Andrew Sheivachman

Avoiding digital tools to help manage simple meetings is a big missed opportunity. The good news is that more meeting planners and travel managers plan to experiment with new technology over the next year.

A variety of self-defeating trade wars and increased travel pricing will likely prevent global business travel from surging in growth like it has over the last few years.

Eventbrite's rise has happened in tandem with that of the experience economy at large. Both the consumer and enterprise event technology sectors have thrived in recent years, with mobile tools redefining how people research and buy tickets to events.

TripActions and Lola have been two of the most interesting players in the business travel ecosystem in recent years. Both their moves this week show how important it is for smaller companies to be able to acquire customers and service larger organizations effectively.

Lola has struggled to catch on as it now pivots to provide travel management tools to small companies. Mobile booking through travel agents never broke through and it's hard to see a path forward for Lola in the extremely crowded market for managing small group travel.

An arms race is on in the event technology sector as established players look to take on Cvent while embracing emerging technologies. This is good news for meeting planners and other event professionals, bringing an array of choices to a sector that is consolidated at the top.

Aventri may sound kind of like an Italian resort town, but it does stand out among other event technology brands. It's hard to brand a platform that offers a suite of services in a sector defined by individual product offerings. We'll see how this works out, and what companies Aventri acquires in coming years.

TripActions is investing big in customer service unlike many other players breaking into corporate travel. The truth is that it's hard to land larger customers unless you can service their travelers wherever they are, no matter how cool your app is.

As Amazon pushes into hospitality, a battle will take place over who owns the business traveler's wallet. Travel managers will have to deal with Amazon and hotel loyalty programs pushing travelers to spend more on their platforms. Ubiquitous voice-powered travel booking, though, remains a distant reality.

It's one thing to make your event as accessible as possible, but the rest of the travel industry needs to do more to adequately present suitable options for every traveler. In a welcome development, online booking is finally placing a new focus on accessibility.