Marketers Turn to Facebook and Instagram and 10 Other Digital Trends This Week

Travel Marketers to Favor Facebook and Instagram in 2019: It’s well-known that Facebook and its sister brand Instagram have become hugely appealing destinations for marketers to spend money. But a global survey by travel tech firm Sojern suggests that a lot of trial and error is still going on as marketers attempt to master new tools.

United Airlines Argues It Can Block Expedia From Future Fares as Standoff Persists: Can these two giant global travel companies work out their differences? Surely consumers would prefer to keep searching for United fares on Expedia.

Travelport Has Had Mixed Success as a Public Company: Travelport’s latest earnings report is a chance to judge its performance since it went public in 2014. The answer is mixed: The company invested more than its rivals in its airline distribution business, which let it punch above its weight. But its effort to diversify beyond airline content distribution hasn’t panned out as well as it hoped.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel Rebrands to Sound Cooler: Now we’ve got Amex GBT, BCD, and CWT: an alphabet soup worthy of a sector that relies on bromides and buzzwords over substance.

How San Francisco Deals With Skyrocketing Events Demand: San Francisco remains a major draw for events despite high costs and other pervasive problems. Perhaps the Bay Area can turn to the creative thinking its known for to solve some of these issues.

In-Demand San Francisco Looks to the Future: While San Francisco is in the midst of a huge boom in travel demand, it also has several knotty issues to solve in order to remain a premier U.S. destination for events.

Travel Megatrends 2019: Consolidation Creates Travel Brand Bullies: In a rush to scale, consolidated travel companies find themselves with outsized market share that often leads to muscling consumers to their advantage. With no good alternatives, how will travelers react to the pressure?

Lonely Planet Buys Destination Content Company ArrivalGuides: Looks like Lonely Planet’s new CEO is serious about getting deeper into certain sectors, even if they’re not that forward-looking.

Avis Brings Data Insights to Ground Transportation: Travel managers armed with relevant data are better at their jobs. The more travel companies can do to help them find meaningful insights the better.

Pickyourtrail Raises $3 Million for Vacation-Package Booking: Travel Startup Funding This Week: Pickyourtrail has received funding to expand its online services for booking international vacations; its operation is strikingly sophisticated for a small startup. Plus, investors also recently announced bets on smart hotels, urban lounges, and storage places for luggage.

Skift Is Among World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2019, According to Fast Company: At Skift, we believe innovation means constantly coming up with new ways and perspectives of looking at the world we inhabit while continuing to surprise and delight our readers and clients with new thinking and new approaches to the sectors we cover. This is a huge honor we take seriously as a mandate to continue on that path.