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Booking.com has curated a collection of distinctive stays, including ryokans in Hakone, Japan, cave hotels in Matera, Italy, riads in Essaouira, Morocco, overwater villas in the Maldives, and shepherd's huts in Somerset, UK. The report notes 89% of travelers are interested in alternative accommodations.
Expensify has launched its Expensify Visa Commercial Card in the UK and select European markets including Spain, Ireland, Poland, and the Netherlands. The card offers real-time spend visibility, auto-categorization, spend controls, virtual cards, daily or monthly settlement, VAT support, and accounting integrations. Issued by Transact Payments, it supports GBP, EUR, or USD business bank accounts with no minimums, deposits, or credit checks. Users can save up to 50% on Expensify subscription.
GetGoing, BCD's travel and expense management platform for SMBs, announced expanded capabilities and growth across North America and Europe. Enhancements include NDC airline content, expanded hotel inventory, and direct rail connections with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, and UK rail providers, enabling in-platform booking. The platform can be implemented in under two hours and supports guest and non-employee bookings, leveraging BCD's global buying power and localized service.
Travelport and Air Zimbabwe have signed a multi-year distribution agreement that returns the airline to global distribution for the first time in over a decade. Air Zimbabwe's content will be available through Travelport+ to agencies worldwide, with Travelport first to market with the airline's UM-validated content. The deal follows the live cutover of Air Zimbabwe's Crane Central Reservation System with Travelport. The carrier will launch direct Harare-London Gatwick flights on 22 July 2026, operating three times weekly with a 302-seat Airbus A330-300.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) updated its travel advice for Zimbabwe, with the latest update on 15 July 2026, adding information about direct flights between London and Harare. The advice emphasizes that no travel can be guaranteed safe and reminds travelers to read all advice and consider purchasing appropriate travel insurance to cover itinerary, planned activities, and emergency expenses. FCDO provides travel risk advice to help travelers make informed decisions.
Travelport and Turkish Airlines have signed a new multi-year distribution agreement that extends a partnership dating back to 1993 and includes NDC. Turkish Airlines' content will be available through Travelport+, including NDC-only fares and advanced merchandising capabilities, with an NDC go-live expected in a future phase. The deal also offers a reduced surcharge for NDC and enables rich visual content and ancillary merchandising. Agencies can access the content through Smartpoint and the TripServices cloud-native API platform.
Booking.com's Summer Getaway Report reveals 71% of Brits plan to visit new destinations, with Shanghai as the fastest-rising global destination (+88%). Interest in 'extreme' day trips is high, with 58% willing to travel round-trip in a day. Child-free escapes are rising, with 30% of parents preferring holidays without kids.
Phocuswright's Europe Consumer Travel Report 2026 reveals divergent behaviors among UK, French, and German travelers: UK travelers take more trips, Germans take fewer but spend more per trip, and France shows outsized demand for rentals, rail, car rental, and experience-led travel. Overall research decreases, with OTAs overtaking general search as the top research resource. AI usage is around 30-40%, but attitudes are polarized. Geopolitical concerns affect long-haul travel comfort, with about 40% feeling less comfortable visiting the US.
Startup Hotel Splitter has launched a hotel booking platform that compares traditional single-hotel stays with split-stay itineraries to identify cost savings. Launching first in London, it targets longer city breaks where nightly rates fluctuate. Founder Aaron Johal aims to make split stays a mainstream booking option and expand to other expensive urban markets.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) updated its Russia travel advice on 18 September 2026, maintaining its advice against all travel to Russia due to risks and threats from Russia's continuing invasion of Ukraine, including drone attacks and Russian air-defence activity, a lack of flights to return to the UK, and limited UK government support. The update highlights that drone attacks may lead to short-notice restrictions on airspace use and airport operations. The FCDO also notes an increased risk of British nationals being detained, Russia's record of holding foreign nationals as leverage, and extremely limited consular assistance. Travel insurance could be invalidated…
Travelport and travel technology SaaS company Travelsoft have completed an integration bringing Travelport's Trip Services API platform into the Travelsoft Group via Orchestra. Travelport's airline content, including both traditional EDIFACT and modern NDC, is now available within Orchestra and Travel Compositor, and will progressively extend to other group platforms including airQuest, Atcore, Tigerbay and Traffics. The move makes Travelport content available to more than 400 travel agencies across Europe.
Visa launched Visa Destinations, a travel platform for cardholders offering experiences, city guides, and travel benefits in 10 destinations: Paris, London, Dubai, Milan, Rome, Mexico City, New York City, Miami, San Francisco, and Thailand. The platform includes recommendations for dining, entertainment, culture, hospitality, wellness, shopping, and transport, with priority access to Top of the Rock and the Louvre. Visa Infinite and Signature cardholders receive additional benefits. Partners include Santander Group, Global Blue, Star Alliance, and Trip.com Group.
Travelport has introduced Air Canada Flight Pass capability within TripServices API and Smartpoint, enabling agencies to shop and book eligible Air Canada NDC offers using Flight Pass credits directly within the Travelport+ platform. Travelport says it is the first NDC GDS aggregator to implement Air Canada's Flight Pass credits. The capability removes the need to leave Smartpoint or rely on airline-direct channels to manage eligible Flight Pass bookings, and supports the associated payment and booking requirements.
Phocuswright's Europe Consumer Travel Report 2026 reveals that travelers in the UK, France, and Germany are doing less research than a year ago, and OTAs have overtaken general search as the primary online resource for planning trip components. AI remains a secondary tool but is growing quickly, particularly influencing destination choice. Country nuances: UK most active, France favors alternative accommodation and rail, Germany sees biggest increases in air travel and spend.
Perk research shows 20% of employees regularly misrepresent expenses, and 56% have done so at least once. 31% still submit manually via email or spreadsheet, with manual processes more prone to misrepresentation. AI-generated receipts account for 8%, highest in Germany. Perk suggests expanding corporate card access, reducing friction, and implementing proactive guardrails.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into Ryanair over a 'mandatory family seat' fee of around £8 charged to parents to sit with children aged 2-11. The CMA will assess whether the fee breaches consumer law and whether the total price is obscured during booking.
Travelport has formally launched TripServices, its cloud-native API platform and the engine powering the next generation of travel experiences. The platform normalises and curates content across multiple sources from a single connection, ranks content dynamically using machine learning and includes embedded orchestration. It is already live with Travelport's growing partner base, with air, hotel and ancillary content flowing through it. TripServices is also the platform through which Travelport's collaboration with Cognizant and Anthropic takes effect, bringing AI capability into the workflows travel builders and agencies rely on.
Perk (formerly TravelPerk) announced the close of a $300 million private credit facility led by Neuberger Specialty Finance, with Blue Owl Capital, Hercules Capital, and Liquidity. Proceeds will accelerate investment in product, technology, and AI, supporting global expansion including the upcoming US launch of its integrated spend platform. Perk grew revenue 48% in 2025, surpassing $300 million in annualized revenue, with gross margins improving from 40% to mid-70s.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) updated its Sri Lanka travel advice on 21 September 2026, adding information on heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides. Heavy rainfall during the inter-monsoon season has increased the risk of flooding and landslides across Sri Lanka, with possible disruption to transport and other services. Escalation in the Middle East has caused widespread travel disruption, including airspace closures, delayed and cancelled flights, affecting plans even if the destination is not in the Middle East. Some flights from Colombo to the UK via Middle Eastern hubs may be delayed, postponed, or re-routed. The Government of Sri Lanka is limiting fuel purc…
Meadin Research released its June 2026 housing rental industry development report. The report shows that the rental market entered its peak season in June, with rents recovering in key cities and accelerated entry of affordable rental housing and talent apartments. Global rents showed mixed performance: US rents rose for the fifth consecutive month, Canada's decline narrowed, while the UK and Germany maintained growth. In China, Beijing and Shanghai rents both reached 96 yuan per square meter per month. On policy, MOHURD optimized provident fund rental withdrawal rules, and Beijing introduced measures such as no-invoice withdrawals. On corporate dynamics, REITs and ABS financing innovations…
Meadin Research released the July 2026 housing rental industry development report. In July, the State Council approved the '15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption', incorporating housing consumption into a national consumption plan for the first time. Global rents showed divergence: US median rent was $1,388 (up 0.2% MoM), Canada average rent was C$2,036 (down 4.0% YoY), UK average rent was £1,369 (up 4.3% YoY). In China, Beijing and Shanghai rents remained high at RMB 101 and RMB 94 per sqm per month respectively. The industry continued its mainline of 'revitalizing existing stock, state-owned leadership, and financial closure', with CCB Housing Rental Fund's RMB 5 billion ABS secon…
Expedia Group released its Unpack '26 Summer report, showing domestic travel demand dominates summer holiday planning, with global social conversation up 77% YoY and 45% of Britons more interested in UK breaks. The report highlights trends like hotel hopping, sports event divergence, and set-jetting, along with top destinations and international cities with lower hotel rates.
OneReg, an aviation compliance platform, secured $4.4 million in Series A funding co-led by Alterned Capital and Co:Act Capital. The funds will accelerate expansion into the UK and Europe, and boost sales, customer success, and product development. Founded in New Zealand in 2020, OneReg is used by airlines and airports across New Zealand, Australia, the Middle East, and the US, with triple-digit revenue growth.
Online travel agency Trip.com announced a pilot with IATA to use digital identities stored in Google Wallet and Apple Wallet to autofill booking details, reducing friction and errors. The pilot was announced at IATA's Airline Global Conference in Amsterdam, with Air Canada, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, and digital identity platform Hopae expected to participate. Future rollout may include U.S. and U.K. users. IATA says digital identity is key to seamless travel and plans a new PoC in China.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office updated its Belarus travel advice, continuing to advise against all travel due to a significant risk of arrest for activity now considered illegal by the Belarusian regime and a low risk that conflict linked to the war in Ukraine may spread to Belarus. It also notes UK government support would be severely limited if conflict starts, and that Belarus does not recognise dual nationality.