Articles tagged “google”

Stay deep or go wide? Online travel companies from Expedia to Airbnb and Booking.com are grappling with these issues. Focusing on core products can clearly be a winning formula, but when you are a public company, pressure to generate growth from new areas is a constant conundrum.

In Skift's top travel stories this week, Sri Lanka is reinventing its tourism future, airlines and global distribution systems made peace, Google faced a bevy of lawsuits, an airline launched in the middle of the pandemic, and Hilton proved that mergers aren't the only way to grow.

Booking.com has prided itself on being a household name in its European home base, but will have a tough time avoiding a European Commission designation of gatekeeper. Such stature could bring increased restrictions.

In Skift's top travel stories this week, we covered the Airbnb IPO from every angle. There were other stories, too, including Google launching new tools for destinations and hotels, a road warrior who's flown three dozen times since September, a property manager picking up Stay Alfred scraps.

It's probably about time employees are trusted to follow their instincts and book their way, but travel agencies will need to be on board to ensure things don't get too out of hand.

Given Google's global market clout, none of its product introductions and activities should be dismissed. But Expedia's CEO Peter Kern got feisty and made a good point that Expedia has transaction data, which can be more useful for hotels and tourism boards, than mere search data. Unless Google ups its booking game, and then all bets are off.

Google's new tourism-oriented tools, two of which are open to non-customers, may be useful to small enterprises, and could help Google win new business.

The entire hospitality industry would agree that short-term rentals led the tentative recovery in the spring and into the summer in many parts of the world. But a key question will be how will they respond when hotels and cities come back in earnest — and with vaccines a real possibility, they certainly will.

The typical Airbnb review talks up a rental's charms while overlooking vital information. The company's stock prospectus similarly skips some key details for understanding its business. But we can still infer a few things about the distribution dynamo.

The hotel distribution landscape is complex, with hotel rooms being sold and promoted in many different channels. Covid-19 has certainly impacted how and where hotel rooms are being distributed, but it is unlikely this disruption will be sustained long-term. That’s not to say that disruption isn’t coming, though.