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Airlines
Today’s edition of Skift’s daily podcast looks at phone calls on planes, Sam Shank's HotelTonight journey, and why small hotels may be beautiful.
Rashaad Jorden | 2 months ago
Online Travel
Sam Shank and HotelTonight had a significant impact on the travel industry's competitive landscape. We picked 15 pivotal events that helped to define Shank's legacy as co-founder and CEO as he embarks for a new journey elsewhere.
HotelTonight is the fastest, and probably the most exquisite and feisty hotel booking app around. Regardless of its future with Airbnb, it created dozens of imitators, and set the standard.
Dennis Schaal | 2 months ago
What's in a brand? When it comes to those like Hotels.com, probably hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. The inconvenient truth is that vacation-rental-selling Hotels.com isn't likely to rebrand anytime soon.
Dennis Schaal | 1 year ago
Hotels
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said what the company's customers really want are unique stays and experiences offered by individual hosts. That means expanding Airbnb's hotel business doesn't seem to be the priority it once was. And, oh yeah, the proliferation of corporate hosts like Sonder and others, doesn't mesh with what Chesky believes travelers desire.
Dennis Schaal, Skift | 2 years ago
Mergers and Acquisitions
You can't make this stuff up. Airbnb's payout to HotelTonight of 3.2 million shares didn't appear very attractive when Airbnb's business almost collapsed in the spring. On paper, though, it's all looking very good right now.
If Airbnb hasn't already devoted resources anew to HotelTonight and expanding its hotel business, the short-term rental giant assuredly will once it goes public. After all, in addition to Google, Airbnb sees online travel agencies, with their wide breadth of accommodations' offerings, as its most significant set of competitors.
Coronavirus
The proverbial handwriting is on the wall for Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Tripadvisor, and Yelp, among others. The regulators are coming! The regulators are coming!
Dennis Schaal, Skift | 3 years ago
Airbnb’s focus on adding independent hotels instead of all-and-sundry is a smart approach. The vacation rentals company made more than $1 billion in revenue for the second quarter and intends to go public during 2020. It can't afford to meddle with the model.
Raini Hamdi, Skift | 3 years ago
HotelTonight's acquisition by Airbnb last March represented a happy outcome, but it wasn't inevitable. Back in 2015, HotelTonight faced layoffs and fundraising hiccups. Here, co-founder and CEO Sam Shank shares some of the ways he got his company back on track.
Sean O'Neill, Skift | 3 years ago
