Dennis Schaal

Airbnb, in theory, could ease some cities' opposition to its business by giving landlords a revenue share of their tenants' rentals. It's an interesting idea, albeit with tons of hurdles.

Hilton Worldwide's pursuit of strategic alternatives, including spinning off its real estate business into a real estate investment trust, likely won't have a direct impact on guests but could make Hilton Worldwide shareholders, including its largest one, Blackstone, very happy.

For online travel agencies and hotel chains, the new cryptic brand messaging in Google Hotel Ads is a quest for identity and differentiation. Little things -- and a handful of characters -- will mean an awful lot. Want to know the difference between Booking.com and sister company Priceline.com? It's all there in the short bursts of brand blurbs.

This year has been characterized by merger mania among online travel agencies and hotels. Now the student travel agencies are getting into the act, as well.

Consider the big changes ahead for HomeAway, including making its listings online bookable, supplementing subscription fees with commission payments, introducing a booking fee for travelers and getting integrated with Expedia. When you further take into account competition from Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor and a bevy of local rivals, there is a helluva lot of risk ahead.

With American and Delta increasingly matching Spirit's low fares, Southwest will find it difficult to maintain any low-fare advantage that it still has. Still, Southwest has a lot going for it and its growth opportunities both within the U.S. and internationally are abundant.

This yet-to-be-implemented tech reminds us of Chekhov's quote that if you see a gun in the first act it will go off by the third.

It's another chapter in the convergence of everything: Expedia, the online travel agency, invested in the Alice guest-experience app as Expedia tries to get deeper into providing technology services for hotels. Everyone's doing it -- or will soon.

Given the headlines, while Rome2Rio, Captain Train and Loco2 are trying to get the message out that they are just as hot as travel-startup peer GoEuro, in contrast Hot Hotels is getting the word out that it will avoid some of the business model pitfalls of HotelTonight.

If transportation complexity creates opportunity, then GoEuro, flush with another $45 million in funding, has an open road ahead.