Dennis Schaal, Skift
Airlines, hotels, and booking sites have divergent reasons for leaning into or out of TV advertising. Attracting more direct bookers is always a goal, but sometimes competitive reasons, or the emergence of new platforms, skew the TV budgets.
3 weeks ago
Dennis Schaal, Skift
TripAdvisor's new ad campaign is more hip than its usual fare. It also shows where its business is heading with hotel booking eventually having to share the limelight with tours and dining.
5 months ago
Dennis Schaal, Skift
Booking Holdings, along with Expedia Group, have both had to deal with acquisitions and integrations that have been taking too long. Booking officials are undoubtedly frustrated with the pace of progress at OpenTable and Rentalcars.com. At Expedia Group, Vrbo has been a multiyear reclamation project. To the speedster go the spoils.
6 months ago
Dan Peltier, Skift
We don't quite have the words to describe the overwhelming mark Bourdain left on the travel industry and world. But we will say that he helped change the conversation about what traveling should look like, what we should get out of it, and how we should feed ourselves along the way.
1 year ago
Dennis Schaal, Skift
Both TripAdvisor and Booking.com are newly emphasizing tours and activities in their TV advertising. You can expect a lot more of this from myriad players in the years to come. There will be variations, though. While these two companies push mainstream, touristy attractions, Airbnb will likely highlight curated experiences, although that could change, as well.
1 year ago
Dennis Schaal, Skift
Trivago and Booking.com have dramatically reduced their U.S. TV advertising. Trivago is doing so to try to stem losses, and Booking.com, which last year indicated it would lean into TV advertising, may be trying to tighten control of some marketing costs.
1 year ago
Jason Clampet, Skift
Anthony Bourdain's impact on travel and food really can't be measured.
2 years ago
Sean O'Neill, Skift
Kudos to TripAdvisor and Expedia for doing the right thing in helping encourage civil discourse. Whatever one thinks about the gun policy debate, picking on a teenager's personal musings about college applications unrelated to the topic at hand is out of bounds.
2 years ago
Dennis Schaal, Skift
Google execs are not losing any sleep yet, but they are likely aware that some of their largest travel advertisers are starting to favor commercials on TV instead of sponsored search engine links. The big spenders' new strategies will have a rippling impact across other metasearch companies, as well.
2 years ago
Dan Peltier, Skift
Brand USA's content, including films, have generally won praise and performed well with many international travelers. But the competition on streaming services and TVs is fierce, and much of the organization's challenge will be to tell compelling stories that don't read like a tourism campaign.
2 years ago
Dan Peltier and Hannah Sampson, Skift
From what we've seen so far, travel brands with Super Bowl teasers are staying away from the culture wars and focusing on sending neutral messages with universal appeal. And while it's important to draw attention to certain issues, it's refreshing to watch light-hearted advertisements, too.
2 years ago
Dennis Schaal, Skift
The Priceline Group's new emphasis on TV is unpleasant news for metasearch enterprises such as Trivago, Google, and TripAdvisor. The TV ads are an online travel agency version of a direct-booking campaign.
2 years ago
