2020 › September

Heads up, struggling booking platforms. A proposed IPO hopes to raise $300 million, and the company's founders may come looking for you. The list of pandemic opportunists grows.

Despite Brian Chesky’s rhetoric about Airbnb needing to return to its local connections mission and roots, the economics point to Airbnb needing Domio- and Sonder-like listings. Even if it means negative publicity pre-IPO.

In top travel stories this week, Skift wrote about a contactless-tech airport terminal, 2022 as the earliest coronavirus recovery, Marriott's CEO talking about hygiene theater, United pointing to its future scaled-down size, and plenty more.

For the fragmented tours and activities sector, delivering a diverse, globally distributed set of product offerings at scale requires technology solutions that can benefit travel advisors, procurement teams, and individual travelers alike.

In some respects, travel companies are prisoners of their geographic strengths and weaknesses in the Covid-19 era. Operational considerations aside, it sure didn't hurt Trip.com Group to be based in China.

Don't count the major brands out quite yet, but Sonesta's growth continues to fly in the face of industry belief that hotel owners will flock to bigger brand franchise agreements during the pandemic recovery.

Best case scenario: one of the largest and most creative sectors in the world comes out of this much smaller, more nimble, and thrives in different ways than in the past.

In this Skift Global Forum presentation we hear from Monya Mandich, Expedia Vice President, Marketing, about the information and considerations that will drive travel decisions now and into the future. 

In this video conversation from Skift Global Forum, we hear from Gustavo Segura Sancho, Minister of Tourism, Costa Rica Tourism Board about how the country is laying the groundwork for a new vision of sustainable tourism.

Contactless technology is being adopted in hotels at breakneck speed to ensure safe operations. Not all tech is created equal though. Skift Research looked at what tech has the momentum to continue growing after the pandemic fades.