Cookbook: Round Up of Travel & Tech #21
Good Tuesday morning, world!
I am sure all of you have followed the Oxi argument over Greece’s referendum last week, so let’s skip that and not cover it here — fun fact at the end. Just a side note that the debate around the vote and what to do included not only politicians and financial analysts, but quite a few of the tech community luminaries and VCs.
So, we stay in the tech and travel realm — here we go, light and fresh today.
Non-Travel Starters
Apple makes us love music again with a simple, easy to navigate, and quite delightful upgrade to Apple Music. The craft is outstanding and the radio stations, some of which are human-curated, work well. Experience it for yourself — if you want to know how to control it better with Siri, here’s an article that covers the basics. Link.
After some shuffles in the ranks of the mapping unit at Microsoft, Satya’s team releases a cool upgrade to how Bing Maps work. Nicely done. Maybe a sign that while the underlying data might not be own by the tech giant, the UI and UX will be and that’s not an area to write off for Microsoft. Link.
India’s startup ecosystem is expected to hit 11,500 by 2020. A great overview of what’s being build, who’s investing in it and what the trends are — notice Yuri Millner’s DST and Tiger on top of the companies plugging cash into the massive emerging market. Hat Tip: David Low. Link.
Snacks
While Amadeus and Lufthansa have a go at it in the media, based on LH’s decision to add EUR 16 per ticket sold via the GDSs, the Global Distribution System bought Navitaire, a res system provider, for $830M. That’s significant, as the consolidation in the GDS industry continues (Sabre bought the remaining part of Abacus just a few days ago). With Navitaire, Amadeus is on track to power the reservation systems of scheduled and low cost carriers alike, probably pushing it’s market share in that area to more than 50% — smart move. Link.
Travelport also emerges with a good story, as it closes a contract with Alitrip, Alibaba’s travel arm. The travel platform will use Tports shopping and pricing tools. Link.
Priceline continues it spread in the emerging markets via investments. After Ctrip, it now boasts a minority stake in Brazil’s Hotel Urbano. The presence cost the travel copmany just $60M. Link.
After 57 years, the US and Cuba are restarting their diplomatic relations and opening up a great market for tourism. Airlines are not slow to jump on the trend — JetBlue opens its fourth direct flight to Cuba, this time from New York. Link.
In a great piece, the WSJ covers how US airlines have increased seat capacity, but reduced flight frequency, thus squeezing in more people on a flight for a higher price. Link.
Dessert
$2.8 Trillion. Value lost from the Chinese stock market in just over two weeks. Link.
€1,928,547. The amount of money raised to pay Greece’s debt on Indiegogo. Crowdsourcing the fund via technology and voluntary contributions, instead of taxes. Link.
11,507. Number of Tesla Model S cars delivered in the second quarter, exceeding guidance. Nice one.
Some Cool Reading/Watching
Push APIs and their importance — a good piece from Skyscanner’s very own Peter Mills on Tnooz. 3 min. Link.
One of the posts on Medium that is making quite a bit of noise is @Ev’s 4-min read on ‘When to Sell Your Company?’. Link.
Pitching to an investor soon? Learn from the best and their pitch decks — Alexander Jarvis has collected a massive list of all available pitch decks, featuring companies like AirBnB, Buzzfeed, and Mixpanel. Forever long, forever interesting. Link.
Another list, this time to satisfy your desire to learn. 37 sites to learn something new is a great resource to pick new skills. Short list, long training. Link.
*** Expressed views and opinions are my own.
