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Tag: BTIQ-Enl

  • Hilton Unveils New Top Loyalty Tier

    Hilton Worldwide in January will introduce a new top tier to its Honors rewards program and will lower the number of room nights required to attain membership in some of its lower tiers, the company announced Tuesday.

    Beginning in January, travelers will attain Gold status in the Honors program after staying 25 nights per year, down from the current 40, and Diamond status after 50 nights, down from the current 60, according to Hilton. Benefits for both tiers will remain unchanged. 

    Requirements for Hilton’s Silver status will remain unchanged at 10 nights. 

    Travelers will attain the new top tier, Diamond Reserve, after staying 80 nights in a year and spending $18,000 with Hilton, according to the company. Members will receive perks including guaranteed 4 p.m. checkout, “exclusive” service support from “specially trained team members dedicated to delivering personalized assistance and priority care” and complimentary access to Hilton premium clubs. 

    They’ll also receive what Hilton calls a “Confirmable Upgrade Reward,” the ability on a stay of up to seven nights to confirm at the time of booking a premium room upgrade, up to a one-bedroom suite, according to Hilton. Once used, members can earn a second such reward after reaching the 120-night or 30,000-point milestones, Hilton said. The perk applies to either paid or reward stays at select Hilton properties. 

    “Diamond Reserve was created to recognize and reward those who entrust their travel to Hilton,” Hilton chief marketing officer and head of luxury brands Mark Weinstein said in a statement. “We know that enhancing the stay experience is the foundational building block to driving loyalty.”

    Choice Hotels International earlier this month also added a new top tier to its loyalty program.

    cdavis@thebtngroup.com (Chris Davis)

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  • IHG, Delta Partner on SME Loyalty

    IHG Hotels & Resorts will offer members of Delta Air Lines’ new loyalty program for business travelers an enhancement to join its own program for small and midsized enterprises, the company announced this week. 

    SME members of the Delta Business Traveler program, which the carrier launched last year and is available to all business travelers, are eligible for a “fast track” to Platinum Elite status in IHG’s One Rewards loyalty program is they also enroll in IHG Business Edge, the program it introduced in 2018 that offers discounts and perks to SMEs. 

    According to an IHG spokesperson, Delta Business Traveler members will receive a complimentary upgrade to Gold Elite status under their IHG One Rewards account after two qualifying night stays, and will receive Platinum Elite Status after a further three qualifying night stays at a participating property. Normally, members would need to stay 40 qualifying nights in a calendar year to reach Platinum Elite, the spokesperson said.

    “Our established presence in the SME travel space underscores IHG as a trusted partner, and this collaboration allows us to extend benefits to an even broader audience,” IHG SVP of global sales Mark Sergot said in a statement.

    IHG earlier this year announced a similar hotel-airline SME loyalty tie-up with Singapore Airlines.

    RELATED: Airline-Hotel Loyalty Partnerships to Expand Offerings

    cdavis@thebtngroup.com (Chris Davis)

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  • Benoit to Succeed Bridgeman as Advito Managing Director

    Olivier Benoit
    April Bridgeman
    April Bridgeman

    Advito SVP and principal Olivier Benoit will become the managing director of the BCD Travel consulting arm at the end of the year as current managing director April Bridgeman steps down from the role, the travel management company announced.

    Benoit has been with Advito for 12 years, having led the consultancy’s global Air and Intelligence and Analytics practices. He will report to BCD EVP of customer success and corporate strategy Jennifer Townsend Walley, who on Jan. 1 also will extend her role to lead BCD’s sustainability teams, according to BCD.

    Bridgeman has been with BCD for more than 22 years and has been managing director of Advito since 2013. During that time, she launched Advito’s sustainability practice and the TMC’s workforce management function and TMC-integrated mobile app, according to BCD. She will be working alongside Benoit and Townsend Walley on the transition over the coming months.

    “We’re deeply grateful for April’s visionary leadership and commitment to pushing beyond the status quo to drive growth for BCD, Advito, our talented people and trusted customers,” BCD global chief commercial officer Mike Janssen said in a statement. “Her legacy of growth and innovation will endure.”

    mbaker@thebtngroup.com (Michael B. Baker)

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  • Booking.com for Business Gets Meetings Boost from Bizly

    Bizly and Booking.com announced on Thursday the availability
    of Bizly’s event booking platform through Booking.com for Business’ partner
    marketplace.

    The partnership gives Booking.com for Business customers
    access to Bizly’s global venue network of hotels, conference centers, private
    dining, co-working spaces and experiential venues for efficient group, meetings
    and event bookings. It also enables them with Bizly’s AI-powered venue sourcing
    tools, concierge support and event management features.

    “Meetings and events are often ‘the why’ for business
    travel,” said Booking.com for Business lead Joshua Wood in a statement. “Through
    our partnership with Bizly, we are able to offer the hundreds of thousands of
    companies who use Booking.com for Business a way to not only manage their
    business travel, but now also their meetings and events.”

    Bizly joins the likes of Expensify, International SOS and
    Traxo within Booking.com for Business’ partner marketplace—a collection of business
    travel-adjacent providers that Booking.com for Business users can tap into as
    part of a well-rounded business travel and expense ecosystem. With the addition
    of Bizly, Booking customers gain another key pillar for managing travel and
    related spending.

    “We’ve had the same mission since day one: Make it as
    easy to book an event as it is to book a flight or hotel,” said Bizly
    founder and CEO Ron Shah. “Partnering with Booking.com for Business gives
    us the opportunity to bring our vision of seamless event bookings to an even
    broader audience while establishing a new category standard.”

    EWest@thebtngroup.com (Elizabeth West)

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  • CTM Pushes Results Announcement to November

    Corporate Travel Management has pushed back further the release of its 2025 fiscal year results as it continues to address an auditing issue with its financial reporting, the company announced.

    CTM last month said it had been informed by its auditors that it needed to adjust the timing of when certain revenues and costs were recognized in Europe between the 2025 fiscal year and previous comparative reporting periods. The travel management company said KPMG is conducting a “detailed review” of financial statements for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, and that the “significant amount of work” and “subsequent audit work” would not be completed by its previously set deadline of Sept. 25. CTM now expects to provide an update in November.

    CTM voluntarily suspended trading of its securities on the Australia Securities Exchange amid the audit, and that suspension will remain in place until its 2025 fiscal year accounts are released, the company said.

    mbaker@thebtngroup.com (Michael B. Baker)

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  • ATPCO Broadens Airline Routehappy Visual Access

    ATPCO effective Jan. 1, 2026, will expand its Routehappy Visuals tool to all carriers in its Community Participation program, enabling them to include images and videos of their onboard offerings in booking channels, ATPCO announced Tuesday.

    Community Participation is ATPCO’s airline membership program, in which it said 448 airlines worldwide have joined. 

    Using Routehappy Visuals, which ATPCO has been offering to carriers as a separate product, airlines can show images, videos and virtual tours of seats and other amenities in direct and indirect channels. 

    “Airlines have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars enhancing their onboard product, but many shopping displays still focus only on price and schedule,” ATPCO chief strategy officer Tom Gregorson said in a statement. “With the full Routehappy suite now part of Community Participation, airlines can easily bring their products to life for every shopper, in every channel.”

    ATPCO said it notified carriers in June of the pending change to allow them to create visual content before Jan. 1, and since “more Routehappy Visuals were created and submitted than in the previous two years combined, clearly indicating that airlines see value in modern merchandising content.”

    [Correction, Sept. 16] An earlier version of this report incorrectly identified ATPCO’s Community Participation program.

    cdavis@thebtngroup.com (Chris Davis)

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  • Travelport Introduces TAP Air Portugal NDC Content

    TAP Air Portugal’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) content is now available to agencies connected to the Travelport Plus platform.

    The distribution agreement, first announced last November, includes all of TAP’s NDC fares, routes, services and ancillaries.

    The content can be accessed by Travelport Plus users in 29 countries, including Portugal, the U.K., U.S. and :the majority” of countries in the European Union, the companies said.

    Lauren Arena

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  • United, ITA Codesharing to Begin Sept. 15

    United Airlines and Italian carrier ITA Airways have begun selling tickets for a codesharing agreement that takes effect on Sept. 15, the carriers announced.

    With the codesharing agreement, United passengers can purchase a single ticket and earn miles on travel beyond United’s service to Rome and Milan to ITA’s domestic connections as well as elsewhere in Europe. For ITA, the agreement opens up bookings to several U.S. airports including Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Honolulu, Houston and Newark, according to the carriers.

    ITA said the agreement aligns with its plan to strengthen its offering in North America. “This initiative is part of a broader growth plan in international markets, which is expected to progress with ITA Airways joining Star Alliance in 2026, following continued integration into the Lufthansa Group,” ITA CEO and general manager Joerg Eberhart said in a statement.

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  • HotelHub: Q2 U.S. Hotel Bookings, Lead Time Drop

    Second-quarter U.S. hotel bookings made using HotelHub technology dropped more than 13 percent year over year, according to the company. Additionally, average lead times for Q2 U.S. hotel bookings dropped nearly 7 percent from 2024 levels, “suggesting a growing reluctance to commit to U.S. travel too far in advance,” according to HotelHub, which provides travel management companies with hotel booking technology.

    For the first six months of the year, U.S. hotel bookings made with HotelHub declined 10.65 percent year over year while global bookings dropped 5.35 percent, according to HotelHub.

    “This contrasts to the first quarter of the year where total year-on-year booking numbers had remained fairly stable—despite a significant drop in U.S. bookings—and comes as businesses attempt to make sense of the unpredictable and ever-changing tariff policies issued by the new U.S. administration since April,” HotelHub in a report detailing its findings. 

    Still, HotelHub chief commercial officer Paul Raymond in a letter accompanying the report suggested the downturn might not fully reflect the current state of hotel demand. 

    “A short period of decline does not necessarily signal an ongoing negative trend,” according to Raymond. “Indeed, it can be a marker of resilience: it is simply good business sense to take a cautious approach as tariff negotiations play out. And while booking figures took a hit at the start of the quarter, we have seen a steady rise since.”

    The average second-quarter global rate booked per night was $192, up less than 2 percent year over year, and it averaged $184 for the first half of 2025, up 1 percent. That’s “a stark contrast to the 5.39 percent seen in the same period last year (compared to 2023) and a positive sign for corporate travel budgets,” according to HotelHub.

    RELATED: HotelHub Q1 data

    cdavis@thebtngroup.com (Chris Davis)

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  • TravelPerk Names Chief Product, Tech Officers

    TravelPerk has hired Nikita Miller as chief product officer and promoted Robin Smith to chief technology officer, the travel management platform announced.

    Miller joins TravelPerk from wedding planning content and services provider The Knot Worldwide, where she had an executive role leading product, and she previously had a similar position with project and task management tool Trello. Smith previously was TravelPerk’s SVP of technology and has a long history with Click Travel, which TravelPerk acquired in 2021.

    Prior to their appointments, TravelPerk had combined chief product and technology officer into a single role, but “as TravelPerk’s scale and ambition have grown, it became clear that product and technology each needed dedicated leadership to propel our innovation agenda,” according to a TravelPerk spokesperson.

    mbaker@thebtngroup.com (Michael B. Baker)

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  • Yotel Names Former Marriott Exec CEO

    Yotel, the 23-property hotel chain known for its compact guest rooms, has named former Marriott International executive Phil Andreopoulos as its new CEO, the company announced Monday.

    Andreopoulos worked at Marriott for nearly 25 years, most recently as chief commercial officer of Marriott’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

    Andreopoulos “brings a wealth of commercial and operational experience and under his leadership, Yotel will enhance its distribution, direct business contribution and loyalty proposition,” Yotel and Al-Bahar Group chairman Talal Al Bahar said in a statement. “He will also drive expansion of both the managed and franchise businesses in key markets.”

    The Al-Bahar Group, a Kuwaiti investment firm, is Yotel’s majority shareholder and earlier this year increased its stake to more than a 95 percent share after acquiring Starwood Capital’s 30 percent stake.

    Andreopoulos replaces as CEO Hubert Viriot, who had served in the position since 2014 and will remain with Yotel as vice chairman. Viriot in a statement posted on LinkedIn said Andreopoulos would be “the perfect leader to guide Yotel as we pursue our ambitious goal of doubling our portfolio in the next five years.”

    Yotel has 23 properties in 16 cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and said it has 11 properties in the development pipeline due to open within the next two years. 

    cdavis@thebtngroup.com (Chris Davis)

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  • TPG’s Hospitality Solutions Adds Hollyhead

    Hospitality Solutions, the hotel reservation technology business acquired in July by investment firm TPG from Sabre Corp., has named former American Express Global Business Travel executive and Egencia president Mark Hollyhead as chief transformation officer, a new role, the company announced Monday. 

    Hollyhead will begin work in his role in “mid-September,” a spokesperson confirmed to BTN.

    Hollyhead at Hospitality Solutions will “drive transformation by leveraging AI and other technologies to advance product development and strategic initiatives across the organization,” the company said in a statement. 

    Hollyhead served as president of Egencia when the travel management company was acquired by Amex GBT from Expedia in 2021. At Amex GBT, he served as chief product officer until his resignation earlier this year. Hollyhead before Egencia served in a variety of roles for British Airways. 

    TPG is operating Hospitality Solutions, which it acquired from Sabre for $1.1 billion and which offers a software-as-a-service platform designed to assist hotels’ distribution operations and retailing experience, as a separate business. Hospitality Solutions CEO Teresa Mackintosh in a statement called it “a formative time for Hospitality Solutions as we position the company for an exciting period of growth and transformation.”

    cdavis@thebtngroup.com (Chris Davis)

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  • U.S. to Increase ESTA Fee by $19

    U.S. authorities have confirmed that the new increased fee of $40 for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization will take effect from later this month.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the ESTA fee will nearly double from its current $21 to $40 from Sept. 30.

    Visitors from visa waiver countries, such as the U.K. and most EU members, have to apply for an ESTA for entry to the United States. The authorization is valid for two years unless the traveler’s passport expires within this time.

    “All unpaid ESTA applications in the system after the system update on September 30, 2025, will be subject to the new fee amount of $40,” confirmed CBP in a statement on its website.

    U.S. authorities previously raised the fee for an ESTA application from $14 to $21 in May 2022.

    Julia Lo Bue-Said, CEO of the Advantage Travel Partnership said: “The price of an ESTA nearly doubling under the Trump administration is a blow to British travelers and is likely to impact U.S. visitor numbers over the coming months.

    “However, if travelers are planning a trip to the U.S. in the next two years, they can avoid this fee increase by securing their ESTA before 29 September.”

    The rise in the price of an ESTA comes after the UK increased the charge for its own Electronic Travel Authorization from £10 to £16 in April.

    Meanwhile, the EU has raised the planned application fee for its forthcoming European Travel Information and Authorization System from €7 to €20, even though it is not due to be introduced until late 2026.

    ETIAS will be preceded by the phased launch of the EU’s new biometric Entry-Exit System, which is finally due to be introduced on Oct. 12.

    Lo Bue-Said predicted that the launch of EES, which will require non-EU travelers to provide a digital facial image and fingerprints at the border, could lead to longer queues for U.K. passport holders visiting EU countries from mid-October.

    “In a few weeks you will start to see them taking biometrics, although passports will still be stamped,” she added. “There are likely to be more queues for Brits travelling to the EU.

    “Spain is one of the countries that is 100 per cent ready and geared up to take biometrics. Over time, it will get easier as more countries make sure they are EES-ready.

    “It’s a confusing time for travelers. We’re providing members with a toolkit of different assets so they can communicate with the customer about what it means for them.”

    Rob Gill

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  • PKFare Integrates Content from Argentina’s FlyBondi

    Travel content aggregator PKFare is partnering with Argentine ultra-low-cost carrier FlyBondi to provide the carrier’s content to its distribution partners via its API, the company announced.

    The integration will help FlyBondi expand its bookings business beyond Argentina to other Latin American markets, such as Brazil and Mexico, as well as long-haul demand from the Asia/Pacific, Europe and North America regions, according to PKFare. FlyBondi flies domestic routes in Argentina as well as internationally to Brazil.

    “We remain committed to deepening our presence in the region and delivering travel sellers more competitive, conversion-ready offers,” PKFare co-founder and SVP Jason Sui said in a statement.

    PKFare, which reports more than 2,000 distribution partners around the world, said it has built direct connections with more than 40 carriers to date.

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  • Alaska Airlines and Icelandair Establish Codeshare

    Longstanding partners Icelandair and Alaska Airlines have inked a bilateral codeshare agreement that will allow passengers to combine flights from both airlines under a single ticket. 

    Both airlines underscored the deeper partnership will allow them to create more seamless experiences, including linked baggage handling, on routes served by each carrier. It will also enable increased and improved connectivity for U.S. travelers across Europe and for Europe travelers to the U.S. West Coast and beyond with Alaska’s service to Hawaii and Asia, the carriers said.

    As part of the new codeshare agreement, officials said, loyalty point accrual and redemption will be reciprocal to both airlines. 

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  • United to Expand Service to Tel Aviv

    United on Thursday announced plans to resume flights this fall to Tel Aviv, Israel, from Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles international airports. It will be the first time United has operated these flights since 2023. Four-times-weekly flights from Chicago commence Nov. 1 and three-times-weekly from Washington, DC, begin Nov. 2. 

    United currently offers twice-daily flights between Tel Aviv and Newark Liberty International Airport. 

    Delta Air Lines this week restarted daily service between Tel Aviv and New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Airbus A330-900neo aircraft. Delta had suspended service on the route in June. 

    American Airlines has not operated Tel Aviv flights since October 2023 and has not yet announced a service restart date.

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  • Concur Integrates Hotel Distribution Tech from Gekko Group

    SAP Concur has partnered with hotel distribution technology provider Gekko Group to connect the group’s technology with Concur’s Hotel Connector.

    With the integration, travel management companies and corporate clients using Concur Travel can get access to the inventory of Hcorpo, Gekko’s hotel aggregation solution, which provides a “wide array” of rates including public, negotiated and dynamic rates, according to Concur. Gekko, which is part of Accor Group, reports hotel content across 180 countries.

    Concur this week also announced it has integrated HotelHub’s content aggregation technology into Hotel Connector.

    mbaker@thebtngroup.com (Michael B. Baker)

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  • LARC ‘Considerably’ Curtails 2025 U.S. Hotel Forecast

    Citing what it called “a substantially reduced economic outlook,” Lodging Analytics Research & Consulting this week “considerably” reduced its U.S. hotel performance outlook from its prior forecast in June. 

    LARC now projects full-year 2025 U.S. hotel occupancy to decline 1.6 percent year over year, compared with a projected 0.8 percent decline in the June forecast. LARC projects the 2025 U.S. average daily rate to increase 0.8 percent from 2024 levels (compared with 2.1 percent in June) and revenue per available room to decline 0.7 percent (compared with a projected 1.3 percent increase in June). 

    LARC president and co-founder Ryan Meliker in a letter to clients cited an uncertain macroeconomic outlook and slowing U.S. job growth for the pared-down forecast.

    Meliker noted second-quarter U.S. RevPAR declined 0.5 percent year over year even as U.S. gross domestic product increased 3 percent, concluding that “the strength of the underlying economy may be far more modest than the 2Q GDP print implies. For example, when excluding a tariff-induced net trade imbalance, Real GDP declined roughly 2 percent in the quarter.”

    Additionally, Meliker in the letter wrote that “job growth has been declining since May 2025, apart from the healthcare sector,” adding that a stronger corporate embrace of artificial intelligence could limit job growth. 

    Still, “sluggish job growth may not have the same negative implications [for corporate travel] as it does for leisure demand,” Meliker wrote. “Entry-level roles are less likely to be corporate travelers and are the jobs most at risk from technological advancement. From a group perspective, trends continue to be holding despite the soft jobs data.”

    RELATED: LARC’s June forecast

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  • J.D. Power: Food Dents Third-Party Hotel Guest Satisfaction

    What appears to be increasing guest discontent with hotel food service and maintenance has driven down average satisfaction scores for hotel management companies in a new J.D. Power survey, released Wednesday.

    The average overall hotel management company satisfaction score J.D. Power’s 2025 North America Third-Party Hotel Management Guest Satisfaction Benchmark was 682 on a 1,000-point scale. That’s just a touch down from the 683 average score recorded last year, but J.D. Power noted such overall year-over-year comparisons aren’t valid due to changes to survey methodology from last year.

    That said, year-over-year comparisons of survey categories that stayed consistent remain sound, and J.D. Power pointed to two categories where guest satisfaction notably dropped: food and beverage—including quality of food, cleanliness of dining areas, food and beverage presentation and ambiance—as well the appearance of the hotel exterior and grounds, along with maintenance of pools, fitness centers and laundry areas. 

    In hotels where the owner is not operating the property, guest satisfaction ultimately rests with third-party management companies that operate on behalf of hotel owners,” J.D. Power hospitality practice lead Andrea Stokes said in a statement. “While these companies are all focused on bringing a level of standardization and consistency to the guest experience, we’re starting to see some challenges emerge where guest satisfaction is faltering, particularly for quality of food and beverage and hotel facilities upkeep, which can often indicate rising costs.”

    As food costs increase for consumers, so they do for hotels, as does the costs of food and beverage labor, a category that hotel analytics firm STR said increased 15 percent year over year in 2024, more so than any other hotel labor category.

    [Report continues below chart.]

    Atrium Hospitality, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based hotel management company with 73 properties in its portfolio, including branded Hilton, Marriott, IHG, and Wyndham properties, topped J.D. Power’s list with a satisfaction score of 722.

    J.D. Power surveyed 5,022 guests who stayed at a branded hotel between May 2024 and May 2025. The survey is based on seven categories, in declining order of importance: guest room, hotel staff service, value for prices paid, check-in and check-out, hotel facility, food and beverage, and hotel connectivity. That the check-in and check-out category is broken out separately is a change from 2024.

    Third-party hotel operators with more than 14,000 branded hotel rooms under management were eligible for J.D Power’s survey.

    cdavis@thebtngroup.com (Chris Davis)

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  • Concur Travel Integrates HotelHub Tech for TMCs

    SAP Concur has integrated HotelHub’s hotel content aggregation technology into SAP Concur’s Hotel Connector, which will enable travel management companies to improve access to their hotel content within Concur Travel, the company announced.

    With the HotelHub integration, TMCs can use its features within Concur Travel, including dynamic configuration and preferencing of both global distribution system and non-GDS hotel content, normalization and de-duplication of hotel content and PNR integration, according to Concur. It also includes enhanced search filter capabilities and the ability to display detailed property information. As such, TMCs can “drive more commercially advantageous bookings” through Concur Travel, the company said.

    “The HotelHub integration into SAP Concur’s Hotel Connector will empower TMCs to deliver the right content, in the right place, at the right price, and reinforce their value proposition to customers,” HotelHub chief commercial officer Paul Raymond said in a statement.

    Concur said joint customers of Concur and HotelHub have the implementation process underway for the integration, and the first launch should happen in the current quarter.

    mbaker@thebtngroup.com (Michael B. Baker)

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