SkiftX

TripAdvisor isn't an online travel agency because it doesn't take flight or hotel bookings. But, given its desire to expand further into a solution for in-destination tours and activities, you can make the argument that it is a more well-rounded one-stop shop for travel than many of the travel booking sites.

Most of the traveler leads that TripAdvisor passes along to online travel agencies and hotels don't come from its hotel metasearch search results pages. They come from the property pages where travelers read reviews and gawk at the photos. This is a huge differentiator from the competition and will afford TripAdvisor a big advantage in the long term.

France will continue to be a big source of tourists, and also a big supporter of building tourism infrastructure in the poor Sub-Saharan African countries, but with China's big forays into the continent, and Middle-East countries investing in the region, that balance is going to change soon.

A redesign has to be more than pretty pictures, and TripAdvisor's facelift is geared to emphasize its no-apologies approach to user-generated content.

Given the expense of dispatching staff to each hotel to write reviews and take photos, Oyster never had a clear business model. But it is clear that TripAdvisor values Oyster's photos as a way to bridge the gap between hotel-supplied photos and very amateur guest photos.

Not the biggest shocker here, but a firm reminder that airlines can build loyalty with the right kinds of fees.

Oyster began with grand ambitions and little understanding of how to create content without spending lots and lots of money. That content will now find a home at a brand that understands more sensible ways to do the same thing.

With digital music destroying other parts of the music economy, live music is thriving and tourism as part of it cannot be underestimated as these numbers from UK show.

The full Skift team is going for a company outing to this exhibition next week. How could we not go?