Articles tagged “amazon”

25 Moments that Mattered in 2015: To make our selection of 25 moments, we thought back to the stories that drove reader engagement and sparked discussion among both travel experts and the general public. Some stories were quick blips that represented bigger things while others were narratives that built slowly through out the year. Each one, though, spoke to where we are right now when it comes to the big business of global travel.

JFK's terminal 5 shouldn't be an exception to other terminals across the U.S. and JetBlue's able to do a lot of surprise and delight with its own space as it continues bridging the gap between the pre- and in-flight experience.

It's a good way to make holiday travel a little more bearable, and a great way to fund in-flight Wi-Fi.

It was telling that when the U.S. Department of Justice reviewed hotel competitors during its analysis of Expedia's acquisition of Orbitz Worldwide, the antitrust division cited TripAdvisor and Google as rising competitors but didn't mention Amazon.

The traditional travel video programming isn't dead, but how, when, and where we see it has radically changed.

Officials at Booking.com and Expedia know their hotel businesses are so far ahead of Amazon's nascent moves that they aren't cowering in fear at the might of Amazon. But you can bet they will be taking a hard look at the expanded Amazon Destinations today, as will the folks at Google and TripAdvisor.

With more airlines pushing the benefits of in-flight entertainment, we're reminded of something about bread and circus. JetBlue's investors will likely approve of this new partnership, which makes JetBlue happy too.

In a twist, Expedia is now arguing that consolidation in the travel market -- i.e. Expedia acquiring everything that isn't bolted down -- will benefit consumers because prices will come down. That hasn't happened in the airline industry but we'll see how it plays out for hotel rates.

Don't believe Amazon's statements about its minimalist intentions in the hotel sphere. This is just the beginning. The next phase will be to really scale up the service with inventory partners.

Google was adamant that it needed to compete in local search and it didn't mind playing hardball with Yelp, TripAdvisor, CitySearch, and others to get its way.