Travel Technology, Hospitality Management
Virgin Voyages | September 08, 2023
Virgin Voyages announced a $550 million funding round led by Ares Management for global expansion.
Founder Tom McAlpin transitions to Chairman of the Board, while Nirmal Saverimuttu takes over as CEO, bringing extensive experience from Virgin Voyages' early days.
Virgin Voyages looks forward to continued success and collaboration with investors, including Ares Management, to drive future growth and innovation.
Virgin Voyages, the award-winning cruise brand backed by Richard Branson's Virgin Group, has announced the completion of a $550 million fundraise led by Ares Management's Private Equity Group. This funding, including contributions from existing investors such as Virgin Group and Bain Capital, is poised to propel Virgin Voyages into international markets while enhancing the overall customer experience.
Partner and Co-Portfolio Manager of Special Opportunities in the Ares Private Equity Group, Aaron Rosen, remarked,
With this new investment alongside our partners at Virgin Group and Bain Capital, we believe the company is on strong footing to capitalize on its differentiated product and value proposition in the growing cruise industry.
[Source - Cision PR Newswire]
Established as a leading player in the industry, Virgin Voyages has swiftly gained recognition and accolades with a fleet serving various destinations and recent wins like topping the mega-ship category in Travel + Leisure's 2023 World's Best Awards and sweeping all five cruise categories in the 2023 Cruise Critic Cruisers' Choice Awards.
Alongside this development, Tom McAlpin, the founding CEO, is transitioning to the role of Chairman of the Board. Nirmal Saverimuttu is taking the reins as the new Chief Executive Officer, having formerly served as President and Chief Experience Officer. In addition, Nirmal Saverimuttu has been a foundational figure at Virgin Voyages since 2014, when he joined as Chief Commercial Officer after securing initial investments from the Virgin Group. His role expanded in 2021 to President and Chief Experience Officer, making him well-prepared to guide the brand into its next phase of growth and innovation.
Nirmal Saverimuttu, CEO of Virgin Voyages, said,
I want to send our deepest thanks, on behalf of all our Crew and the Board, to Tom for his leadership and passion for the business. We are so grateful for all he has done and are thrilled to continue to partner with him as our Chairman.
[Source – Cision PR Newswire]
Virgin Voyages is a trusted brand due to its crew's dedication and passion for offering remarkable experiences for its guests. Nirmal also expressed his anticipation of collaborating with the Ares team and Virgin Voyages' current investors to execute growth and expansion plans as the company contemplates its promising future.
Read More
Hospitality Management
businesswire | August 02, 2023
Phrasee, the complete AI content platform for enterprise marketers, and Accor, the largest hospitality company in Europe and the sixth largest hospitality company worldwide, are partnering to optimize the hotel group's marketing copy to accelerate engagement and revenue.
"The hospitality industry is extremely competitive, and we are matching the innovation we bring to our hotels to delight customers with enhanced marketing efforts, enabled by Phrasee's generative AI technology," said Marc Lantrok, Accor's vice president of customer engagement, Europe & North Africa. "We are excited to move forward with our partnership with Phrasee as we work toward becoming more data-driven and increasing revenue and engagement for our Accor loyalty program in the UK and French markets, as well as ibis in the UK.”
Accor is using Phrasee to optimize subject lines, tested to drive open and click rates for higher engagement, traffic, and revenue for the specified hotels. The optimized copy will help ensure that Accor brands are at the forefront of customers' minds when they are ready to book. In addition, Phrasee’s platform will guarantee messaging consistency across multiple marketing channels, further boosting customer loyalty with the right messaging at the right time, delivered via the right vehicle.
“Marketers are jumping on the AI bandwagon to create content, but too many are unable to generate content that delivers,” said Parry Malm, Phrasee CEO. “This is not a case of the more, the merrier. The content must be good, meaning it must be on-brand, optimized for performance, and provide the level of safety that enterprise marketers need at scale. Accor’s partnership with Phrasee ensures the hospitality group’s marketing program is backed by a content engine that delivers smarter, data-driven high-performing content to drive customer engagement and ROI and continues to improve as it gleans insights for even greater engagement.”
Looking ahead, Accor will leverage Phrasee technology to ensure the maximum number of campaigns are optimized, driving impact and ROI. Accor will use Phrasee's Language Insights and AI platform to gain customer insights, inform data-driven decisions, and create high-performing, on-brand marketing messages optimized for new and returning hotel guests.
About Accor
Accor is a world-leading hospitality group offering experiences across more than 110 countries in 5,400 properties, 10,000 food & beverage venues, wellness facilities and flexible workspaces. The Group has one of the industry’s most diverse hospitality ecosystems, encompassing more than 40 hotel brands from luxury to economy, as well as Lifestyle with Ennismore. Accor is committed to taking positive action in terms of business ethics & integrity, responsible tourism, sustainable development, community outreach, and diversity & inclusion. Founded in 1967, Accor SA is headquartered in France and publicly listed on Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0000120404) and on the OTC Market (Ticker: ACCYY) in the United States. For more information, please visit group.accor.com.
About Phrasee
Phrasee believes in a future where enterprise marketers drive unprecedented results using AI. Phrasee’s AI-powered platform generates the best-performing content at scale and with enterprise-grade controls across digital channels to realize those results and enable customers to compete effectively in this always-on, digital world. Its platform creates, optimizes, and analyzes on-brand marketing content in real-time, proven to drive more clicks, conversions, and revenue across the digital customer journey.
Phrasee boosts customer engagement and increases lifetime value for the world’s leading brands, including Sephora, Sainsbury’s, Currys, Pet Supplies Plus, Novo Nordisk, and Williams Sonoma, all while maintaining their unique brand standards and voice.
Read More
Features and Advice
businesswire | June 29, 2023
Leading travel technology company Amadeus and Emburse, the global leader in spend optimization, are joining forces through a strategic partnership to better address the business travel demands of global enterprises. The partnership will ensure a seamless experience from trip planning and booking, through to expense reporting, reconciliation, reimbursements and spend analytics.
This relationship delivers more choice to enterprises that are looking for an integrated suite of modern, sophisticated travel spend management tools, without having to compromise on quality by being tied to a single vendor.
Amadeus and Emburse can now deliver a fully integrated solution to new customers, as well as offering each other’s solutions to current customers. Amadeus will promote Emburse Chrome River as a recommended integrated expense management offering to corporations in the United States and specific markets in Europe (UK, Scandinavia and Benelux), while Emburse will add Cytric Travel and Cytric Easy for Microsoft Teams to its portfolio of travel spend optimization solutions.
“Emburse and Amadeus have had data integrations for some time, and we share a number of high-profile customers, but with this partnership, we’re really taking things to the next level,” said Eric Friedrichsen, CEO of Emburse. “The two companies offer a number of complementary solutions that span the entire business travel journey. This relationship enables us to empower global enterprises with state-of-the-art tools that offer greater simplicity for their end-users, while creating value for the enterprise through greater visibility and more efficient travel spending.”
Through the global reach of this partnership and their commitment to innovation, Amadeus Cytric Solutions and Emburse can now offer a compelling alternative that not only meets the travel and expense (T&E) requirements of global enterprises with complex travel programs but also elevates the impact to a global business through the enablement of travel analytics, travel companion apps and integrated card programs.
“This partnership enables us to go beyond managing travel booking and expense. By leveraging our two companies’ complementary strengths, we are greatly enhancing the traveler’s digital and mobile experience and corporations’ travel spend and policy management throughout the entire travel journey. All of this will enable corporations to optimize their travel spend in terms of cost, carbon emission and productivity collaboration,” said Rudy Daniello, Executive Vice President, Amadeus Cytric Solutions.
The two companies will continue working together to collaborate and innovate in building end to end spend management.
About Amadeus
Travel powers progress. Amadeus powers travel. Amadeus’ solutions connect travelers to the journeys they want through travel agents, search engines, tour operators, airlines, airports, hotels, cars and railways.
We have developed our technology in partnership with the travel industry for over 30 years. We combine a deep understanding of how people travel with the ability to design and deliver the most complex, trusted, critical systems our customers need. In 2019, we helped connect over 1.9 billion people to local travel providers in over 190 countries.
We have a global mindset and a local presence wherever our customers need us. Our purpose is to shape the future of travel. We are passionate in our pursuit of better technology that makes better journeys.
Amadeus is an IBEX 35 company, listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange under AMS.MC. The company has also been recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the last eleven years.
About Emburse
Emburse is a modern spend management company offering solutions that revolutionize the way organizations manage employee expenses, process invoices and make payments. Emburse humanizes work by empowering business travelers, finance professionals, and CFOs to eliminate manual, time-consuming tasks, so they can focus on what matters most.
Its innovative offerings, which are tailored to meet the unique business needs of specific industries, company sizes, and geographies, are trusted by more than 9 million users in more than 120 countries. Over 18,000 customers, from start-ups to global enterprises, including Bosch, Grant Thornton, Telefónica, Lufthansa Systems, and Toyota, rely on Emburse to make faster, smarter decisions, improve compliance, and optimize spend -- making corporate spend deliver meaningful value for the organization.
Emburse is recognized as a leader in expense management and accounts payable automation by analyst firm IDC, and has received multiple awards for innovation and its high levels of customer satisfaction.
Read More