When it formally launches in the coming months, its new technology arm, TripStax, will be a semi-autonomous company. TripStax was founded in August of last year, although ATPI experimented with various names, registering Travelstax and Lemonstack with the UK’s Companies House along the way.
TripStax will provide a full suite of platforms, including a booking tool, profile manager, analytics, duty of care, and traveler tracking platforms – key elements of technology that the agency has spent significant time developing internally, according to Sinderson.
GETTING THE BEST DEAL
ATPI is not the only agency to license a software-as-a-service travel platform to third parties; several of the industry’s larger players do as well. With their vast resources, they have greater opportunities to develop, or even buy, specialized platforms.
For example, American Express Global Business Travel has over 200 agencies signed up for its GBT Partnership Solutions section. They may, for example, utilize its booking tool, Neo, which assists the agency in filling gaps in its footprint. In addition, this premise collaborates with companies such as Kanoo in the Middle East and Tourvest in South Africa.
But what does it think of ATPI’s venture into software licensing?
If Amex GBT’s acquisition of Egencia goes through, it may be able to expand this segment of its company. “Teaming Egencia with GBT’s Supply MarketPlace, one of the most extensive sources for information and experiences for business travelers,” it said in a statement. It is now seeking a vice president for its GBT Partnership Solutions business.
However, one expert has warned that any agency selling its technology must guarantee that it is mature and flexible. “There is always a gap between utilizing a system inside one business and then providing it to a wider audience,” said Guy Sneglar, senior vice president, global travel technology integration, Partnership Travel Consulting.
Amex GBT’s Ahluwalia noted many legal, compliance, data privacy, and regulatory concerns to address before in-house solutions could compete with a third party. Then there are concerns about the content that comes with the technological product and other business structures.
Branching out has proven beneficial over the years, with some spin-offs taking on a life of their own. For example, Atriis, a managed travel technology platform, was founded in 2013 as a joint venture between Amsalem Travel in Israel and Portman Travel (acquired by Clarity Travel) in the United Kingdom.
HRG also found success with developing its expense tool Fraedom, while the UK corporate train booking site Evolvi was initially developed by Harry Weeks Travel, a 1954 agency.
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