Dennis Schaal

If there were any doubts about the Marriott-Starwood deal getting done, you can now toss them out because of the approval from Chinese regulators. Now, let's get on with it.

Google already had Google Maps when it added Google Flights in 2011 and later hotel metasearch and booking. With the launches of a destinations app, which pairs flight and hotel bookings, in 2015, and now the Google Trips app for organizing reservations and making tours and activities recommendations, Google's travel business is slowly, if steadily, becoming pervasive. Google can afford to bide its time -- it is, after all, Google.

Airbnb certainly didn't acquire Trip4real for its user base, which is small, but the move highlights Airbnb's intent to enhance the experiences of guests by giving them opportunity to hook up with local guides especially as hosts get more corporate. In addition, Barcelona authorities have taken a tough stance against Airbnb and having local ties through acquisition could engender a degree of goodwill.

Once again it is consumer behavior that is driving change in online travel -- this time for vacation rental bookings and instantly confirmable online bookings. OK, Expedia's acquisition of HomeAway and Airbnb's goal to curb racism on its platform are also pushing things in the instantly bookable direction. When companies are sluggish in adapting to consumer trends, as HomeAway was to a certain extent in its standalone incarnation, they suffer.

Six years after brashly boasting about how it would disrupt travel search, Hipmunk, which had to compete against larger players with more ample war chests, is exiting into the business travel portfolio of Concur. Hipmunk's turn toward business travel may make it more of a business-to-business play than its current consumer incarnation. As Concur's TripIt example shows, it remains to be seen how innovative Hipmunk can be given larger corporate priorities within SAP/Concur.

Let's be clear: Not all hotel guests and review-writers are angels. But the solution is not dodgy hotel contracts and taking punitive actions against customers. Business owners, as well as consumers, should remember the wisdom of the crowds is pretty good at protecting from one-sided and impure reviewers.

When it comes to relationships, hotel chains and online travel agencies have a lot of baggage but Marriott and Expedia, at least, are being open-minded and are taking advantage of each other. Expedia is becoming a technology provider for hotels in a move that has parallels with the way rival Booking.com's BookingSuite division is providing market intelligence and website services for properties. Where this all ends up is anyone's guess.

Priceline.com downplayed Name Your Own Price four years ago as big thumbs and small screens on mobile phones made the relatively cumbersome bidding process anachronistic. Flight-bidding is gone. The services remains for hotels and car rentals but their days are probably numbered too.

Trivago would likely be a hot IPO given its hyper growth and the potential further expansion of online travel around the world. However, investors will question whether the huge amount of money Trivago pours into sales and marketing is an overreach.

Like Chinese travelers, Ctrip is breaking out of its domestic shell and looking to become much more of an international player. There is vast potential for Ctrip still to take advantage of in China and then there is a whole wide world out there too as it begins to service customers outside of China. But can the company tackle both ambitions simultaneously? Ctrip has great partners -- 16,000 of them, actually -- to assist but the partners may also turn out to be formidable competitors, as well.