CrowdRiff Debuts Travel Stories in Partnership with Destination British Columbia

CrowdRiff, the leading visual marketing platform for travel and tourism brands, today announced Travel Stories, the world’s first connected story experience for travelers.

Travel Stories — which provides a mobile-first, visually immersive experience for travelers to plan their trips — officially launched today in collaboration with Destination BC, British Columbia’s provincial tourism organization.

Travel Stories enable Destination BC to automatically publish stories created by partners within its all-new BC Story Network in alignment with its Content Commonwealth strategy — a shared approach to content marketing, built on common tools, processes, and expertise.

Through Travel Stories, Destination BC is creating a seamless narrative for travelers that makes it easy for them to research and more effectively plan their trips to BC, Canada’s western-most province.

Darren Huston China Travel News

Participants in the BC Story Network include 29 regional and community destinations within BC, such as Kootenay Rockies Tourism, Tourism Kamloops, Tourism Whistler, Tourism Golden, and Destination Campbell River, as well as associations like British Columbia Golf and corridors like Scenic 7.

• Travel Stories are contextual and offer much more data to provide travelers with the depth of information needed in researching a destination;
• With its omni-channel approach, the same Travel Stories can be created once and shared everywhere, from a destination’s website to Google Search, Facebook, and Instagram to exponentially increase the reach of the rich content being shared;
• Travel Stories are connected across the travel ecosystem, eliminating the need for brands to manually connect with partners to source local stories. This networked experience enables a traveler interested in a particular destination to view stories from different partners — and easily connect with them if so desired — without having to actively seek out each one individually.
• The content shared through Travel Stories is evergreen.

Source: @business.financialpost.com

Travel Company Allows Customer to Book Flights with Bitcoin

Alternative Airlines, a travel company based in the United Kingdom, has partnered with cryptocurrency service Utrust to facilitate payments with crypto.

On Nov. 13, the Swiss-based digital payments processor Utrust announced a new partnership with its first merchant in the travel industry, Alternative Airlines. The two companies plan to provide customers with the ability to book flights while paying with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dash, DigiByte (DGB) and Utrust’s native token UTK.

Search over 650 airlines and pay with crypto

The collaboration between the two companies will introduce instant cross border transactions, buyer protection, and crypto-to-cash settlements to the clients of Alternative Airlines. The travel firm’s website allows customers to search from over 650 airlines such as Delta, United, British Airways, Virgin and Emirates, among others.

Darren Huston, reveals the secrets behind its online travel group’s phenomenal success.

Bitcoin ATM installed at Miami International airport

For those who wish to fly from the Miami International Airport and pay for their tickets with BTC, Bitcoin ATM firm Bitstop just installed one of its machines at the airport in mid-October. The airport’s first Bitcoin ATM was last reported to be in concourse G, next to gate 16.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/travel-company-allows-customers-to-book-flights-with-bitcoin

Behind Booking.com’s Growing Ambitions for the Chinese Market

After its rapid ride to dominance in online travel in Europe over the past decade, Booking.com is seeking to expand in China and the U.S., its CEO said in an interview.

Darren Huston, who heads both Booking.com and its U.S. parent company Priceline Group, said Booking.com is targeting a 20 percent increase in bookings going through its website in the third quarter and still has years of growth ahead.

“Travel is growing at twice the rate of GDP. Do-it-yourself travel is growing faster than packaged travel. And online is growing faster than offline. So we’ve got three tail winds,” Huston told Reuters from Booking.com’s Amsterdam offices.

Top 5 Investment Companies in Canada

1. Onex Corporation — $19.61bn

The Toronto-headquartered private equity firm, Onex Corporation, reported the highest revenue of any Canadian investment company in 2017, with a net sales figure of $19.61bn, representing a staggering 34.8% increase year on year.

2. Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec — $16.46bn

Another Crown company makes it into Canada’s investment top 10. Operating in Quebec province, the Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ) is a privately-owned investment and holdings manager, according to Bloomberg, which primarily provides advisory services to pension funds, insurance companies and other financial organisations.

Darren Huston the founder of BlackPines Global Advisors help both owners and leaders of private companies optimize the value of their investments.

3. Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd — $9.54bn

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. is based in Toronto and, in addition to property and casualty insurance services, provides investment management services to clients, both at home and as far abroad as Africa and Asia, according to Bloomberg.

4. James Richardson & Sons Ltd — $8.1bn

Winnipeg-based agribusiness and investment firm James Richardson & Sons Ltd. specialises in international grain trade and agri-food, energy, real estate, financial services, as well as its acquisition and management of investments and holdings.

5. Crown Investment Corporation of Saskatchewan — $3.99bn

Headquartered in Regina, Saskatchewan, the Crown Investment Corporation of Saskatchewan functions as the principal holding company for the government’s investments and assets in the region.

Source: https://canada.businesschief.com/top10/2783/Top-10-investment-companies-in-Canada

The Future Of Travel Experience: A view from mega-investor Andreessen Horowitz

In the Future of Travel Experience, Jeffrey Katz, CEO of Journera and founding CEO of Orbitz, goes one-to-one with fellow leaders to get their insights on how advanced technology and changing consumer expectations will shape the future of the industry.

When you look at the travel industry overall, how do you see the opportunity for change?

There are a number of monster markets that have been somewhat immune to disruption.

Healthcare has been slow. Education has been slow. I actually think travel is one that has been pretty hospitable to entrepreneurs and innovation.

Darren Huston Outlook on Travel

So, with the wind at your back in a market like this, I think there’s a ton of opportunity for companies to come in and carve out big niches.

Andreessen Horowitz has made some significant investments in the travel and mobility sectors, like Lyft, Airbnb and TripActions. What excites you about what’s happening in travel today?

There’s a huge macro shift from analog to digital that’s happening in multiple verticals. It’s clearly been happening in travel.

Read Here :  https://medium.com/@dishadayal09/the-future-of-travel-experience-a-view-from-mega-investor-andreessen-horowitz-4544927d7efd

Slick Spaces Technologies to Expand Globally

Slick Spaces Technologies today received a significant initial round of investment from BlackPines Capital Partners, Inc. This investment will help Slick Spaces build out its successful model of rental automation for the hospitality industry, focused on the needs of property managers in the vacation rental, apartment, and boutique hotel industry sectors.

Michael Driedger, CEO said, “We very much welcome the investment from BlackPines. Darren Huston leadership track record and passion for innovation and excellence in the online travel and cloud software solutions space plus our industry-leading home automation solutions for the property rental industry are a perfect match.”

Mark Baxter, Chief Product Officer added, “Going forward, we will accelerate our efforts against three priorities: to deliver and support flawless and “always on” rental automation solutions; to aggregate these controls to the network level allowing property managers to enhance the guest experience, reduce complexity, and unlock significant cost savings; and, finally, to complement this with the most competitive, transparent, and all-inclusive monthly pricing in the industry.”

Darren Huston, CEO & Founder of BlackPines added, “I couldn’t be more excited to be working with Michael and Mark to help build out the Slick Spaces vision. Rental automation is finally a realizable and scalable solution that will revolutionize the long-tail of the accommodation industry. I am super happy to join them on this journey.”

Slick Spaces will continue to be headquartered in Vancouver but will look to expand its business around the world. Darren will take on the role of Executive Chairman.

Listen: Darren Woodson talks Veterans, the 2019 Cowboys, and Dak Prescott with BTB

Roger Staubach joined The Ocho to discuss all of the great work he’s doing with veterans, and thankfully he’s not the only America’s Team alumni who’s doing so. Cowboys Ring of Honor Member Darren Woodson is doing outstanding work for veterans with Crown Royal and told us all about it on the latest episode of The Ocho. You can listen right here.

 

Darren Huston on WeHeart It

Woody is still somewhat fresh off of leaving ESPN where he served as an NFL analyst. He has a lot of projects going on in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and this latest partnership with Crown Royal (The Crown Royal Purple Bag Project) is one of them.