Skift Travel News Blog

Rising airfares and travel costs are prompting legal professionals involved in dispute resolutions to return to video conferencing.

That’s according to a National Law Review article, which has highlighted how virtual proceedings are coming back after being used during the pandemic. International arbitration centers and courts became comfortable with the virtual format during lockdowns, with protocols developed and vetted, the article said.

“Virtual hearings save money (and they’re here to stay,)” argues IMS Consulting & Expert Services, in its opinion piece titled “Global Dispute Resolution: The Future of Virtual Legal Proceedings Is Shaped by Soaring Travel Costs.”

“International travel is expensive, and the virtual option means that it is no longer necessary to count travel as a ‘cost of doing business’ when pursuing an international dispute,” it said.

It’s a compelling cost saver for all parties, it argues — and the consultancy says it’s run the numbers.

International Business Travel Expenses & Travel Time to London for One Legal Proceeding

Source: National Law Review

It’s compared costs for in-person attendance, with the example of a business travel cost profile for an international arbitration hearing taking place in London and involving three U.S. attorneys, two Paris attorneys, two local witnesses, and three litigation support personnel.

The average business trip to London is 5.8 days, during which these travelers will require accommodations for 5 nights, food for 6 days, and ground transportation for 6 days.

“The cost of travel time can be as much or more than the cost of flights to attend an international arbitration or other legal hearing,” the articles states. “Spending many hours traveling to and returning from the various steps of an international proceeding is not only an expense for a client, but productivity is also lost for the legal professionals involved.”

How many other industries will be considering similar number-crunching exercises?

The Philadelphia Phillies came up short in the World Series this month against the Houston Astros, but the city’s tourism industry emerged as a big winner from the team’s unexpected postseason success.

Philadelphia attracted 34,000 overnight visitors during the Phillies’ three-week playoff run, representing 35,000 hotel room nights, according to data provider Tourism Economics. The average hotel occupancy rate in Center City Philadelphia hit 90 percent during the World Series, a number the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association said is a 20 percentage point increase from its usual figure in late October and early November.

“This was a big win for Philadelphia and its tourism and hospitality sector, especially the city’s restaurants, staff, and their staff who were positively impacted by the Phillies postseason run,” said Larry Needle, executive director of PHL Sports, a business development arm of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The organization announced on Thursday that the eight playoff games the Phillies hosted this postseason at Citizens Bank Park injected $78 million into Philadelphia’s economy, including $49 million in direct spend in the city.

A U.S. hotel tech company with equity backing has acquired a booking engine based in Ireland. 

Houston-based Sceptre Hospitality Resources said Thursday that it has acquired Avvio. 

The private equity firm Serent Capital made an undisclosed “significant investment” in Sceptre Hospitality Resources in 2020. The Avvio acquisition was funded through that investment, Sceptre said. 

Sceptre provides hotel tech including symptoms for central reservation, customer relationship management, and revenue management. The company works with more than 1,500 hotels, driving 6.6 million bookings each year.  

Founded in 2002, Avvio launched its artificial intelligence-powered booking engine in 2017. The company also offers digital marketing and website design services. The booking engine, allora.ai, provides tech to more than 500 hotels globally and handles more than 400 million bookings each year. 

The deal will integrate the allora.ai tech into the Sceptre systems, the companies said. 

“Together, they will deliver an incredibly personalized customer purchase journey at every stage in the customer lifecycle,” said Rod Jimenez, Sceptre CEO, in a statement. 

California-based RedAwning announced it acquired channel manager Lexicon Travel Technologies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Channel managers have tech systems to assist accommodations in distributing their properties to websites such as Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking, and sometimes to global distribution systems, among other outlets.

“After we made the decision to sell our business, we looked for a company that would create true synergies with our existing value proposition,” said Joel Inman, CEO and founder of Lexicon. “As I got to know the RedAwning platform, I realized they have already solved many of the technical challenges Lexicon has been facing. RedAwning brings true technology and automation to channel management that delivers value through higher conversion with essentially zero manual work.”

RedAwning has a portfolio of some 15,000 managed and independent short-term rentals in North America, and already provides channel management services as it places them on websites such as Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia, Homes & Villas by Marriott International, and Google Travel.

RedAwning hopes to pick up the channel management client roster of Lexicon Travel Technologies, which is headquartered in Park City, Utah. RedAwning is buying Lexicon’s channel management tech.

RedAwning said most of Lexicon’s clients have already related their intentions to use Red Awning for channel management.

“The transitions will be seamless for all of our new clients, as RedAwning already supports all of the same PMS (Property Management System) platforms as Lexicon and all of the channels too, as well as many more for Lexicon clients to join,” said RedAwning CEO Tim Choate in the announcement.

Earlier this week, property management tech company TravelNet Solutions said it acquired Rented, a revenue management company focusing on short-term rentals.

Nick Jones said on Wednesday that he would step down from being CEO of Membership Collective Group nearly three decades since he founded the original Soho House that eventually led to the creation of the public company and owner of the Soho House chain.

Andrew Carnie, president of Membership Collective Group, will succeed Jones as CEO.

Jones battled prostate cancer earlier this year successfully but said he now wants a change of life priorities.

On Wednesday the company cut its guidance for this year’s adjusted earnings from between $70 million and $80 million to between $55 million and $60 million. The company also said it would scale back on its growth ambitions by cutting costs across all its operations, refocusing the business back to its core of Soho House properties vs other extensions such as Ned, Scorpios, its digital memberships, and most importantly cutting back on plans to open nine properties this year to instead only opening between five and seven, including delaying planned venues in Mexico City and Bangkok until next year. It is also cutting down its in-house digital content unit by 40 percent, it said.

More on its cuts, from its earnings call: ” To give members the best possible experience and to ensure reduced pressure on the organization, we are returning to our previous target of five to seven new houses a year, and this is in line with our already signed pipeline for the next three years. At the same time, our cities at houses offer will continue to provide a clear path for longer-term growth at a minimal expense to the company. As part of prioritizing the right investments for our business and our members, we are no longer pursuing the external digital membership…We are reducing our in-house operating expenses. Post COVID, we rush to get all our houses open as quickly as possible in the manner we were used to operating them. In addition, it was a tough and unpredictable labor market, which means our costs increased significantly. What we’ve learned is our members are using our houses just as much, but at different times, so we’re adjusting our cost base accordingly….we’re refocusing our G&A with targeted reductions on content, digital and other corporate expenses, without impacting the member experience. For example, we are reducing our editorial content spend by about 40% going forward. We can raise prices, but the real opportunity is to run a more efficient business.”

The group went public in 2021. Its shares lost about two-thirds of their value this year after the company’s post-pandemic recovery ran up against the pressure of inflation, unfavorable foreign exchange rates, and sudden layoffs in the tech sector.

In the third quarter, revenues at Membership Collective rose 48 percent to $266 million, while the company’s net losses widened from $77 million to $91.7 million. Its net debt rose from $326.2 million to $462.6 million.

The news of the company scaling back its growth trajectory helped to send Membership Collective shares down by roughly 18 percent.

The company owns dozens of Soho House clubs, plus The Ned hotel in London and New York, and the Scorpios beach club in Greece.

Property management tech company TravelNet Solutions has acquired vacation rental revenue management company Rented.

The two companies informed their respective customers about the deal. They didn’t disclosed the purchase price. Rented, founded in 2012, had raised a roughly $2 million seed round.

Founder and CEO Andrew McConnell said he would stay on with Minnesota-based TravelNet Solutions to further build the product.

“Rented’s Automated Rate Tool (Art) is a powerful and flexible pricing tool,” TravelNet Solutions CEO Ryan Bailey informed customers. “This technology will enhance Track’s functionality and value while giving our Track customers unprecedented control and insights related to pricing. As guests look to stretch their travel dollar even further, price sensitivity will only increase, making these features essential for our customers.”

Visit Iceland launched a new campaign to attract space tourists on Tuesday. Called “Mission Iceland,” the campaign kicked off on November 16 with the launch of a billboard into space with the message: “Iceland. Better than Space.”

The campaign targets the space tourist segment and encourages them to see Iceland an alternative destination to travel. Visit Iceland didn’t name any companies, but it cited the ongoing delays for space travel. Virgin Galactic announced in August that it had to delay its first space tourist mission trip to the second quarter of 2023 due to needed ship enhancements.

“We know there is likely frustration amongst aspiring space travelers who have had their trips delayed and don’t yet know when they will make it to outer space,” said Visit Iceland Head Sigríður Dögg Guðmundsdóttir. “That is why we are encouraging them to take a trip much closer to home instead and for a fraction of the price, and the carbon footprint.”

JetBlue Airways will land on the European continent next summer with new flights to Paris.

The New York-based carrier will first connect its New York JFK base to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, with additional nonstop flights from Boston planned in the future. The addition of the City of Lights to JetBlue’s map will come two years after it entered the transatlantic market with service to London in August 2021.

As with JetBlue’s entrance on the crowded New York-London route, the airline hopes to similarly disrupt the New York-Paris market by offering a more affordable premium option with its lie-flat Mint business class product. But Paris is different than London, La Compagnie already offers a more affordable premium product between Newark and Paris Orly; an option that was not available in the New York-London market. JetBlue also faces competition from Air France, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, French Bee, and United Airlines, Diio by Cirium schedule data show.

“So far, it has been fantastic,” JetBlue President Joanna Geraghty said of the airline’s London flights at the Skift Global Forum in September. “Load factors have been through the roof, and I’d say it’s pretty tough to get a Mint seat flying across the pond.”

Competition won’t be JetBlue’s only challenge on its new Paris route. Production issues at planemaker Airbus have delayed the delivery of new A321LR aircraft that the airline needs for its transatlantic routes. The situation forced JetBlue to fly less optimized aircraft on select London flights this summer and fall.

It’s not often that travelers have something to look forward to at Newark Liberty International Airport. The new $2.7 billion Terminal A will open in December, the latest in a series of major airport projects opening around the U.S. this year.

The first 21 gates of the 33-gate facility will open on December 8, officials said Tuesday. The remaining gates open in 2023. Air Canada, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways, and United Airlines will operate from the terminal initially, and Delta Air Lines will join them next year. The old Terminal A, which opened in 1973, will be demolished.

The last new terminal to open at Newark airport was Terminal C in 1988.

United, which has a large hub at Newark, will use up to 15 gates in the new Terminal A. The airline plans to operate flights to around 23 destinations — including to Atlanta, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, San Diego, and Seattle-Tacoma — from the facility, Newark Chief Pilot Captain Fabian Garcia said in September.

The new terminal at Newark is the latest in a series of big airport investments around the U.S. this year. New or expanded facilities at Denver, Los Angeles, New York LaGuardia, Orlando, Phoenix Sky Harbor, Seattle-Tacoma, and Washington Dulles airports have all opened in recent months.

Construction of Terminal A at Newark began in 2018.

Silkhaus, a United Arab Emirates-based platform for short-term rentals, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $7.75 million in a seed funding round.

Following this investment, Silkhaus has said it will accelerate its expansion across Middle East and North Africa region, as well as in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The company had earlier identified a $13 billion target market in these regions.

Having raised its seed round, the company said in statement that it would will focus on growing global supply on its platform. Silkhaus anticipates its market opportunity to grow to $18 billion by 2026, across Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. 

Investors joining this round included Dubai-based Nuwa Capital, London-based Nordstar Partners, Berlin’s Global Founders Capital, Singapore-based Yuj Ventures, India’s Whiteboard Capital, and VentureSouq from Dubai.

Highlighting the global rise of short-term rentals, Aahan Bhojani, CEO and founder of Silkhaus, noted that the management of such properties is highly fragmented and largely offline as property owners lack the technology and know-how to deliver a world-class and standardised experience.

“We are building the operating system for property owners — large or small — to operate high quality short-term rentals,” Bhojani said.

Skift had earlier in an article highlighted how the tourism boom in the United Arab Emirates has allowed short-term rentals to thrive.

The Dubai-based company calls itself a platform that builds cutting-edge technology to provide asset owners with tools to monetise and manage their properties as short-term rentals.

Coming out of stealth mode, Silkhaus, founded in 2021, claims to have grown over 10 times through the past 12 months.

The company has said that it will grow the supply of properties on its platform, with a focus on hiring extensively for technology and strategic roles.