Skift Travel News Blog

TUI Group has consolidated its digital activities in Portugal by opening a new tech center in Porto.

Europe’s largest holiday package tour operator continues to lean into an ambitious digital transformation, with the center set to focus on developing mobile apps, payment systems, and using artificial intelligence across both TUI’s customer-facing and internal services.

In 2017, TUI partnered with IT service provider COCUS to create a Software Development Hub in Portugal. After five years of collaboration, they recently agreed to integrate this software hub into TUI’s organization as a ‘Digital Hub.’

TUI already has tech teams in Poland and India, with the new Porto center adding 150 more tech specialists to its workforce, with plans to grow the Porto team to 200 by the end of 2024.

Portugal is a popular destination for TUI travelers, according to TUI’s CEO, Sebastian Ebel, who said the development “strengthens its position in the country.” Ebel has laid out his intent for TUI’s app to become a one-stop shop for travel.

In a previous interview with Skift, Peter Ulwahn, CEO of TUI Musement, the group’s tours and activities division, commented on the company’s digital transformation, stating,” We were offline before. Now we are transforming the company, and we really want to compete with the other OTA players in the space when it comes to technology.”

Yanolja Cloud has acquired Innsoft, an Oregon-based provider of hotel management software, for $8.3 million.  

Yanolja Cloud is the hotel tech arm of South Korea-based booking platform Yanolja.

The acquisition is part of an effort to expand its hospitality services in North America, the company said Thursday. 

Yanolja Cloud plans to leverage Innsoft’s resources to release a series of hospitality management solutions for the North American market as well as a new self check-in kiosk this year.

Innsoft offers various hotel management software solutions to booking platform companies including Booking.com and Expedia Group. 

Yanolja Cloud said previously that it has big plans for hotel software sales, fueled by Softbank’s $1.7 billion investment in its parent company in 2021. 

The company’s chief strategy officer last year said that it’s the company’s goal to overtake Oracle Hospitality as the global market leader in hotel operational software sales. At that time, the goal was that hoteliers would eventually be able to view Yanolja Cloud as a one-stop-shop for technology to run their operations, including bookings, distribution, and revenue management.