The airport experience risks becoming severely chaotic if governments don’t act swiftly to adopt digital processes to manage travel health credentials, the International Air Transport Association warns. Pre-COVID-19, passengers spent an average of about 1.5 hours in travel processes - including check-in, security, border control, customs and baggage claim - for each trip. According to [...]
Europe has been slow to catch on to the boom in blank-check companies, but signs of oversaturation in the US suggest the continent's turn is coming. So far this year, 293 SPACs have gone public in the US, raising a total of €15.8 billion (around $19.2 billion), according to PitchBook data. Europe has logged 17 listings [...]
La celebración de FITUR 2021, precedido por el imprescindible FORO HOTUSA (kudos a Marina López por su impresionante labor), nos da la esperanza de que una cierta normalización en la industria turística esté próxima. Sin embargo, no debieramos ponernos la venda en los ojos y recordar que aún existen mucho "peros" en España para que se [...]
El mercado de SPAC se ha enfriado considerablemente en las últimas semanas, con empresas que cotizaron en bolsa al fusionarse con una blank-check entity negociando muy por encima de sus máximos, y un número creciente de obstáculos regulatorios emergentes para una estrategia de inversión que ha dominado los titulares de las noticias financieras en 2020. [...]
2021 is shaping up to be a stellar year for startups in Europe. Investment in Europe startups tracked at $21.4 billion in the first quarter, more than double funding amounts year over year and close to double over the last quarter of 2020. Funding at every stage was up with late-stage funding growing the most. [...]
Jet2 has suspended all flights and holidays up to and including 23 June due to uncertainty caused by the the UK government’s travel proposals, the CEO has announced. The firm is one of the UK’s biggest holiday companies. Affected customers would have their bookings automatically cancelled and refunded, the Jet2 has said. The decision to cancel [...]
Property management platform Guesty, which automates and streamlines all complex operational needs accompanying short-term rental management, has announced that it has acquired another leading property management software in MyVR. According to Guesty, the deal “effectively makes the company the largest short-term rental property management platform worldwide”. Guesty’s investment showcases the promise of 2021 as the [...]
Flipkart has officially announced its plan to acquire a 100% stake in Cleartrip, one of the oldest travel booking portals in India, as the online retailer looks to strengthen its overall offerings. The Walmart-owned e-commerce firm said it will acquire the operations of Cleartrip and retain all employees. Cleartrip will continue to operate as a [...]
2020 proved to be a record year for the VC industry, positioning the industry to start 2021 on a strong footing. The industry did not disappoint as Q1 investment, exit, and fundraising activity all exceeded first-quarter results from last year. Investors deployed $69.0 billion into VC-backed companies in Q1, an increase of 92.6% compared to [...]
Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing giant Grab announced Tuesday it is set to go public through a SPAC merger with Altimeter Growth Corp., in a deal that values the company at $39.6 billion — the largest blank-check merger to date. Grab says it intends to list on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol GRAB following the deal’s completion. Special [...]