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  • News: Harman International signs with GetThere for Sabre Virtual Meetings

    Harman International and GetThere, the world’s leading travel and collaboration management solution, have signed an agreement to make Sabre Virtual Meetings technology available to Harman employees worldwide.

    Using Sabre Virtual Meetings, Harman employees all over the world can reserve virtual meeting rooms as easily as they book flights, hotels and cars in GetThere. Harman, a Sabre customer since 2000, expects Sabre Virtual Meetings to aid them manage travel demand and increase use of the company’s existing investment in high-definition video conferencing assets.

    “Virtual Meetings is a robust new travel management mechanism,” said Sally Abella, director of world Corporate Travel for Harman International.  “Like most companies, we wish to control our travel spend, yet we know that travel is essential to growing the business. By utilizing video conferencing for more internal meetings, we will strategically redirect travel spend to trips which are customer-facing and sales focused.”

    Harman and GetThere are partnering to observe and track Harman’s goals to redirect internal travel spend and increase room utilization.

    “Demand for video conferencing is increasing exponentially and an increasing number of IT departments are called upon to support this demand,” said Thomas Blanchet, director of IT Infrastructure Architecture at Harman International. “Sabre Virtual Meetings gives our employees how to easily reserve and fasten video conferencing rooms in a safe and reliable enterprise-wide environment.”

    Until now, scheduling video conference systems was a challenging task with limited visibility into room availability, time zone challenges, and system compatibility issues. The end result have been an over-dependence on IT support and limited employee adoption which means that expensive video conferencing investments sit unused.

    “Sabre Virtual Meetings solves these challenges with a simple-to-use, global scheduling system. Room availability, compatibility, and connectivity are all seamlessly verified, so employees know where to book, what’s available and what to do once they happen to a gathering,” said Suzanne Neufang, president of GetThere and Sabre Virtual Meetings. “Our Virtual Meetings solution also enables public room and partner room access for those companies seeking to maximize visual collaboration.”

    Sabre Virtual Meetingsis the sole solution providing enterprise-wide, secure access to non-public and partner video conferencing rooms in addition a world network of over 4,000 public rooms. Reminiscent of online travel reservations, all options for a given city pair search are provided in one, secure booking path. Filtered by company policy and room availability that the corporation explicitly authorizes, employees can choose the room options that best meet their business needs.

    GetThere, a Sabre Travel Network brand, provides technology to corporations. Its innovative online and mobile booking tools come in 15 languages and utilized by thousands of businesses in additional than 85 countries including a majority of Fortune 200 corporations. Each year, millions of industrial travelers use GetThere to book and manage their work trips and meetings. The world’s largest online corporate travel provider, GetThere processes greater than $9 billion in annual business travel spend.

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  • IHIF: Steigenberger Grandhotel Brussels opens to public

    The Steigenberger Hotel Group now has a presence on the very heart of Europe inside the sort of the Steigenberger Grandhotel Brussels.

    Located within the city centre and offering 269 rooms and suites, the hotel opened on January 1st 2013 and is busy welcoming guests from around the world.

    The New Year got off to a terrific start with the official opening of the Steigenberger Grandhotel in Brussels on January 1st 2013.

    The luxury hotel is housed behind an historic facade and forms portion of the Wiltcher’s Complex within the elegant surroundings of Avenue Louise.

    It has 269 rooms including 40 suites and a Royal Suite in addition to accommodating the “Café Wiltcher’s” Restaurant and the “Loui Lounge and Bar”.

    Conferencing facilities may be able to cater for as much as 600 persons across 13 conference rooms.

    The Ballroom on the Steigenberger Grandhotel, which extends over a place of 550 m² and is the most important column-free facility of its kind inside the city, is adjoined by a three,200 m² gym and beauty and health spa area operated by Aspria.

    The Steigenberger Grandhotel Brussels is found in the direct vicinity of the Royal Palace, the Grand Place, the eu Parliament and the Congress Centre and within easy reach of the main sights.

    The hotel’s Director is the internationally experienced hotel manager Blanche van Berckel. Steigenberger Hotel Group chief executive Puneet Chhatwal welcomed the move into the Belgian capital.

    “The Steigenberger Grandhotel in Brussels is a wonderful addition to our portfolio”, he commented.

    “We are delighted to be represented in a city on the heart of Europe inside the kind of this outstanding hotel.”

    An investment programme for the following couple of years was agreed with the hotel’s owner AG Real Estate so as to be capable to provide guests with the very highest levels of quality and repair consistent with Steigenberger’s international standards.

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  • ITB Berlin 2013: Cape Town Tourism within the spotlight at ITB

    December 2012 marked the only billionth international tourism arrival globally and competition between destinations is more fierce than ever. Staying relevant by maintaining with future trends is a key focus at this year’s ITB tourism trade event in Berlin, set to attract some 170,000 visitors between March 6-10, 2013. As in previous years, Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro are representing the region’s tourism industry at ITB.

    As portion of ITB’s strong specialize in etravel, Cape Town Tourism CEO, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold (pictured), is presenting a conversation called “How Tourism Boards Work With Social Media, Local Citizens And Travel Bloggers To inform The tale Of A Destination” on March 9.

    The talk follows a year where Cape Town Tourism caught the notice of world tourism trend watchers through its #LoveCapeTown social media campaign. The campaign included an iambassador campaign that saw the DMO bringing respected international bloggers to Cape Town to experience the destination first hand. The main factor that differentiated the campaign is that Cape Town’s twitter community felt a swelling of pride about their town and engaged heavily with the visiting e-journos about what to do and spot during their stay.

    The #loveCapeTown program has since been included in a White Paper on travel blogging and used for example internationally on how DMOs can work with travel bloggers. Plans are afoot to continue the #loveCapeTown campaign during 2013, at the side of South African Tourism and a set of international and native bloggers. Most significantly the tag is now component of the social media lingua franca when regarding Cape Town.

    In addition to the strong take care of social media and digital marketing, Cape Town Tourism is (along side Blue Yonder, India) a co-partner of ITB’s Responsible Tourism program and could feature as a part of their CSR day program on March 7. Up for discussion may be the need for tourist interactions with local communities and problems surrounding water shortages and rising energy costs.

    Councillor Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing on the City of Cape Town, says: “The City of Cape Town is driving responsible tourism with the support of industry players like Cape Town Tourism. The purpose is to go from pockets of excellence to a complete destination approach.

    “This means the adaption of RT principles as a core way of doing business – not just by a specific group of responsible operators but by the complete tourism industry. The Responsible Tourism Pilot Project is an example of the way the responsible tourism principles were adopted on a large scale by the industry.” Added Grant.

    Speaking at the broader objectives in their visit to ITB, Du Toit-Helmbold said: “Our key challenge within the industry is to stimulate jobs and investment by eliminating barriers to travel reminiscent of visa restrictions, taxation, and outmoded infrastructure systems. i’m confident that these issues shall be addressed at Europe’s premier travel trade fair – ITB Berlin. It’s the key place to be told about new trends, market developments, and to deepen existing business relations.”

  • News: flydubai Cargo starts operations in Russia

    flydubai, Dubai’s innovative airline, has announced the launch of flydubai Cargo in Russia, providing an inexpensive and convenient outbound cargo service to counterpoint the prevailing inbound service.

    flydubai operates regular flights from four Russian cities: Kazan, Samara, Ufa and Yekaterinburg, to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Goods are shipped on its fleet of name new Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

    Ghaith Al Ghaith, CEO of flydubai, said: “Russia is a crucial marketplace for flydubai and the beginning of our cargo operations reinforces our commitment to providing a much wider range of affordable services. We’re confident that through enabling regional businesses to ship their goods on to Dubai, and extra afield, it might help in developing new trade links between our countries and allowing a better range of products, including perishable items, to be transported.”

    flydubai Cargo, which started operations on 01 January 2012, transports a number of goods including perishable items, textiles, electronics, courier items, pharmaceuticals and general cargo. Companies often need to ship goods via Moscow as there are not any direct air links in lots of regions, that may limit the variability of products traded. But now, perishable items moreover spare parts and other in-demand items could be sent on to Dubai and beyond quickly and efficiently. Once in Dubai, shipments may well be connected between flydubai flights within one hour or from eight hours to interline partners.

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  • VisitEngland teams with Blacks for brand new campaign

    VisitEngland and outdoor specialists Blacks have announced a thrilling partnership to advertise outdoor breaks in rural England.

    Domestic overnight holiday trips to rural locations in England were worth £2.2bn in 2011, with day trips contributing one more £8.7 billion.

    To boost rural tourism this year, the national tourist board and Blacks have today launched a £1.2million multimedia campaign, geared toward inspiring Britons to explore England’s breath-taking countryside with a brief break within the great outdoors.

    The campaign will run throughout March, ranging from today, with a 30” television advertisement filmed in Cumbria, highlighting the various outdoor activities that may be enjoyed off the beaten track in England’s countryside – including walking, camping, trail and fell running, and wild swimming.

    Consumers are encouraged to go to www.blacks.co.uk/visitengland, where they may be able to enter a contest to win an incredible adventure break in Cumbria.

    The website also contains destination details about the filming locations, and advice on learn how to become involved in outdoor pursuits around the country.

    James Berresford, VisitEngland’s chief executive, commented: “England’s stunning countryside is a big draw for visitors from both home and abroad, and gives experiences to be found nowhere else on the planet!

    “We’re delighted to be working with Blacks in this campaign, which showcases England’s dramatic landscapes to inspire Britons to explore what’s on their lonesome doorstep with a thrilling outdoor break.”