Wyndham Vacation Rentals launches new site and starts to rebrand
The new Wyndham Vacation Rentals site offers some modern, e-commerce pizazz. The rebranding to a more widely known brand makes sense, too.
Dennis Schaal
Dennis Schaal is Skift’s Founding Editor and Executive Editor. Dennis has been a reporter focusing on online travel and short-term rentals for more than two decades at Skift, Tnooz, USA Today, and Travel Weekly. He is well-known for tough one-on-one interviews on stage at Skift events, including with the CEOs and top execs of Expedia, Uber, Booking Holdings, Priceline, Kayak, Hopper, and more.
How Flipkey plans to get back in the game
Flipkey will continue to try to differntiate itself through reliable user reviews and inbound traffic from TripAdvisor, but it will need to overcome its parent company's propensity to under-invest in its non-TA properties.
Virgin America takes hit from its transition to Sabre
Welcome to the big time, Virgin America. All this growth "don't come easy." Meanwhile, it looks like it is straightening things out with its Sabre reservations system and things should be on track before long.
Room 77 to remain in the cloud after Amazon outage
Travel companies should fine-tune their cloud strategies after an Amazon Web Services outage took down Room 77, Pinterest, Instagram and Netflix. Given the cost-savings and efficiencies of cloud computing, travel companies won't be abandoning such services -- nor should they -- any time soon.
Portico Club and Inspirato face off for vacation club supremacy
Can Portico by Exclusive Resorts and Inspirato resort to marketing super-exclusive vacation clubs to the mega wealthy? What Greek debt crisis? There probably is a market for this, and Steve Case and a bunch of other venture capitalists are making a downpayment on these clubs' viability.
TripAdvisor’s Facebook app surges through paid marketing and social growth
What's behind the surge of users of TripAdvisor's Cities I've Visited app on Facebook? It didn't happen by chance.
Will the GSA per diem change really ruin business travel?
The Power of Travel Coalition, in lodging a protest over GSA per-diem rates for federal government travel, may have gone too far in objecting to the removal of "upper upscale hotels" as part of the calculations.
Zagat airport restaurant ratings could be coming to Google
Expect a lot more airport, airline, airport restaurant and hotel coverage from Zagat as its content begins to permeate Google search.
The hotel total price fiasco and Kayak’s mobile experiment
Travelers need to see the total price of a hotel room instantly, but online travel agencies and comparison-shopping engines have bowed to competitive pressures.
Social-travel site CasaHop takes big step with $1.2M in funding
CasaHop might be called social tech rather than social travel because it is a heavy tech play in the home-exchange arena.