Skift Travel News Blog

Airbnb made public filings on Tuesday showing that its acquisition of AI company GamePlanner.AI was paid partially with stock valued at about $104.5 million. 

The filings said that the company is offering 877,062 shares and the two largest recipients were listed as Adam Cheyer (337,652 shares) and Siamak Hodjat (245,565). 

Cheyer and Hodjat are the co-founders of GamePlanner.AI, which Airbnb said on Tuesday that it had acquired for an undisclosed price. 

Other stock recipients included several venture capital funds: B Capital, Golden Circle Ventures, a fund owned by Hong Kong businesswoman Solina Chau Hoi Shue, and a trust related to venture capitalist Gary Morgenthaler, among others.

One filing referenced $119.15 as the last reported stock stock price on November 13, which would make the total value of the shares $104.5 million.

Citing sources familiar with the deal, CNBC reported that the total value of the GamePlanner.ai acquisition was nearly $200 million. Airbnb stock is up 3% over the last day and up 36% year to date.

Ambuja Neotia, a real-estate developer and operator in Kolkata, has bought Tree of Life Resorts and Hotels, a collection of 14 boutique hotels across India with about 200 rooms that Skift recently profiled.

The companies didn’t disclose the price or terms of the deal.

Tree of Life, based in Gurugram, has seen quick growth from five resorts pre-pandemic to 14 now.

Ambuja Neotia, based in Kolkata, began as a real estate developer but has since become a small conglomerate with multiple interests. In the hospitality space, it is part of a few hotel ventures with about 700 rooms in total in Eastern India, such as The Ffort Raichak and Swissotel Kolkata Neotia Vista (managed by Accor). It also manages about a half dozen properties for Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL).

Himmat Anand had led the Tree of Life for about 15 years. Ambuja Neotia has named Vinoth Ram as the new CEO.

“The Tree of Life brand architecture is perfectly poised to cater to the discernible shift in leisure travel trends, said CEO Vinoth Ram. “My primary objective is to expand the brand’s presence throughout this vast and diverse country, providing an array of unique and exceptional experiences.”

How India’s Tree of Life Is Creating a Place for Itself in the Hospitality Sun

From the unfulfilled potential of the Incredible India campaign to why all his hotels are pet-friendly, Himmat Anand, founder of the Indian boutique resort chain Tree of Life, spells out some hard truths.

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Choice Hotels on Wednesday called on Wyndham Hotels & Resorts to return to merger talks while publicly responding to concerns Wyndham executives had raised about “execution risk” — including questions about regulatory scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Wyndham issued a statement saying its board of directors remains confident that its “standalone growth prospects offer superior, risk-adjusted returns. It once again rejected the hostile merger, which would value Wyndham at $7.8 billion (plus debt),

One issue in dispute is whether U.S. antitrust watchdogs would balk at consolidation. Choice Hotels has a 16% share of the branded U.S. economy hotel market, while Wyndham has 36%, the FT reported.

Executives at Choice said they had received advice that a merger would receive regulatory approval. (Choice is paying for legal advice from Willkie Farr & Gallagher.)

“Independent hotels comprise nearly two-thirds of the economy segment and close to 40% of the midscale segment,” said Choice Hotels.

On Wednesday, data from CoStar’s STR came up with a somewhat different figure, saying that “half of U.S. economy-class hotel rooms are unbranded.”

Choice Hotels executives also noted that major hotel groups such as Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott have this year announced new brands to compete in the premium economy and midscale segments. This fresh rivalry would add to the competitive landscape already featuring Best Western, Extended Stay America, G6 (Motel 6), Oyo, Red Roof Inn, and Sonesta.

Choice Hotels’ comments came on the same afternoon that Wyndham executives issued a release reiterating their disinterest in talks. It also came a day ahead of Wyndham’s earnings call.

Portugal’s Finance Minister Fernando Medina kicked off the long-awaited sale of TAP Air Portugal Thursday with the announcement that the government would sell a 51% stake in the state-owned airline to the highest bidder.

In addition to monetary value, the Portuguese government seeks an investor that wants to grow TAP and its Lisbon hub, guarantee jobs, and bring additional flights to secondary airports in the country, including Porto. The government did not specify how much it values TAP at; Portugal nationalized the airline as part of its Covid aid package to the carrier during the pandemic.

“We want large-scale investors from the aeronautical sector, alone or in consortia headed by them, that are aligned with our strategic goals,” Medina said. “We do not seek to attract pure investments of a financial nature that are looking to get into TAP to then sell it or sell parts of it and we wish to reiterate TAP’s strategic contribution to the country.”

Air France-KLM, International Airlines Group — owner of British Airways, Iberia, and other airlines — and the Lufthansa Group have all expressed interest in TAP. The Portuguese airline’s Lisbon hub is the ideally located for Europe-Latin America connections, as well as for connectivity to Africa. The hub is seen as a sought-after prize among the large European airline group’s as they jockey for an ever greater share of the market.

“TAP has a very strong position geographically at the southernmost point in Europe towards South America, and they do have a very strong network to Brazil with 11 cities online nonstop out of Lisbon,” Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith said in May. “So it’s very interesting, and could be potentially eventually accretive to our bottom line performance.”

Portugal will first select advisors for the sale first with the aim to finalize the selection criteria by the end of the year, Medina. Talks with interested buyers will also begin but, based on the timeline he outlined, a deal is unlikely until sometime in 2024.

HotelRunner, a hotel tech startup, has acquired the point-of-sale software company PayPad. 

London-based HotelRunner said Tuesday that it has acquired the Turkey-based company and has rebranded it as HotelRunner POS.

HotelRunner said it offers a property management system and a set of other software products meant to help hospitality clients streamline sales, operations, distribution management, and more. It also offers a platform where travel companies can connect and do business with one another.

The PayPad technology allows hospitality companies, primarily food and beverage operations, to complete on-premises sales and payments. The tool can be used to accept multiple methods of payments, analyze sales, and more easily take actions based on data. PayPad had clients based in the UK, Spain, the U.S., and Turkey.

“This development represents a momentous shift for HotelRunner as it delves into on-premise sales operations for the first time, highlighting its sales-first approach in the hospitality and travel technology landscape,” HotelRunner said in a statement. 

This is HotelRunner’s third acquisition, part of a goal to offer a more comprehensive product. The company said previously that it plans to explore more acquisition deals to further consolidate this fragmented sector of travel tech. 

“Our strategic acquisition of PayPad and the birth of HotelRunner POS aren’t merely about enhancing our product offerings; it’s a bold leap toward our vision of building a bigger travel economy,” Arden Agopyan, co-founder and managing partner of HotelRunner, said in a statement. 

HotelRunner POS will be gradually rolled out worldwide, starting with existing clients, the company said. 

HotelRunner raised $6.5 million in a series A early this year. 

Wix last year relaunched its software service for hotels with technology powered by HotelRunner’s products.

Tripla, which provides a booking engine to hotels in Japan and Southeast Asia, has acquired a travel tech company in Indonesia.

Tripla said it has acquired a 53% stake in BookandLink, which provides software to help hotels track and manage sales through third-party distribution channels. 

The other 47% of BookandLink was acquired by the Development Bank of Japan, Tripla said.

Tripla said the acquisition is part of a larger goal to create a more comprehensive booking and distribution platform for hoteliers. 

Besides a booking engine, Tripla offers products around chatbots, payments, and customer data management. The company said its technology was live in more than 2,400 hotels in Japan as of July 2023, and business is continuing to expand in East Asia, including in South Korea and Taiwan.

And BookandLink was used by more than 2,600 hotels in Indonesia as of July 2023, with a growing presence in Southeast Asia, the company said. 

“The majority of the 50,000 accommodations in Indonesia still use manual processes with pen and paper, motivating us to develop our market further,” said Philippe Raunet, CEO of BookandLink, in a statement.

Tripla said it plans to integrate the two companies and their technologies over the next three years. BookandLink’s founders and roughly 30 employees are joining Tripla.

Tripla started trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange last November with an initial public offering of $5.6 million (¥823.2 million). The company’s stock is down over 13% year to date.

Pilots at JetBlue Airways are the latest to back the carrier’s proposed $3.8 billion merger with Spirit Airlines. The combination, if it wins antitrust approval, would create the fifth largest airline in the U.S.

The decision to support the merger was recently approved by the JetBlue chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents pilots at the airline. ALPA also represents pilots at Spirit, however, the support is limited to the union’s JetBlue chapter at this time.

“The financial and market strength of the combined carrier represents an historic opportunity to protect and advance the careers of JetBlue pilots through the continued growth of the airline,” JetBlue ALPA Chapter President Captain Chris Kenney wrote in a motion viewed by Skift and approved by the union’s board on Tuesday.

Whether the pilots backing will get the JetBlue-Spirit merger over the line is unclear. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block the deal on competitive grounds, and a trial is scheduled to begin in October. The regulator argues that the combination would eliminate a competitor from the market that drives airfares down, which could hurt consumers.

A recent accidental disclosure in a separate civil suit to block the merger provided evidence that supports the DOJ’s argument. Lawyers for the plaintiff, in an incorrectly redacted summary of JetBlue internal documents, said the airline plans to raise airfares 24-40% on Spirit routes. JetBlue has denied the disclosure, and said that it was an “inaccurate picture of the facts.”

The backing of ALPA’s JetBlue chapter comes the same week that the airline reached a deal to divest Spirit’s assets in Boston and Newark to Allegiant Air if the merger happens. The aim is to reduce antitrust concerns at the key airports. JetBlue will also work with the operator of the Fort Lauderdale airport to make five gates used by Spirit there available to Allegiant.

ALPA is the second labor group to back the deal after the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents cabin crew members at Spirit, opted to support it in February.

CDS Groupe, a hotel booking platform for business travel, is expanding into the German market through an acquisition. 

The France-based company said this week that it has acquired Corporate Rates Club, the business travel segment of TourisMarketing Service GmbH. 

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Corporate Rates Club will continue to operate independently with its full staff,  CDS Groupe said. The CRC tool is available through a customized online booking portal or through integrating its hotel offerings into a third-party online booking engine. 

The deal is part of what CDS Groupe says is a plan for international growth.

The company in 2022 acquired Rydoo Travel, an online booking tool, from Marlin Equity. 

The combined company said it completes about €800 million annually in hotel bookings on behalf of its clients, which include corporations and business travel agents. The acquisitions have also allowed the buyer to expand its portfolio of contracts with hotels. 

The company now has 300 employees in France, Italy, Poland, Germany and Croatia.

CDS Groupe was founded in 2001 and is managed by founding shareholder Ziad Minkara.

Vervotech, a startup that manages hotel room data, is the latest in a string of travel tech acquisitions by Juniper Group.

Juniper Group said Friday that it acquired the India-based startup. Terms were not disclosed. 

Vervotech’s platform analyzes hotel booking data to remove duplicate listings across suppliers, a problem that can lead to inaccuracies and missed bookings. 

Juniper Group is an operating portfolio of Vela Software, one of the six divisions of Constellation Software. Juniper Group also owns software companies Juniper Travel, TPF Software, T4W, Airport Information Systems, and IST Cruise Technology. It also acquired Peakwork in April. 

Juniper Group said it is focused on acquiring and building businesses in the industries of travel, aviation, banking, insurance, healthcare, public sector, and oil and gas. Juniper Group made six acquisitions in 2022 alone, according to its website. 

Vervotech will continue to operate independently.

Juniper Group said the Vervotech product compliments its booking engine, while the acquired company now has access to more resources for further research and development. 

Sanjay Ghare, co-founder and CEO of Vervotech, said in a statement that the company plans to expand in Europe, North America, and the Middle East.

Clarity Business Travel, a corporate travel agency based in the UK, plans to purchase two corporate travel businesses for £36.5 million ($46 million).

Capita, a publicly traded business IT company based in London, said Thursday that it plans to sell subsidiaries Agiito and Evolvi, pending regulatory approvals. 

Agiito is a management agency for corporate travel, meetings, and events. Evovli is a rail booking tool for travel management companies.

Clarity is the business travel and events division of the Portman Travel Group.

Clarity is expected to pay Capita £8 million ($10.2 million) in cash upon completion of the transaction, plus another £8 million 12 months later. Clarity is assuming working capital and debt liabilities, which makes up the difference between the sales value and the cash payments. 

The senior management teams and employees of Agiito and Evovli will remain as the companies transfer to the buyer, according to Capita. 

Revenue in 2022 for the two companies being sold was £31 million ($39.4 million), and profit before tax was £4 million ($5.1 million), according to Capita. Gross assets are valued at £76 million ($96.5 million).