In the News: Of partnerships, music, people and achievements featuring Macao, Culture Trip, Travelport, Singapore Tourism Board, Spotify and Sabre
Destination: Macao launches international digital campaign in partnership with Culture Trip
Culture Trip shows visitors what is unique and special about a place.
London-based media startup Culture Trip is working with Tourism Macao to tell the story of the destination’s fascinating heritage and culture through original videos, photo essays and articles available across its website and app.
Culture Trip said Tourism Macao is the latest destination partner it is working with to reach a culturally curious audience through leveraging the content of its online guide. As part of the international campaign the partnership will also showcase the best places to discover and try local specialities.
Dick Soule, chief revenue officer at Culture Trip, said its multimedia content would provide an insight into the territory’s colourful culture and highlight local places to try Portuguese egg tarts or African Chicken.
“Culture Trip is all about sharing what is unique and special about a place; this partnership is a great example of how we can really help a destination to tell their authentic story to potential visitors, through the Culture Trip lens.”
Founded by former academic psychiatrist Dr. Kris Naudts, Culture Trip uses creativity and technology to show potential visitors what is unique and special about a place, as well as to inspire them to explore culture around the world. It publishes over 3,000 articles every month enhanced by videos to provide recommendations on culture, travel and food. Its video content, a big driver of its growth, has almost 2 billion views and its app has been downloaded 1.3 million times. It also boasts 18 million unique visitors to its website every month, and a social media following of more than seven million.
People: Mark Meehan leads Travelport’s newly formed APACMEA region as MD
Mark Meehan takes on new role as MD APACMEA for Travelport.
Travelport has formed a new regional grouping comprising Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APACMEA), and has appointed Mark Meehan as the managing director.
Meehan has held a range of high-profile global and regional roles in his 19 years with the travel commerce company. He was most recently managing director of Travelport’s Asia Pacific operations. Prior to that, he was with Travelport Africa in the same role and was responsible for growing the company’s share across the continent and establishing owned operations in both South Africa and Kenya
Before his time in Africa, Meehan was senior vice president of global operations at Travelport. He was also the vice president of finance and acquisition, where he led the integration of several businesses acquired in countries including the United Kingdom, Italy and Denmark.
In his new role Meehan will focus on bringing greater alignment across Travelport’s operations in APACMEA, a region the company views as having “substantial growth opportunities”.
Based in Singapore, he will also regularly work from Travelport’s office in Dubai, which acts as the company’s sub-regional headquarters for the Middle East and Africa.
Travel: “Beat it” – marketing Singapore through music
Listen to the Beats of Singapore to discover what the city-state has to offer. (Image credit: beer5020/iStock-Getty Images)
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is known for its unique marketing strategies to sell the city-state, one of which is “Passion Made Possible” that emphasises on people, not places, who make Singapore unique. Now it is turning to “the universal language of music” to in its latest campaign.
For this latest promotional effort STB is coming together with music streaming subscription service, Spotify, to get people to groove to the Beats of Singapore. The campaign, which rolls out this month and continues until December, aims to connect the Spotify community around Southeast Asia with the island country “through music and shared passions.”
Spotify users on the island country Singapore can participate in the campaign’s first phase by recommending songs to the Beats of Singapore microsite. These recommendations will be matched to STB’s passion tribes (part of its Passion Made Possible marketing campaign), which group consumers based on their lifestyles, interests and what they travel for. For example, Socialisers in Singapore would likely share their favourite nightlife and entertainment spots, paired with tracks that convey the energy of a party in Singapore.
In the next phase Spotify users from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam will be invited to visit the microsite. There they will be assigned a suggested “passion tribe profile” based on their favourite playlists derived from Spotify’s unique data insights that studies music preferences and listening habits. They can then check out the Singapore soundscape and the recommendations on what to do or see in the city, download itineraries for a trip to Singapore, as well as make their own recommendations to those who share their passions.
STB and Spotify will also jointly curate destination-themed playlists featuring Singapore’s artists and music.
“We are thrilled to have embarked on this partnership with Spotify, that will not only help STB widen our reach, but also bring to the table an abundance of new and interesting insights on how we can better engage our visitors through music,” said Jacqueline Ng, STB’s director of marketing partnerships & planning.
Technology: Sabre achieves IATA Level 3 NDC certification, expands Beyond NDC programme
It’s IATA Level 3 NDC certification for Sabre. (Image credit: ViewApart/iStock-Getty Images)
Sabre has been designated NDC-Certified Level 3 as an aggregator by IATA (International Air Transport Association), the organisation that launched the New Distribution Capability (NDC) data transmission standard.
This new certification is in addition to Sabre’s NDC Level 3 capability as an IT provider.
The technology company also announced it has expanded its Beyond NDC programme by entering into partnership with additional airlines and agencies including United Airlines, BCD Travel, Finnair, American Express Travel & Lifestyle Services, Singapore Airlines and Corporate Travel Management.
Beyond NDC is Sabre’s collaborative innovation initiative chartered to drive the industry forward through the development, integration and testing of end-to-end capabilities to process NDC-enabled offers and orders.
Companies on the programme are participating with Sabre in the solution design process, leveraging beta testing capabilities and establishing their global leadership position as drivers of NDC.
“IATA Level 3 certification is another key step in developing holistic NDC-enabled solutions and we’re proud of this achievement, but the real work is being done in close collaboration with our airline and agency partners,” said Kathy Morgan, Sabre vice president of NDC.
Sabre said the collaboration is already underway as almost 80% of all air shopping in Sabre Red Workspace, the next-generation travel agency platform, starts with schedule and availability queries. It is working with United Airlines on schedule- and availability-led shopping solutions that were presented to attendees of IATA’s NDC Implementation Forum earlier this month.
Commenting on the cooperation Tye Radcliffe, United’s director of distribution, said: “Our agency-friendly approach to shopping is just one example of the work being done as we build upon the NDC standard and develop technology that shapes a traveller’s end-to-end journey from offer creation through fulfilment.”
• Featured image (Ruins of St. Paul’s in Macao) credit: Nawadoln/iStock-Getty Images