Cvent Acquires DoubleDutch and 7 Other Digital Trends this Week

Cvent Acquires DoubleDutch to Fuel Event Engagement Growth: Cvent has spent the last few years gobbling up innovative companies to round out its gigantic platform for planners, hotels, and corporations. DoubleDutch is yet another example of Cvent’s aggressive approach to building its platform through acquisitions.

Airbnb Expands Experiences Into Multiday Adventures: Give Airbnb credit for sticking to its blueprint by offering Airbnb Adventures in its own image, avoiding typical mainstream expeditions. Whether this will develop into a reliable service and big business for the homesharing company will be proven on Colorado cliffs and at Galapagos coffee farms.

South Africa’s Travelstart to Buy Corporate Travel Agency Club Travel: Travelstart is taking a logical next step in expanding from its core leisure travel business into corporate travel through an acquisition.

Royal Caribbean’s Vision for Data-Driven Cruising Is Almost Here: For all the talk of using bracelets and smartphones to improve the cruise experience, more needs to be done to improve internal processes and make cruising more sustainable.

TripActions Teams Up With United Airlines to Offer More Efficient Booking: Going forward TripActions hopes direct connections with airlines can give it a leg up on the competition. Encouraging its customers to use the functionality, though, could be tricky.

Booking Holdings Backs Yanolja for Hotel Booking: Travel Startup Funding This Week. Yanolja got its start as a chain of so-called love motels. But it has since become a reputable online travel agency in Korea and a provider of a widely used property management system. No wonder Booking Holdings has made a strategic investment in the company.

TripActions Goes Direct on Distribution With United: Going direct with airlines makes sense on many levels for travel management companies, although progress has been slow. And whether travel managers fully embrace adding complexity to their program remains to be seen.

Facebook’s Cryptocurrency Gets Backing From Booking Holdings: Booking Holdings wants to be an innovator and supporter of alternative payments systems given its presence in emerging markets, especially in Asia. So it is understandable that Booking would want to be a first mover in Facebook’s digital currency effort, regardless of how it eventually turns out.