Skift Travel News Blog

For car enthusiasts and adventure seekers alike, Bentley Motors’ latest endeavour into travel experiences is sure to turn heads.

Starting in April 2023, renowned luxury car manufacturer Bentley is set to launch a schedule of worldwide ‘Extraordinary Journeys’, offering up the very best in local cuisines, architecture, wellness and design – all whilst riding in a Bentley, of course.

The exclusive travel series, which already includes the UK, New Mexico, and Scandinavia as part of the itinerary, will offer guests an unforgettable driving experience coupled with the best excursions and indulgences each destination has to offer.

Caren Jochner, global head of brand experience at Bentley Motors, said, “We want to share with our customers and fans an extraordinary journey of discovery offering access to usually private and exclusive experiences that only Bentley can provide. We have worked closely with globally like-minded partners that share our passion for excellence whether it be in the field of cuisine, design, architecture, or wellness – all with sustainability at heart.”

This post is a part of Skift Ideas, which highlights exciting new creative projects, campaigns, designs, and future-making ideas across the travel industry. Skift will also feature a number of leading projects across travel at our 5th annual Skift IDEA Awards, which has become the travel industry’s most coveted achievement for excellence in innovation, design, experience, and now, automation.

Learn more at: https://live.skift.com/skift-idea-awards-2023/

Tours and activities online booking platform GetYourGuide has unveiled a fresh look on its homepage this week, and with it, a new series of Originals by GetYourGuide.

The Originals offering, previously put on hold towards the end of 2022, was run in partnership with local operators in popular destinations. Now the operator has shifted the focus to one-of-a-kind experiences, exclusive to the platform and inspired by the exclusive ‘Turning the Lights On at the Vatican Museums‘ in 2022, which saw 15,000 people applying for a coveted seat on one of the seven tours in 2022″.

The homepage refresh is seeded across core themes such as culture, food, nature and adventure, and Originals tours are now prominently labeled. New in the series is an exclusive guided experience through the Museum of Modern Art in New York, without the crowds one hour before the regular opening hours together with a professional art historian; or the chance to experience Barcelona’s La Sagrada Família in a private twist to explore Gaudí’s masterpiece on one’s own, accompanied by the live soundtrack of the famous local organist Juan de la Rubia.

The reveal of the new site was further supported by a new Make Memories campaign launched across the U.S. and Europe, and an Artificial Intelligence study that showed for 42 percent of participants, travel experiences were one of the three most emotionally intense memories. See the artificial intelligence experiment video below.

Nigeria’s Transcorp Hotels, one of Nigeria’s biggest hotel players, reported that it had returned to profit in 2022 after a rough pandemic.

The company reported a full-year 2022 profit before tax of $9.8 million (4.5 billion Nigerian naira) on $68.2 million (31.4 billion naira) in revenue.

“This impressive achievement is the highest revenue generated since the inception of the company,” said Dupe Olusola, CEO and managing director. “The full-fledged return of the international business travel segment and the bolstering leisure segment contributed immensely to this performance.”   

The company doubled its net profit margin year over year from 7 percent in 2021 to 14 percent in the year 2022. It reported a $5.6 million (2.6 billion naira) profit after tax.  

But the operator and the owner of landmark properties Transcorp Hilton Abuja and Transcorp Hotels Calabar still has potential room to grow for profitability. Its profit after tax in 2022 was the same as it was in 2015, a year when the country endured a six-week closure of its major airport.

Transcorp Hotels is a hotel operator that’s a three-decade-old subsidiary of the conglomerate Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, with interests in energy and agriculture.

The Transcorp Hilton Abuja will add a state-of-the-art convention center this year, after having just added a premium spa. A luxury hotel in central Lagos is also in development. 

Since 2021, the company has been attempting an expansion into Airbnb-like travel categories by running a listing marketplace for vacation rentals and experiences. Transcorp Hotels, runs Aura, a mobile booking app and website that lets entrepreneurs list short-term rentals, tours, activities, and restaurants, as Skift has profiled before.

For a profile earlier this month on CEO Olussola, read Nigeria’s Independent.

TrekkSoft, a Swiss Saas startup for tour and activity providers has added Giant Monkey, a Berlin-based producer of visitor management solutions, to its stable.

Giant Monkey’s portfolio includes equipping museums with modern payment and omnichannel solutions. The acquired stake lets Trekksoft expand its reach to museums and cultural institutions throughout Europe, beginning with Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The Trekksoft group has raised a total $3.4M in four funding rounds, with its last raise in 2015. It is an advanced connectivity partner for online travel agency GetYourGuide and has six portfolio companies that provide software solutions for various tourism service providers such as theme parks, ski schools and experience providers.

FareHarbor, the Booking Holdings’ tours and activities reservations tech platform, has a new CEO, Skift has learned.

Andrea Carini, who served as vice president of product development at fashion retailer Otrium for the past 10 months, began carrying out his CEO role at FareHarbor this week. There has been no public announcement about the hiring.

For nearly 10 years and up until April 2022, Carini was vice president of product development at Booking.com.

Carini replaced Ted Clements, who was acting CEO at FareHarbor for one year, until October 2022. Clements this month became CEO of WeTravel, an Amsterdam-based travel booking and payments platform.

FareHarbor takes offline tours and activities, and brings them online with a variety of booking services and payment tools.

Luxury hotels and resorts, with all their amenities, are usually the playgrounds of the rich and famous and are reserved exclusively for overnight guests who pay top dollar to stay there. 

However, a group of celebrity funders are boosting ResortPass by $26 million to build out its day-pass marketplace for establishments that want to allow guest to come and relax with them for the day.

The demand for local experiences, not too far from home, has surged as post-pandemic travel recovers. The six-year-old startup, now bolstered in its current round of funding by the likes of Jessica Alba and Gwyneth Paltrow (both avid investors in wellness, health and beauty), said the intention is to build its marketplace so guest more easily access amenities such as pools, spas and fitness centers without the hefty overnight price tag.

ResortPass offers some 900 brands such as the Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons and Westin and gives hotels free listings on its marketplace while charging a subscription for its SaaS software to manage access for day trippers.  

While some would argue the model removes the exclusivity for overnight guests, the startup’s business model is to monetize underutilized inventory and work with these hotels to determine price points on par with the caliber of the services and amenities.    

ResortPass has also received backing by Airbnb’s syndicate, AirAngels, with the intention to grow new market access for travelers wanting to tap into a destination’s day experiences.

The Series B funding round was co-led by Declaration Partners and 14W, bringing ResortPass’s total funding to $37 million. Early backer CRV also participated in the financing, along with new investors such as William Morris Endeavor, Adam Grant and Brian Kelly of The Points Guy.

Predominantly focused on U.S. destinations, ResortPass’ recent expansion covers the Caribbean, Mexico and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. With its newly acquired funding, ResortPass expects to expand its partnerships into Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. 

Booking.com expanded the geographic reach of its tours and activities offerings in Asia by entering a long-term strategic partnership with Klook, Booking.com announced Monday.

“Klook experiences are now live in over 175 cities, across over 30 markets on Booking.com, and the majority of these are available in Asia and Oceania,” Booking.com stated as it cited Klook as “the category leader for experiences in Asia.”

Booking.com is headquartered in Amsterdam, and Klook is based in Singapore.

Booking.com already had provider agreements with TUI’s Musement, based in Europe, and Tripadvisor’s Viator, which is headquartered in the U.S.

Booking.com sister company Priceline last week announced that it, too, hooked up with Musement to access tours and activities.

Nearly three dozen tours and activities operators, reservation systems, and distributors debuted a non-profit association geared to formulate connectivity standards.

The 501c3 association, Open Connectivity for Tours, Activities & Attractions intends to promote an open source specification “to enable reservation and ticketing system providers and tour, activity and attraction ticket sellers to connect their systems for more efficient distribution,” the group announced Tuesday.

Founding members of the group include Arival, Checkfront, Gateway Ticketing Systems, Go City, Holibob, Peek, Tiqets, TUI Musement, Ventrata, Xola and Zaui.

Several major booking platforms, including Viator, GetYourGuide, Klook, Booking.com and Expedia weren’t part of the launch announcement.

Airbnb mothballed its experiences business — and ceased investing in hotels — at the beginning of the pandemic, but CEO Brian Chesky said earlier this week that Airbnb will begin to invest in its experiences business again in 2023 after a two-year pause.

“It’s ready to invest like significantly in this business again,” he said.

Trotting out another e-commerce buzzword after discussing funnels, namely “flywheels,” Chesky argued that Airbnb’s homes and experiences businesses would invigorate each other.

“We have some really exciting things in the roadmap,” Chesky said, including for 2023. “And I think that experience is a great flywheel for homes because, again, the number one thing in travel is you want to have direct traffic, booking something unique that you can’t find anywhere else.”

Booking.com: Attractions Won’t Be a ‘Huge Money Spinner’

Booking Holdings Chief Financial Officer David Goulden, speaking at an Evercore technology conference September 8, noted that the company transitioned from a “homegrown acquisition strategy” for tours and activities — when it acquired Fareharbor in 2018 — to a partnerships model, such as through deals with TUI Musement and Viator.

He added that the market size and transaction values for attractions are not as substantial as for accommodations or flights.

“So I don’t think it will be a huge money spinner for us, but it’s certainly something that will create, I think, a lot of value for our customers, therefore, something we want to continue to focus on,” Goulden said.

Ted Clements, FareHarbor’s acting CEO who served as chief operating officer for the last three years, will step down from these positions in September, Skift has learned.

Staff was informed of the move Tuesday, and no replacement has been named. Clements plans to stay in Amsterdam, headquarters for sister company Booking.com, and may pursue new opportunities, according to the announcement.

Rob Ransom, senior vice president, global strategy and business development for Booking Holdings, made the internal announcement, and said he would play a more active role in FareHarbor.

FareHarbor more than doubled its revenue during the years Clements served as chief operating officer, according to the announcement.

Tours and activities are key to Booking Holdings’ connected trip strategy, which aims to provide a hassle-free travel experience throughout the journey.

Booking Holdings acquired FareHarbor, a tours and activities technology and distribution platform, in 2018 for $139 milliion net of cash acquired and $110 million in stock.

FareHarbor co-founders Lawrence Hester and brother Zachary Hester left Booking Holdings in July 2021. Max Valverde, who served as FareHarbor CEO from 2019 to 2021, likewise left Booking at that time.

FareHarbor’s strategy has evolved over the last few years, evolving from an exclusively build-your-own strategy model in the early days under Booking Holdings to include FareHarbor outsourcing some of that work to partners such as TUI’s Musement and Viator in recent years.

The changing of the guard at FareHarbor comes as Google is getting more aggressive in building its own “things to do” business with an emphasis on big attractions. Booking engines such as FareHarbor and Peek participate in Google’s offering.

Watch out for updates.