2015 Archives

The Marriott-Starwood deal is much more than putting on a fresh coat of paint and moving on with business as usual. The integration process will likely take years, and franchisees can thank booking sites for their large role in that difficulty.

Airbnb is evolving into a global movement that transcends travel because it's crafting a universal ideology that promotes positive human values wherever it does business.

Understanding how Priceline.com turns lurkers into customers is key to gauging its success.

Passengers everywhere are hard to please, but because Asian passengers are willing to reward airlines by paying for passenger experience upgrades then they're more likely to get what they want.

Just as Starwood itself identified earlier this year, some of the hotels in the Sheraton portfolio don't meet brand standards and some of them may end up losing their flags under Marriott's leadership.

Money can't buy priceless memories, but it can buy everything that leads to them. Travel rather than material possessions is the new luxury for affluent travelers who want an experience that takes them further than their living room sofas.

As this TripAdvisor-Priceline Group partnership takes off, observe it closely because it signals a new stage in earnest in travel bookings -- the real emergence of third-party sites such as TripAdvisor and perhaps Google at some juncture that were primarily media sites as real forces in travel transactions.

Although five companies other than Expedia expressed an interest in investing in HomeAway or proposed an alternative transaction, only one, Expedia, made a full-blown acquisition proposal. That may say something about HomeAway's prospects, the very competitive marketplace in the vacation rental space and the broader sharing economy.

The tourism industry is starting to bounce back after Covid; for the big hotel brands, growth is on the agenda.

Hotels like that online travel agencies sell their rooms, but they'd much rather sell the rooms themselves -- especially as consolidation has given giants like Expedia more power over negotiating prices.