Showing posts with label made. Show all posts
Showing posts with label made. Show all posts
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Technology Made Travel Agents Obsolete Now Its Saving Them BW
Technology Made Travel Agents Obsolete Now Its Saving Them BW
Booking travel feels old-school, no matter how you spin it: Such sites as Expedia and Orbitz have barely updated their layouts since 1999, and dialing a travel agent hardly feels appropriate in the age of Uber. That?s about to change, thanks to a series of disruptive travel services that are blending human intelligence with mobile technology. The goal: striking a middle ground in an industry where the personal touch still means something, but the bottom-line savings of D.I.Y. tech is hard to beat.
Whom it?s for: The time-crunched and independent-minded
What it costs: $400 for an annual membership, billed only when you make your first booking
?People have been writing our epitaphs forever,? said Jack Ezon, president of leading agency Ovation Travel and co-founder of Skylark, a members-only website and app that caters to the luxury leisure market. ?Until recently,? he said, ?our agency?s high-end customers weren?t going online?the internet was really a mass market space.? That has changed in the last few years, as every five-star company from Four Seasons to Aman began moving their business to the web.
Enter Skylark, which is catering to a new psychographic that Ezon described as the ?do-it-yourself until you don?t want to? economy: sophisticated types who know what they want, know how to find it, but simply can?t add to their to-do lists. For a $400 annual fee, they can browse a vetted list of seven to eight hotel-and-airfare packages, all offered at discounted agency rates, and then book within a matter of minutes. Members get the perks of booking with an agent?24/7 customer service, automatic rebookings in the event of flight cancelations, free upgrades, and so on?minus the back and forth. (Skylark is invite-only while in beta mode, and will open to the public by yearend.)
?We merge online and offline,? said Ezon of Skylark?s model. ?Every digital transaction is paired with a live travel specialist who you can contact by phone, IM, e-mail ? however you want.? The service will help you coordinate a scavenger hunt for the kids in Rio or get VIP access tickets to the British Museum in London, for instance.
In a recent test, we found discounts that ranged from insignificant ($33 off a four-night stay at the Hotel Vernet in Paris) to impressive (29 percent off flights to London and a stay at the Corinthia). The best results come from package deals, which protect both hotel and airline from revealing specific discounts and damaging their price integrity.
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Tuesday, December 20, 2016
This 1 28 Million New Watch Is Made From Transparent Sapphire
This 1 28 Million New Watch Is Made From Transparent Sapphire
The Double Tourbillon 30ø Technique in an all-sapphire case.
Transparency isnt just a buzzword in politics: For a few years now, it?s been a genuine trend in the world of luxury watches. For example, earlier this year, Hublot introduced its Big Bang Unico Sapphire timepiece cut straight from the sapphire?the first time the material had ever been cut on this scale.
And now from Greubel Forsey, maker of what are some of the most supercomplicated timepieces in the world, comes the Double Tourbillon 30ø Technique. Its a watch the companys made for a while, but now its offered in, you guessed it, an all-sapphire case. Greubel Forsey calls it the ?pinnacle of transparency,? and it?s easy to see why. No metal is used at all in the creation of the dial and case (save for the winding pin), allowing for a panoptic view of as much of the movement architecture?and its dynamic interactions?as possible.
Cut from a single large sapphire crystal, including the rounded, multi-angular case horns, the entire movement is flooded with light within its 38.4mm case, allowing a view into its multi-tiered design from all angles. This is a more complicated watch than the Hublot, and uses sapphire in more places, including the crown.
The reverse of the Double Tourbillon 30ø Technique in all-sapphire.
Its actual 396-part movement may not be new?the patented tourbillon movement was first unveiled in platinum?but now its prowess is on full display. The hand-wound caliber, with 120-hour power reserve, packs two tourbillon escapements, one inside the other. Two tourbillons that rotate at different speeds are showcased here: An outer tourbillon rotates every four minutes while an inner tourbillon, every 60 seconds. All of this has helped the movement achieve a never-before-seen 915 out of a possible 1,000 points at the International Chronometry Competition.
Exclusive to the U.S. market in an edition of eight pieces to be individually created by hand over the course of the next three years, the watch is priced at $1.275 million.
The Double Tourbillon 30ø Technique in sapphire, from the side
Available link for download
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