Holiday Inn Express in Australia and New Zealand has launched the world's first Breakfast Pillow, with built-in speakers playing breakfast sounds as white noise to help guests sleep. The pillow offers four tracks inspired by Australians' most comforting breakfast sounds. The experience is available from August 19 to November 30, 2026.
Hampton by Hilton launched its first guest-created waffle flavor, Peach Cobbler, available at nearly 2,500 hotels in the U.S. and Canada for a limited time. The flavor was created by Kaylee Voight, winner of the inaugural Guest Waffle Boss competition. Research shows 42% of travelers say a great hotel breakfast makes them happy before hitting the road.
Perk, an AI-native travel and spend platform, launched Entry Ready, the first integrated workflow for eVisa and ETA payments at the point of booking. It proactively surfaces visa requirements from passport profiles and allows application and payment without leaving Perk, covering over 60 destinations via partnership with Sherpa.
EASA has introduced a new regulatory framework (Regulation EU 2026/781 and CS-FSTD Issue 1) modernizing the qualification of Flight Simulation Training Devices (FSTDs). The framework replaces fixed types with a capability-based system, introduces the FSTD Capability Signature (FCS), supports emerging technologies like touchscreen and XR, and offers optional task-to-tool training. Implementation support begins late 2026.
The FAA and EASA reaffirmed their commitment to cooperation at the 2026 International Safety Conference, focusing on information sharing, Safety Management Systems, automated flightdeck technologies, cybersecurity, and more. They will meet regularly to review progress, supporting innovation while maintaining public confidence.
SAP Concur recaps 2025 innovations, including general availability of Joule AI assistant, Receipt Analysis Agent, Complete unified solution with Amex GBT, Microsoft Teams integration, enhanced Uber for Business integration, new NetSuite connector, support for over 90 languages, and more. These updates aim to improve travel and expense management efficiency, compliance, and user experience.
SAP Concur explores how to leverage financial data to drive innovation. The article emphasizes the need to consolidate disparate spending data, centralize it through automated spend management systems, and use AI to analyze trends and improve efficiency. Industry benchmarks, leading indicators, and lagging indicators help businesses measure performance and identify innovation opportunities.
This SAP Concur blog post argues that innovation is often hindered by manual expense and travel processes. It recommends leveraging automation, gaining full financial visibility, and fostering a supportive environment to free employees for creative work. It cites a PwC survey where 93% of executives believe innovation drives revenue growth, and notes that 55% of small business owners see current tech as a hindrance to adopting new technologies.
SAP Concur held the Spike Global Hackathon finals on January 30, 2018, where 12 teams from around the world out of over 100 competed. Projects ranged from visualization tools using machine learning to predict expense and travel trends, to bot assistants that speed up expense processes. To date, internal hackathons at SAP Concur have generated over 200 hacks, some of which have been integrated into internal toolchains and customer products. Team Constructors won with an event-based batch job approach, achieving 50% less instance utilization.
The article highlights SMB contributions to the U.S. economy: between 1993 and 2011, small businesses accounted for 64% of new jobs created; high-patenting small firms had 16 times more patents per employee than larger counterparts; locally owned businesses boost community economies more than national chains; and the share of women-, Latino-, African-American-, and Asian-owned businesses increased. It calls for celebrating SMBs on Small Business Saturday and every day.
SAP Concur was named the Most Admired Technology Company in business travel for the seventh consecutive year. The article highlights innovations including expanded Concur Locate safety features, embedded Airbnb listings in Concur Travel, Slack bots, and the Budget solution.
A SAP Concur blog post discusses intersectionality as a corporate strength during Pride month. It defines intersectionality as the systemic oppression and discrimination arising from overlapping social identities such as race, gender, sexuality, and class. The author, a first-generation immigrant with Latino, Central Native American, and European background, an LGBTQ+ community member, and child of a U.S. military veteran, explains how an intersectional perspective fosters empathy, self-awareness of bias, and identification of planning blind spots. The article recommends storytelling in interviews to let candidates present their authentic selves and stresses recognizing conscious and uncons…