Lola Bounces Back After Funding Round and Amex GBT Deal

We’ve been kind of tough on Paul English’s Lola in the past. After three years of pivots and leadership changes, though, it seems the latest version of Lola as travel management app is gaining some traction.

When we spoke earlier this week, English was candid about not recognizing the big opportunity that business travel represents when he launched Lola.

Now that the company is staffing up and working to drive scale with American Express Global Business Travel, plenty of opportunities exist for growth.

Check out the story below. We’ve also got the latest on European car rental pricing and China’s move to discourage its citizens from visiting the U.S.

Check out these stories, and more, below.

If you have any feedback about the newsletter or news tips, feel free to reach out via email at [email protected] or tweet @sheivach.

— Andrew Sheivachman, Senior Enterprise Editor

Featured Stories

Lola Navigates Big Growth a Year After Amex GBT Deal: Lola clearly made a good choice with this partnership, but it raises some questions. As the startup works with increasingly larger companies, in locations all around the world, how will its core product change?

European Car Rentals May Be More Affordable in 2020 Due to Economic Slowdown: Car rental companies are desperate to raise rates, but the reality is that reduced demand due to ridesharing and an expected slowdown will keep prices from rising significantly in 2020. This is good news for companies and vacationers alike.

Here Are Travel’s Big Winners in an Antitrust Crackdown on Big Tech: Some are too scared to say so publicly, but much of the travel industry would welcome a diminution of Google’s vast market power. If a U.S. regulatory probe gets going against Big Tech, it is a very open question how far-reaching a remedy might be in the offing.

American Express Removes Free Airport Lounge Meal Benefit From Platinum Cards: A key benefit that many road warriors love about the American Express Platinum card is evaporating later this summer.

We Can Put the Quality Into Homesharing, Say Hotel CEOs: It used to be that hotel CEOs outright dismissed homesharing. But now that more hospitality companies are taking the plunge, the top brass is making the case for why the hotel giants can do it better.

The Future of Travel

Forecasting Travel Departures Over the Next Decade: As many as four out of the next five new outbound travelers in the next decade could come from the emerging world. Are you prepared for the center of gravity in travel to shift?

Air France-KLM CEO Says Company Would Consider Buying a Competitor: The Air France-KLM merger has been a textbook example of how hard it is to meld corporate cultures. But CEO Ben Smith isn’t letting that deter him from taking a look at new acquisitions. Too soon?

China Issues New Warnings Against U.S. Travel to Its Citizens: China cautions its citizens against travel to the U.S. because of “frequent” shootings, robbery, and theft. Can’t it be more ingenious? But even if its public finds this ridiculous, there will be a drop in travel to the U.S. There are enough past examples to show that China travel warnings do bite.

Skift Senior Enterprise Editor Andrew Sheivachman [[email protected]] curates the Skift Corporate Travel Innovation Report. Skift emails the newsletter every Thursday.

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