Travel Industry Earnings Coverage

Lifestyle hotel brands such as Starwood's Aloft and Element are growing substantially, but the smaller number of rooms in these properties is weighing down Starwood's growth. Starwood is looking at some creative ways and partnerships to jumpstart room growth.

This hotel stuff really isn't easy, and Travelzoo isn't the ideal candidate to start such a business from scratch. Travelzoo does, however, have 24.2 million newsletter subscribers, and that's a valuable asset.

Qunar is executing on its mission and is notching remarkable gains in mobile and total revenue. Profits are not on the agenda, and that's OK. At least right now.

SeaWorld has been trying to emphasize how it rescues sea creates and allegedly humanely treats orcas in captivity, but a segment of the public just isn't buying it, as SeaWorld's recent attendance figures show.

The Priceline Group is moving much closer to Ctrip with a minority stake and CEO Darren Huston points to a series of additional moves in China in the next few years. Ctrip, though, hasn't always played well with other partners so it remains to be seen whether familial relations between these new second cousins will be long-standing.

Orbitz Worldwide paid $10 million to acquire the Travelocity Partner Network in late February 2014 and would pay an additional $10 million if the affiliate network hits certain performance targets this year and in 2015. This is a nice acquisition for Orbitz Worldwide because the private label sector was already an important part of its business.

Expedia's strategy is worth a shot: Focus on hotels and other core products while competitors the Priceline Group and TripAdvisor play around with restaurant reservations, and tours and activities. If Expedia sticks to its focus-on-what-we-got strategy, it is a huge gamble.

Without a doubt, Yelp, which marks its 10th year this summer, is in play regardless of how company officials seek to downplay all of the merger and acquisition activity swirling around them.

It is too soon to tell how the Sabre-Expedia agreement on Travelocity is working out for Sabre. We have to get past the initial implementation to see if Sabre's profitability promises will be valid.