Dennis Schaal

Google-owned Waze is a compelling navigation app, but whether Google can turn it into the foundation for a winning ride-share service will have to be tested in the marketplace over the next few months and years. Google is a latecomer to the field, although the sector is likely to undergo more disruption and a revolution in years to come.

TripAdvisor wants to be the go-to place for consumers to find in-destination activities on their smartphones. Citymaps will not only help consumers with map-based attractions' searches but will bolster TripAdvisor's abilities to perform location-based marketing. Expect more of those TripAdvisor notifications when you amble by an interesting tourist spot.

Red Lion Hotels is obviously a much smaller chain than a Hilton Worldwide or Marriott International. Still, Red Lion's deal to offer its member-only rates on Expedia.com and Hotels.com represents the start of some shifting in the direct-booking landscape. Expedia is a powerful force in hotel distribution and there will be more of these changes to come.

By increasing its dividend, Expedia management has put its money where its mouth is in expressing confidence about the future of the company. The takeaway: Expedia officials believe its second quarter stumble was an aberration.

If only more startup founders would realize this: As Rich Barton says, most startups don't know how to execute on their visions. That is the big difference maker. Talk and ideas are cheap but execution and having the team to carry it through is what it's all about.

Would the world's second-largest online travel agency in market cap, Ctrip, entertain the idea of entering the U.S. market to complement its sites in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore? The x's and o's are unclear but the idea isn't as far-fetched as it might seem given Chinese investment in the U.S. and the Ctrip CEO's statements about his interest in the U.S. market

Can TripAdvisor, with all its content and global reach, become another Booking.com-like success story or will TripAdvisor's prospects fade? There are plenty of possibilities within that range, too, but much depends on TripAdvisor's transition into a booking plus metasearch site. That's the $9 billion question -- and there's a wide range of opinion on the outcome.

If Expedia is successful in turning its Trivago hotel-metasearch unit into a public company in 2016, it would be the second time Expedia has monetized an asset in such a way in five years. Expedia shareholders made a ton of money when Expedia spun out TripAdvisor in 2011.

There are innumerable factors that impact the health of the travel industry but the latest U.S. government numbers on retail spending lead to the conclusion that consumer spending habits are changing. There is a shift in emphasis from purchasing consumer goods toward buying services such as travel. That's a classic tailwind and a very healthy trend indeed for the gamut of leisure-travel businesses.

Metasearch sites such as Kayak, Hipmunk, Trivago, TripAdvisor and Tripping have a lot of heavy lifting to do because consumers will increasingly be demanding better ways to comparison-shop for alternative accommodations that are often unique and difficult to define. All things being equal -- and they aren't -- that's a big market opportunity for these sites.