Sean O'Neill

Let's hope that GuestToGuest's bet on home-swapping ends better than General Catalyst's $15 million investment in Couchsurfing did. Plus, two startups — Hostmaker and Travis — raised money.

Everyone has had a rental car nightmare — lost bookings, mysterious dents, or surprise fees. But rental car companies now face a nightmare of their own in fierce car-sharing competition. Expect Hertz's Blacklane deal to be one of many initiatives as it copes.

Just as entrepreneurs once sold pickaxes to prospectors in the California gold rush, TurnKey is one of many companies selling services to property owners in today's vacation rental gold rush.

Making things predictable — such as train ticket confirmations, airport security lines, mobile phone data fees, how to get from point to point, and the effect of events on hotel demand — is a theme of this batch of startups.

Airbnb, Booking.com, and other giants in vacation rental bookings aren't providing the branding and technology needed by professional property managers in resort destinations. RedAwning's model points to one of several ways to fill the gap.

Two success stories this week: Last year Klook helped travelers book more than five million attractions and activities, making it Asia's booking leader. Meanwhile, major airlines have been adding LocusLabs' maps to their apps at a torrid pace.

As we've noted before, a lot of industry professionals argue that metasearch and online travel agencies will converge. Skyscanner's new way of selling Finnair's fare families may be a sign of trends to come.

Trivago's CEO says his company bests Google in hotel search through brand marketing (meaning, Trivago Guy TV ads) and having a decentralized workplace (which speeds up innovation). But maybe Google's lackluster travel effort is actually due to its fear of alienating top advertisers like Priceline.

This move will allow The Rainmaker Group to concentrate on its core competency of demand management for hotels and casinos, an area where competition is heating up from rivals like Duetto, LodgIQ, IDeaS, and Revinate.

How do you stay efficient and maintain core values when your company scales from 700 to 1,100 employees within a year? You get rid of most job titles and fly everyone to Ibiza for the weekend, says Trivago's managing director Johannes Thomas.