Every Travel Tech Company Calls Itself a Platform: Why That’s Silly
Photo Credit: Cvent Founder and CEO Reggie Aggarwal at Cvent Connect 2018. Cvent is a provider of software to the meetings and events industry that aims to be a platform player. New research suggests why some companies, like Booking Holdings, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, have become platform success stories. Flickr / Cvent
Skift Take
Travel tech's "platformania" may be cooling off. One reason is fiercer competition, according to a new study.
Every online travel company is calling itself a platform. Travel tech businesses used to market themselves as mobile-first, or big data, or as driven by artificial intelligence. Now the hip marketing word is platform.
It makes sense to aspire to be a market-wide intermediary. Who wouldn't want to build the next Airbnb, Amadeus, Expedia, or Uber?
"Platform" may soon lose its shine as a label, though.
"The bubble of 'everything is a platform' will likely burst," said Annabelle Gawer, a professor of digital economy at Surrey Business School in England. "That's because of competition."
A less loose definition of a platform is a company that is an intermediary, meaning it lets other companies buy and sell products and services, and that it is large enough it is marketwide and often global.
Gawer has spent a few years in researching platforms along with fellow academics Michael Cusumano and David Yoffie. The professors have summarized their work in a new book, "The Business of
