Airbnb CEO on Travel’s Marketing Funnel and Other Top Stories This Week

Throughout the week we are posting original stories night and day covering news and travel trends, including on the impact of coronavirus. Every weekend we will offer you a chance to read the most essential stories again in case you missed them earlier.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky Says Competitors Have the Travel Marketing Funnel All Wrong: The so-called travel marketing funnel for Booking Holdings and Expedia has indeed been a sieve. Domestic trips and remote work have propelled accommodations to a higher position in trip plans. (Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky will be a featured speaker at Skift Global Forum on Wednesday, September 21.)

Generator’s Takeover of Paramount Hotel in Times Square Is Part of Broader Hostel Reboot: Generator makes an intriguing case that there’s an opportunity to target well-off millennial travelers looking for distinctive places to stay in cities where budget hotels with buzzy bars are scarce.

What If Sabre Put Its Hotel Software Unit in Play: An asset sale is unlikely. It would involve Sabre unnecessarily throwing in the towel on its diversification strategy. Yet stranger things have happened, and Oracle Hospitality could fill gaps in its offerings by acquiring the tech.

JetBlue Technology Ventures Joins Property Manager Frontdesk’s $13 Million Financing Round: JetBlue’s corporate venture capital wing has already picked some winners in the short-term rental sector. That’s some progressive thinking for an airline, and Frontdesk wouldn’t mind bolstering that record.

Booking’s Connected Trip Vs. Hopper’s Fintech Strategies: Booking Holdings and Hopper are attacking travelers’ anxieties in wildly divergent ways. Booking is trying to soothe them, while Hopper doesn’t mind a little angst if it means more fintech revenue.

How Tunisia Is Using U.S. Funds to Broaden Its Tourism Branding: The sustainable planning phase of Tunisia’s destination marketing rebirth — the easy part — is done. Plan implementation is where the real work will begin.

Intrepid Travel Makes Bigger Bet on Australian Tourism by Buying JOOB: Intrepid Travel expanding the scope of its Australia trips is a way-overdue step for a company that has failed to fully take advantage of one its most lucrative markets.

Hotels Cater to Travelers Over 50 With New Targeted Marketing: For too long, the golden rule in travel marketing has been to shy away from guests in their golden years. It’s time to put age before beauty in travel marketing and reprioritize accuracy over the aspirational.

Musafir.com CEO Sets 2023 as Goal for a Travel SuperApp Serving Middle East: As travel companies in United Arab Emirates look to increase digital offerings many seem to be headed in the direction of superapps. The time to build superapps is now and get a first-mover advantage.

Lufthansa and Amadeus Reset Their Distribution Relationship in Revamped Pact: The two European heavyweights claim they now see eye to eye on the future of airfare retailing. Just don’t expect pay-as-you-fly to take off just yet.