Rafat Ali

For Groupon, which has built its business on limited time-based inventory, the acquisition makes sense to add to its travel business. For the mobile booking sector, it is just the beginning, with a lot more to come.

Airlines is such a strategic sector that it will be a big surprise if this NSA security dragnet hasn't already broken into the systems of air carriers, reservation systems and booking sites.

Skyscanner is the underdog few have heard of stateside. To compete with likes of Kayak and others, it needs a lot more muscle and visibility than it currently has, and maybe it is better off focusing on its stronghold in Europe.

Give your Starbucks jokes a pause, this one in New Delhi is worth going to, if only to marvel at the difference between this store and the best of them in NYC. Add to that the hot, humid and crowded Indian surroundings in August, and the refuge that this very well designed Starbucks offers. This is worth a tourist-gawking trip.

Mobile booking is still in its very stages, and lot more education needs to be done on the consumer end to increase adoption at an even faster rate. Expect more startups to come into the sector, even as larger players continue to make big investments in it.

JetBlue is smart to run an open process on feedback from its employees, while also using video well to get the word out.

Sleeping pods will likely become more common as airports try and compete to become better layover options. This one from Abu Dhabi Airport is a good start, though pickup is tiny so far.

The list, even though one-company specific, shows the meetings and conventions industry is coming out of recession as the broader economy improves. Cities with airports near city centers are doing a lot better.

Don't pooh pooh them off, whole economies have been built on them; cliches drive the travel economy ever since we started making travel brochures. They are what drive people to book these trips, and do what everyone else has done before them.