ONLINE travel insurance aggregator, Hepstar, has added new ancillary products and services to its portfolio in order to offer a ‘plug and play’ travel insurance solution. The new products and services include global e-SIM cards, global WiFi connectivity, SOS services, access to lounges in the event of a flight delay, and temporary subscriptions to destination vouchers and deals. The company says its new strategy is in line with global trends where companies provide greater ancillary service offerings, and global airline ancillary revenue now accounts for 10,7% of total airline revenue (compared with only 4,8% of revenue in 2010). Brett Dyanson, ceo of the company, says: “Essentially our technology is a recommendation engine that makes use of big data, machine-learning and behavioural analytics to deliver different customer profiles a product mix that has the highest probability of achieving the optimal revenue for our travel partners.”
