Sean O'Neill

Since 2016, Shiji has spent $141 million on acquisitions and investments across 10 tech companies outside of China, according to our review of its financial filings. Yet we still don't grasp the overseas strategy of the hospitality tech group.

A strong job market means lots of consumers are spending on domestic travel. But rising wages and recently tightened rules on visas for seasonal workers are pressuring some sectors. We take a sector-by-sector look.

This week travel startups announced approximately $95 million in funding. One standout was Socio, a company that offers software for managing events. Its funding highlights a broader trend of investment in the event tech sector.

Sabre's management must have seen this quarter's sales slowdown coming. After all, the company's prior management had underspent in the research and development work necessary to keep its sales growth humming. Sabre's new leaders have been investing in its long-term growth, but the payoff in sales growth may take awhile.

Amadeus deserves credit for making strides in reducing its dependence on its original core business of airline distribution. Few companies in any industry succeed in diversifying. But work remains to be done. Plus, the company may not be doing enough to capture Asia's potential as a market.

The past year has been a horror show for India's aviation sector. So MakeMyTrip deserves kudos for continuing to grow its air ticketing and overall sales despite the upheaval. But executives deserve criticism for the company's relentless unprofitability.

Vacasa will roughly double the inventory its team has to manage. That's a lot to chew on. The risk is falling prey to hubris.

Clear doesn’t let you skip security screening at U.S. airport checkpoints, but its promise is to make the effort take less than five minutes consistently. Clearly United has heard from its most frequent customers that they value that consistency.

This week a handful of companies announced more than $650 million in funding. Business models include intercity bus and train travel, Oyo-style franchising in China, and the mobile ordering of duty-free goods on airplanes.

Many hotel groups are directing more of their ad budgets toward price-comparison search sites. That's a boon for vendors providing connectivity and automation services. But it's also a welcome, if still modest, injection for metasearch players like Trivago that have recently been struggling.