Booking Holdings

Online travel agencies will be around a decade from now, but food, activities, and rides will be a lot more important to them and their customers. The saplings of this future growth are already visible in 2019.

Understandably, Expedia and Booking are both trying to spin this in their favor as much as possible but it seems like a big win for the UK's competition regulator. We'll have to keep an eye on how much it really changes things and whether other countries follow up.

Can a single brand ever really own a customer? We think Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta is onto something here, but that won't necessarily stop his travel peers from trying to do that in their own ways.

Booking.com CEO Gillian Tans sounds like a typical corporate boss, opposing additional taxation as anti-business. The proposed EU tax on revenue would amount to double taxation, and that's seldom a good thing.

Expedia Group is arguably — OK, clearly — not "The World's Travel Platform." But we understand that marketing machines strive to do their thing.

This is a prime example of "Why didn't they think of this sooner?"

Surprising factors have delayed the coronation of MakeMyTrip Group as India's queen of domestic online travel. Paytm came out of nowhere to grab share, Oyo upended budget hotel distribution, Ixigo tried to make price comparison chic, and Booking.com outmaneuvered Expedia for premium hotel bookings. From this scrappy mix, online travel will find new lessons.

Find out how Skift picks, creates, and polishes its stories with our team's own greatest hits list. Here's hoping you enjoy reading these stories as much as we liked reporting and writing them.

Ctrip has been able to spend most of its 15-year history riding a rising travel tide in China while buying out much of the competition to blunt their challenges. For 2019, Ctrip will have to stand up and get moving to recapture momentum and investor attention.

Nearly every travel brand knows that direct bookings offer a powerful opportunity to take control of their relationship with customers. But knowing how to make it happen can be challenging. The emerging set of best practices below offers a road map to move from idea to action.