In the news: This week we feature Skyscanner’s findings on flight booking, Gfk’s collaboration with Abacus, Travelport’s partnership with Biman Bangladesh Airlines and Jet Asia Airways
Book flights at the right time to get the best fares: Skyscanner
Know when to book flights to get the cheapest fares. (Image credit: Palto/iStock)
Global travel search company, Skyscanner, has released its latest findings on the best time to book flights, which revealed Singaporeans who wish to increase their chances of getting the cheapest fares in 2015 should typically book flight seven weeks before departure.
According to the company, the results were the analysis of the last three years’ of data, and over 250 million prices booked, said Skyscanner.
The study also found that the best time to book varies from destination to destination. Example: Indonesia should be booked 18 weeks in advance to get good fares, while for destinations further away like Taiwan there should be a lead booking time of 20 weeks.
Pamela Knaggs, Singapore marketing manager at Skyscanner, advised caution when booking close to departure. “Although for some destinations the best prices may be available just 18 weeks prior to departure, prices can be quite volatile so customers need to understand that they may be taking a gamble by leaving booking too close to their departure date.”
Skyscanner has created an interactive tool, which allows travellers to see when is the best time to book for the most popular destinations from Singapore, along with the cheapest bookable prices.
GfK, Abacus collaborate on big data analysis
GfK’s Van Den Oever (left) & Abacus’ Francois-Marie Saad shaking on a partnership.
Abacus has signed an agreement with GfK to advance the analytics available to the travel industry in Asia Pacific by supplying anonymised booking data for the specialist GfK Travelscan report.
GfK will receive a feed of the aggregated weekly live bookings of participating Abacus agents, initially based in Singapore, to produce a set of predictive analytics, which would help to refine travel retail strategy for the sector.
Laurens Van Den Oever, global industry lead, travel & hospitality for GfK, said the partnership “will help to scale the robustness and representation of GfK Travelscan, while offering added value to the Abacus client base.”
Rani Francois-Marie Saad, vice president for Abacus Ventures and corporate development, added: “It is an opportune time for exploring multi-faceted ways of improving market intelligence through the GfK Travelscan to allow better predictions and in-depth knowledge of travel consumption in the APAC travel industry for travel agents.”
The Abacus agreement follows a recent commitment from the National Association of Travel Agents Singapore (NATAS) to share with GfK its members’ weekly consolidated live booking data, with similar aims.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Jet Asia Airways fly on to Travelport’s platform
Expanded partnership – Biman Bangladesh Airlines & Travelport.
Travelport has expanded its partnership with Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Bangladesh’s national flag carrier, which will give the former 67,000 connected travel agencies access to Biman’s full content including international, domestic and group bookings, as well as select ancillaries such as paid seating and extra baggage.
Travelport said the flexibility of domestic and group bookings is of particular relevance for travel agents in Bangladesh, as they cater to a large number of group travelers such as contract workers and Muslim Haj pilgrims flying out of the country.
Biman sees the expanded partnership as a strategic leverage on its matching growth drivers as Travelport’s strong presence in Asia and the Middle East mirrors its most important destinations.
In a related development, Travelport also signed a new agreement with Bangkok-based Jet Asia Airways for global distribution, utilising its Rich Content and Branding solution.
Jet Asia is the latest airline to commit to this solution, a key component of the Travelport Travel Commerce Platform that allows airlines to market and retail their products more effectively by controlling how their product is visually presented and described to travel agents.
The solution is designed to enable partner airlines and other travel content providers to use more sophisticated retailing techniques to drive sales of both core fares, as well as ancillaries and “optional extras” such as bags and lounge passes.
The post The Wrap: Book flights at the right time to get the best fares: Skyscanner appeared first on WIT.