Business travelers know their livelihoods may depend on getting out on the road to nurture relationships with clients. Bean counters, concerned about inflation and sustainability issues, may block those trips.
Wyndham is playing very hard to get. And unless lovestruck Choice is equipped to sweeten its offer, it may view this target forever as the one who got away.
Booking.com's appeal of the adverse European Commission decision on its merger with eTraveli Group will take years to play out. If self-styled "bigger fish" eTraveli is still around for the taking, it would cost considerably more.
This is might be called Booking Holdings statement of objections to the EC’s statement of objections to the eTraveli deal. This dust-up is heading for the courts.
If the European Commission's decision isn't overturned, one implication may be that Booking.com would be precluded in practice from making major acquisitions. Period.
As with lots of cash and stock deals, the ultimate outcome will depend on Upgrade's eventual exit, and how that turns out. On the face of it, though, this deal looks underwhelming for Uplift.
The regime under CEO Matt Goldberg is testing a bunch of stuff, including Tripadvisor Instant Book, and a new form of the previous subscription plan, Tripadvisor Plus. The idea is to not throw out the baby with the bath water, and to see what works now.