For those of you in the United States, I hope you enjoyed your long holiday weekend – the unofficial kickoff to summer. Our weekly Online Travel Update is below. It’s been a few weeks since we featured a story on banks’ growing influence in travel, but this week’s Update includes stories on two large banks – Australia’s CommBank and JP Morgan Chase. Highlights include:
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- Booking’s Plan Purchase of Etraveli Runs into Regulatory Objections. For some time now, we have been following Booking’s planned purchase of flight-booking platform, Etraveli. This past April, the European Commission announced that it was re-commencing its review of the planning acquisition after several months of delay. This week, sources familiar with the investigation reported that the Commission was poised to issue a statement of objections to both companies detailing the Commissions’ anti-trust concerns. While such a statement may not kill the planned purchase, it may require the companies to offer compromises to the identified concerns.
- JP Morgan Chase Details Growing Travel Platform. JP Morgan Chase shared an update on its travel platform, ChaseTravel.com, this past week at an investor day. According to Chase, total sales volume on the platform totaled $8 billion in 2022 and it expects that number to increase to $10 billion this year. The number of travelers who purchased travel through the platform increased 40% year over year. Travel is a critical component of Chase’s lifestyle business, which also includes shopping and dining.
- Hopper Announces Partnership with Australia’s Largest Bank. CommBank, Australia’s largest bank, announced this past week that it was partnering with Hopper (via Hopper’s B2B platform, Hoppercloud) to exclusively power the bank’s new travel features, offering users of its mobile application the opportunity to search and book hotel, air and rental cars. As part of the partnership, Hopper will offer CommBank users price predictability, integration with CommBank’s loyalty awards program (earn and redeem) and the usual mix of fintech products and services.