Traveloka Moves Into Food and Wellness and 5 Other Digital Trends This Week

Southeast Asia’s Online Travel Agency Traveloka Moves Into Food and Wellness Choices: Here’s a riddle: If Traveloka sells lifestyle services and AirAsia is not just an airline, what is an online travel agency? The industry will have to coin a new term since everyone is starting to sell more than just flights and hotels. Any suggestions?

Flight Centre Invests in Jay Walker’s Biz Travel Company Upside: It sure looks like global corporate travel giants are starting to take the small- to medium-size business travel market seriously. For some startups that didn’t find traction in the marketplace, this means another shot at success.

TripAdvisor Launches Cruise Metasearch to Tap Into a New Revenue Stream: TripAdvisor is smart to try to tap the ad budgets of cruise lines and online travel agencies with a relevant new price-comparison search tool. But many first-time cruisers may feel too overwhelmed by all of the review content given all of the complexity in booking a cruise.

Klook Receives $225 Million SoftBank Investment in Nod to Tours and Activities: An Asian startup, Klook, is attracting the highest funding ever in tours and activities. For the last time, can skeptics of this travel sector please bow out?

V Resorts Raises $10 Million for Branded Resorts: Travel Startup Funding This Week: Aditi Balbir, founder and CEO of V Resorts, has impressed investors with her take on asset-light hospitality management in India, like an Oyo for resorts. In a distinctive touch, the company uses and markets goods and furnishings made by local crafts workers.

GetYourGuide Defies Conventional Wisdom on Tour Booking So Far: GetYourGuide may close an approximately $300 million funding round this year with possible participation by new investors like SoftBank and Temasek. If true, investors would be betting that the attractions booking agency can continue to defy several assumptions about young travel companies.