CONNECTED TRAVELLER

A new player in the business travel sector is entering the French market: BTravel offers a new business travel management solution, integrating hotel, restaurant and meeting room reservations. All within a comprehensive tool, covering content, booking, payment, invoicing and reporting.

KDS is launching a new technological solution to provide a better framework for the company's travel policy (PVE): KDS Maverick, which calls to order business travellers who are about to leave the preferred booking channels.

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts is upgrading its mobile offering, announcing the launch of an iPhone application on 2 August.

On 2 August, Iberia launched its new self-check-in system at Madrid-Barajas airport to speed up check-in for business travellers and improve customer take-up of the service.

"Roaming": in English as in French, the result is the same: an explosion in costs for businesses, which have to deal with increasingly connected business travellers and ever-increasing bills. A CCMI study commissioned by Truphone, a service provider specialising in reducing these costs, highlights the scale of the problem.

Aéroports de Paris (ADP) is improving its "My Way" geolocation application by extending its scope outside the terminals to guide business travellers and tourists around the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport complex. A move billed as a world first.

Translink NI railways, which operates in Northern Ireland, has decided to launch free Wi-Fi access on board its trains to attract mobile professionals.

Cebu Pacific has also announced plans for an in-flight Wi-Fi connection, to be offered to the airline's business travellers from next year.

Etihad Airways is launching a new range of online services to make it easier for travellers to manage their journeys via the airline's website.

Toulouse airport is making WiFi access free and unlimited from 2 July: good news for local business travellers, or those on business trips to the pink city.

Delta Air Lines is stepping up the pace on in-flight connectivity, announcing the extension of its Wi-Fi offer to its international network for 2013.

A new air fare comparison service has arrived on the market, with a revised ambition: to establish itself as the "comparator of all comparators", while at the same time denigrating the performance of Google Flight Search.

Amadeus' rail strategy is moving ahead at high speed: the GDS has just formalised a worldwide distribution agreement with Trenitalia, with a view to distributing the Italian carrier's content via all Amadeus channels.