Steven Daines is appointed CEO HotelServices United Kingdom, Ireland, Benelux, Switzerland and Russia.
Laurent Picheral is appointed CEO HotelServices Germany, Poland and Central Europe.Steven Daines and Laurent Picheral will be members of the Executive Committee. They will replace Peter Verhoeven who joins Booking.com.These appointments will be effective as of July 1st, 2014.

airberlin is achieving substantial recapitalisation as the basis for an accelerated turnaround leading to sustainable profitability. Cash inflow amounting to a total of 450 million euros for accelerated turnaround. Of that, 300 million euros through subordinated perpetual convertible bond. Bond issue to fund exchange offer for existing bonds due 2014 and 2015 and to raise an additional 150 million euros. Strengthening of the Management Board with a deeper focus on accelerated and intensified operational restructuring and revenue generation.

by Dominic Bonfert
The third edition of Goa International Travel Mart (GITM) 2014 at Dr. Shyam Prasad Mukherjee Stadium at Taleigaon. The event was inaugurated by His Excellency, Governor of Goa, Shri. Bharat Vir Wanchoo in presence of Shri RK Srivastava IAS, Principal Secretary (Tourism).The prestigious B2B event brought together travel companies, hoteliers, State Tourism Boards and other leisure enterprises under one roof to showcase the tourism investment potential in the state.

The D-ABFK is now in the air as the “Fan Force One®”, flying the airberlin route network in cooperation with Bitburger Brewery. Whoever posts a photo of the Airbus 320 with the hashtag #fanforceone on one of the airline’s social media channels has the chance to win a trip to Brazil, including flight, hotel and an itinerary of football hightlights, in June 2014.

As of today, users of airberlin’s iPhone app can also send a digital boarding pass to their smartwatch, if they have a Pebble or Pebble Steel Smartwatch. The user’s smartphone and watch will subsequently synchronise – making boarding directly with the smartwatch possible. The smartwatch was launched on the crowdfunding portal Kickstarter in 2012 and is one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns. To date, Pebble has sold over 400,000 smartwatches worldwide.

Nearly 1 in every 2 of TTG China Travel Awards 2014 winning organisations brought home the awards’ signature 24K gold-plated Hermes trophy for the first-time tonight. Among this year’s 27 inaugural winners were Air Canada and Mandarin Oriental Hotel group for the Best North American Airline (servicing China) and Best Luxury Hotel Brand in Greater China respectively. Both successfully claimed titles that were dominated by long-time winners.