Business Travel
businesswire | June 28, 2023
Airbase, the leading software provider that helps companies procure, pay, and close their books with ease, and TravelPerk, the fastest-growing global travel management platform, today announced an integration that will enable businesses to seamlessly manage their travel expenditure with less effort. This partnership brings together TravelPerk’s vast travel inventory and reporting insights, and Airbase’s complete spend management platform — which handles all non-payroll spend, including corporate cards, bill payments, purchase orders, and employee reimbursements.
“We are excited to announce our collaboration with TravelPerk, a critical step in our quest to help companies manage all of their non-payroll spend,” said Airbase Founder and CEO, Thejo Kote. “This seamless integration automates workflows, reduces manual errors, and provides improved control over travel spending, facilitating rapid reimbursements and a superior user experience for our customers.”
With this integration, businesses can effortlessly connect to TravelPerk from their Airbase account, define travel policies, set booking cost limits, and assign Airbase-supported virtual or physical cards for travel bookings. This leads to unprecedented visibility and control over travel expenses in addition to optimizing cashback rewards.
Kevin Permenter, Research Director, Financial Applications at IDC, commented on the initiative. “The fusion of Airbase’s spend management platform with TravelPerk’s travel inventory and travel policy controls provides businesses with an enhanced level of control over their business travel expenses. This partnership helps enhance efficiency and bolster compliance for users. This integration will be a welcomed addition to the corporate spending and expense management landscape.”
An early user of the integration, Ben Watiwat, VP Finance at Immutable, praised its benefits. “The automatic matching of receipts to expenses and seamless syncing to our general ledger has been a significant time-saver. This integration has been a game-changer, offering efficiency and ease of use that we cannot recommend highly enough.”
The integration with TravelPerk elevates Airbase’s standing in the spend management sector, offering a smoother reconciliation process and allowing businesses to stay within budget. Airbase and TravelPerk are poised to redefine business travel and expense management, showcasing the immense potential of an integrated solution.
About Airbase
Airbase modern spend management combines Guided Procurement, Accounts Payable Automation, Expense Management, and Corporate Cards. Airbase provides the best way to control spending, close the books faster, ensure compliance, and make teams more productive. Airbase brings efficiency to approvals, accounting, and payments with a procure, pay, close process that employees and accounting teams love.
About TravelPerk
TravelPerk is the next-generation business travel platform pioneering the future of business travel. TravelPerk’s all-in-one platform gives travelers the freedom they want whilst providing companies with the control they need. The result is saved time, money, and hassle for everyone.
TravelPerk has the world’s largest travel inventory alongside powerful management features, 24/7 customer support, state-of-the-art technology, and consumer-grade design, all of which are enabling companies and organizations worldwide such as Wise, Revolut, Monzo, Farfetch, Just Eat, GetYourGuide and Skipthedishes, to get the most out of their travel.
Backed by world-class investors like General Catalyst, Kinnevik AB, DST Global, Greyhound Capital, Target Global, Felix Capital, Spark Capital, LocalGlobe, and Heartcore — investors in some of the most disruptive companies in tech including Airbnb, Slack, Twitter, Trello, Farfetch, Zalando and Delivery Hero — TravelPerk is reinventing business travel with an end-to-end solution that works.
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Business Travel, Hospitality Trends
Globenewswire | August 01, 2023
Cloudbeds, the hospitality management platform powering more reservations and happier guests for lodging businesses around the globe, announced its integration with Vrbo. Through a full API connection, owners and operators can manage all aspects of their Vrbo listing through the Cloudbeds platform. The integration creates a superior user experience with automation in onboarding, managing rates and availability, reconciliation, and more.
As one of the world’s premier channels for vacation rentals, Vrbo will enable Cloudbeds customers to maximize bookings by connecting them to its massive base of travelers seeking family-oriented travel and prime leisure experiences.
The integration solidifies Cloudbeds’ channel and distribution management solution as an industry leader, offering its lodging customers easy access to the world’s top distribution channels in order to maximize their visibility, reach new markets and different types of travelers, and ultimately increase bookings.
Richard Castle, Co-founder and COO of Cloudbeds, shares, “Our mission at Cloudbeds is to power all segments of hospitality, delivering owners and operators technology capable of competing with the big brands. It gives us great pride to be one of the few official software partners of Vrbo, and we’re excited to provide even more opportunities for our properties to reach new travelers.”
ABOUT CLOUDBEDS
Cloudbeds is the platform that powers hospitality, enabling tens of thousands of lodging businesses in more than 150 countries worldwide to grow and thrive. The award-winning Cloudbeds Platform brings together technology solutions to increase revenue, delight guests, and streamline operations into a single unified system, enhanced by a curated marketplace of third-party integrations. Founded in 2012, Cloudbeds was named No. 1 PMS, No. 1 Hotel Management System, and No. 1 Guest Messaging Software by Hotel Tech Report in 2023 and was recognized as a major player in the 2022 IDC Marketscape Report.
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Destination and Tourism
prnewswire | August 18, 2023
Global luxury travel network Virtuoso reveals when, where and how the affluent are traveling for the remainder of 2023. Respected as an industry-leading trend forecaster, Virtuoso gathered data and insights from its network of travel advisors, preferred partners and high net worth/ultra-high net worth clientele based on its data warehouse of more than $63.6 billion in transactions and an ongoing series of surveys. The results were shared at luxury travel's leading event, the 35th annual Virtuoso Travel Week. Running August 12-18 in Las Vegas at Bellagio Resort & Casino, ARIA Resort & Casino and Vdara Hotel & Spa, the event is recognized as the Fashion Week of luxury travel for its presentation of the latest news and trends affecting the industry before thousands of industry leaders, as well as the multi-million dollars in travel sales it drives.
The lead story: travel shows no signs of slowing down, despite inflation and global economic challenges. In the first half of 2023, Virtuoso reported a 69 percent uptick in sales versus 2019 numbers, with hotel and cruise segments leading the way, up 173 percent and 122 percent respectively.
Luxury hotels in the U.S. have seen a 57 percent increase compared to 2019, while luxury international hotels have soared to a 58 percent uptick.
Future leisure travel sales leading into 2024-2025 are equally strong. When comparing sales leading into 2020 from 2019, considered to be luxury travel's highwater mark, 2023's future sales are pacing 107 percent higher. Future sales for 2023 into 2024 are also pacing 44 percent higher than they were in 2022 leading into 2023.
Likewise, 2023 future cruise sales are 44 percent higher than they were in 2022 and 106 percent higher versus 2019.
Travelers are heading abroad in record numbers. Paris, London and Florence ranking among the most-booked cities this fall. When it comes to the hottest travel trends, Virtuoso advisors have noted continued demand for exclusive-use experiences, such as private aviation and yachting along with itineraries that incorporate next-level stimulation and engagement (think scientific expeditions in Antarctica). The wellness sector continues to thrive, with 94 percent of travelers incorporating self-care into their travels and a rising interest in programs that incorporate creative and performance art. Iceland has emerged as a wellness destination, as has Thailand, as travel to Asia returns. What hasn't changed, but is even more pronounced following the pandemic, is the importance travelers place on genuine, personalized service and their willingness to invest in collaborating with a travel advisor to arrange VIP treatment and access, to have reassurance, accountability and save time, and to ultimately have the experience they want.
An overview of the information is below, with complete findings here.
Booking analysis is based on transactional data sourced from Virtuoso's travel agency members; wellness and culinary travel insights were based on surveys conducted with Virtuoso advisors; and sustainability findings are the result of a recent in-depth analysis of Virtuoso partners resulting in its Virtuoso Impact Report, Sustainable Travel, 2023.
AboutVirtuoso Travel
Virtuoso is the leading global network of travel agencies specializing in luxury and experiential travel, with more than 20,000 travel advisors. We partner with over 1,800 of the world’s best companies such as hotels, cruise lines, tour operators, and more. Our advisors use their personal connections and firsthand expertise to craft bespoke trips for clients, including unique experiences, special values, complimentary perks, VIP treatment and rare access.
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