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Social media is becoming big business. If you need proof, just look at American Airlines, which is devoting millions of dollars to making sure travelers say good things about them online.

We've entered a new phase of airline leadership this year with new CEOs at Delta and United and American's upstart Doug Parker in the senior role.

Although you may be stuck in the middle seat — hey, look — there's free in-flight entertainment.

American wants flyers to know that it's only "shuffling" reward prices. We're not sure what that means either.

There's billions of location-specific insights hidden inside travelers' Instagram photos, Tweets and TripAdvisor reviews. All travel marketers need to do is "connect the dots."

TripAdvisor wants to be the go-to place for consumers to find in-destination activities on their smartphones. Citymaps will not only help consumers with map-based attractions' searches but will bolster TripAdvisor's abilities to perform location-based marketing. Expect more of those TripAdvisor notifications when you amble by an interesting tourist spot.

Marketing the benefits of "living like a local" avoids the reality that most visitors live like a tourist — and that's not a bad thing.

With executive changes in place, passengers are surely next in line.

If Expedia is successful in turning its Trivago hotel-metasearch unit into a public company in 2016, it would be the second time Expedia has monetized an asset in such a way in five years. Expedia shareholders made a ton of money when Expedia spun out TripAdvisor in 2011.

Proximity-based "beacon" technology is a transformative technology relatively few people know about. It's already revolutionizing the retail sector, and now airports are seeing the benefits too.