Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) — the company belonging to Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani — is set to foray into the hospitality industry under its new arm Reliance SOU, engaging in hotels, resorts, and service apartments that will provide short-term lodging facilities. According to the details available with the registrar of companies, the company is planning to develop hotels and resorts...
Hyatt Hotels is joining forces with Spanish tourism group Grupo Piñero in a 50-50 joint venture that will add 23 resorts to Hyatt’s all-inclusive portfolio, the companies said Monday. The deal is expected to close in the coming months, subject to the usual conditions. No financial terms were disclosed. At a later date, Hyatt will begin managing Grupo Piñero’s Bahia Principe Hotels...
Online Travel This Week Very quietly over the last year-and-a-half, Amazon has been scaling up its Amazon Ads business to target the travel and hospitality sector. Brands including Avis and Disney, as well as destination management organizations, including TravelTexas.com, are among the travel and hospitality organizations that Amazon Ads touts in case studies or other marketing materials for its...
Wyndham’s tech investment is paying off, the hotelier’s CEO said Wednesday. Wyndham Connect is allowing hotel owners to communicate by SMS with hotel guests prior to arrival, for example, and offer them early check-in or the opportunity to order food and beverage upon arrival. That is driving “thousands and thousands of dollars of extra room revenue” for the typical hotel owner, said...
Airlines have asked planemakers for the same thing for decades: give them aircraft that can fly long-haul at the lowest price per passenger. Over the years, Airbus and Boeing have taken different approaches to this problem. The twin-aisle products on offer have varied from the double-decker A380 to connect slot-constrained hub airports, through to the smaller Boeing 787. Despite the options...
Marriott says its loyalty program Bonvoy crossed 210 million members this August but for group CEO and president Anthony Capuano, the platform is just getting started. Capuano sees Bonvoy as moving away from a “transactional system” towards more of an “emotional” one, where members use Bonvoy for room upgrades, free cups of coffee, and even walks down the red carpet at the...
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South Korea is embracing the “workcation” trend to launch a digital nomad visa: It starts January 1 and lets digital nomads stay for up to two years. The details: This is for foreign nationals who work remotely – they are not permitted to apply for jobs within South Korea. Remote workers must have an annual income exceeding 84.96 million won ($66,000), which is double the...