Hotel News

Expedia's focus will remain with hotels for the forseeable future, but this pilot partnership with HomeAway on vacation rentals is the very beginning of what could be a dramatic change.

The intersection of local doesn't just effect the hospitality industry, but also has implications for the local entertainment and arts scene, as well as creates the need for deeper tourism experiences. This is about remaining relevant for and attracting the next generation traveler.

Lots of innovation in social media going on in hotel industry and lots of cross learnings to be had by highlighting the best.

Orbitz Rewards members aren't going to get huge savings initially, but they will be getting something right away. Whether this will be enough to be a meaningful boost to Orbitz's hotel ambitions remains to be seen.

Luxury brands across all sectors are entering the Middle East to tap into the local and visitor base of high-spending customers. Their online presence is as, if not more, important than their on-the-ground services.

TripAdvisor isn't an online travel agency because it doesn't take flight or hotel bookings. But, given its desire to expand further into a solution for in-destination tours and activities, you can make the argument that it is a more well-rounded one-stop shop for travel than many of the travel booking sites.

Most of the traveler leads that TripAdvisor passes along to online travel agencies and hotels don't come from its hotel metasearch search results pages. They come from the property pages where travelers read reviews and gawk at the photos. This is a huge differentiator from the competition and will afford TripAdvisor a big advantage in the long term.

The launch of TripConnect is a really big deal. In much the same way that Booking.com led the way in bringing on board apartment hotels, condos and villas, TripAdvisor will now enable that vast long-tail of smaller properties to participate and vie for direct bookings.

Oyster began with grand ambitions and little understanding of how to create content without spending lots and lots of money. That content will now find a home at a brand that understands more sensible ways to do the same thing.

Starwood's new hotel flash sales site has little flash, and it is a bad move to jump through hoops about your exclusive sales when in reality you can find the same hotel deals all over the Internet. Bad move.