Dennis Schaal

With Concur and Amadeus as strategy investors, Yapta will have a nice headstart once it completes the development of a hotel price-tracking tool.

Google organic search traffic to the entire vacation rental sector has slowed of late, according to HomeAway CEO Brian Sharples. That may be one reason HomeAway is testing search engine marketing and may ramp up its spend in the latter half of 2014. The other factor is HomeAway needs to start delivering better performance to its new pay-per booking customers.

HomeAway's DNA is growth through acquisition. The acquisition of Stayz led to a fourth quarter loss, but that doesn't mean much as these things can be expensive at times, and it puts HomeAway into a better strategic position in Asia-Pacific.

All things must pass, but Spirit Airlines looks fairly unstoppable for now. Travelers who know how to play the game can take advantage of Spirit's low fares to get to their vacation destination, a little more rumpled perhaps, but carrying a heavier wallet or purse.

CWT characterizes its 2013 financial performance as "strong," but even excluding the impact of U.S. government sequestration the company's sales volume and transactions were flat.

NCL CEO would like to see a less competitive cruise environment where there would be less discounting and everyone could raise pricing. Utopia isn't lurking around the next corner.

NCL's is showing some momentum after completing its first year as a public company with the introduction of the Norwegian Breakaway, and the decision to homeport its new Norwegian Getaway in Miami.

The GuestDriven platform intersects two unstoppable trends -- personalization and mobile. The trick is in providing guests with personalized tips and perks on their mobile devices without invading their privacy or bombarding them with advertisements in the process.

Expedia Inc. takes a somewhat narrow definition in claiming to be the "world's largest travel site" in its latest ad campaign, and might get an argument on that score from its offspring, TripAdvisor.

Getting hacked unfortunately is almost the new normal. Why do companies that are hacked always say after the fact that they are strengthening security procedures? This has to be an extremely high priority for all e-commerce companies NOW. Otherwise your reputation and business is at risk.